By the death of Ferdinand, his daughter Beatrice, queen of Castile, was the true heir to the throne of Portugal. But the kingdom, far from expecting a foreign yoke, had, on the marriage of the infanta, expressly stipulated that, in case of Ferdinand’s death, the government should be vested in a regent, until she had a son capable of assuming the sovereignty; that son, too, to be educated not in Castile but in Portugal. When that event happened, she had no child—a circumstance that induced her husband to claim the crown in her right, and that filled the Portuguese with vexation. They were satisfied neither with their intended sovereign, Juan, nor with the regent, Leonora, the queen-mother, whom the will of the late king appointed to that dignity. And when, in conformity with the demands of the Castilian, Beatrice was proclaimed in Lisbon, the people either exhibited a mournful silence, or cried out that they would have no other king than their infante João, son of Pedro and Iñes de Castro, and the unfortunate husband of Maria, sister of Leonora, whose tragical fate has been recorded. But João and his brother Diniz now languished in the dungeons of Castile,[144] whither they had been consigned by the king, who knew that, if suffered to enter Portugal, they would speedily thwart his views of dominion. Until these princes could be restored to their country, and until Beatrice should have an heir, the Portuguese resolved to deprive the queen-mother of the regency, in favour of Dom João, the grand-master of Aviz, who alone seemed able to defend their national independence.

Dom João, as before observed, was an illegitimate son of King Pedro, by a lady of Galicia, and born in 1357. At seven years of age he had been invested with the high dignity of grand-master, and his education intrusted to one of the ablest commanders of the order. No man could be better adapted for the conjuncture in which circumstances placed him. Cool, yet prompt; prudent, yet in the highest degree courageous; unrestrained by conscience, and ready to act either with cunning or violence, according as either appeared necessary to his purpose, he would indeed have been a formidable opponent to any sovereign, much more to one so weak as the Castilian. Seeing the favourable disposition of the people, and confiding in his own mental resources, he commenced a policy which, if at first cautious, was sure to prove efficacious. Though Leonora pretended great sorrow for her husband’s death, and endeavoured, by affected mildness, as well as by an administration truly liberal, to win the popular favour, her object was penetrated and despised. But a stronger sentiment was felt for Andeiro, who directed her at his pleasure, and whose death was now decreed by the grand-master. To remove the latter under some honourable pretext from court, he was charged by Leonora with the government of Alemtejo. He accepted the trust; but, accompanied by twenty-five resolute followers, returned to Lisbon, December 6th, 1383, and hastened to the royal apartments, where he knew he should find Andeiro. The guilty pair were as usual together. João struck the count with a dagger; a knight of his suite by a second blow deprived the victim of life.

The tragical deed was hailed with characteristic acclamations by the populace, who, profiting by the example, massacred everyone suspected to be hostile to the pretensions of their new idol, among them the bishop of Lisbon.[145] Their mangled corpses remained long without sepulture, a prey to dogs and beings more savage than dogs. Leonora now fled from the city to Alemquer. On the way, she turned her eyes for a moment back on the towers of that capital, and, in the bitterness of her heart prayed that she might live to see it wrapped in flames. After her departure, João complained that he was unequal to oppose his powerful enemies; and pretended that he would retire into England, to pass his remaining days in tranquillity. This hypocritical policy alarmed the mob, who dreaded being abandoned to justice, and tumultuously flocked around him, insisting that he should assume the regency until Beatrice should become the mother of a son destined to rule over them. With much apparent reluctance, he accepted the proffered dignity, in the resolution of securing one much higher.

The first measures of the new regent were characteristic of the man. He published an edict in which entire pardon was promised to all criminals, whatever their offences, who should assist him in opposing the queen and the Spaniards. At this unexpected call, great numbers—amounting, we are told, to thousands—hastened from their prisons or their haunts to swell his army. Many of the great towns were persuaded to follow the example of Lisbon. The impunity with which his followers perpetrated every possible crime was too alluring not to increase the number. Murder, plunder, rape, and sacrilege were the constant attendants of this lawless party. The abbess of the convent of Castres was dragged from her cloister, poniarded before the high altar, and her body was subjected to brutalities of which not even the mention would be tolerated by the reader. In the end it was dragged to a public square, and there left. This is but one instance, among numbers which have been preserved and among thousands of which the memory has perished, of the monstrous crimes of this interregnum; yet no attempt was made to punish them by the regent, who felt that the license thus allowed was his only tenure on the attachment of his adherents.

