The Story of Magellan and The Discovery of the Philippines Part 3

Charles entered Zaragoza in May, 1518, a youth of eighteen, and Magellan and Faleiro followed the royal train on its triumphal march in the blooming days of the year. They were happy men, and their glowing visions added to the joy of the court on its journey amid singing nightingales and pealing bells.

The royal name signed to Magellan's commission was "Juana," who had been the favorite daughter of Queen Isabella, who had signed the commission of Columbus.[A] This royal daughter of Aragon and Castile was born at Toledo, November 6, 1479. She was in the bloom of her girlhood when the news of the return of Columbus thrilled Spain.

[A] Donna Juana and Don Carlos, her son, by the grace of G.o.d, Queen and King of Castile, Leon, Aragon, the two Sicilies, and Jerusalem, of Navarra, Granada, Toledo, Valencia, Galicia, the Mallorcas, Seville, Sardinia, Cordova, Corsica, Murcia, Jaen, the Algarves, of Aljazira, Gibraltar, of the Canary Isles, of the Indies, isles and mainland of the Ocean-sea, Counts of Barcelona, Lords of Biscay and Molina, Dukes of Athens and Neopatria, Counts of Roussillon and Cerdana, Marquises of Euristan and Gociano, Archdukes of Austria, Dukes of Bergona and Brabant, Counts of Flanders and Tirol, etc.

She was a girl of ardent affections; a lover of music; not beautiful, but charming in manner; and at the age of eighteen was betrothed to Philip of the Low Countries, called Philip the Handsome.

The wedding of this daughter of Isabella was to be celebrated in Flanders by fetes of unusual splendor. A fleet of one hundred and thirty vessels prepared to bear the bride to her handsome Prince. The ships were under the command of the chivalrous admiral of Castile.

Juana took leave of her mother at the end of August, 1496, and embarked at the port of Laredo. A more interesting bride under more joyous circ.u.mstances had seldom gone forth to meet a bridegroom.

The sails covered the sea under the flags of the glory of Spain. They drifted away amid music and shoutings, but the salvos of the guns had hardly died away before terrible storms arose. The fleet was shattered, and many of the vessels were lost.

The young bride herself arrived in Flanders safely, and her marriage with the archduke followed at Lille.

When Queen Isabella heard of the birth of Charles, she recalled that it fell on the day of Matthias, and exclaimed, "_Sors cecidit super Mathiam_"--"the lot fell upon Matthias."

She predicted that the infant would become the King of Spain.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ferdinand and Isabella. From a coin.]

Philip and Juana were summoned to Spain to meet the people over whom it then seemed probable that they would soon be called to reign. They entered France in 1501, attended by Flemish n.o.bles, and wherever they went was a holiday. There were weeks of splendid fetes in honor of the progress.

When Ferdinand and Isabella heard of the arrival of Philip and Juana in Spain they hastened to Toledo to meet them. Here Philip and his Queen received the allegiance of the Cortes.

But Philip was a gay Prince, and he loved the dissipations of Flanders more than his wife or the interests of his prospective Spanish possessions. So he left his wife, and returned to Flanders.

The conduct of the handsome Prince drove Juana mad. She loved him so fondly that she thought only of him, and sat in silence day after day with her eyes fixed on the ground, as an historian says, "equally regardless of herself, her future subjects, and her afflicted parents."

She subsequently joined Philip at Burgos. Here Philip died of fever after overexertion at a game of ball. Juana never left his bedside, or shed a tear. Her grief obliterated nearly all things in life, and she was dumb. Her only happiness now, except in music, was to be with his dead body.

She removed her husband's remains to Santa Clara.

The body was placed on a magnificent car, and was accompanied in the long way to the tomb by a train of n.o.bles and priests. Juana never left it. She would not allow it to be moved by day. She said:

"A widow who has lost the sun of her soul should never expose herself to the light of day!"

Wherever the procession halted, she ordered new funeral ceremonies. She forbade nuns to approach the body. Finding the coffin had been carried to a nunnery at a stage of the journey, she had it removed to the open fields, where she watched by it, and caused the embalmed body to be revealed to her by torches. She had a tomb made for the remains in sight of her palace windows in Santa Clara, and she watched over it in silence for forty-seven years, taking little interest in any other thing.

But as she survived Ferdinand and Isabella, her name for a time was affixed to royal commissions, and so Magellan sailed in the service of Charles under the signature of Juana, who was silently watching over her husband's tomb, in the hope that the Prince would one day rise again.

