James  Fenimore  Cooper MERCEDES  OF  CASTILE, or, THE  VOYAGE  TO  CATHAY (1840) Scholarly Publishing Office, University of Michigan. 2005. Paperback: 492 pages ISBN-10: 1425554695 reviewed by Patrick Killough (1) biblio.com  08/13/2010 Would you recommend this book to other readers?  YES!  * * * * * review: Fictitious hot-headed, adventure-loving, gallant young Count Luis de Bobadilla is the only Spanish grandee to accompany Christopher Columbus on his first (1492 - 1493) voyage to the New World and back to Spain. Luis undertakes this incognito role in order to convince Queen Isabella of Castille  that he is worthy to marry the rich, beautiful Castilian heiress Mercedes de Valverde.   While on Haiti, Luis becomes friend of a local sub-king, or cacique, and leads a fight against raiding Caribs intent on stealing the cacique's beautiful sister, Princess Ozema and forcing them to marry their leader. All parties agree that for her safety, the princess will return to Spain with Columbus, among the natives selected for presentation to Queen Isabella. Ozema reminds Luis powerfully of his absent love, Mercedes and he treats her with love and respect. As she rapidly learns Castilian Spanish, the Haitian princess falls in love with Luis. When, thinking they are about to die at sea in a storm, Luis gives Ozema a diamond-studded cross (next best thing to baptizing the pure souled heathen), and the princess believes that they are now man and wife. Neither Mercedes nor Queen Isabella is the least amused when they find that Ozema thinks she is Luis's wife. Saintly Isabella does her best to explain things to Ozema. Ozema agrees to be baptized but only if Luis and Mercedes are married first. She then asks to become Luis's second, subordinate wife. The archbishop on hand is incensed. And Queen Isabella wonders about the wisdom of her plan to bring the religion of Jesus to the New World.   -OOO- http://www.biblio.com/james-fenimore-cooper/ mercedes-of-castile~1802470~title =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= (2) lunch.com 08/13/2010 name of review: Teaching truths through writing historical fiction rating: * * * * * review: In the second third of the 19th Century, all America was awash with writings about Columbus's four voyages from Spain to the New World of the Americas, or "Cathay" as he thought he had reached. The first voyage, in particular, was widely hailed as the greatest single exploration in world history up until that point. James Fenimore Cooper had read many earlier accounts: the journal of Christopher Columbus himself, descriptions by the great Cervantes and by his fellow Americans Washington Irving and William Hickling Prescott. But he went beyond them all in MERCEDES OF CASTILE, or, THE VOYAGE TO CATHAY.  In that novel of 1840 Fenimore Cooper told the (fictitious) tale of 20 year old Luis de Bobadilla, Conde (Count) de Llera. He is in love with 18 year old Mercedes de Valverde, heiress and orphaned ward of Luis's aunt Beatriz, best friend from girlhood till the latter's death of Queen Isabella of Castile. Luis has proven himself at an early age a veritable Achilles of a Christian knight in successful campaigns to expel the conquering Muslims from Spain. He has also sailed all around the Mediterranean for adventure. This was at a time (about to change dramatically once Columbus returned to Spain in 1493) when voyaging was simply "not done" by grandees of Spain. The pious Queen Isabella is as aware of Luis's weak points as she is of his strengths. Her Majesty prudently sets in motion a test: if and only if incognito Luis accompanies Columbus on his 1492 voyage and acquits himself well, will she approve the marriage of Luis and Mercedes. For her part, Mercedes, though madly in love with the Conde de Llera, has promised the Queen never to marry without the royal permission. All goes very well on this first voyage. Columbus discovers both Cuba and Hispaniola. On matrilinear Hispaniola, young Luis is befriended by a young Haitian prince and introduced to his lovely sister Ozema. With the help of one other Spanish crewman who is armed with an arquebus, Luis beats off a surprise attack by another Caribbean prince intending to carry off Ozema and marry her against her will. The brother, sister, Luis and Columbus agree that for the temporary safety of Princess Ozema, she will return to Spain on one of the two remaining vessels of Columbus's fleet to be presented to Queen Isabella, patroness of the voyage. Ozema, though young, naive, sheltered and pure in heart, is nonetheless something of a linguistic genius. When Luis first sees her, he involuntarily gasps "Mercedes" because the Haitian reminds him so much of his distant love. Ozema's