The king of Castile invaded the kingdom, received the submission of several places, and penetrated to Santarem, to concert with his mother-in-law, Leonora, the means of annihilating the resources of João. But that ambitious woman, who perceived that with the arrival of the king her authority had ceased, soon regarded his cause with indifference, ultimately with dislike. Her intrigues were planned more frequently to thwart than to aid his measures; so that, aware of her faithless character, he at length caused her to be arrested and to be confined in the convent of Tordesillas, near Valladolid.

As allusion has already been made [in the history of Spain, Chapter V] to the chief events of the present war, little more remains to be said of them. Though Lisbon was invested both by sea and land, and in a few months reduced to the greatest distress, it was defended with equal ability and valour by the grand-master and his captains. To end the distractions of his country, the states, early in 1385, were convoked at Coimbra. There the creatures of the regent proposed his proclamation as king, as the only measure capable of restoring internal tranquillity, and of enabling the nation to withstand the arms of Castile. They even endeavoured to show that he was the nearest heir to the crown. The issue of Iñes de Castro they set aside, as sprung from an adulterous connection; and the same objection they urged against Beatrice, whose mother they considered as the lawful wife, not of the late king, but of the lord de Pombeiro. On the 6th day of April, 1385, João was unanimously proclaimed king.

João I, having attained the great object of his ambition, vigorously prepared for the war with his rival of Castile. The decisive victory gained by João at Aljubarrota; the alternations of success and failure that succeeded; the arrival of the duke of Lancaster to obtain the Castilian crown in right of his wife Constanza, daughter of Pedro the Cruel: the alliance between the two princes, João marrying Philippa, a daughter of the duke; the subsequent reconciliation between the latter and the king of Castile, cemented by the marriage of the princess Catherine, daughter of the Plantagenet, with Henry, son of Juan, and other transactions of these troubled times, have already been noticed in the history of Spain. Peace was made and broken more than once; the success lay with the Portuguese king—a success, however, attributable as much to the internal troubles of Castile after the death of Juan I as to the valour of João. When a more durable peace was concluded in 1403, the Portuguese had recovered their fortunes, and were in possession of Badajoz.

The next few years were passed in tranquillity by the king in improving the administration of the realm. His salutary severity was above all directed against murderers and robbers by profession, and also against such as took justice into their own hands. By these means he became a popular monarch with all but some of his nobles, whose discontent he had powerfully excited during the late wars. To his valiant constable, Dom Nunho Alvares Pereiro, called the “holy constable,” he was more indebted than to any other cause, both for his crown and for the successful issue of the Castilian war; and he had thought no rewards too great for such services. But if he showered the revenues of whole towns and vast estates on that able and faithful man, he rewarded with a pitiful spirit the attachment of others.

THE TAKING OF CEUTA (1415 A.D.)

By his queen Philippa, daughter of the duke of Lancaster, João had several children, of whom five were sons. As these princes grew in years, they displayed great martial ardour, and promised to become the bulwarks of the country and throne. He had resolved to confer on them the honour of knighthood, and to celebrate the occasion by a magnificent tournament. But they despised the peaceful lists, and besought his permission to win their spurs in a nobler manner, by an expedition against the Moors. The fortress of Ceuta[146], on the African side of the straits of Gibraltar, seemed to them the most inviting of conquests. Though eager to gratify a propensity which he loved, the king was at first startled by the magnitude of the proposed enterprise. The fortifications of Ceuta were strong, and defended by the bravest portion of the Mohammedan population: to reduce them a considerable armament must be prepared, and at an expense which he was loath to incur. In the end, however, he yielded to their urgent entreaties; the expedition was resolved, two confidential officers were sent to reconnoitre the place, and the royal council gave a reluctant consent to the project. But, as secrecy alone could insure its success, as a premature disclosure of the design would have enabled the pirates to increase the number of their defenders and the strength of their works, the whole peninsula was in suspense, and not without alarm at the preparations of the king. Having tranquillised the Castilians, the Aragonese, and the Moors of Granada, as to his intentions, and fearful of rousing the suspicions of the Africans, he intimated that his armament was to be led against the count of Holland. Not even the death of his queen, who was carried off by the plague,[147] nor his advanced years, could suspend his preparations. At length, having collected a considerable number of vessels from most parts, and been joined by adventurers from most nations of Europe, accompanied by his sons and his chief nobles, João embarked, proceeded towards the straits, and, the middle of August, 1415, arrived before Ceuta. The Moorish governor, Salat ben Salat, a man advanced in years but of undaunted courage, prepared for a vigorous defence.e

