Prince Henry of Portugal

“ The chief points of interest in the story of Portugal are first the stubborn restless independence of the people, always rising into fresh vigour after a seeming overthrow, and secondly their instinct for seamanship, which Henry was able to train into exploring and colonising genius. There was no physical justice in the separate nationality of the Western Kingdom of Lisbon any more than of the Eastern Kingdom of Barcelona. ”

“ In the twelfth century the five kingdoms of Spain were clearly marked off from the Moslem States and from one another; by the end of the fifteenth there is only the great central Realm of Ferdinand and Isabella, and the little western coast-kingdom of Emanuel the Fortunate, the heir of Prince Henry. Nations are among our best examples of the survival of the fittest, and by the side of Poland and Aragon we may well see a meaning in the bare and tiresome story of the mediæval kingdom of Portugal. ”

“ With such tastes and such ambition, he was singularly fortunate in wielding ample pecuniary resources; if such a combination could be more often realized, the welfare of mankind would be notably enhanced. Prince Henry was Grand Master of the Order of Christ, an organization half military, half religious, and out of its abundant revenues he made the appropriations needful for the worthy purpose of advancing the interests of science, converting the heathen, and winning a commercial empire for Portugal. ”

“ There were buildings on Sagres headland as old as the eleventh century; Greek geography had made this the starting-point of its shorter and continental measurements for the length of the habitable world, and the Genoese, whose policy was to buy up points of vantage on every coast, were eager to plant a colony there, but Portugal was not ready to become like the Byzantine Empire, a depot for Italian commerce, and Henry had his own reasons for securing a desolate promontory. ”

“ But when the Northmen and the Holy War with Islam had once thoroughly aroused the practical energies of Christendom, it began to expand in mind as well as in empire, and in the time of Prince Henry, in the fifteenth century, a Portuguese could say: "Our discoveries of coasts and islands and mainland were not made without foresight and knowledge. For our sailors went out very well [Pg 115] taught, and furnished with instruments and rules of astrology and geometry, things which all mariners and map-makers must know." ”

“ Futile as these reasons were, at another time they would have been sufficient to have blasted all the designs of prince Henry, had they made half the impression upon the king that they did upon the minds of the people. Portugal was then only growing to the pitch of heroism to which it soon after arrived, their spirit being continually fostered by a long succession of wise, brave, and well-informed princes. ”

“ This was at least the common story as told in Portugal, and it was often joined with another—of the rabbit plague, which ate up all the green stuff of the island in the first struggling years of Zarco's settlement, and so prevented the export of anything but timber. So much of this was brought into Portugal that Henry's lifetime is a landmark in the domestic [Pg 167] architecture of Spain, and from the trade of the "Wood Island" is derived the lofty style of building that now began to replace the more modest fashion of the Arabs. ”

“ But in the revival under a new leader, John, the father of Prince Henry, and a new dynasty—the House of Aviz—and its "Royal Race of Famous Infants," in the years that follow the Revolution of 1383, the older religious and crusading fervour is [Pg 128] joined with the new spirit of enterprise, of fierce activity, and the Portugal thus called into being is a great State because the whole nation shares in the life and energy of a more than recovered liberty. ”

“ On his judgment and advice, more than of any other man, Henry relied, and after Edward's death it was due to him as Regent that the generous support of the past was more than kept up, that so many ships and men were found for the rounding of [Pg 137] Cape Verde, and that Edward's son and heir Affonso V., was trained in the mind of his father and his uncle, to be their successor in leading the expansion of Portugal and of Christendom. ”

“ A royal prince could do what a private man could not; and Portugal, more fully developed than any other of the Christian kingdoms, was ready to expand abroad without fear at home.
Even before the conquest of Ceuta, in 1410 or 1412, Henry had begun to send out his caravels past Cape Non, which had so long been with C. Bojador the Finisterre of Africa. The first object of these [Pg 148] ships was to reach the Guinea coast by outflanking the great western shoulder of the continent. Once there, the gold and ivory and slave trade would pass away from the desert caravans to the European coasters. ”

