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

lives or fortunes on the cast. His countrymen,
the Italians, were in the interest of his enemy; and his nearest neighbor,
the pope, had drawn from personal pique motives for the most deadly

hostility. [9] He had as little reliance on the king of Spain, his natural
ally and kinsman, who, he well knew, had always regarded the crown
of Naples as his own rightful 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