Hezekiah Butterworth - The Story of Magellan and The Discovery of the Philippines

Some of the ministers listened to the project with indifference, a few with ridicule; but as a rule Magellan appealed to willing ears. The ministers as a body agreed to commend the enterprise to the King. The Haros of Antwerp, the Rothschilds of the time, favored the expedition. So Magellan and Faleiro made out a petition of formal proposals which they desired to present to the King, and awaited the opportunity.

That opportunity soon came. Charles V, son of Joanna, who was passing her days in solitude and grief on account of the loss of her husband, was on his way to Aragon. He was Emperor of Germany and King of Spain. He was a youth now; having been born in Ghent, February 24, 1500. He came to the throne of Spain in 1516, as the disordered intellect of his mother made her incapable of reigning. He was elected German Emperor in 1519.

In his youth he had been dissolute. Seeing the responsibilities that he owed to the world and the age, he suddenly received new moral impulses and conquered himself, and his moral life was followed by a religious disposition. He received from the Pope the title of Roman Emperor. His powerful intellect subdued a great part of continental Europe to his will; but he became weary of the cares of state, retired from the world, and ended his life as a religious recluse.

The young King entered Spain in triumph, but amid the glare of receptions his ears were not dull to projects for acquiring gold.

Magellan and Faleiro, under the commendation of the ministry, were soon able to lay their project before the young grandson of the great Isabella. He received them in the spirit that Isabella had met Columbus. He approved their plans, and charged them to make preparations for the expedition.

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. 2 2 Donna Juana and Don Carlos, her son, by the grace of God, 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. 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.

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 fêtes 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 circumstances 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.

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 nobles, and wherever they went was a holiday. There were weeks of splendid fêtes 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 nobles 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.

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 associations 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.