“ Almada, the Hercules of Portugal, was to draw up the foot in line of battle; the Infant himself took his station with the cavalry on a small piece of rising ground.
When the Moors charged, they were well received. In spite of all their strength, one army being held ready to take another's place, as men grew tired, the Portuguese held their own. Henry had a horse killed under him; Cabral, his Master of Horse, fell at his side with five and twenty of his men; the cowardice of one regiment, who fled to the ships, almost ruined the defence ”

“ Coimbra University, with which as rector or chancellor or patron Prince Henry was so closely connected, for which he once provided house room, and in which his benefactions earned him the title of "Protector of the studies of Portugal" is given to illustrate his life as a student and a man of science ”

“ The voyage of Diego de Sevill and Gonzalo Velho Cabral to the Azores, that is to the island of St. Mary and the Formigas, has been alluded to as among the earliest of Prince Henry's successes. But as it was out of this first attempt that the discovery of the whole group resulted, it has been necessary to refer to it again. Cabral, rewarded by his lord with the gift of his discoveries and living in St. Mary's island as "Captain Donatory" or Lord of the Land, was in charge of the colonisation of the islands he had already found, and of as many others as might come [Pg 252] to light. ”

“ What doctor had last disputed on the peripatetic philosophy at some university, or what new heresy had last appeared, not only comprised the whole of their literary intelligence, but was delivered with little accuracy, and received with as little attention. While this thick cloud of mental darkness overspread the western world, was Don Henry, prince of Portugal, born; born to set mankind free from the feudal system, and to give to the whole world every advantage, every light that may possibly be diffused by the intercourse of unlimited commerce ”

“ CHAPTER XX. THE RESULTS OF PRINCE HENRY'S WORK.
enry's own life is in one way the least important part of him. We have seen how many were the lines of history and of progress—in Christendom, in Portugal, in Science—that met in him; how Greek and Arabic geography, both knowledge and practical exploration, was as much a part of what he found to work with as the memoirs of Christian pilgrims, traders, and travellers for a thousand years ”

“ If Duarte was perhaps Nun’ Alvarez’ favourite among the princes, he certainly must have discerned [Pg 50] in his younger brother his own successor in guiding the destinies of Portugal. Although possibly less chivalrous than Nun’ Alvarez, Prince Henry possessed his strong will and intensity of purpose, with a wider range of vision. A Portuguese writer represents him living in retirement at Sagres, his eyes fixed exclusively on Heaven; but Prince Henry believed that he could best serve Heaven by bringing to success the earthly affairs on which he had set his heart. ”

“ The fort was abandoned, and the army returned to Portugal, after having cost little less than all prince Henry's discoveries together had done.
But Heaven rewarded the wisdom of the king by a discovery, the consequences of which more than overpaid him, in his mind, for his loss. Prince Henry's principal view was to discover the way to India by the southern Cape of Africa ”

“ Such will ever be the result of the attempt to palliate instead of cure evil. Moreover, the discovery of America and the resulting slave-trade were the cause of Portugal's retrogression to the point whence she had started in Prince Henry's time. When gold and slaves rendered maritime discovery profitable to the aristocratic class, all the nobles went into it—not only the aristocrats of Portugal, but those also of Spain, England, France, Holland, Italy. ”

“ In any case, and in the eyes of ordinary men, the riches of the East were the plain and primary reason of the explorations. Science had its own aims, but to gain an income for its work it must promise some definite gain. And the chief hope of Henry's captains was that the wealth now flowing by the overland routes to the Levant would in time, as the prize of Portuguese daring, go by the water way, without delay or fear of plunder or Arab middlemen, to Lisbon and Oporto. ”