We relate this narrative to give a view of the events of the period, and for the same reason we must speak of another eminent person who acted in the place of the Queen in her unhappy state of mind.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Cardinal Ximenes. After a painting by Velasquez.]

This was the great political genius of the time, the virtuous and benevolent Cardinal Ximenes, statesman, archbishop, the heart of the people and the conscience of the Church. He was born of a humble family in Castile in 1487. He was educated in Rome. His character and learning were such that Queen Isabella chose him for her confessor, and made him Archbishop of Toledo, with the approval of the Pope.

On the death of Philip in 1505, he was made regent for Juana. Ferdinand named Ximenes regent of Spain on his deathbed, until Charles V should return from Flanders to Spain.

The regency of Ximenes was one of honor and glory. He himself lived humbly and simply amid all his a.s.sociations of pomp and power.

He maintained thirty poor persons daily at his own cost, and gave half of his income to charity. He excited the jealousy of Charles V at last, and lost his power in consequence. He lived to extreme age, and left a character that Spain has ever loved to hold in honor.

Such was the political condition of Spain in the early days of Magellan.

CHAPTER V.

ABOUT THE HAPPY ITALIAN WHO WISHED TO SEE THE WORLD.--BEAUTIFUL SEVILLE!

We should have known but little of the adventures of Magellan, but for Antonia Pigafetta, Chevalier, and Knight of Rhodes.

He was a young Italian of a susceptible heart and happy imagination.

He came wandering to Barcelona, Spain, in the generation that remembered Columbus, and the splendid scenes that welcomed the return of Columbus on the field of Sante Fe. He must have heard the enthralling description of those golden days--he could not be a Columbus; but, if he could win the good will of Magellan, he might go after Columbus and see what no Europeans had seen.

So he wandered the streets of Barcelona and heard the tales of the events that occurred when the "Viceroy of the Isles" was received there by Isabella.

What days those had been! The march of Columbus through Spain to meet Isabella at Sante Fe, was such as had a demiG.o.d appeared on earth.

Spain was thrilled. The world knew no night. The trumpets of heralds rent the air, and men's hearts swelled high at the tales of the golden empires that Colon had added to Aragon and Castile. Alas! they did not know that there are riches which do not enrich, and that it is only the gold that does good that enn.o.bles.

As Columbus approached with his glittering cavaliers songs rent the air, whose words have been interpreted--

"Thy name, O Fernando!

Through all earth shall be sounded, Columbus has triumphed, His foes are confounded!"

or

"Thy name, Isabella, Through all earth shall be sounded, Columbus has triumphed, His foes are confounded!"

To Aragon and Castile Columbus had "given a new world." Peals of golden horns shook the delighted cities, where balconies overflowed with flowers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Barcelona.]

His reception at Barcelona by the King and Queen had been made inconceivably splendid:

"That was a glorious day That dawned on Barcelona. Banners filled The thronging towers, the old bells rung, and blasts Of lordly trumpets seemed to reach the sky Cerulean. All Spain had gathered there, And waited there his coming; Castilian knights, Gay cavaliers, hidalgos young, and e'en the old Puissant grandees of far Aragon, With glittering mail and waving plumes and all The peasant mult.i.tude with bannerets And charms and flowers.

"Beneath pavilions Of brocades of gold, the Court had met.

The dual crowns of Leon old and proud Castile There waited him, the peasant mariner.

"The heralds waited Near the open gates; the minstrels young and fair Upon the tapestries and arrased walls, And everywhere from all the happy provinces The wandering troubadours.

"Afar was heard A cry, a long acclaim. Afar was seen A proud and stately steed with nodding plumes, Bridled with gold, whose rider stately rode, And still afar a long and sinuous train Of silvery cavaliers. A shout arose, And all the city, all the vales and hills, With acclamations rung.

"He came, the Genoese, With reverent look and calm and lofty mien, And saw the wondering eyes and heard the cries, And trumpet peals, as one who followed still Some Guide unseen.

"Before his steed Crowned Indians marched with lowly faces, And wondered at the new world that they saw; Gay parrots screamed from their gold-circled arms, And from their crests swept airy plumes. The sun Shone full in splendor on the scene, and here The old and new world met!"

The young Italian Chevalier, Pigafetta, Knight of Rhodes, visited the scenes that his own countryman had made immortal by his voyage.