"Yet there is one enemy with whom we cannot be said to be either at war
or at peace, since there cannot be honourable peace with the enemies of
Christ. Yet Christian nations suffer nests of pirates to dwell
undisturbed opposite our very coasts. Our soldiers, our ships, and
innocent children are not safe from the Moors of Africa. When they
swoop down on our shores, it is death or--apostasy for Christian men,
and for our maidens slavery and imprisonment. The very key of their
fastnesses is Ceuta. Could we but take that fortress at the point of
the sword, it would be a deed worthy of Christian princes, of use to
your grace's subjects, and honourable in the eyes of Europe."
Dom Joao looked at his son as if somewhat surprised, to hear so
reasonable and well-considered a proposal. His authority was absolute
over his five young sons, and though he could not but be satisfied with
their progress and development, he had not expected from any of them an
independent opinion.
"Since when have you thought of this expedition?" he said.
"It was suggested to me, sire, by some words of Fernando's," said
Duarte; and Fernando, who had listened with breathless interest, sprang
forward, and with more freedom than Duarte had ventured to use,
exclaimed--
"Oh, dear father, it is the greatest desire of us all!"
"It would be fitter for you and Joao to pursue your studies at home,"
said the King. "Nevertheless, I will consider of this proposal."
The five lads did not shout, as perhaps nature would have inclined them
to do, they bowed, and stood silent till their father withdrew, when
there was a sudden relaxation of their attitude of respectful attention,
and they surrounded their mother, pressing up to her, kissing her hand,
and demanding if they had not at last found the right thing to do.
Philippa was a tall, fair woman, with a beautiful Plantagenet face, and
an expression at once simple and noble, a fit mother of heroes.
"My fair sons," she said, "it is a noble purpose, an object worthy of
Christian swords. It is good that you should win your knighthood by
fighting for Holy Church, rather than for your own vain-glory. If your
father thinks this attempt wise, it will be well, if not--"
"If not," said Dom Duarte, "I will not consent to the year of
tournaments my father proposed for us. It is a mockery, a pretence--I
hate false seeming."
"You do well, my son," said the English mother; "yet the tournaments
might show you fit for real warfare."
"That might be very well for the younger ones," said Pedro.
"I am taller than you," said Enrique, indignantly.
"You said I should be your page, and I will not stay at home," said
Fernando.
"Hush, my boys; do not dispute," said the Queen. "Remember, the true
glory is in doing our duty. If every prince and gentleman went out to
war, who would punish evil-doers and succour the distressed at home!
Your father, who is the wisest man alive, knows that; and Edward must
remember it when his time comes. For you younger ones it will be
different. The blessed saints guide you to seek the right, and to be
worthy of your forefathers."
To whatever degree of cultivation and even of virtue the Mohammedan
kingdoms had attained among themselves, and whatever injury to learning
may have been caused afterwards to mediaeval Christendom by their
violent expulsion from the Peninsula, the Moors of Africa were and must
have been simply an embodiment of evil. The organised system of piracy
which they maintained rendered life and property totally unsafe all
along the Mediterranean. A regular system of ransom was in vogue, and
where the friends of an unfortunate captive were unable to satisfy their
demands, neither rank, nor age, nor calling, was any protection; and
noble knights and aged priests were chained to the oars of their
galleys, or toiled among the sands of Africa, while their fate remained
a mystery to their friends at home--whether death, prolonged suffering,
or far worse, apostasy had been their portion. Martyr or renegade, it
was an awful choice, to be placed once for all before many an honest,
ignorant squire or knight; but "captive among the Moors" was written in
many a pedigree of Southern Europe, in some few even of distant
countries. More still returned, impoverished by their ransom, to tell
of their frightful sufferings; while, most terrible thought of all,
girls and children disappeared now and again--to what fate? Every
Christian sovereign and gentleman felt the ransom to be a disgraceful
black-mail demanded of them, which yet they knew not how to refuse!
There is nothing in the modern world that is quite analogous to the
situation.
The Moors were the enemies of life and property, like the brigands of
our own time, only infinitely more powerful, and as such were feared and
hated. They were also, of course, as now, unbelievers, outside the pale
of the Church; their conversion was a subject of prayer; they were, or
might have been, the objects of missionary labour. But the Moors of the
Middle Ages were something more than this. They were not only ignorant
of Christ; they were the hereditary enemies of Christendom: not merely
of Spain, of Portugal, or of France, nor exactly of the Church Catholic,
as we should understand it, but of that sort of visible, territorial
embodiment of it for which, in old romance, the Seven Champions fought
and which Arthur and his Knights laboured to spread, and the defence of
which made honour as well as religion a spur to every Crusader.
Therefore it was not only as national and personal enemies, or as
blinded heathens, that the knights of Europe regarded the Turks and
Moors, but as the powerful foes of Christ's kingdom on earth, embodied
in Christian nations; so that national honour and religious fervour
worked together, and glory alike for earth and for Heaven was won in
attacking the Crescent with the Cross. It was not only very sad for a
Christian man to see the unbeliever triumph, it was very disgraceful
also.
Alas! if _all_ the evil in the world could have been so embodied!--if
Christendom had had no foes in its own household!--the fight between
good and evil would indeed have been simplified, though not dispensed
with. It was very clear to an old Christian champion that it was his
duty to fight with evil; to do so with a pure heart and unwavering
spirit was just as hard then as now. Our heroes lived in the dawn of a
new day: when other duties were rising into view, other talents coming
to be consecrated, but when the old visible symbolical struggle was
still in full force. For faith, for knowledge, for good government, for
the honour of Christendom, for the old and the new, they all fought and
toiled--and one died.