The Life of Prince Henry of Portugal

Surnamed the Nabigator and its Results

Richard Henry Major

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9780367264208
• eBook ISBN: 9781000697827
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Historical Biographies
• Index: History

Originally published in 1868, this book follows the life of Prince Henry, including chapters on the Siege of Tangier, the capture of Ceuta and the death of Prince Henry.

Chapter I.
The Purpose.

THE mystery which since creation had hung over the Atlantic, and hidden from man's knowledge one-half of the surface of the globe, had reserved a field of noble enterprise for Prince Henry the Navigator. Until his day the pathways of the human race had been the mountain, the river, and the plain, the strait, the lake, and inland sea; but he it was who first conceived the thought of opening a road through the unexplored ocean, a road replete with danger but abundant in promise. Although the son of a king, he relinquished the pleasures of the court, and took up his abode on the inhospitable promontory of Sagres at the extreme south-western angle of Europe. It was a small peninsula, the rocky surface of which showed no sign of vegetation, except a few stunted juniper-trees, to relieve the sadness of a waste of shifting sand. Another spot so cold, so barren, or so dreary, it were difficult to find on the warm and genial soil of sunny Portugal. Landwards the northwest winds were almost unceasing, while three-quarters of the horizon were occupied by the mighty and mysterious waters of the as yet unmeasured Atlantic.

In days long past there had stood upon the sister headland of St. Vincent, at about a league's distance, a circular Druidical temple, where, as Strabo tells us, the old Iberians believed that the gods assembled at night, and from the ancient name of Sacrum Promontorium, hence given to the entire promontory by the Romans, Cape Sagres received its modern appellation. As may be imagined, the motive for the Prince's choice could not have been an ordinary one. If, from the pinnacle of our present knowledge, we mark on the world of waters those bright tracks which, during four centuries and a half, have led to the discovery of mighty continents, we shall find them all lead us back to that same inhospitable point of Sagres, and to the motive which gave to it a royal inhabitant. To find the sea-path to the "Thesauris Arabum et divitis Indiæ," till then known only through faint echoes of almost forgotten tradition, was the object to which Prince Henry devoted his life. The goal which he thus set before himself was at an unknown distance, and had to be attained through dangers supposed to be unsurmountable and by means so inadequate as to demand a proportionate excess of courage, study, and perseverance.

To be duly appreciated, this comprehensive thought must be viewed in relation to the period in which it was conceived. The fifteenth century has been rightly named the " last of the dark ages," but the light which displaced its obscurity had not yet begun to dawn when Prince Henry, with prophetic instinct, traced mentally a pathway to India by an anticipated Cape of Good Hope. No printing-press as yet gave forth to the world the accumulated wisdom and experience of the past. The compass, though known and in use, had not yet emboldened men to leave the shore and put out with confidence into the open sea; no sea-chart existed to guide the mariner along those perilous African coasts; no lighthouse reared its friendly head to warn or welcome him on his homeward track. The scientific and practical appliances which were to render possible the discovery of half a world had yet to be developed. But, with such objects in view, the Prince collected the information supplied by ancient geographers, unweariedly devoted himself to the study of mathematics, navigation, and cartography, and freely invited, with princely liberality of reward, the cooperation of the boldest and most skilful navigators of every country.

We look back with astonishment and admiration at the stupendous achievement effected a whole life-time later by the immortal Columbus, an achievement which formed the connecting link between the old world and the new; yet the explorations instituted by Prince Henry of Portugal, were in truth the anvil upon which that link was forged; and yet how many are there in England, the land of sailors, who even know the name of the illustrious man who was the very initiator of continuous Atlantic exploration? If the final success of a bold and comprehensive idea outstep the life of its author, the world, which always prefers success to merit, will forget the originator of the very result which it applauds. This injustice is specially manifest in the case of Prince Henry, for the vastness of his conception on the one hand, and the imperfection of his appliances on the other, made the probabilities of success during his own life-time infinitely the more remote. It is in such cases that Fame needs to be awakened to her task. Thus slept for centuries the fame of Christopher Columbus; thus sleeps the fame of Richard Hakluyt, the pioneer of the prosperity of his country.

If it be the glory of England that by means of her maritime explorations the sun never sets on her dominions, she may recall with satisfaction that he who opened the way to that glory was the son of a royal English lady and of the greatest king that ever sat on the throne of Portugal. The importance of these personages is such as to demand a separate chapter.

Chapter II.
The Prince's Parentage.