one linguistic blunder is to think that "Mercedes" is a Spanish adjective used to describe anything beautiful and admired. She is in love with Luis, but he (dreaming ever of the fair Mercedes) never notices. During a terrible storm at sea on the home voyage, Luis takes from around his neck a crucifix and gives it to the Princess to prepare this pagan for something approaching a resigned Christian death. But Ozema takes this transfer to be a rite of Christian marriage. In her mind Luis and Ozema are now man and wife. By the time she reaches Spain, the princess is fluent, if not yet entirely grammatical, in Castillian Spanish. Problems become acute back in Barcelona, where the royal court is assembled. Ozema shows off her crucifix to Mercedes and her aunt to whose care the innocent Luis has committed the Princess. Ozema says that she and Luis are married. Mercedes is stunned; for the cross had been a gift from her to Luis to express their own undying, unbreakable love. Now, Mercedes is ready to give up Luis. Queen Isabella is sorely tempted to degrade Luis as a sexual bounder. But Columbus, who had witnessed the gift of the crucifix during the storm, convinces Her Majesty that Luis loves only Mercedes. Defeated in love, Ozema sinks toward death. She asks to be baptized but only after Luis and Mercedes are first wed in her presence. That done, Ozema then begs Luis to take her as a second wife. An irate archbishop and an empathetic Queen Isabella react differently to this request -- as Ozema slips into death. Cooper sums up: "Thus fled the first of those souls that the great discovery was to rescue from the perdition of the heathen.  ... Little did she (Queen Isabella) foresee, that the event was but a type of the manner in which the religion of the cross was to be abused and misunderstood; a sort of practical prognostic of the defeat of most of her own pious and gentle hopes and wishes" (Ch. XXX). This love story of Luis, Mercedes and Ozema is embedded in the earlier (1469) love match between Isabella of Castile and her cousin Fernando of Navarre. She had married without the permission of the King of Castile, her brother. But she trusted that Mercedes and Luis would not follow her own example! James Fenimore Cooper, the author, was himself a loving husband and father of daughters. If there was ever a great woman of history whom Cooper admired, it was Queen Isabella. Women readers of 2010 will find no cause to fault Cooper for not understanding and cherishing women. It is refreshing to go back a mere 170 years to a book of 1840 when most Americans were still unabashedly in awe of the accomplishments and sincerely religious intentions of The Great Navigator, Christopher Columbus, a good man not always responsible for the evil deeds of some of his greedy followers. As Cooper wrote in the preface to MERCEDES OF CASTILE: "… we state truths, with a profession of fiction, while the great moral caterers of the age state  fiction with the profession of truth." -OOO- http://www.lunch.com/cafelibri/reviews/UserReview-james_fenimore_cooper _mercedes_of_castile-74-1552038-107068-Teaching_truths_through_writing_ historical_fiction.html?gat=review =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= (3) bn.com  10/14/2010 title of review: "I have heard thee patiently some years, and it is now my turn to speak and thine to listen." rating: * * * * * review: James Fenimore Cooper's 1840 novel, MERCEDES OF CASTILE, or, THE VOYAGE TO CATHAY is a classic historical and romantic novel in the style set by Sir Walter Scott's WAVERLEY. It takes us readers from the October 1469 wedding of Fernando (Ferdinand) of Aragon and Isabella of Castile to September 1493 and the beginning of Columbus's second voyage to the New World. In 1469 two 18-year-old first cousins once removed overcame formidable obstacles to wed. Isabella had personally chosen Fernando among several candidates for her hand. And their marriage proved a happy one. We now advance two decades to January 1492, just outside the walls of the last remaining Muslim city in Spain: Granada. Here Ferdinand and Isabella enter in triumph. On hand, still after seven years patiently waiting for his commission to sail west to Japan and China, is the great Genoese navigator, Christopher Columbus. Columbus and Queen Isabella are painted in glowing colors by Fenimore Cooper. Both are far-sighted, religious and persevering. Isabella, in particular, is a mother to all her subjects. This would not be a classic historical novel if all its characters were real, historical giants such as Fernando, Isabella and Columbus. Another historically attested person, Isabella's girlhood friend Beatriz de Bobabdilla is made to link the