Yet it was in his reign that the vast change was initiated. In 1492 Christopher Columbus made his great voyage: in 1497 Vasco da Gama sailed for India, not westwards but southwards and eastwards round the Cape of Good Hope. Ten years later, Albuquerque was founding a Portuguese Empire in the Indian seas. Spain and Portugal, pioneers of the great movement, led the way, one in the new world of the West, the other in the fabled world of the East; where for many a year to come they were to divide a monopoly authorised by the Papal Bull of Alexander VI. Before another century closed, their dominion was to be challenged by England grown mighty and by Holland emancipated. As yet, however, men dreamed only formless if gorgeous dreams of what the unknown realms might bring forth. England played no very large part in these early voyages. Christopher Columbus, craving to discover a westerly route to the Indies, and failing of Portuguese support, sent his brother Bartholomew to petition the English King for aid; but Bartholomew was captured by pirates. Ultimately he reached England, but before he could achieve his purpose, Christopher had found other helpers; the prize fell to Ferdinand and Isabella. The first historic expedition which sailed from English ports was captained not by an Englishman but by another Italian, John Cabot, and his son Sebastian, in 1497. The Cabots were Venetians who had for some time been established at Bristol. They aimed for a north-west passage, and found Labrador and Newfoundland, cold, inhospitable, producing no wealth: the explorers who sailed under Spanish auspices struck the wealthy and entrancing regions of the south. There was little enough material inducement beyond the simple spirit of enterprise to attract capital to expend itself in aid of the Bristol men who followed in the wake of Cabot. Henry deserves full credit for the encouragement and actual pecuniary help which he rendered at first, and no blame for its discontinuation. The daring of the adventurers was but ill repaid for the time; yet a mighty harvest was to be reaped by England in the days to come. [Sidenote: The rural revolution]