HENRY'S POLITICAL LIFE. 1433-1441.
The Prince's exile from politics in his hermitage at Sagres could not be
absolutely unbroken. He was ready to come back to Court and to the
battle field when he was needed. So he appeared at the deathbed of his
father in 1433 and of his brother in 1438, at the siege of Tangier in
1437, and during the first years of the Regency (1438-40) he helped to
govern for his nephew, Edward's son Affonso. From 1436 till 1441 he did
not seriously turn his attention back to discovery.
What is chiefly interesting in the story of these years is the
half-religious reverence paid to Henry by his brothers, by Cortés, and
the whole people. He was above and beyond his age, but not so much as to
be beyond its understanding. He was not a leader where there are no
followers; he was one of the fortunate beings who are most valued by
those who have lived on the closest terms with them, by father and by
brothers.
It was believed throughout the kingdom that King John's last words were
"an encouragement to the Infant to persevere in his right laudable
purpose of spreading the Christian faith in the lands of darkness";
whether true or not, at any rate it was felt to fit the place and the
man, and Henry's brothers, Pedro and Edward, took up loyally their
father's commission to keep peace at home and sailing ships on the sea.
But the new reign was short and full of trouble. King Edward had
scarcely been crowned when the scheme of an African war was revived by
Don Ferdinand, the fourth of the "Famous Infants" of the House of Aviz
(1433). Ferdinand, always a Crusader at heart, had refused a Cardinal's
hat, that he might keep his strength for killing the enemies of Christ,
and in Henry he found a ready listener. It was the Navigator, in fact,
who planned and organised the scheme of campaign now pressed upon the
King and the country. It was perfectly natural that he should do so. The
war of Ceuta had been of the first importance to his work of discovery;
it had been largely his own achievement, and his wish to conquer
Heathens and Saracens and to make good Christians of them was hardly
less strong than his natural bent for discovery and exploring
settlement. He now took up Ferdinand's suggestion, made of it a definite
project--for a storm of Tangier--and wrung a reluctant consent from
Edward and from Cortés. The chief hindrance was lack of money; even the
popularity of the Government could not prevent "sore grudging and
murmuring among the people." Don Pedro himself was against the whole
plan, and from respect to his wishes the question was referred to the
Pope. Are we to make war on the infidels or no?
If the infidels in question, answered the Curia, were in Christian land
and used Christian churches as mosques of Mohammed, or if they made
incursions upon Christians, though always returning to their own land,
or if doing none of these things they were idolaters or sinned against
nature, the Princes of Portugal would do right to levy war upon them.
But this should be done with prudence and piety, lest the people of
Christ should suffer loss. Further, it was only just to tax a Christian
people for support of an infidel war, when the said war was of necessity
in defence of the kingdom. If the war was voluntary, for the conquering
of fresh lands from the Heathen, it could only be waged at the King's
own cost.
But before this answer arrived, the armament had been made ready, and
things had gone too far to draw back; the Queen was eager for the war,
and had brought King Edward to a more willing consent. So in the face of
bad omens, an illness of Prince Ferdinand's, and the warning words of
Don Pedro, the troops were put on board ship, August 17, 1437. On August
22d they set sail, and on the 26th landed at Ceuta, where Menezes still
commanded. The European triumphs of 1415 and 1418 were still fresh in
the memories of the Moors, and Don Henry was remembered as their hero.
So it was to him that the tribes of the Beni Hamed sent offers of
submission and tribute on the first news of the invasion. The Prince
accepted their presents of gold and silver, cattle and wood, and left
them in peace during the war, for the forces he had with him were barely
sufficient for the siege of Tangier. Out of fourteen thousand men levied
in Portugal, only six thousand answered the roll-call in Ceuta. A great
number had shirked the dangers of Africa; and the room on shipboard had
in itself been absurdly insufficient. The transports provided were just
enough for the battalions that actually crossed, and for a fresh supply
they must be sent back to Lisbon. In the council of war most were agreed
upon this as the best thing on paper, but the practical difficulties
were so great that Henry decided not to wait for reinforcements, but to
push forward with the troops in hand.
The direct road to Tangier by way of Ximera was now found impassable,
and it was determined to march the army round by Tetuan, while the fleet
was brought up along the coast. Ferdinand, who was still suffering and
unequal to the land journey, was to go by sea, while his elder brother,
as chief captain of the whole armament, undertook to force his way along
the inland routes. In this he was successful. In three days he came
before Tetuan, which opened its gates at once, and on September 23d,
without losing a single man, he appeared before Old Tangier, where
Ferdinand was already waiting his arrival.
