Bartholomew had accompanied Diaz in the famous voyage in which he discovered the Cape of Good Hope.
Returning to Europe in 1488 he had gone to England, with a message from Christopher Columbus, asking King Henry the Seventh to interest himself in the great adventure he proposed.
The authorities differ as to the reception which Henry gave to this great proposal.

Up to the present time, no notice has been found of his visit in the English archives.

The earliest notice of America, in the papers preserved there, is a note of a present of ten pounds "to hym that found the new land," who was Cabot, after his first voyage.
Bartholomew Columbus was in England on the tenth of February, 1488; how much later is not known.

Returning from England he staid in France, in the service of Madama de Bourbon.

This was either Anne of Beaujeu, or the widow of the Admiral Louis de Bourbon.