"
It will be noted that this license did not say anything about the
southern ocean. Already troops of Spanish cavaliers were pouring into
the seaports, eager to make discoveries by the road of Columbus, and
Spain would regard as unfriendly any attempt to send English ships in
that direction. Whatever could be got from the Spanish territories
Henry would try another way of getting. The year before he had arranged
to have Prince Arthur, the heir to his throne, marry the fourth daughter
of the King of Aragon, Catherine, then a little Princess of eleven.
Prince Arthur died while still a boy, and Catherine became the first
wife of Henry, afterward Henry VIII. With a Spanish Princess as queen of
England, there might be an alliance between the two countries. That
would be better than quarreling with Spain over discoveries which were
at best uncertain. If Cabot really found anything valuable in the
northern seas the move might turn out to be a good one. It would make
England a more powerful member of the Spanish alliance, without taking
anything which Spain appeared to value.
In May, 1497, properly furnished with provisions and a few such things
as might show what England had to barter, the little _Matthew_ sailed
from Bristol under the command of John Cabot with his nineteen-year-old
son Sebastian and a crew of eighteen--nearly all Englishmen, used to the
North Atlantic.
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