two "reyes catolicos" to Luis Bobadilla, a 20-year old nephew of Beatriz and to her ward and adopted daughter, the beautiful young Mercedes de Valverde. Luis and Mercedes are in love. But both his aunt Beatriz, the Marchioness of Moya, and her great friend Queen Isabella worry that Luis is too wild and unsettled to be permitted to wed Mercedes. The young couple have been chums since childhood and for the past two years, Luis, this young Achilles of Spain, has poured out his love to his beloved. Finally, Mercedes demands a half hour to give him her reaction: "I have heard thee patiently some years, and it is now my turn to speak and thine to listen" (Ch. 5). She loves him but will never marry him unless he subordinates himself to Christopher Columbus and goes to seek the New World. This is the wish of Her Majesty to whom Mercedes has vowed that she will wed no one without her permission.   Luis, incognito, joins Columbus, the only grandee to do so. Day by day their epic voyage is detailed by Fenimore Cooper. On the island of Hispaniola, Luis rescues from kidnapping a beautiful Haitian princess, Ozema and takes her back to Spain among those selected by Columbus to present to the Queen. Ozema loves Luis, misconstrues his Castillian gallantry to be a declaration of marriage. Placed in the care of Mercedes and her guardian Beatriz, Ozema causes great woe to both Mercedes and the Queen. Luis is in no little danger of being punished, until Columbus convinces all parties that Luis's only love is Mercedes. Broken-hearted, Princess Ozema dies, a baptized Christian denied by the officiating archbishop her humble request to become Luis's second wife. Queen Isabella was warm to convert all willing New Worlders to Christianty. The tragedy of Princess Ozema is the first of many cross-cultural misunderstandings and failures to come.   This is a grand tale of Christopher Columbus, Queen Isabella and the earliest days of late medieval Spanish imperialism.   -OOO-  -OOO- Other recommended reading: -- William H. Prescott - THE HISTORY OF THE REIGH OF FERDINAND AND ISABELLA THE CATHOLIC. --James Fenimore Cooper - THE TWO ADMIRALS. http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Mercedes-Of-Castile/ James-Fenimore-Cooper/e/9781120645395/?itm= 3&USRI=james+fenimore+cooper+-+mercedes+of+castile =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= (4) amazon.com 8/15/2010 title of review: Christopher Columbus: "I am a searcher for continents, not islands." rating: * * * * * review: MERCEDES OF CASTILE, OR, THE VOYAGE TO CATHAY is a long novel published in 1840 by James Fenimore Cooper. As "the American Scott," Fenimore Cooper happily followed the guidelines for an historical novel established in 1814 in WAVERLEY; OR, 'TIS SIXTY YEARS SINCE By the genre's creator and his elder acquaintance, Sir Walter Scott. So we know what to expect: -- (1) a background filled by world-historical movers and shapers, men and women who changed history. In MERCEDES OF CASTILE, the real life giants are the great navigator Christopher Columbus, Queen Isabella of Castile and King Fernando (Ferdinand) of Aragon -- the latter being first cousins once removed. Learn as well that Isabella was also a descendant of the great English Lancastrian Duke and ancestor of Kings, John of Gaunt. -- (2) There will also be in a classic historical novel a second tier of noble actors: in this case the lovers: fictional 20-year old Conde (Count) of Llera Luis Bobadilla and the beautiful young Maria de las Mercedes de Valverde, Mercedes for short. And toward tale's end enters as well a beautiful, linguistically gifted young native American princess of Hispaniola, the Haitian Ozema. -- (3) There is a third tier of people of intermediate importance: fictional Luis's historically attested aunt Beatriz, who is Queen Isabella's lifetime best friend from girlhood, also bishops, priests, confessors, monks and especially the historially real Pinzon family in whose ships and with whom as colleagues Columbus sailed. -- (4) And finally, look for a fourth tier of genuine little folk, common people swept up into large events beyond their understanding. In particular notice a grizzled, avid for gold mariner named Sancho Mundo of the coastal town of Palos de Moguer whence Columbus set sail for far eastern Cathay and Cipango in August 1492. Notice as well a young married couple: Spanish sailor Pepe, conscripted to serve Columbus by order of Queen Isabella and his outspoken wife Monica, who stands up to the great Admiral to keep Pepe home with his family. Ultimately Columbus, aided by the testimony of the disguise Luis, Conde de Llera, persuades them that the prospect of great deeds require husbands and fathers to