Columbus_ The Four Voyages - Laurence Bergreen [41]
As Bartholomew was appealing to King Henry, Christopher, revived by his studies, made his way to Spain to interest Ferdinand and Isabella in the same enterprise. But his initial reception in Spain proved so disappointing that late in 1487 he wrote to King João, who had spurned and humiliated him, to ask permission to return to Portugal.
Against all expectations, the Portuguese monarch replied on March 20, 1488, in conciliatory tones, thanking Columbus for his “good will and affection,” and, astonishingly, saying, “we will have great need of your ability and fine talent,” words certain to inflame Columbus’s ambition. The offer came with an assurance that “you will not be arrested, detained, accused, summoned, or prosecuted, for any reason whatsoever, under the civil and criminal code. Therefore, we beg you and urge you to come soon and not to be reluctant to do so for any reason whatsoever.”
Columbus arrived in Lisbon in 1488, at the same time Bartolomeu Dias, King João’s favored navigator of the moment, returned from his exploration of the coast of Africa. So Columbus endured the humiliation of watching his competitor surpass him in accomplishment and in the affections of King João. Had Columbus been set up? More likely the king summoned him as a substitute in case Dias never returned from his voyage, and Columbus, led by his ambition, his naiveté, and his vanity, had walked into the trap. He left Portugal again in 1488, bound for Spain, where he would make a determined effort to win backing for his enterprise. Humiliated and disappointed, he hoped never to see Portugal again.
Later, Columbus confessed to the sovereign who did back him, King Ferdinand of Spain, “I went to the king of Portugal, who was better versed in the matter of discoveries than any other sovereign, and the Lord blinded his eyes and deafened his ears so that for all of fourteen years he did not understand what I was saying.” But Ferdinand listened, and Isabella understood what Columbus was saying. To her ears, he was saying he could bring her the means to administer a transoceanic empire that would surpass that of any other European nation.
Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile met for the first time only five days before they married, on October 19, 1469, at the Palacio de los Vivero in Valladolid. He was almost a year younger than she, and on their wedding day, they were just eighteen and seventeen years of age, and cousins. She was not beautiful, and he was not handsome. But they were pious Christians. They were both children of kings of the Trastámara dynasty, and well-known figures. At the age of twelve, Ferdinand had led his soldiers to victory against the Catalans, and when his ambitious mother, Juana Enríquez, a Castilian, died of cancer in 1468, he delivered her eulogy and positioned himself as the next dynastic leader. Months later, representatives from Isabella sought him out and escorted him to Castile to marry.
From the start, theirs was an unusual arrangement that gave Isabella powers equal to, or in some cases greater than, those of her young husband. On terms agreed to by their legions of advisers, she alone ruled the kingdom of Castile in north central Spain. On the basis of their intricate official relationship, their union flourished. Ferdinand had his mistresses and Isabella had her religion for consolation. Whatever their private differences, they demonstrated publicly that they loved and respected each other, as was necessary to maintain their joint rule.
The early years of their reign were a time of testing for them both. They relied on more experienced advisers and intermediaries to rebuff challenges to their power and to their finances. Teetering on the brink of insolvency, they implemented novel methods of taxation, often from the sale of agricultural products, to finance their ambitions. One of the most dangerous tests materialized