THE Infant Dom Henrique, better known in England as Prince Henry the Navigator, was the fifth child and fourth son of King João I., " of good memory" (also surnamed the "Great," and "Father of his country"), and of Queen Philippa, daughter of "old John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster." He was thus the nephew of Henry IV. of England, and great-grandson of Edward III. He was also a descendant of the last kings of the line of Capet, and allied to the family of Valois.

Although in reality one of the oldest nations in Europe, Portugal did not begin to assume a prominent position till the accession of Prince Henry's father to the throne. It had been the fate of that little country to struggle for six centuries to throw off the yoke of its powerful and implacable enemies, the Moors. Reduced in numbers, subdued and despised, the Portuguese yet found, in their desperate patriotism, the materials for the final expulsion of their oppressors. It was the realization of an impossibility. But no sooner were the Moors ejected from the peninsula than repeated efforts were made by Spain to effect the subjugation of Portugal, with whom she had been previously united against the common enemy. To King João, the father of Prince Henry, it was reserved to vindicate, under frightful disadvantages, the honour of Portugal against Spain—to establish the throne upon a solid basis, yet more, to be the first to carry into the country of the Moors the sword of the avenger, and to prepare the way for those more expansive movements which were to issue from the genius of his son. With his accession to the throne commenced the glorious dynasty known as that of Aviz, which lasted two hundred years and embodied the period of Portugal's greatest dignity, prosperity, and renown. It is remarkable that King João was the youngest, and an illegitimate son of a sovereign who had three other sons legitimate, or accepted as such, who attained maturity. His father, Dom Pedro I., surnamed the Severe, by his marriage with Constance, daughter of João Manoel, Duke of Peñafiel, had two sons and a daughter. Of the sons, Luiz, the elder, died in infancy; the younger, Fernando, succeeded his father in 1367. By the beautiful but unfortunate Iñez de Castro, who, as Calderon says, was not a queen till after her death, Dom Pedro had three sons and a daughter. One of the sons, Affonso, died in infancy; the two others were João and Diniz, of whom we shall hear more presently. Besides these, he had by Theresa Lourenzo, a lady of noble birth, a natural son named João, Prince Henry's father, who, at the age of seven, received from his father the Grand Mastership of the Order of Aviz. Two years after the death of Dom Pedro, which took place on the 18th January, 1367, his eldest son and successor, Fernando, became, as great-grandson of Sancho IV., the rightful heir to the crown of Castile, on the death of Don Pedro the Cruel without legitimate offspring. That crown, however, was in the hands of Enrique of Trastamare, the illegitimate brother of the late king, a man by no means inclined to give up the kingdom he had usurped, unless under compulsion. Dom Fernando therefore formed an alliance with Don Pedro of Aragon, whose daughter Leonora he engaged to marry. Enrique the Bastard forthwith invaded Portugal, and a contest, ensued which was only brought to a close through the intervention of Pope Gregory XI. by a treaty of peace signed at Evora, at the close of 1371, one of the conditions being that Fernando should marry Enrique's daughter Leonora. Fernando was thus betrothed to two Leonoras, the one of Aragon, the other of Castile, and he now became passionately enamoured of a third Leonora, surnamed Telles de Meneses, the wife of João Lourenço da Cunha, Lord of Pombeiro. The five months within which, according to the treaty, Leonora of Castile was to pass into Portugal had nearly expired, when the king annulled the marriage of Leonora Telles, sent her husband into Spain, and publicly took her to wife. This insult to the King of Castile was followed by another, if possible, still more flagrant; for, in defiance of the terms of the treaty, King Fernando entered into an alliance with John of Gaunt, Uuke of Lancaster, who, having in 1370 married the eldest daughter of Pedro the Cruel, laid claim to the crown of Castile. The war that ensued was one of the most cruel and deplorable that Portugal ever had to sustain, King Enrique having sworn that he would not return to Castile till he had reduced Lisbon to ashes. Happily, however, Gregory XI. again became the mediator between the two sovereigns, and a treaty of peace was signed in 1373, which remained in force till after the death of Enrique in 1379.

