History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catholic, vol 3 | Page 5

inheritance. He resolved, therefore, to apply at once to the French monarch; and he endeavored to propitiate him by the most humiliating concessions,--the offer of an annual tribute, and the surrender into his hands of some of the principal fortresses in the kingdom. Finding these advances coldly received, he invoked, in the extremity of his distress, the aid of the Turkish sultan, Bajazet, the terror of Christendom, requesting such supplies of troops as should enable him to make head against their common foe. This desperate step produced no other result than that of furnishing the enemies of the unhappy prince with a plausible ground of accusation against him, of which they did not fail to make good use. [10]
The Spanish government, in the mean time, made the most vivid remonstrances through its resident minister, or agents expressly accredited for the purpose, against the proposed expedition of Louis the Twelfth. It even went so far as to guarantee the faithful discharge of the tribute proffered by the king of Naples. [11] But the reckless ambition of the French monarch, overleaping the barriers of prudence, and indeed of common sense, disdained the fruits of conquest without the name.
Ferdinand now found himself apparently reduced to the alternative of abandoning the prize at once to the French king, or of making battle with him in defence of his royal kinsman. The first of these measures, which would bring a restless and powerful rival on the borders of the Sicilian dominions, was not to be thought of for a moment. The latter, which pledged him a second time to the support of pretensions hostile to his own, was scarcely more palatable. A third expedient suggested itself; the partition of the kingdom, as hinted in the negotiations with Charles the Eighth, [12] by which means the Spanish government, if it could not rescue the whole prize from the grasp of Louis, would at least divide it with him.
Instructions were accordingly given to Gralla, the minister at the court of Paris, to sound the government on this head, bringing it forward as his own private suggestion. Care was taken at the same time to secure a party in the French councils to the interests of Ferdinand. [13] The suggestions of the Spanish envoy received additional weight from the report of a considerable armament then equipping in the port of Malaga. Its ostensible purpose was to co-operate with the Venetians in the defence of their possessions in the Levant. Its main object, however, was to cover the coasts of Sicily in any event from the French, and to afford means for prompt action on any point where circumstances might require it. The fleet consisted of about sixty sail, large and small, and carried forces amounting to six hundred horse and four thousand foot, picked men, many of them drawn from the hardy regions of the north, which had been taxed least severely in the Moorish wars. [14]
The command of the whole was intrusted to the Great Captain, Gonsalvo of Cordova, who since his return home had fully sustained the high reputation, which his brilliant military talents had acquired for him abroad. Numerous volunteers, comprehending the noblest of the young chivalry of Spain, pressed forward to serve under the banner of this accomplished and popular chieftain. Among them may be particularly noticed Diego de Mendoza, son of the grand cardinal, Pedro de la Paz, [15] Gonzalo Pizarro, father of the celebrated adventurer of Peru, and Diego de Paredes, whose personal prowess and feats of extravagant daring furnished many an incredible legend for chronicle and romance. With this gallant armament the Great Captain weighed anchor in the port of Malaga, in May, 1500, designing to touch at Sicily before proceeding against the Turks. [16]
Meanwhile, the negotiations between France and Spain, respecting Naples, were brought to a close, by a treaty for the equal partition of that kingdom between the two powers, ratified at Granada, November 11th, 1500. This extraordinary document, after enlarging on the unmixed evils flowing from war, and the obligation on all Christians to preserve inviolate the blessed peace bequeathed them by the Saviour, proceeds to state that no other prince, save the kings of France and Aragon, can pretend to a title to the throne of Naples; and as King Frederic, its present occupant, has seen fit to endanger the safety of all Christendom, by bringing on it its bitterest enemy the Turks, the contracting parties, in order to rescue it from this imminent peril, and preserve inviolate the bond of peace, agree to take possession of his kingdom and divide it between them. It is then provided that the northern portion, comprehending the Terra di Lavoro and Abruzzo, be assigned to France, with the title of King of Naples and Jerusalem, and the southern, consisting of