leave loved ones at home. Drawing heavily on Columbus's own journal of his voyage, Fenimore Cooper takes us day by day across the open Atlantic, five weeks at sea from the Canary Islands. Master of tides, currents and winds, Columbus remains calmly convinced that he is God's instrument to convert the people of Japan and China to Christianity. The ample gold which he intends to earn he will spend to finance a new crusade to recapture Jerusalem and the Holy Land from Muslims. When his apprehensive crews grasps at straws to find in mid-Atlantic islands for Columbus to seek that are closer to Spain, the Admiral replies: "I am a searcher for continents, not islands," (Ch. 18). And he presses on to glory. The 1492-1493 romance of headstrong Luis Bobadilla and Mercedes de Valverde parallels that of Fernando of Aragon who had been chosen in 1469 as her mate by Isabella of Castile. Having married against the wishes of her brother the King, Isabella is now unwilling in 1492 to extend the same latitude to Mercedes. The Queen will only approve her marriage to Count Luis Bobadilla if the latter joins Columbus incognito and undertakes a great voyage for the glory of God and Spain. The romance at a distance is complicated on the island of Hispaniola when Luis meets the glorious young princess Ozema and is astonished by her likeness to the absent Mercedes. Having voyaged with Columbus back to Spain, Ozema tardily, enthusiastically but with imperfect understanding, converts to Christianity thinking that this will, under Christian rules for marriage, permit her to become Luis's second wife after he marries Mercedes. There is a huge dollop of cross-cultural and cross-religious misunderstanding at work here, as even Queen Isabella fails to make a convincing case for Christianity's insistence on monogamous marriage. This tragedy of Princess Ozema bodes ill for the joint project of Isabella and Columbus to bring the New World knowingly and willingly to embrace the religion of Jesus Christ. All in all, MERCEDES OF CASTILE  is a grand historical novel in the heroic, romantic tradition established by Sir Walter Scott. James Fenimore Cooper has thoroughly researched Columbus and late medieval Spain. Cooper, a sailor himself, brings to his depiction of the first voyage a mariner's knowledge of ships, sails and sea craft. He is also aware of the later betrayal by the two "Catholic Monarchs" Fernando and Isabella of their sworn promise to tolerate the continued peaceful presence in Spain of the vanquished Moors. He laments as well the hasty expulsion in the name of religious unity of thousands of Jews from Spain, about to happen when Columbus was preparing to set sail. But Cooper elects to stress the greatness of soul of both Isabella and of Columbus, while downplaying unintended consequences of their Spanish imperialism. I rate this novel of 1840 * * * * 1/2 stars (rounded up to five), largely for the perhaps unavoidable monotony of Columbus's outward bound and return voyages at sea and for the endless but repetitive proofs given by Columbus to sceptics that our earth is a sphere. -OOO- tags: james fenimore cooper, christopher columbus, queen isabella of castile, hispaniola, columbus's first voyage, granada http://www.amazon.com/Mercedes-Castile-James-Fenimore-Cooper/ dp/1425554695/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1281698455&sr=1-1 =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= (5) epinions.com  8/16/2010 TITLE OF REVIEW: 1492 - Columbus's First Voyage: "the greatest adventure of modern times" by aohcapablanca, Aug 16 '10 1492 was a year to remember in Spain. -- (1) In January, Mohammad XII, aka King Boabdil, after a war begun in 1482, surrendered his emirate of Granada  to King Fernando (Ferdinand) of Aragon and  wife Queen Isabella of Castile. Eight centuries of la reconquista were now ended. All of the Iberian peninsula (today's Spain and Portugal) was once again ruled by Christians. -- (2) Weeks later, on four months notice, all Jews who refused conversion to Christianity were expelled from Aragon and Castile. -- (3) Around the same time Christopher Columbus began final preparations to sail westward in three small vessels  across the Atlantic from the Spanish mainland port of Palos de Moguer to search for Cathay and Cipango (Japan) which had been described a century and a half earlier by Marco Polo. Columbus's seven-year stay in Spain had finally been rewarded by his winning the patronage of Queen Isabella. Later, the ships of the Admiral and future Viceroy would spend five fairly uneventful weeks crossing the Atlantic from the Spanish Canaries before discovering what would later be called the Caribbean "West" Indies. James Fenimore Cooper's