Page:History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella the Catholic Vol. II.djvu/327

303 CAMPAIGNS OF GONSALVO. 303 and his high reputation and brilliant exterior made chapter him one of the most distinguished ornaments of the '- —. royal circle. His manners displayed all the roman- tic gallantry characteristic of the age, of which the following, among other instances, is recorded. The queen accompanied her daughter Joanna on board the fleet which was to bear her to Flanders, the country of her destined husband. After bidding adieu to the infanta, Isabella returned in her boat to the shore ; but the 'waters were so swollen, that it was found difficult to make good a footing for her on the beach. As the sailors were preparing to drag the bark higher up the strand, Gonsalvo, who was present, and dressed, as the Castilian historians are careful to inform us, in a rich suit of brocade and crimson velvet, unwilling that the person of his royal mistress should be profaned by the touch of such rude hands, waded into the water, and bore the queen in his arms to the shore, amid the shouts and plaudits of the spectators. The incident may form a counterpart to the well-known anecdote of Sir Walter Raleigh. ^° Isabella's lone and intimate acquaintance with Raised to ~ ^ the Italian Gonsalvo enabled her to form a correct estimate of '^o'""^*"^- his great talents. When the Italian expedition was W Giovio, Vita INIagni Gonsalvi, and other valuable effects. Gonsal- p. 214. — Chronica del Gran Capi- vo, on learning the disaster, at his tan Gonzalo Hernandez de Cordova castle of Illora, supplied the queen y Aguilar, (Alcala de Henares, so abundantly from the magnificent 1584,) cap. 23. wardrobe of his wife Doiia Maria Another example of his gallan- Manrique, as led Isabella pleasantly try occurred during the Granadine to remark, that, "the fire had done war, when the fire of Santa Fe had more execution in his quarters, than consumed the royal tent, with the in her own." Pulgar, Sumario, greater part of the queen's apparel p. 187.