Leonora Telles, who was as remarkable for her heartlessness and subtlety as for her marvellous beauty, had a sister, Maria Telles, beautiful like herself, but, unlike her, endowed with a pure, noble, and affectionate nature. To this lady the king's half-brother, João, eldest son of Iñez de Castro, was secretly married. Leonora, who hated them both, and feared that they might one day succeed to the throne of Portugal, took occasion first to intimate to the prince a wish for his marriage with her daughter, Brites, and, secondly, to insinuate charges against the chastity of his wife. The prince, incapable of suspecting such infamy on the part of the queen, believed the falsehood, and hastening to Coimbra, where the princess was, killed her with his own hand. No sooner was the crime accomplished than Leonora derided the assassin, who fled for safety to Castile. The other son of Iñez de Castro, Dom Diniz, was driven into exile for refusing, at a formal audience, to kiss the hand of the adulterous queen, presented to him by the king. Another object of the queen's murderous designs was the king's illegitimate brother, the Grand Master of Aviz, whose life she twice attempted by forging the king's signature for his execution, and afterwards by poison, but happily he escaped her malice. She now added to the number of her crimes infidelity to the king himself. Her paramour was Don Fernando Andeiro, a Castilian subject, but a special favourite of the king, who had employed him to negotiate a secret alliance with the Duke of Lancaster for the subjugation of Castile. On his return from this mission he was, for some time, concealed in the Castle of Estremos, the residence of the king and queen, with the latter of whom he thus had frequent opportunities for private interviews.

King Juan of Castile, Enrique's successor, hearing that Fernando was forming large armaments and expecting assistance from England, lost no time, in preparing for an encounter with his perfidious ally, but after a few indecisive engagements a treaty of peace was concluded, one condition of which was that the second son of the King of Castile should marry Brites, the daughter of Fernando and Leonora de Telles.

In the interval King Juan's wife died, an event which suggested to Fernando a yet more advantageous marriage for his daughter, who, after having been affianced to many princes, became the wife of the king of Castile himself.

The marriage treaty provided that if Fernando died without legitimate male issue, Brites should wear the crown until the birth of her first legitimate child, on whom it should then devolve, and that until it should attain its majority at the age of fourteen, Leonora should be regent. If Brites were childless, and died before her husband, her father having also died without heirs, the crown of Portugal should then devolve upon King Juan of Castile and his heirs. Corresponding stipulations were adopted with regard to the crown of Castile. "No treaty," says Nuñez de Leão, "was ever more solemnly sworn to, or surrounded with greater precautions, and none was ever worse kept," King Fernando's failing health prevented him from being present at the brilliant marriage of his daughter. He had at length become aware of the guilt of the infamous queen, but not having the courage to remove her paramour from the court, he called to his aid his illegitimate brother João, the Grand Master of A viz, with whom he resolved upon Andeiro's death, but before this could be effected, the king fell dangerously ill, and was conveyed to Lisbon, where he died on the 22nd of October, 1383. As his daughter Brites was childless, the throne of right belonged to João, Duke of Yiseu, the eldest surviving son of Iñez de Castro, but King Juan lost no time in seizing that unfortunate prince, and placing him in safe custody at Toledo. Leonora forthwith assumed the position of regent, but, on the demand of the King of Castile, was compelled to proclaim her daughter Brites as queen.

The Portuguese chafed at the thought that the Castilian yoke should be imposed upon them through the marriage of their princess with a king of Castile. Leonora and her paramour were universally detested; and not only the nobility, but the whole kingdom, were prepared to hail as their deliverer any one who should take the life of the latter. The two sons of Iñez de Castro being kept in safe custody by the King of Castile, the Grand Master of Aviz, who was the only son of King Pedro I. now in Portugal, at once saw in this favourable conjunction of circumstances a chance of obtaining possession of the crown.

Leonora was not blmd to the same possibility, and by way of removing Mm, made him governor of the Alemtejo for the defence of the frontier. This was a crisis in his life. Andeiro's death had been secretly resolved upon by the leading nobles of the kingdom, and the hand of the Grand Master was by all regarded as the one to strike the blow. Accordingly, at the close of an interview with the queen in her palace, he led Andeiro into an antechamber, as if to speak with him, and there slew him. He then gave orders that the gates of the palace should be closed; and in pursuance of a preconcerted plan, his page, Gomez Freire, rode through the streets of Lisbon, crying out that his master was shut up in the palace, and in imminent danger of his life. The people, by whom he was much beloved, rushed in crowds towards the palace gates, threatening to force an entrance unless they were convinced with their own eyes of the Grand Master's safety.

When at length he made his appearance, and rode through the streets, the shouts of joy with which he was received told plainly how near he was to the realization of his most sanguine hopes. The people were enthusiastic in his favour, but many of the nobles who had sided with him while it was a question of getting rid of Andeiro, returned to Leonora, now that that favourite was removed. The queen had called to her aid her son-in-law, the King of Castile, and when the people of Lisbon reflected on the dangers to which they would be exposed if their city were to be at the mercy of Leonora and of the Castilians, the instinct of self-preservation drove them the more anxiously to look for protection and safety in the talents and energy of the Grand Master. They therefore declared their wish to recognise him as their protector and sovereign, and to place at his command the city and its revenues.