novel of 1840, MERCEDES OF CASTILE, or, THE VOYAGE TO CATHAY is the story of Columbus's first (of four) voyages to the New World, "the greatest adventure of modern times" (Ch. 9). In the novel Columbus and his handful of loyal supporters down the years in Spain spend enormous amounts of time trying to convince churchmen, monarchs and simple sailors that the earth is a sphere. The most common proof they offered was that when any sailing vessel approaches a viewer from a distance at sea, the first part seen is the smallest, because, the highest: the ship's sails and masts. In fact, many learned men in Europe besides the Genoese navigator believed that the earth was round. Columbus had already been turned down by the King of Portugal because his advisors were convinced (correctly) that the great Genoese navigator had hugely underestimated the distance to Japan and China if sailing west from Iberia. Several Americans, notably story teller Washington Irving and historian William Hickling Prescott, had recently written at length of Ferdinand and Isabella and/or Columbus. Fenimore Cooper, in MERCEDES OF CASTILE, therefore simply took it for granted that his own readers were familiar with both the age of Spanish exploration in general and the first voyage in particular. As a seasoned professional sailor himself, Cooper brings to life details of late medieval sailing and navigation. Sailing vessels were broader in the beam and they had relatively higher superstructures than they would by the early 1800s. They also carried fewer sails on shorter masts and probably averaged at best three miles an hour at sea, though Columbus did notably better when his little fleet was not becalmed. Cooper also pays great attention to the character and motivations of the three greatest players behind the 1492-93 voyage to the New World and back to Spain: the King of Aragon, his first cousin once removed, the Queen of Castile and the Genoese navigator. The novel begins in 1469 when 18 year old Isabella chooses her husband for herself from among several suitors -- and without the permission of her half-brother King Luis. Fernando of the House of Trastamara is already King of Sicily and a famous knight. Contemporary monarchs regarded him as cold, calculating, perhaps not to be trusted. But Isabella loved him always and by all accounts made of her husband a better, more religiously caring king than he might otherwise have been. Isabella herself is, I think one could argue, as close to Fenimore Cooper's ideal woman as he could make her. Her motives are the highest. She is the mother of all her subjects. She loves God and discerns the great talent and religious zeal of Columbus when others fail to. Columbus demands and receives unprecedented powers from both "Catholic Kings." He believes that he has been chosen by God to spread the faith. Any gold that he personally receives he will donate to a new crusade to liberate Jerusalem from Islam. He may also be patterned somewhat on George Washington as described by Cooper in his earlier novel THE SPY. Both heroes are very dignified men, characterized by gravitas, and careful in their reasonings. There are at least three other layers of characters beneath Ferdinand, Isabella and Columbus. Much of the reader's joy will be to sort out those levels for yourself. Two women love 20-year old (fictional) Don Luis Bobadilla, Conde (Count) de Llera. One he loves back: his childhood playmate and ward of his aunt: Maria de las Mercedes de Valverde (Mercedes for short). Indeed, without his knowledge, the hotheaded Luis is conspired against by the Queen, by his aunt Beatriz (historically attested), Isabella's closest friend from their girlhood, by Mercedes and by a priest-confessor. To be worthy to marry Mercedes, Luis has to settle down. Although already a famous young knight through battles with both Christians and Moors, he can be thoughtless. Also, unlike grandees before the fame of Columbus's first voyage captivated Europe, Luis loves to sail. And he often deserts his duties at Isabella's court to rove around the Mediterranean as a sailor. To win the Queen's consent to the hand of Mercedes, Don Luis must agree to sail incognito with Columbus for the greater glory of God. And he does. He also wears around his neck a gorgeous cross given by Mercedes, a token of her unbreakable love. On the island of Hispaniola, Don Luis rescues from a kidnapping raid the beautiful Haitian princess Ozema. On their first meeting Luis gasps, "Mercedes!," because Ozema looks remarkably like his love back in Castile. Naive, pure Ozema turns out to be something of a linguistic genius when it comes to learning Castilian Spanish. But she misinterprets "Mercedes" to