“So soon as the Moors of the town,” writes the contemporary historian Azurara,d “saw the fleet nearing their walls, they placed lighted torches in all the windows and apertures to show the Christians that they were much more numerous than they thought, and thus on account of its great size, and being illuminated on all sides, the town presented a beautiful sight. This was interpreted by our men in the ships to signify that as a dying candle first throws out great light, so these men, who soon were to leave their houses and property, and many of them to quit this life, made this brave show of light, signifying their approaching end. As these Moors illuminated the town, so also our men lighted up their ships, but this they were compelled to do, not to show their vast numbers, but that each ship having cast anchor should be enabled to make preparations for the following day, and with the lanterns in front of the flag ships, and the torches the men carried in their hands, the fleet was well illuminated.”

A spectacle as dazzling as it was sinister, by the light of which the waters of the strait must have presented a terrible and fantastic appearance, reddened by the reflection of the torches as though a sea of blood, covered with dancing lights, separated the Moorish city from the floating Christian camp. At dawn on the following day, the 20th of August, the Portuguese were ready for the combat, and the king, João I, in a galiot went about among the ships giving the last instructions, recommending to all that Dom Henry should be the first to land.

But as the Moors had sailed out of the town to attack the Portuguese upon the landing, some of the knights became so impatient that two at least, João Fogaca and Ruy Gonçalves, jumped on shore a few moments before the prince, who, however, took the lead in the battle. The movement of the Moors in coming down to the shore was a vain attempt of the younger men; the truth was that, following the example of Salat ben Salat, they were greatly discouraged, and panic increased among them upon seeing two athletes of Barbary, two giants of the desert, overcome, one by Ruy Gonçalves, and the other by Vasco Martius de Albergaria. The infante Dom Henry fancied he caught sight of his brother Dom Duarte, whom Dom João had forbidden to take part in the combat, in the thickest of the fight, and presently discovered that he had not been mistaken. The presence of the two brothers if possible raised the courage of the Portuguese still more.

Dom Henry wished to await the landing of the rest of the army, as he had been recommended to do, but Dom Duarte was of opinion that they might enter the town with the Moors, or at least seize the gate of Almina to open a passage for their men. The gate was indeed taken by surprise. Having passed the gate, the two infantes took up their position on a hill dominating the streets of the city.

Meanwhile Vasco Fernandes de Athaide had succeeded in beating down another gate, thus opening a new passage to the Portuguese soldiers, who were now divided into three bands. To have greater freedom, the heir to the crown threw off his armour, leaving merely a coat of mail; his movements being thus made freer he was able to advance rapidly, so that when Dom Henry resolved to follow his example he could no longer find him. Dom Duarte had reached the highest point of the Moorish town, called Cesto, and Dom Henry, wishing to join him, entered the street leading to it, driving the Moors before him.

The general landing of the army had not yet taken place, as Dom João I had not finished his review of the fleet. When he sent his son Dom Pedro to tell Dom Duarte to land, the answer came that he was already within the town. The king then gave orders for all to land, and the Portuguese army, divided into four bodies, marched upon the town.

The affliction of the women who fled, pressing their little children to their breasts, and the despair with which many men concealed their property, or fled carrying it with them, raised the courage of the Moorish warriors, and spurred them to make one supreme effort by which they succeeded in driving many Portuguese before them. Dom Henry would not check the first fugitives in their flight, for fear of harming those who followed, who would consequently be thrown back on the Moors, but when the latter approached, followed by a few knights, he barred the way. At the same time, ashamed of their fear and encouraged by the infante’s presence, the Portuguese returned to the charge, and the enemy fled in confusion. Meanwhile the Moors received reinforcements and renewed the fight, but were again repulsed by the Portuguese, encouraged by the infante.

