In accomplishing all this, the cardinal had experienced greater obstacles than those arising from bodily infirmity or age. His plans had been constantly discouraged and thwarted by the nobles, who derided the idea of "a monk fighting the battles of Spain, while the Great Captain was left to stay at home, and count his beads like a hermit." The soldiers, especially those of Italy, as well as their commander Navarro, trained under the banners of Gonsalvo, showed little inclination to serve under their spiritual leader. The king himself was cooled by these various manifestations of discontent. But the storm, which prostrates the weaker spirit, serves only to root the stronger more firmly in its purpose; and the genius of Ximenes, rising with the obstacles it had to encounter, finally succeeded in triumphing over all, in reconciling the king, disappointing the nobles, and restoring obedience and discipline to the army. [8]
On the 16th of May, 1509, the fleet weighed anchor, and on the following day reached the African port of Mazarquivir. No time was lost in disembarking; for the fires on the hill-tops showed that the country was already in alarm. It was proposed to direct the main attack against a lofty height, or ridge of land, rising between Mazarquivir and Oran, so near the latter as entirely to command it. At the same time, the fleet was to drop down before the Moorish city, and by opening a brisk cannonade, divert the attention of the inhabitants from the principal point of assault.
As soon as the Spanish army had landed, and formed in order of battle, Ximenes mounted his mule, and rode along the ranks. He was dressed in his pontifical robes, with a belted sword at his side. A Franciscan friar rode before him, bearing aloft the massive silver cross, the archiepiscopal standard of Toledo. Around him were other brethren of the order, wearing their monastic frocks, with scimitars hanging from their girdles. As the ghostly cavalcade advanced, they raised the triumphant hymn of _Vexilla regis_, until at length the cardinal, ascending a rising ground, imposed silence, and made a brief but animated harangue to his soldiers. He reminded them of the wrongs they had suffered from the Moslems, the devastation of their coasts, and their brethren dragged into merciless slavery. When he had sufficiently roused their resentment against the enemies of their country and religion, he stimulated their cupidity by dwelling on the golden spoil, which awaited them in the opulent city of Oran; and he concluded his discourse by declaring, that he had come to peril his own life in the good cause of the Cross, and to lead them on to battle, as his predecessors had often done before him. [9]