s Corvinus,
King of Hungary. Being a princess of Aragon, the outraged lady's
appeal in her distress to her powerful kinsman in Spain found
Ferdinand of Aragon disposed to intervene in her behalf. It was to
champion her cause that Peter Martyr was chosen to go as ambassador
from the Catholic sovereigns to Bohemia, stopping on his way at Rome
to lay the case before the Pope. In the midst of his preparations for
the journey the unwelcome and disconcerting intelligence that Pope
Alexander VI. leaned rather to the side of King Ladislas reached
Spain. This gave the case a new and unexpected complexion. The Spanish
sovereigns first wavered and then reversed their decision. The
embassy was cancelled and the disappointed ambassador cheated of the
distinction and pleasure he already tasted in anticipation.

Four years later circumstances rendered an embassy to the Sultan of
Egypt imperative. Ever since the fall of Granada, which was followed
by the expulsion of Moors and Jews from Spain or their forcible
conversion to Christianity if they remained in the country, the
Mussulman world throughout Northern Africa had been kept in a ferment
by the lamentations and complaints of the arriving exiles. Islam
throbbed with sympathy for the vanquished, and thirsted for vengeance
on the oppressors. The Mameluke Sultan of Egypt, aroused to action by
the reports of the persecution of his brethren in blood and faith,
threatened reprisals, which he was in a position to carry out on
the persons and property of the numerous Christian merchants in the
Levant, as well as on the pilgrims who annually visited the Holy Land.
The Franciscan friars, guardians of the holy places in Palestine, were
especially at his mercy. Representations had been made in Rome and
referred by the Pope to Spain. King Ferdinand temporised, denying the
truth of the reports of persecution and alleging that no oppressive
measures had been adopted against the Moors, describing whatever
hardships they may have suffered as unavoidably incidental to the
reorganisation of the recently acquired provinces. His tranquillising
assurances were not accepted with unreserved credence by the Sultan.
By the year 1501, the situation had become so strained, owing to the
knowledge spread through the Mussulman world that an edict of general
expulsion was in preparation, that it was decided to despatch an
embassy to soothe the Sultan's angry alarm and to protect, if
possible, the Christians withi