The Moors falling back, the infante, followed only by seventeen of his men, pursued them; a desperate fight ensued, principally because the Moors attempted to carry off a Portuguese knight, whom the infante wished to recover. The Moors finally gave way, but the infante Dom Henry found himself shut in by the ruinous walls of the town, with only five knights at his side. Heroically maintaining his difficult position, he waited in vain for reinforcements; he was believed to be dead, until he was at last found by a Portuguese knight.

The infante wished to remain in his dangerous position until reinforcements reached him, but the entreaties addressed to him in the name of his father and Dom Duarte induced him to retreat; he proceeded to join his father at a mosque. Meanwhile the sun had set, and seeing a flight of sparrows resting upon the towers of the fort, the Portuguese inferred that the Moors had abandoned it. Salat ben Salat had fled with the garrison. They thereupon raised the flag of St. Vincent, patron of Lisbon, on the top of the fortress. The conquest was won; the loss on the side of the Moors was heavy, but the Portuguese loss was trifling; we will not however quote any number as great doubts exist on the subject.

On the following day the Moors appeared once more before the fortress; Dom Duarte and the constable sallied out to encounter them; these vain attacks were repeated, but the king strictly forbade his heir to take part in these skirmishes.

On the first Sunday the king decided to hear mass with his sons in the principal mosque of the town, already purified. Two bells pealed joyously from the highest tower. “How is this?” asked the major. The reply is not uninteresting: the town of Lagos had been a few years previously attacked by the Moors, who sacked the place and carried away these bells, and concealed them, but now discovered, they summoned the Christians to divine service.

The service was celebrated with great solemnity; Dom João knighted his sons, Dom Duarte, Dom Pedro, and Dom Henry. On their side João I’s sons knighted various valiant noblemen of their retinue. The aim of the expedition was realised, and the African lion began to give way before the power of Portugal.f

The government of the place was at first offered to a valiant knight, Martin Alfonso de Mello; and when he declined the dangerous honour, it was solicited and obtained by one of greater prowess still, Dom Pedro de Menezes, founder of the illustrious house of Villa Real. Having left a small but select garrison in Ceuta, and provided for the defence of the place against the inevitable assaults of the Moors, João re-embarked, and with the remainder of the armament returned to Lisbon.

The heroism of the governor, Dom Pedro, and of the horsemen he commanded, is the constant and enthusiastic theme of praise by the national writers. The number of skirmishes which he was compelled to sustain during the three years immediately following the reduction of Ceuta is said, no doubt hyperbolically, to have exceeded the number of days. It is certain that during his government the place was frequently assailed by the whole power of the African Moors, aided by the fleet of their brethren of Granada. Sometimes the garrison by sorties obtained considerable booty, especially in flocks and herds. This warfare was as horrid as it was picturesque. When the Christian hidalgos and Almagaveres arrived at the village which they had been ordered to destroy, and the inhabitants of which were sure to be sunk in sleep, they generally divided into two or three bands, forced the doors of the houses, which they set on fire, and either massacred such as attempted to escape, or forced them back into the flames. The sudden conflagration, the shrieks of the women and children, rendered still more dismal by the silence of night, and the bloody figures of the assailants, gazing with ferocious joy on the scene before them, bore a character too demoniacal for this world. When all was finished, when the flames were expiring, and the last groan had pierced the sky, the orthodox warriors returned to the city, “praising God and our Lady for their success.”[148]

To avenge these atrocities, the Moors now gathered in formidable numbers, not merely from the neighbourhood, but from wherever the fame of their wrongs had penetrated; but they were always repulsed by the valiant count, whose exploits are represented as not much inferior to those of the Cid Ruy Diaz, in Valencia. The very exaggerations, however, prove that Dom Pedro was the most valiant knight of a valiant nation. But during three years no formal siege was laid to the place; a circumstance sufficiently explicable by the perpetual struggles for empire among the Mohammedan princes of western Africa. In 1419 the fortress was first invested, and by an army formidable enough to inspire the assailants with the hope of success. In the combats which ensued, the Christians, notwithstanding the loss of some brave captains, were, as usual, victorious; and “a pleasant thing it was,” says the chronicler,d “to see our men, like the waters which flowed on the beach, sprinkled with infidel blood.” After some days the siege was raised, with the loss of some thousands on the part of the Africans. But scarcely had the governor time to congratulate himself on this event, before he received news which filled him with apprehension—that a more formidable army, and a fleet from Granada, were preparing to move against him.