The approach of the King of Castile to the frontiers of Portugal left no alternative; and even the nobles were at length, though against their inclination, induced to give in their adhesion, and accordingly, an act, which constituted the Grand Master defender and regent of the kingdom, with powers little less than royal, was formally signed on the 16th of December, 1383.

In this new and difficult position, the Grand Master displayed talents equal to his responsibilities. To invest that position with befitting dignity, he styled himself in all official letters and ordinances, "João, by the grace of God, son of the most noble King Pedro, Master of the Order of Chivalry of Aviz, Regent, and Defender of the Kingdoms of Portugal and the Algarves." He placed the royal arms upon the cross of his order, so that only the extremities of the latter were visible, thus skilfully blending the insignia of the Grand Master of the order with those of the Regent of the kingdom.

He was prudent in the selection of his ministers of state, among whom the most remarkable were his High Chancellor João das Regras, and Nuño Alvarez Pereira. To the legal acumen of the former he subsequently owed his crown, while the latter, who was his well-loved friend from boyhood, stands pre-eminent in Portuguese history for his valour, his piety, and devotedness to the king's service. The Regent, however, was not blind to the fact that his half-brother, Prince João, who was still a prisoner in Castile, had a claim to the throne which took precedence of any that he himself could advance beyond such as might emanate from the expressed will of the people. Accordingly, he declared that he held his authority on behalf of his half-brother, and caused banners to be painted representing the Prince in a dungeon, loaded with irons. By this means he secured the good-will of the prince's partisans, and at the same time intensified the people's hatred of the King of Castile, and their attachment to his own family. The queen, who for greater security had now withdrawn from Alemquer to Santarem, perhaps the strongest fortress in the kingdom, issued letters to the commanders of various strongholds, calling on them to proclaim her daughter Brites queen, and urged on the King of Castile the necessity of forthwith enforcing her rights by the sword, thereby only the more exasperating the popular fury.

The people's devotion to the Regent made him strong within the frontiers of Portugal, but an enemy was approaching who would have to be encountered and repulsed by force of arms. The Regent addressed himself with energy to the needful preparations, and appealed successfully to the different towns of Portugal for aid. He also sent an embassy to the King of England, requesting assistance and promising future reciprocation, and suggested to the Duke of Lancaster, who was then at the court in London, that if he wished to obtain possession of the crown of Castile, it was now the fitting opportunity, when Portugal was ready to assist him. The English were delighted with the proposal. Money and men were forthcoming on the moment. Troops were dispatched forthwith, and King Richard's reply was in the highest degree encouraging.

The Regent's next anxiety was to provide for the security of Lisbon, in the event of its having to sustain a siege. This charge was assigned to Nuño Alvarez Pereira, who with unfailing activity collected stores, and in spite of all opposition conveyed them into the city. The King and Queen of Castile had already entered Portugal, and had received from Leonora a formal renunciation of the crown in their favour. This measure, which emanated from Leonora's hatred of the Grand Master, brought over many of the nobility to the side of the King of Castile, who thus found himself in possession of numerous strongholds of the kingdom. Before long, however, a disagreement arose between Leonora and the king, as to the appointment of the chief Rabbi of Portugal, and the Queen became so irritated, that she ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Original Title
• Original Copyright
• Contents
• PREFACE
• CHAPTER I. THE PURPOSE.
• CHAPTER II. THE PRINCE'S PARENTAGE.
• CHAPTER III. CEUTA.
• CHAPTER IV. TALENT DE BIEN FAIRE.
• CHAPTER V. PORTO SANTO AND MADEIRA.
• CHAPTER VI. CAPE BOYADOR.
• CHAPTER VII. THE SEA OF DARKNESS.
• CHAPTER VIII. GLIMPSES OF LIGHT.
• CHAPTER IX. TANGIER.
• CHAPTER X. THE AZANEGUES.
• CHAPTER XI. THE SLAVE TRADE.
• CHAPTER XII. SENEGAMBIA.
• CHAPTER XIII. THE REGENT DOM PEDRO.
• CHAPTER XIV. THE AZORES.
• CHAPTER XV. CADAMOSTO.
• CHAPTER XVI. CAPE VERDE ISLANDS.
• CHAPTER XVII. DEATH OF PRINCE HENRY.
• CHAPTER XVIII. THE STORMY CAPE.
• CHAPTER XIX. RESULTS WESTWARD.
• CHAPTER XX. RESULTS EASTWARD.
• CHAPTER XXI. RESULTS SOUTHWARD.