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The explorer arrived at Granada shortly after the triumphal entry of the conquerors, and saw Isabel (and presumably her husband) on several occasions at their quarters at Santa Fe. To Ferdinand’s annoyance he found that Colon still insisted upon the same impracticable conditions as before. Talavera, the new Archbishop of Granada, full of zeal for the Christianisation of his new diocese, frowned at all suggestions that might divert attention to another direction; and finally, the King and Queen decided to dismiss Colon for good as impossible to deal with. Rather than bate a jot of his vast claims, for, as he solemnly asserted afterwards, he needed not the wealth for himself, but to restore the Holy Land to Christendom, he wended his way heartbroken towards his home at Cordova; his red hair now blanched entire to snow. The glory for Spain of discovering a new world for civilisation was trembling in the balance. The great dreamer, hopeless, had turned his back upon the court after seven years of fruitless waiting, and Ferdinand, this time, had no intention of recalling him.

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