He lost no time in soliciting succour from King João, who as readily granted it. Again was the place invested—this time by sea and land; and, as before, the valour of the besieged was almost superhuman. Fearing, however, that it must ultimately surrender, if not more effectually succoured, the king ordered two of his sons—the infantes Henry and João—to sail with a considerable armament. As they approached the place, they perceived that the Mohammedans had landed, and furiously assailed Dom Pedro, who, with his handful of brave companions, was making terrific carnage among them. This formidable host was totally routed; while the infantes took or dispersed the Moorish vessels, commanded by a prince of the royal house of Granada. This splendid success drew the eyes of all Europe towards this extremity of Africa. That a Christian noble, with so few companions in arms, should not only retain possession of a distant fortress against the frequent attacks of great armies, but should triumph over those armies in the open field, would appear incredible, had not equal wonders been exhibited by the knights of some religious orders. The exploits which have been already recorded were frequently equalled in the sequel by this renowned baron. In the subsequent wars, he was greatly aided by his son, a youth of the same dauntless courage as himself, who made frequent incursions into the Moorish territory, and never failed to return with abundance of spoil.

During these years, the king was constantly employed in the duties of administration. As he advanced in years, his sense of justice appears to have greatly improved; at least we hear no more of the violent acts which disgraced his early days, and which will forever tarnish his memory.e

He re-established his finances by an economy pervading his government and household. He spent little in pomp and splendour; lived frugally, and associated upon an easy footing with the friends of his youth. He was wont to say that conversation was the cheapest of pleasures; and he introduced literary pursuits amongst his courtiers. When he had replenished his exhausted treasury, João made abundant compensation to those whom the inevitable expenses of war had obliged him to offend by revoking the ample donations, with which, upon first receiving the crown, he had recompensed the services that had helped to place it upon his brow. But after satisfying these just claims, João neither lavished his money upon friends and favourites, nor hoarded it in his coffers.

PRINCE HENRY THE NAVIGATOR

A certain employment of João’s wealth ultimately produced far more glory and power, as well as opulence, to his kingdom, than his Mauretanian conquests. His third son, Henry, was the first projector of those remote maritime enterprises and geographical discoveries that opened new channels to the commerce of Europe, poured the riches of the Indies into Portugal, exalted the reputation and consequently the energies of her sons, brought immense realms in Asia and America under her sceptre, and temporarily elevated her to a rank amongst the nations of Europe altogether disproportionate to her natural extent and population.

Prince Henry was grand-master of the order of knights of Christ, instituted by King Diniz, upon the abolition of the Templars, to do battle constantly with the Mohammedans. The grand-master had accompanied his father to the siege of Ceuta, and there highly distinguished himself even beyond his brothers; which circumstance, combining with his strong sense of the duties of his sacred office, inspired him with an irrepressible desire to conquer and convert. But expeditions of the kind he meditated against Mohammedan misbelievers, whether in Spain or Mauretania, could only be undertaken by the authority and under the control of the king, and the infante in consequence turned his thoughts towards the more distant heathen. His studious disposition and especial taste for geography, astronomy, and mathematics also contributed, in all probability, not a little to give his schemes of conquest and conversion that direction. These sciences Dom Henry assiduously cultivated at Sagres, a seaport town he had himself founded near Cape St. Vincent in Algarve, where he drew around him learned men, travellers, and mariners. When he had speculatively satisfied himself of the possibility of sailing round Africa, of which, at that time, little beyond the northern coast was known, and of thus reaching the East Indies, he built and collected vessels in the harbour of Sagres, and sent them forth upon voyages of discovery. The despatch of the first two was determined so suddenly one morning, that it was believed the prince had been favoured with an especial revelation upon the subject during the preceding night, a mark of divine favour of which his great devotion, and the virginal purity of his morals, were judged to render him worthy. Dom Henry fitted out these first expeditions at his own expense; but the king soon entered into his son’s views, and took the principal charge upon himself. Navigation was then still almost in its infancy. The name of Cape Nun had been given to the southernmost African promontory yet known, and terrified the imagination of the ignorant almost as much by its very sound as by the thousand superstitious terrors connected with all beyond it, particularly with the torrid zone, then supposed to be actually uninhabitable from heat. For many years Dom Henry’s mariners advanced only a few leagues past the dreaded cape, and Portugal resounded with murmurs against the waste of men and money occasioned by the infante’s mania for discovery. But Dom Henry persevered, and his father countenanced him. Gradually his captains grew more enterprising, emboldened in some measure by the assistance his astronomical science afforded them. The first, and, during King João’s life, only great fruit of these labours was the rediscovery and settlement of the island of Madeira, about the year 1418. But far from appeasing the popular clamour, this only increased it; the colonising of the island being regarded as a frightful drain upon the population. Nearly about the same time the Canaries were accidentally discovered by an English ship, driven from her course. In 1402 a private adventurer, a Frenchman, named De Bethencourt, with a mixed French and Spanish crew, conquered the savage natives, and took possession of some of these islands, which his heirs afterwards sold to Prince Henry.h

