the whole question, first to Archbishop DEA, and then to the body of
councillors which had been appointed to interpret Queen Isabella's will.
The whole question at issue was whether or not the original agreement
with Columbus, which had been made before his discoveries, should be
carried out. The King, who had foolishly subscribed to it simply as a
matter of form, never believing that anything much could come of it, was
determined that it should not be carried out, as it would give Columbus a
wealth and power to which no mere subject of a crown was entitled. The
Admiral held fast to his privileges; the only thing that he would consent
to submit to arbitration was the question of his revenues; but his titles
and territorial authorities he absolutely stuck to. Of course the
council did exactly what the King had done. They talked about the thing
a great deal, but they did nothing. Columbus was an invalid and broken
man, who might die any day, and it was obviously to their interest to
gain time by discussion and delay--a cruel game for our Christopher, who
knew his days on earth to be numbered, and who struggled in that web of
time in which mortals try to hurry the events of the present and delay
the events of the future. Meanwhile Philip of Austria and his wife
Juana, Isabella's daughter, had arrived from Flanders to assume the crown
of Castile, which Isabella had bequeathed to them. Columbus saw a chance
for himself in this coming change, and he sent Bartholomew as an envoy to
greet the new Sovereigns, and to enlist their services on the Admiral's
behalf. Bartholomew was very well received, but he was too late to be of
use to the Admiral, whom he never saw again; and this is our farewell to
Bartholomew, who passes out of our narrative here. He went to Rome after
Christopher's death on a mission to the Pope concerning some fresh
voyages of discovery; and in 1508 he made, so far as we know, his one
excursion into romance, when he assisted at the production of an
illegitimate little girl--his only descendant. He returned to Espanola
under the governorship of his nephew Diego, and died there in 1514