Thus every king's counselors were mostly churchmen. If those
ecclesiastics had always tried to deserve their reputation for wisdom,
it might have been a good arrangement. Unfortunately, some were narrow-
minded and gave their king bad advice; happily, some were wise and good
as well as powerful, and a few of this sort in Spain helped Christopher
Columbus to make his dreams come true.
Many writers speak bitterly of the way in which King Ferdinand and Queen
Isabella temporized with Columbus. It was hard, indeed, for a man
burning up with a great and glorious plan to be kept so long from
executing it; but a glance into Spanish affairs at the moment when the
man brought his idea into Spain will show that its rulers were not so
culpable after all. We have already seen how long and how vigorously the
sovereigns were pushing the Moorish war; but this was not their only
anxiety. Spain's finances, owing to the misrule of previous kings, were
in a very bad way. To get money, taxes were raised; and high taxes, as
we know, always cause dissatisfaction among the people. Then, too, a
death-dealing pestilence swept over the land and claimed thousands of
victims.
This is only a partial account of Spain's woes at the time when the man
with the idea arrived; but it shows clearly how the king and queen may
have been too busy and too worried to give much time or money to a
"dreaming foreigner.
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