Successful as Ximenes had been in the capture of Oran, it was his misfortune afterward to be foiled and worsted by a robber. The name of Horac Barbarossa was feared throughout the Mediterranean. He was scarcely twenty years of age when a pirate-fleet of forty galleys sailed under his command. Though a cannon-ball carried off his left arm in an attack on Bugia in 1515, he returned to the assault, took the citadel, and put the entire Christian garrison to death. He roused the fanaticism of the Moslems, and excited them to throw off the Spanish yoke. The King of Algiers sought his aid against the Spaniards; but the treacherous pirate murdered his friend in a bath, seized the throne, and refused to pay tribute to Spain. He also took the King of Tunis prisoner, and put him to death. A talkative and bragging general, named Vera, was sent by Ximenes with 8000 men to reduce this brigand and usurper to subjection. But he was too strong and skilful for the blundering Vera. The Spanish expedition utterly failed, and the two-armed general who could not beat the one-armed buccaneer was an object of ridicule and scorn to women and children when he returned to Spain.
The conquest of Granada had been the means of bringing into public notice two of the greatest men of that or any other age. The appointment of Talavera to the see of Granada led to Ximenes being summoned to court to fill his place as confessor to the queen; and in the joy felt by Isabella at the final victory over the Moors in Spain she granted Columbus the vessels he had solicited during many years. In March, 1493, the glorious adventurer returned from the far West, and brought with him numerous proofs of the extent and importance of his distant discoveries. The natives whom he had on board his ships increased the desire of Ferdinand and Isabella to impart the blessings of Christianity to their new subjects; and Ximenes, then occupied with the conversion of the Spanish Moors, was anxious to co-operate with the sovereigns for the repression of crime and cruelty in the American colonies, and in the instruction of the caciques and the Indian tribes in the faith of the gospel. It is well known how long and how miserably these pious designs were frustrated by the barbarity of Spanish governors, the rapacity and license of Spanish sailors, convicts, and settlers. It is not surprising that the cacique Hatuey vowed he would rather not go to heaven if the Spaniards were there.
The royal decrees respecting slavery had been hesitating and contradictory; nor were the religious orders in the New World agreed as to the practice that should be pursued. Some of the governors allowed the natives to be treated as slaves, while others received orders from the home government to limit slavery to the case of cannibals. When Ximenes became regent, he carefully investigated the matter, heard a number of witnesses, and formed his own resolution independently of other counsellors. The principal caciques were to be called together, and informed, in the name of Queen Isabella and her son Charles, that they were free subjects, and that, though the tribes would be required to pay a certain tribute, their rights, liberties, and interests would be protected. The caciques would rule in the several territories and villages in conjunction with a priest and royal administrator; religion would be taught, civilization promoted, merciful laws introduced, and traffic in slaves, whether Indian or negro, strictly forbidden. It was found by subsequent experience that these wise and merciful regulations were too good for the purpose required; that it would be dangerous to emancipate the Indians suddenly; and that it could only be done after a sufficient number of negro slaves had been imported from Africa.
The authority of Ximenes during the latter part of his regency was disputed, not merely by factious nobles, but also by Dean Hadrian and the Seigneur de la Chaux. They sought to establish a triumvirate, and reduce Ximenes to a second-rate power. But the cardinal receiving some papers to which they had first affixed their signatures, he immediately ordered fresh copies to be made, and signed them himself only. From that time neither La Chaux nor Hadrian was ever allowed to sign a decree. They complained, indeed, to the king, but with little effect. Ximenes paid no attention to the remonstrance of the royal ambassador, and the affair ended by his exclusive authority being recognized and approved.
The machinations of his enemies ceased only with his life. To the last, intrigues, jealousies, and calumnies hedged in his path with thorns. In August, 1517, it is said, an attempt was made to poison him; and it would have succeeded had not his servant, according to custom, first tasted every dish set before him, and fallen seriously ill at Bozeguillas. His health was failing fast when Charles arrived from Flanders, and the courtiers used every artifice to prevent his having an interview with the young prince. They feared the influence of his genius and experience, and hoped that death might speedily rid them of his presence. Issuing vigorous orders daily for the government of the state, he calmly awaited the arrival of the king, and of his own approaching end, in the monastery of Aguilera. There he renewed and corrected the will by which he left the bulk of his vast property to the University of Alcalá. He often blessed God for enabling him to say that he had never knowingly injured any man, but had administered justice even-handed. The peace of his own conscience did not preserve him from the persecution and insults of his enemies. They even indulged their spite by the paltry annoyance of quartering his servants in a neighboring village, instead of their being under the same roof with their master, when, wrapped in furs, he took his last journey to meet Charles, and welcome him to his kingdom and throne. From the sovereign himself he received a heartless letter, thanking him for all his great services, and expressing a hope that they should meet at Mojados; but after their meeting, he suggested that the cardinal should be relieved of his arduous duties; in other words, that he should share no longer in the conduct of public affairs. This cruel letter is thought by many writers to have hastened Ximenes's death, while others are of opinion that it was never delivered to him, and that he was thus spared a wanton addition to the pangs of dying. Ximenes died in all respects the death of the righteous. The language of contrition and praise was on his lips, and the crucifix in his hand. He recommended the University of Alcalá to the king in his last moments, together with the monasteries he had founded. He expired, exclaiming, "In te, Domine, speravi" on Sunday, the 8th of November, 1517, in the eighty-second year of his age. All the surrounding country hastened to kiss his hands while his body lay in state. The corpse was embalmed, and conveyed by slow stages, and amid the blaze of numberless torches, to Torrelaguna, his birthplace, and afterward to Alcalá, the city of his adoption. Arriving there on the Feast of St. Eugene, the first Archbishop of Toledo, the day was celebrated yearly from that time by a funeral service and panegyric in honor of Ximenes. Fifty-eight years after the university was founded, his monument was enclosed in bronze tablets, on which the chief events in his career were represented. Thus, by sermons, by external images, by tradition, and by history, the memory of this remarkable man was kept alive. Posterity became indulgent to his defects. They were specks in a blaze of light. Heroism and saintdom encircled his memory with effulgent halos. His person became familiar to the Spaniard's eye: his tall, thin frame, his aquiline nose, his high forehead, his piercing, deep-set eyes, and those two prominent eye-teeth which gained him the nickname of "the elephant." According to the custom of the time, he kept a jester, and his dwarf's jokes diverted him when depressed with violent headaches, or worn with the affairs of state and opposition of factious men. Study was his delight. He never felt too old to learn, and he frequently assisted at public disputations. Prayer lay at the root of his greatness; it regulated his ambition, tamed his impetuosity, and filled him with the love of justice. It made him severe toward himself, firm and fearless, equally capable of wielding a sceptre of iron and a pastoral crook. You may search as you will for historical parallels, but Ximenes is the only prime-minister in the world who was held to be a saint by the people he ruled, and the only primate who has acquired lasting renown in such varied characters as ascetic, soldier, chieftain, scholar, man of letters, statesman, reformer, and regent.
From La Revue Du Monde Catholique.