It is commonly supposed that the writer of an historical tale idealises
the characters therein represented, heightens the romance of the
situation, and at any rate brings the fairer tints of the scene into
undue prominence. I wish to make it clearly understood that I have not
done so in this instance. The high cultivation, the mutual affection,
the deep piety, all the peculiar characteristics of the Princes of Avis,
are matters of history, and I have only found it impossible to do
justice to them. The personal appearance of the three eldest, and the
special line taken by all of them with regard to the cession of Ceuta,
indeed the whole tragical story, I found ready to hand, the only
imaginary incidents being the meeting of Enrique and Fernando at
Arzella, and the presence of the two boy princes at the siege of Ceuta.
There is a life of the Constant Prince which was written by the priest
to whom I have given the name of Father Jose, which I regret much not
having been able to obtain, though the outline of the story of his
imprisonment is, I believe, taken from it.
The details of the Treaty of Tangier are very obscure; but it appears
that the Moorish king of Granada considered his African brethren as
guilty of a breach of faith in detaining Fernando.
The English characters are of course wholly fictitious.
Lastly, Calderon in his play, "Il Principe Costante," and Archbishop
Trench, in his beautiful poem of the "Steadfast Prince," represent
Fernando as refusing to be ransomed by the cession of Ceuta. This
refusal he had neither the power nor the right to make. His real
nobleness lay in his willing acceptance of the suffering brought on him
by the decision of others.
C.R. Coleridge.