In 1395, Henry III. of Castile, by the information of Macham, persuaded some of his mariners to go in search of this island, and of the Canaries.
In 1417, king John II. of Castile, his mother Catherine being then regent, one M. Ruben, of Bracamont, admiral of France, having demanded and obtained of the queen the conquest of the Canaries, with the title of king for a kinsman of his, named M. John Betancourt, he departed from Seville with a good army. And it is affirmed, that the principal motive that engaged him in this enterprise was, to discover the island of Madeira, which Macham had found.
Tomb of Macham’s Anna.
The following elegiac stanzas are founded on the preceding historical fact. Macham, having consigned the body of his beloved mistress to the solitary grave, is supposed to have inscribed on it the following pathetic lines:—
O’er my poor Anna’s lowly grave
No dirge shall sound, no knell shall ring;
But angels, as the high pines wave,
Their half-heard ‘Miserere’ sing!
No flow’rs of transient bloom at eve,
The maidens on the turf shall strew;
Nor sigh, as the sad spot they leave,
Sweets to the sweet a long adieu!
But in this wilderness profound,
O’er her the dove shall build her nest;
And ocean swell with softer sound,
A Requiem to her dream of rest!
Ah! when shall I as quiet be,
When not a friend or human eye
Shall mark, beneath the mossy tree,
The spot where we forgotten lie?
To kiss her name on this cold stone,
Is all that now on earth I crave;
For in this world I am alone—
Oh! lay me with her in the grave.