Over the Edge of the World: Magellen's Terrifying Circumnavigation of the Globe Read Online Free PDF Page A

Magellan’s voyage. Unlike the Portuguese or the Arabs, the Spanish proclaimed their exploits to stake their claim to various parts of the world. Furthermore, the Age of Discovery coincided with the discovery of movable type and the spread of printed books and pamphlets across Europe, supplemented by influential handwritten presentation copies compiled by professional scribes for the libraries of nobility. All of these accounts helped to spread the news of the discovery of the New World, and to reshape maps and popular conceptions of the globe.
    Magellan brought with him many of Portugal’s most precious and sensitive secrets: information about secret expeditions, a familiarity with Portuguese activity in the Indies, and an acquaintance with Portuguese navigational knowledge of the world beyond Europe. He was a rare breed, an explorer, schooled in the royal tradition established by Prince Henry the Navigator. But he needed a sponsor.
     
    A t eighteen, Charles I, king of Castile, Aragon, and Leon, was keenly aware of his august antecedents. He had preceded Magellan to Spain by only a year, and was as much of a stranger, or more. A Hapsburg, he had come of age in Flanders, drinking beer and speaking Flemish. He was now trying to learn the Spanish language and Spanish customs as quickly as he could. Endowed with a classic Hapsburg physique—tall, fair, with a hugely prominent chin—he towered above most of his subjects. He was trying to grow a beard to cover the broad expanse of his chin, and was on his way to becoming an accomplished horseman. It was said that he even participated in bullfights to display his valor.
    His thirst for fame and glory had become apparent as soon as he arrived in Spain, and it was encouraged by his advisers, most of them highly placed officials of the Church who had been in power since the days of Ferdinand and Isabella and who saw in the young king the perfect vehicle for advancing their own ambitions. Less than a year after coming to Spain, Charles was elected king of the Romans, thanks to a great deal of string-pulling by the members of his family. The appointment meant that he would eventually become crowned King Charles V, emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, but to receive the title he would have to pay vast sums of money, essentially bribes, to the electors, who were based in Germany, and he looked to the Indies and the New World as a source of revenue to advance his personal ambitions. Explorers such as Magellan could be very useful to a young king in search of glory and in need of money.
     
    T he timing of Magellan’s arrival in Spain was auspicious, but his overall prospects were decidedly mixed. Although he possessed specialized knowledge and experience of the vast yet secret Portuguese empire, he was an unknown quantity to the Spanish court and ministers. He spoke Spanish haltingly, and relied on scribes for written communication in that language. He had renounced his loyalty to Portugal, but he remained an outsider in Spain, on probation and under suspicion. In these difficult circumstances, getting the financial backing for his proposed voyage would require a superhuman expenditure of effort and cunning, as well as a generous amount of luck. Spain, in this era, remained a feudal society ruled by a powerful, feared, and corrupt clergy. Bishops’ illegitimate children, often referred to as “nephews” and “nieces,” played prominent roles in public life. Cruelty, hypocrisy, and tyranny imbued the social order in which Magellan now found himself, but for the moment, he prospered by appealing to the Spanish court’s longing to dominate world trade, and by insinuating himself into the country’s power structure. Soon after arriving in Seville, Magellan became acquainted with Diogo Barbosa, another Portuguese expatriate who had settled in this city fourteen years earlier and was now Knight Commander of the Order of Santiago, among his other distinctions. Diogo’s nephew, Duarte,