“ But there still was a party of men, who, not susceptible of great actions themselves, dedicated their time with some success to criticising the enterprises of others. These blamed prince Henry, because, when Portugal was exhausted both of men and money by a necessary war in Africa, he should have chosen that very time to launch out into expences and vain discoveries of countries, in an immense ocean, which must be useless, because incapable of cultivation. ”

“ So zealous were the Portuguese in their enterprizes against the Moors, that the ladies of Lisbon partook in the general enthusiasm, and refused to bestow their hand on any man who had not signalized his courage on the coast of Africa, The spirit of the nation was largely participated by Prince Henry, the fifth son of John I., king of Portugal, who took up his residence near Cape St. ”

“ He became the founder of a new dynasty of kings, called the house of 'Avis,' from his having been grand master of that noble order. The enterprises, however, of the great Prince Henry, a son of John I., form a distinguishing feature of this reign." W. M. Kinsey, Portugal Illustrated, pages 34-35. PORTUGAL: A. D. 1415-1460. The taking of Ceuta. The exploring expeditions of Prince Henry the Navigator down the African coast. ”

“ João de Barros, Decadas da Asia (Lisbon, 1652) ; Raymond Beazley, Prince Henry the Navigator (London, 1895) , and introduction to Azurara, vol. ii., in Hakluyt Soc. trans. (see above) ; Antonio Cordeiro, Historia Insultana (Lisbon, 1717) ; Freire (Candido Lusitano) , Vida do Infante D. Henrique (Lisbon, 1858) ; “Diogo Gomez,” in Dr Schmeller’s Über Valentim Fernandez Alemão, vol. iv. pt. iii., in the publications of the 1st class of the Royal Bavarian Academy of Sciences (Munich, 1845) ; R. H. Major, The Life of Henry of Portugal, surnamed the Navigator (London, 1868) ”

“ While the faithless and fickle king of Portugal, who had given great offence to his own subjects by his marriage, made common cause with the duke of Lancaster and acknowledged him king of Castile in order to secure the assistance of England; and while the Roman see, alarmed at the alliance between Christian courts and the Mohammedans of Granada and Morocco exhausted itself in attempts at mediation, Henry concluded a treaty with France and invaded Portugal with an army. ”

“ In the schism which afflicted the church, from the rival pretensions of Urban VI and the anti-pope Clement, Henry declared for neither—doubtless to gratify his avarice by withholding the customary contributions to the papal see. He died in 1379. In character he was as cruel as Pedro; as loose in morals, and scarcely inferior as a tyrant. On the whole, however, he was a fortunate ruler. Either by bribes or force, he reduced Galicia to obedience, recovered several places from the king of Navarre, whose capital he at one time invested, and overawed his neighbours of Portugal and Aragon. ”

“ In 1536 the French offered to open negotiations for her marriage with the dauphin, and Charles V favoured the scheme in the belief that Francis I might be thus induced to force Henry into a recognition of Mary's claim to the English throne. After her reconciliation, a more serious proposal was made, with the approval of Charles V, to unite her with Don Luiz, the heir to the crown of Portugal. In February 1538 negotiations had progressed so far that the young, man's father wrote to Henry expressing his satisfaction at the expected alliance. ”

“ It would not be possible to find a greater contrast than was presented between France, distracted by factions struggling for the power which a lunatic king dropped from his hands, and England, harmonious and enthusiastic, welcoming back after a brilliant victory its vigorous prince, and united in giving him all the help that he demanded. If the darling scheme of the Plantagenets, the union of the two crowns, had been within the limits of possibility, Henry would certainly have effected it. ”

“ On the other hand, we cannot wholly disregard the contemporary evidence (for all other has been left out of the account) which attributes to him a certain laxity of life during the years that preceded his accession to the throne. Such a laxity is only too probable in a young prince. The temptations to which the young kinsmen of the ruler are exposed, before they feel the responsibilities of power, are the weak point of the system of hereditary monarchy. It would have been scarcely indeed a miracle, but certainly a most uncommon experience, if Henry had passed through them altogether unscathed. ”