The officers of the King tore down the arms. They thought they had consigned the name for which the arms stood to oblivion. As the Jewish hierarchy said of Spinoza: "Let his name be cast out under the whole heavens!" That name rose again.
Years passed and a nephew of Magellan inherited one of the family estates. He was stoned in the streets on account of his name. This man fled in exile from Portugal to Brazil. He died there, and said: "Let no heir or descendant of mine ever restore the arms of my family."
"I desire that the arms of my family (Magellan) should remain forever obliterated, as was done by order of my Lord and King, _as a punishment for the crime_ of Ferdinand Magellan, because he entered the service of Castile to the injury of our kingdom."
It is the history of this same Ferdinand Magellan, whom Portugal and his own family sought to crush out from the world, that we are now about to trace.
Following his highest inspiration, he shut his eyes to the present, and followed the light of the star of destiny in his soul. His discovery seems to open to the West the doors of China.
He was filled from boyhood with a passion for finding unknown lands and waters; he was haunted by ideals and visions of noble exploits for the good of mankind. His own country, Portugal, would not listen to his projects at the time that he offered them to the court; so, like Columbus, Vespucci, and Cabot, he sought the favor of another country. Nothing could stand before the high purpose of his soul. "If not by Portugal, then by Spain," he said to an intimate friend; meaning that, if his own country denied him the favor of giving him an opportunity for exploration, he would present his cause to the court of Spain, which he did.
This man, whose real name was Fernao de Magalhaes, was born about the year 1480, at Sabrosa, in Portugal, a wintry district where the hardy soil and the "gloomy grandeur" of the mountain scenery produced men of strong bodies and lofty spirit. He belonged to a noble family, "one of the noblest in the kingdom." His boyhood was passed in the sierras. He had a love of works of geography and travel, and he dreamed even then of sunny zones, undiscovered waters, and unknown regions of the world. Henry the Navigator and his school of pilots, astronomers, and explorers, had left the country full of the spirit of new discoveries which yet lived.