Spain and Her Colonies, Compiled from the Best Authorities

by Unknown

The new pilot proved quite as ill-disposed as his predecessors, endeavoring to betray the fleet into the power of his countrymen at Mombaza; and being alarmed with apprehensions of detection, by the bustle apparent in the crew of Gama’s ship, which had accidentally grounded, he also made his escape. It was not till they reached Melinda that they found really friendly natives. From that port Gama at last obtained a pilot who steered him right across the gulf to the coast of Malabar.

The first place in India made by the Portuguese was Calecut. Here Gama announced himself as an embassador sent by the King of Portugal to negotiate a treaty of alliance with the sovereign, the zamorin of Calecut, one of the most powerful princes of that part of Hindustan, to establish commercial relations, and to convert the natives to Christianity. How far this last object of his mission was agreeable to the bigoted Hindus, or the equally bigoted Muhammadan conquerors, who were then the masters of those wealthy regions, we are not distinctly told by the Portuguese historians; but the zamorin appears in the first instance to have received Gama well, and been upon the whole pleased with his visit. This friendly intercourse was interrupted, as we are assured, by the intrigues of the Moors or Arabs, who, being in possession of the pepper trade, and indeed of the whole spice trade, were jealous of interlopers. Quarrels arose, and some acts of violence were committed. They ended, however, in Gama’s gaining the advantage, and friendship was restored between him and the zamorin. He reached Portugal in July, 1499, after a two years’ voyage, and was, like Columbus in Spain, loaded with honors.

We may now return to Ferdinand and Isabella. This was the brightest period of their lives. The repulse of Charles VIII., and the victories of Gonsalvo, added fresh luster to their reign. Moreover, through measures then undertaken, the unconverted Moors were subdued, and the French provinces were regained; but, over and above all, a new world had been discovered, and marriages, seemingly the most fortunate, were concluded: Ferdinand and Isabella’s son and heir, Don John, having married the daughter of the Emperor Maximilian; their second daughter Joanna, Philip, the son and heir of that monarch, by Mary of Burgundy, and already, in right of his deceased mother, sovereign of the rich and fertile Netherlands; the third, Katharine, was affianced to Arthur, Prince of Wales; and Manuel, duke of Beja, having succeeded to his cousin John II. of Portugal, despite all intrigues in favor of the illegitimate Don George, solicited and obtained the hand of the eldest Infanta, the widow of the Prince of Portugal.

The first to be celebrated of all these royal marriages was that of the Princess Isabella with Alfonso, the heir to the crown of Portugal, which took place in the autumn of the year 1490, and which was apparently calculated to lead to the happiest results. But the magnificent wedding festivities at Lisbon were scarce concluded when the bridegroom died, and the widowed princess returned disconsolate to her mother (January, 1491).

The marriage of John, prince of Asturias, was the next, and apparently the most important alliance that engaged the attention of his parents; and, moved by many considerations of policy and prestige, they turned their thoughts to far-away Flanders. Maximilian of Hapsburg, the titular sovereign of the Holy Roman Empire, had, by his first wife, Mary, a daughter of Charles the Bold, and in her own right Duchess of Burgundy, been made the father of two children, Philip, born in 1478, and Margaret, in 1480. Their mother, the beautiful empress, died in 1482; and Philip, on attaining his legal majority at the age of sixteen, assumed, in her right, the government of the Low Countries in 1494. It was with this youthful sovereign, the heir to yet more splendid possessions, that the Catholic sovereigns desired to unite their younger daughter in marriage, while the hand of his sister Margaret was sought for the Prince of Asturias. The advantages to Spain of such a double marriage were enormous.

If Prince John were to marry the Archduchess Margaret, the only daughter of the emperor, he would inherit, in the event of the death of the Archduke Philip without issue, the great possessions of the Hapsburgs, Austria, Flanders, and Burgundy, with a claim to the empire that had eluded his great ancestor, Alfonso X. That the Archduke Philip should in his turn espouse, not Isabella, the eldest, but Joanna, the second daughter of the Catholic king, would prevent Spain from passing under the dominion of Austria, even in the unlikely event of the death of Prince John without issue, inasmuch as Isabella of Portugal would, in such a case, inherit the Spanish crown, to the prejudice of her younger sister in Flanders. And finally, if all the young wives and husbands should live to a reasonable age, and should leave children behind them at their death, one grandson of Ferdinand and Isabella would wear the imperial purple as lord of Central Europe, and another would sit upon the throne of a great united Peninsular kingdom of Castile, Portugal, and Aragon.

In the early autumn of 1496 (August 22), a splendid fleet set out from Laredo, a little port between Bilbao and Santander, which carried Joanna in safety to her expectant bridegroom. The archduke and the princess for whom so sad a fate was reserved were married at Lille with the usual rejoicings; and the Spanish admiral, charged a second time with a precious freight of marriageable royalty, brought back the Lady Margaret of Hapsburg with all honor to Spanish Santander, early in March, 1497. The marriage of the heir apparent took place at Burgos, on the 3d of April; and on the 4th of October of the same year, the gentle and accomplished Prince of Asturias had passed away from Spain, and from the world.

Yet, once again, and for a few months, there lived an heir to United Spain, whose brief existence is scarce remembered in history. Isabella, the widowed queen of John II. of Portugal, had been persuaded or constrained by her parents to contract a second marriage with her husband’s cousin and successor Emmanuel; but the price of her hand was the price of blood. For it was stipulated that the Jews, who, by the liberality of the late king, had been permitted to find a home in his dominions, should be driven out of the country after the stern Castilian fashion of 1492, ere the widowed Isabella should wed her cousin on the throne of Portugal.

Whether the princess was an apt pupil, or merely the slave of her mother and the Inquisitor that lurked behind the throne, we cannot say, but the Portuguese lover consented to the odious bargain. The marriage was solemnized at Valencia de Alcantara, in the early days of the month of August, 1497, and the stipulated Tribute to Bigotry was duly paid. But before ever the bridal party had left the town, an express had arrived with the news of the mortal illness of the bride’s only brother; and in little more than a year the young queen herself, on the 23d of August, 1498, expired in giving birth to a son. The boy received the name of Miguel, and lived for nearly two years—the heir apparent of Portugal, of Aragon, and of Castile—until he too was involved in the general destruction.

But some time before the death, or even before the birth of Miguel, another royal marriage had been concluded, whose results throughout all time were no less remarkable and scarce less important than that which handed over Spain to a Flemish emperor. For after infinite negotiations and more than one rupture, after some ten years’ huxtering about dowry, and a dozen changes of policy on the part of the various sovereigns interested in the alliance, Katharine, the youngest daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, more familiarly known as Katharine of Aragon, had been married to Arthur, Prince of Wales, and the first act had been concluded of that strange and fateful drama that led to the Reformation in England.