be an adjective Spaniards use to describe anything awesome and beautiful. And on the return voyage to Europe, as one of several natives selected by Columbus to introduce to Her Majesty, Columbus's new flagship (his first, the Santa Maria, having run aground on Christmas Day 1492) is caught up in a terrible storm. Thinking that all aboard are about to perish, Luis, in lieu of baptism, gives pagan Princess Ozema the cross he had from Mercedes. Ozema mistakes this to be a sign of Christian marriage. In Spain, now cared for by Luis's aunt and by Mercedes, and honored by the Queen, the Haitian tells all who will listen that she is unwitting Luis's wife. Only the intervention of Columbus, who had witnessed the cross gifting during the storm, manages to convince the Spanish ladies that Luis loves and has always loved only Mercedes. How this romance turns out may surprise you. And Cooper underlines that it is an early example of the best cross-cultural and religious intentions of the Queen for her new pagan subjects going terribly awry, a pattern to be repeated over and over by Spanish adventurers with more avaricious and less Christian motives than Isabella. Other historically true characters appear in the persons of the  Pinzon brothers who owned and commanded two of the caravels on which Columbus sailed. At an even lower level are three fictional little people associated with Palos de Moguer, the fleet's debarkation port. Sailor Pepe is a young husband and father impressed for service with Columbus on the Queen's orders. His wife Monica intercedes with the Navigator to leave Pepe at home rather than sail westward over the edge of the earth. Columbus gently brings her around, pointing out that he is leaving his own two sons behind and that the grandee Luis is sailing at the request of the great lady Mercedes. More important to the plot is fictional Sancho Mundo, grizzled sea dog and lover of gold, who becomes the Santa Maria's helmsman and whose arquebus (gun) turns the tide for Luis in the battle on Hispaniola to save Princess Ozema from kidnapping. A humorous character, Sancho is one who reminds a bit of Shakespeare's Sir John Falstaff and other chums of "Prince Hal." Bottom Line: I love this book. It easily passes my standard test of being ever more enjoyable the more it is read and re-read. Nonetheless, drawing on Columbus's own log, Cooper's telling of the largely uneventful but unprecedented voyage across the Atlantic to the Caribbean, can at times seem flat and dull, though relieved in the Canary Islands by an erupting volcano and by occasional sightings of whales and other sea creatures. That sometimes narrative flatness is the book's major weakiness. I give it four 1/2 stars rounding upward to five. Cooper takes you back to the last years of undivided Western Christendom. We see an Isabella of Castile whose great grandfather was the famous English beggetter of a royal downline, the Lancastrian John of Gaunt. Motives to seek new lands among all the novel's characters flow together for good or not so good: the glory of God and his church, conversion of pagans, gold to pay for la reconquista and a new crusade to win the Holy Land, empire, power, prestige, even slaves. It all feels very real and suprisingly contemporary. When men first walked on the moon, 500 years after the wedding of Ferdinand and Isabella, all the world was watching. By contrast, in 1492 practically no one except the monarchs of Spain and Portugal had a clue what Columbus was about. Both the discovery of the West Indies and the landing on the moon were based on relatively primitive technology -- think of NASA's 1969 computers! Both voyages required great faith and courage. The main difference was that men had always watched the moon. No European had yet seen the West Indies. -OOO- Pros: Heroic sides of Christopher Columbus of Genoa and Queen Isabella of Castile. A New World. Cons: Victorious Kingdoms of Castile and Aragon tolerate (briefly) conquered Muslims but expel unconverted Jews. The Bottom Line: 1492: with fall of Granada the end of eight century long reconquista to expel Muslims from Iberia. Columbus's first voyage to the Indies. A Caribbean princess loves a Spanish grandee. Overall Product Rating:  * * * * * Recommended:  Yes! http://www99.epinions.com/review/Mercedes_of_Castile _epi/content_521551646340 =-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-= Plots and Characters in the Fiction of James Fenimore Cooper Warren S. Walker (Texas Tech University) Mercedes of Castile; or, The Voyage to Cathay (1840) 1978 see  http://external.oneonta.edu/cooper/writings/plots/walker-mercedes.html cooper_castile http://www.patrickkillough.com/books/cooper_castile.html