Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros

The two years at Barcelona at last drew to a close.

At the University of Alcalá, owing to the charity of its noble founder, Cardinal Jiménez, provision had been made for the training of poor scholars.

Thither Ignatius was advised to go, and thither he went in the beginning of August 1526.

Here also he determined to beg for what he needed for himself and his poor, for wherever he went the poor were wont to hail him as a friend raised up to them by God.

There his great influence did much for the Jesuits.

Colleges and churches were built and the work of evangelization made great progress.

After the death of Lanes who succeeded Ignatius, St. Francis Borgia was made general of the Society of Jesus which he governed with a holiness and wisdom second only to that of the great founder himself.

End of chapter 8.

The collective memory of a civilization piled up and then set on fire.

The Muslims who haven't yet been driven out of the city or forced to convert wail in horror and watch, as does the architect of the burning, Ximenes de Cisneros, Archbishop Queen Isabella of Castile's confessor.

He understands something his soldiers do not.

You don't defeat a people on the battlefield.

In 1504, Naples was won, and in 1512, Ferdinand obtained possession of Spanish Navarre.

In the meantime, Cardinal Ximenes had made numerous conquests on the shores of northern Africa.

The discoveries in the New World opened up possibilities of enormous wealth to Spain and helped to increase the power of the monarchs by making them far richer than any of their subjects.

Ferdinand and Isabella also increased their influence by the marriages which they arranged for their children.

For twenty years the exiled Moors had enjoyed immunity, while the big Spanish galleys were obstinately held in port, contemptuous of so small a foe.

At last Don Pedro Navarro was dispatched by Cardinal Jimenez to bring the pirates to book.

He had little difficulty in taking possession of Oran and Bujia, and Algiers was so imperfectly fortified that he imposed his own terms.

He made the Algerines vow to renounce piracy, and to see that they kept their word, he built and garrisoned a strong fort, the Peñon de Algiers, to stop their boats from sallying forth.

But one day at Friday prayers, Barbarossa let the crowded congregation know that their designs were not unsuspected.

Shedding the gates, the Turks bound their entertainers with the turbans off their heads, and the immediate decapitation of the ringleaders at the mosque door quelled the spirit of revolt.

Nor was a great armada sent by Cardinal Jimenez and commanded by Don Diego de Vera more successful than the Algerine rebellion.

Seven thousand Spaniards were utterly routed by the Turks and Arabs, and to complete the discomfiture of the Christians, a violent tempest drove their ships ashore, insomuch that this mighty expedition was all but annihilate.