Having returned to New York, I resolved to do what I could to awaken an interest in the life of one to whom we as a people owe so much. If I had not the means or the influence sufficient to raise a monument, I could at least make a faithful study of her life, and write a sketch of it from the view-point of to-day. This Columbian period I have deemed most favorable for the effort. As soon as the task was undertaken, I felt at once that I must have more personal knowledge of the places where this remarkable woman lived and wrought; so that, taking a brief leave of absence, I went to Spain and visited Madrigal, the place of her birth and baptism; Arevalo, the place where she was at school; Medina del Campo, where she often sojourned and where she died; Granada, the place of her greatest triumph, and many other cities where she held her brilliant, itinerant court.
There was also another object which occurred to me more germane to my military calling—it was that Isabella lived through three wars, and that in the main the history of the campaigns and battles of those wars is the history of her active life. The study of that period is indeed a military study, and one full of good lessons to him who would be prepared for war or to him who would avoid wars.
If one could put into attractive biographic form his military researches, he might give to military students a pleasanter task than the dry studies of tactics and strategy. I have sought to do this. The results of my search in cities, galleries, and books I have embodied in this little volume, which I hope my friends will read and find their interest quickened to some degree in a remarkable historic character.
According to my judgment, Isabella, admitting the faults which the keenest critics have ascribed to her, is worthy of a high niche in the gallery of honor for her virtues and her achievements, and of a special remembrance among us for the generous and fearless support she gave to Columbus in the hours of his greatest need.
Let the bright and rich New World not forget to give glory to whom glory is due. Queen Isabella of Castile rightly claims a goodly portion of glory.
While we are wreathing the brow of the great Genoese with those unfading laurels that peoples of the twelfth generation are bringing to him and those connected with him, let not his patroness be kept in the background.
O. O. HOWARD,
Major-General United States Army.
The two founded the Inquisition: Ferdinand for political reasons, Isabella for religious ends. Both were conquerors; Isabella gained Granada for Castile, and Ferdinand Navarre for his Aragon. The conquest of Granada reads like some book of chivalry; the conquest of Navarre, like a chapter of Machiavelli. By the one achievement Isabella expelled the Moors, and by the other Ferdinand drove the French from our peninsula.
As a natural consequence of their different temperaments, Isabella and Ferdinand each dealt with Columbus as their individual natures prompted; the queen ever enthusiastic, the king, as usual, cautious, guarded, crafty, and reserved. He computed the cost of the enterprise and the returns it might yield; she thought only of spreading the dominions of her idolized Castile, and winning souls to Christianity. Besides all this the sea had its temptations for the Queen of Castile, for all her enterprises and conquests tended oceanward, just as her great rivers, the Tagus, the Duero, the Guadalquivir, and the Mino flowed toward the main. With Ferdinand it was quite the other way; his conquests trended, like the Ebro, the Llobregat, and the Turia, toward the waters of the Mediterranean. The Canaries were the island domain of Isabella; the insular possessions of Ferdinand stretched from the Balearic Islands to Sicily. Ferdinand dreamed only of Italy; Isabella of Africa. Hence the one looked toward the past, the other toward the future. But both were great with measureless greatness; for they assumed the stature of a great idea, and obeyed, by ways and deeds as much in contrast as their characters, the quickening impulsive of the creative era in which they lived. The unity of the State, of the territory, of the laws was imposed upon them by the age, and to the attainment of such unity were all their efforts consecrated; so that, besides winning for themselves renown, they did good service to their nation and their time.
The sovereigns heard Columbus after their respective natures, Isabella with enthusiasm and Ferdinand with reserve.
—Century Magazine, 1892.