Of Prince Henry it has been said that, to his “enlightened foresight and perseverance the human race is indebted for the maritime discovery, within one century, of more than half the globe.” His funds were drawn from the large revenues of the order of Christ, and the Moors had told him much of the riches of interior Africa and the Guinea coast. He was the victim of unusual opposition and ridicule, as was Columbus, but, like him, was impervious to both. His personality is strongly to credit for the success of his couriers, for, as his biographer Majorg has said: “Had that failure and that ridicule produced on Prince Henry the effect which they ordinarily produce on other men, it is impossible to say what delays would have occurred before these mighty events would have been realised; for it must be borne in mind that the ardour, not only of his own sailors, but of surrounding nations, owed its impulse to this pertinacity of purpose in him.” It is to be charged against Prince Henry that he began the slave-trade, which meant so much of shame to the world. It is pleasant to recall that it was he who, forsaking the usual path of exploration, the land, began to seek the wealth of Araby and India by the water-ways and, beginning that fever of adventurous curiosity that opened new worlds south and west, with him began the age of discovery.a

By João I the era of Cæsar was abolished in Portugal, and the Christian mode of computation adopted. He died in 1433.

THE REIGN OF DUARTE OR EDWARD (1433-1438 A.D.)

The reign of Duarte [or Edward[149]], though short, was doomed to be more disastrous than that of any preceding monarch. The first great calamity was the plague which raged during the whole of his reign, and which lamentably thinned the population. But a greater was an expedition against Tangier, the preparations for which oppressed his people, and the result of which filled the kingdom with murmurs.

The restless ambition of the king’s brother, Ferdinand, hurried him into this disastrous enterprise. This infante had been too young to share in the glorious conquests of Ceuta: and had not, like Pedro or Henry, obtained celebrity either by travelling or science. But he burned for distinction as much as either and proposed an African expedition. The king seems, however, to have entertained very honourable scruples as to the justice of the warfare in which he was about to engage. He proposed the subject to his theologians and the pope. The chief of the Christian world, with more reason than has dictated some papal decisions, replied that there were only two cases in which war against misbelievers could be lawfully undertaken: (1) when they were in possession of territories which had belonged to Christians, and which the latter sought to recover; (2) when by piracy or war, or any other means, they injured or insulted the true believers. In other cases, proceeded his holiness, hostilities are unjust: the elements, earth, air, fire, and water, were created for all; and to deprive any creature without just cause of those necessary things, was a violation of natural right. There was, however, one point which the pontiff omitted to notice: the obligations contracted by every Catholic sovereign, and still more solemnly by every military order, to advance the glory of God—in other words to convert or to destroy the heathen. This consideration removed the scruples of Duarte, and the expedition was resolved.

