Amongst the Flemish counsellors of Charles V., Adrian of Utrecht, preceptor of the young prince prior to his accession, had arrived in Spain in the year 1515 as representative of his interests at King Ferdinand’s court.  Upon that monarch’s death, Adrian, who had meantime been made Bishop of Tortosa and created Cardinal, shared the regency with Cardinal Ximenes.  A man of gentle manners and scholastic training, his participation in the regency was hardly more than nominal.  Ignorant alike of the Spanish tongue and the intricacies of political life, he willingly effaced himself in the shadow of his imperious and masterful colleague.  Peter Martyr placed his services entirely at the disposition of Adrian, piloting him amongst the shoals and reefs that rendered perilous the mysterious sea of Spanish politics.  When Adrian was elected Pope in 1522, his former mentor wrote felicitating him upon his elevation and reminding him of the services he had formerly rendered him:  Fuistis a me de rebus quae gerebantur moniti; nec parum commodi ad emergentia tunc negotia significationes meas Caesaris rebus attulisse vestra Beatitudo fatetur.  Although the newly elected Pontiff expressed an amiable wish to see his old friend in Rome, he offered him no definite position in Curia.  The correspondence that ensued between them was inconclusive; Martyr, always declaring that he sought no favour, still persisted in soliciting a meeting which the Pope discouraged.  Adrian accepted his protests of disinterestedness literally, and their last meeting at Logrono was unproductive of aught from the Pope, save expressions of personal esteem and regard.  Peter Martyr excused himself from following His Holiness to Rome, on the plea of his advanced years and failing health.  If disappointed at receiving no definite appointment, he concealed his chagrin, and, though evidently not desiring his services in Curia, one of Adrian’s first acts upon arriving in Rome was to invest him with the archpriest’s benefice of Ocana in Spain.  The ever generous King was less niggardly, and, in 1523, conferred upon Martyr the German title of Pfalzgraf, with the privilege of naming imperial notaries and legitimising natural children.

On August 15, 1524, the King presented his name to Clement VII. for confirmation as mitred abbot of Santiago in the island of Jamaica, a benefice rendered vacant by the translation of Don Luis Figueroa to the bishopric of San Domingo and La Concepcion.[7] A greater title would have doubtless pleased him less, since this one linked his name with the Church in the New World, of which he was the first historian.  He surrendered his priory of Granada to accept the Jamaican dignity, the revenues from which he devoted to the construction of the first stone church built at Sevilla del ’Oro in that island.  Above its portal an inscription bore witness to his generosity:  Petrus Martyr ab Angleria, italus civis mediolanensis, protonotarius apostolicus hujus insulae, abbas, senatus indici consiliarius, ligneam priusaedem hanc bis igne consumptam, latericio et quadrato lapide primus a fundamentis extruxit.[8]