life in a provincial town, remote from the Court, tolerable to one who
had spent ten years of his life in the cultured world of Rome. The
monotonous routine of a canon's duties meant stagnation to his keen,
curious temperament, athirst for movement and novelty. His place was
amongst men, in the midst of events where he might observe, study,
and philosophically comment. Writing to Cardinal Mendoza, he frankly
confessed his unrest, declaring that the delights and beauties of
Nature, praised by the classical writers, ended by disgusting him and
that he could never know contentment save in the society of great men.
His nature craved life on the mountain tops of distinction rather than
existence in the valley of content. He did not yearn for Tusculum.

To manage a graceful re-entry to the Court was not easy. To Archbishop
Talavera, genial and humane, had succeeded the austere Ximenes
as confessor to Isabella. The post was an important one, for the
ascendancy of its occupant over the Queen was incontestable, but,
while Peter Martyr's perspicacity was quick to grasp the desirability
of conciliating the new confessor, it equally divined the barriers
forbidding access to the remote, detached Franciscan. In one of
his letters he compared the penetration of Ximenes to that of St.
Augustine, his austerity to that of St. Jerome, and his zeal for
the faith to that of St. Ambrose. Cardinal Ximenes had admirers and
detractors, but he had no friends.

In this dilemma Martyr felt himself alone, abandoned, and he was not
a little troubled as to his future prospects, for he was without an
advocate near the Queen. He wrote to several personages, even to the
young Prince, Don Juan, and evidently without result, for he observed
with a tinge of bitterness: "I see that King's favours, the chief
object of men's efforts, are more shifting and empty than the wind."