The inexperience which governed the preparations, and the accidental hindrances which impeded their completion, were regarded as melancholy omens by the people. The armament sailed on August 22nd, 1437, and on the 26th arrived before Ceuta, a place which the heroic governor and his no less heroic son had continued to defend with the same success. The two infantes Henry and Ferdinand, who commanded the present expedition, perceived that instead of fourteen thousand men, the number ordered by the king, they had no more than six thousand. They were advised to solicit and wait for a considerable reinforcement, but with their usual impatience they resolved to proceed to Tangier—Henry by land, and Ferdinand by sea, so as to co-operate with each other. The former reached Tangier without accident on the 23rd day of September, and found that his brother had arrived before him. The Portuguese immediately encamped before the place, which was defended by Salat ben Salat, former governor of Ceuta, with seven thousand Moors. But as if every measure of this ill-concerted expedition were doomed to be at once imbecile and unsuccessful, after sustaining a heavy loss the besiegers, finding that their scaling-ladders were too short, were compelled to retreat with shame from the foot of the ramparts. Before others could be procured from Ceuta, the Moors of Fez and Morocco, amounting, we are gravely told, in numbers to ten thousand horse, and eighty thousand infantry, advanced to raise the siege.[150] Instead, however, of being alarmed at this prodigious force, Henry with four thousand of his valiant troops hastened to give them battle; but so great was the dread which this heroic little band had struck into that immense host, that none of the misbelievers daring to wait for the onset, all escaped with precipitation over the neighbouring hills! But as their numbers soon increased by new accessions to 130,000 men,[151] they returned, and this time fought with courage. After a struggle of some hours this vast force yielded to the impetuousity of the infante Ferdinand and fled, leaving some thousands dead on the field! These wondrous fables are not enough. Indignant at their repeated losses of their brethren, the kings of northwestern Africa combined the whole of the respective forces, and marched towards the place. The surprise of Henry was great on seeing the neighbouring hills moving with life; the number of enemies on this occasion, we are veraciously assured, being sixty thousand cavalry, and seven hundred thousand foot![152] On contemplating, however, the dense and widely extended ranks of the Moslems, even he acknowledged that to withstand such a host would be temerity.

He accordingly gave directions for his little army to fall back and to regain the ships. Before this could be effected, the Africans, like tigers of their own deserts, sprang upon them, eager to drink their blood. But what could even a Portuguese do against myriads? His guards were killed by his side, and he was compelled to retreat, fighting, however, at every step, until he reached the entrenchments, where the contest became more bloody and desperate than it had yet been. Some of the defenders now fled,—for the chroniclers reluctantly allow that even a Portuguese may flee,—but the seamen on board the vessels landed, forced the fugitives to return, and the conflict was sustained during some hours with miraculous valour! Towards night it was suspended; and the infante agreed with his remaining captains that at midnight the Christians should silently leave their entrenchments, pass to the beach, and be received on board.

As the invaders were now without provisions and water, this expedient was the only hope of safety which remained to them. But even of this they were soon deprived by the treachery of Martin Vieyra, Henry’s chaplain, who passed over to the misbelievers, and acquainted them with the project. At this very day the Portuguese are seized with indignant wonder at this almost incredible instance of apostasy and treason; and however great their confidence in the powers of the visible head of the church, or even of the glorious Mother, they doubt whether either or both could, even in the event of repentance, procure for such a wretch the commutation of everlasting to purgatorial fire.[153] In consequence of this information, the Moors stationed a formidable guard along the passages to the sea and on the beach. The following morning they advanced to the trenches; the battle was renewed, and, we are told, sustained for eight hours with unshaken firmness, though with greatly diminished numbers. On this occasion no one exhibited more valour than the bishop of Ceuta; who, as he strode from rank to rank to distribute indulgences with one hand, with the other hewed down the misbelievers in a style that called forth the enthusiastic admiration of the faithful. Now he exhibited the consecrated host, and with tears of devotion besought his dear children in Christ to defend the holy Body; while, at the same time, he gave a practical illustration of his meaning, by aiming another deadly blow at some rash son of perdition.[154]

In the end the enemy, unable to force the entrenchments, set them on fire, and on the approach of night retired. The hours which should have been given to rest were occupied in extinguishing the conflagration, a labour not less fatiguing than the conflict of the day. To allay the hunger of his followers, the infante ordered the horses to be killed; but as there was no water, and as everyone raged with a burning thirst, the boon was scarcely acceptable, until heaven sent a copious shower of rain. But however seasonable this relief, it could only be momentary. Famine, or death by the sword, or what was still worse, perpetual captivity, stared the unhappy Christians in the face, when they received a proposal which they could not have expected. They were promised both life and liberty, as the condition of their surrendering the artillery, arms, and baggage, and restoring the fortress of Ceuta. To men in their desperate condition this proposal was too liberal not to be joyfully accepted. For their performance of the covenant the infante Ferdinand offered himself as hostage; and was accompanied by four other knights. The Moors delivered into the hands of Henry a son of Salat ben Salat. The Portuguese, reduced to three thousand, prepared to re-embark. But with characteristic duplicity, the barbarians attempted to prevent the departure of the Christians, who were constrained to fight their way to the ships.

While this once proud armament was slowly returning to Lisbon, Henry, ashamed to appear at court, proceeded to Ceuta, where fatigue of body and anxiety of mind threw him into a serious illness. No sooner did Prince João, who was then in Algarve, hear of the illness of one brother and the captivity of another, than he repaired to Ceuta. The two infantes there agreed that, as the royal consent to the restoration of the fortress could not reasonably be expected, João should propose the exchange of their brother for the son of the African. The proposal was scornfully rejected by the Moors, who threatened, if the place were not immediately restored, to take signal revenge on the person of the infante. João now returned to Portugal to acquaint the king with the melancholy position of affairs. The states were convoked and the subject proposed. Some deputies voted for the restoration of the fortress and the delivery of the infante; but others considered that the recovery of the prince would be too dearly purchased by the surrender of a place which had cost so much, and which might serve as a point of departure for future conquests. It was accordingly resolved that the prince should remain in captivity until the efficacy of money should be proved vain. His sufferings are represented, probably with truth, as at once cruel and humiliating. No sooner was he delivered into the hands of Salat ben Salat, than he began to experience the most savage barbarity. He was, at first, paraded to a dungeon at Tangier, exposed to the insults of assembled thousands, of whom some spit in his face, others covered him with filth; and, on reaching his temporary abode, his food consisted of the vilest aliments, and his bed was the hard ground. From Tangier he was transferred to Arsilla; but two hours before his departure he was placed on a platform, and again subjected to the insults of the populace. All this he bore with unshaken constancy. No ransom would be received by Salat, whose only object was the recovery of his lost seat of government. But when the king of Castile, Juan II, began to remonstrate against the detention of the infante, and even to threaten hostilities unless a ransom were received for him, the Moor, unwilling to incur the responsibility of his charge, delivered it into the hands of his superior, the king of Fez. By that tyrant Ferdinand was consigned to a subterraneous dungeon, excluded alike from air and light. After some months, however, he was drawn from his prison—doubtless, because his persecutors knew that a longer confinement would soon place him beyond their reach—and made to work, like the vilest slave, in the royal stables and gardens. In this situation he heard of Dom Duarte’s death.

The victim was now subjected to new indignities. Not only was he deprived of all food, except a crust of bread once in twenty-four hours, but he was ironed, put to harder labour, and allowed no apparel beyond a rag, for the modesty of nature. The relation of his sufferings at length moved the pity of his brother Pedro, regent of the kingdom, who, in the name of the royal Alfonso, despatched commissioners to Ceuta, to receive the infante and to remit the keys of that fortress into the hands of the king of Fez. But they soon found that the barbarian had further views; that he insisted on the restoration of the place prior to the delivery of his captive; that his object was to gain possession of their persons, and be thereby enabled to dictate whatever terms he pleased. The negotiations were abruptly ended, and the ill-fated prince transferred to his dungeon, where he languished until 1443, when death put a period to his sufferings. The constancy with which he bore them, his resignation to the divine will, his sweetness of disposition are said to have endeared him to his jailers; and his decease to have called forth the tardy compassion of the royal Moor, who exclaimed that so good a man deserved to know the true faith. His memory accordingly is, as it ought to be, revered in Portugal; but that superstitious nation, not satisfied with the rational sentiment, represents him as a martyr and saint—as one fully entitled to the honours of semi-deification. Miracles[155] are recorded of him with unblushing effrontery.

The unfortunate issue of the African war, and the complaints of his captive brother, most sensibly affected the heart of Duarte, over whom, had his life been spared, fraternal affection would, doubtless, have triumphed. That he meditated another expedition, and that he commenced preparations on a formidable scale, is honourable to his heart: but his subjects were thinned by the plague; commerce was suspended; the fields remained uncultivated; the public revenues were exhausted, and the people unwilling to make further sacrifices. In 1438 he was seized by the plague at Thomar, whither he had retired to escape its fury, and in a few days he breathed his last. This prince was worthy of a better fate. He had qualities of a high order, he was enlightened, just, and patriotic; and if virtue or talent would have controlled the course of human events, his kingdom would have been happy.

THE REGENCY OF PEDRO