A rumour was now spread that the Moors were flying from Tangier as they
had fled from Ceuta castle two and twenty years before, but Zala ben
Zala, who commanded here as he had done there, now knew better how to
defend a town, with the desperate courage of his Spanish foes. The
attack instantly ordered by Henry on the gates of Tangier was roughly
repulsed, and for the next fortnight the losses of the crusaders were so
heavy that the siege was turned into a blockade. On September 30th,
10,000 horse and 90,000 foot came down from the upland to the coast for
the relief of Tangier. Henry promptly led his little army into the open
and ordered an attack, and the vast Moorish host which had taken up its
station on a hill within sight of the camp, not daring to accept the
challenge, wavered, broke, and rushed headlong to the mountains. But
after three days they reappeared in greater numbers and even ventured
down into the plain. Again Henry drove them back; again--next day--they
returned; at last, after their force had been swollen to 130,000 men,
and by overwhelming numbers had compelled the Christians to keep within
their trenches, they threw themselves upon the Portuguese outposts.
After a desperate struggle they were repulsed and a sally from the town
was beaten back at the same time; the Europeans seemed ready to meet any
odds. With these victories, Henry was confident that Tangier must soon
fall; he ordered another escalade, but all his scaling ladders were
burnt or broken and many of his men crushed beneath the overhanging
parts of the wall, that were pushed down bodily upon the storming
parties. In this final assault of the 5th of October, two Moors were
taken who told Henry of immense succours now coming up under the Kings
of Fez, of Morocco, and of Tafilet. They had with them, said the
captives, at least 100,000 horse; their infantry was beyond count. Sure
enough; on the 9th of October, the hills round Tangier seemed covered
with the native armies, and it became clear that the siege must be
raised. All that was left for Henry was to bring off his soldiers in
safety. He tried his best. With quiet energy he issued his orders for
all contingents; the marines and seamen were to embark at once; the
artillery was given in charge of the Marshal of the Kingdom; 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; but when night fell, the Moorish columns fell
sullenly back and left the Infant one more chance of flight and safety.
It was the only hope, and even this was lost through the desertion of a
traitor. Martin Vieyra, the apostate priest, once Henry's chaplain, now
gave up to the enemy's generals the whole plan of escape.
After a long debate, it was determined, not to massacre the Christian
army, but to take sureties from them that Ceuta should be restored with
all the Moorish captives in the Prince's hands. These terms were
accepted, for it was soon known that escape was hopeless.
But next morning a large party of Moors, with more than the ordinary
Moslem treachery, made a last fierce attempt to surprise the camp. For
eight hours, eight separate attacks went on; when all had failed, the
retreating Berbers tried to set fire to the woodwork of the
entrenchments. With the greatest trouble, Henry saved his timbers, and
under cover of night fortified a new and smaller camp close to the
shore. Food and water had both run short, and the besiegers, who were
now become the besieged, had to kill their horses and cook them, with
saddles for fuel. They were saved from a fatal drought by a lucky shower
of rain, but their ruin was only a matter of time, for it was hopeless
to try an embarkation under the walls of the city with all the hosts of
Morocco waiting for the first chance of a successful storm; but the
losses of the native kings and chiefs had been so great that they were
ready to sign a written truce and to keep their cut-throats to the terms
of it.
On the 15th of October, Don Henry, for the Portuguese, agreed that
Ceuta, with all the Moorish prisoners kept in guard by Menezes, should
be given up and that no further attack should be made by the King of
Portugal on any side of Barbary for one hundred years. The arms and
baggage of the crusaders were to be surrendered at once: directly this
was done they were to embark, with none of the honours of war, and to
sail back at once to Europe. Don Ferdinand was left with twelve nobles
as hostages for the treaty till Ceuta was restored; on the other side
Zala ben Zala's eldest son was all the security given. Even after this,
a plot was laid to massacre the "Christian dogs" as they passed through
the streets of Tangier, on their free passage to the harbour which the
treaty secured them. Henry got wind of this just in time, and instantly
embarked his men by boats from the shore outside the walls, but his
rearguard was set upon just as they were leaving the land and about
sixty were killed.
It was a terrible disaster. Although his losses were but some five
hundred killed and disabled, Henry was overcome with the disgrace. As he
thought of his brother among the Moors, he refused to show his face in
Portugal and shut himself up in Ceuta. Here, as he worried himself to
find some means of saving Ferdinand, he fell dangerously ill, till fresh
hope came to him with the arrival of Don John, whom Edward had sent to
the help of his brothers with some reserves from Algarve. Henry and John
consulted about Ferdinand's ransom and at last offered their chief
hostage, Zala ben Zala's boy, as an exchange for the Infant. It was the
only ransom, they told the Moors, that would ever be thought of; Ceuta
would never be surrendered.
Don John's mission was a failure, as might have been expected, and both
the Princes were now recalled to Portugal, where Henry steadily refused
to go to Court, staying at Sagres in an almost complete retirement from
his usual interests, till King Edward's death forced him again into
action. It was the unavoidable shame of the only choice given to
himself and the kingdom that paralysed his energy, and made him moody
and helpless through this time of inaction and disgrace.
"Captive he saw his brother, bright Fernand
The Saint, aspiring high with purpose brave,
Who as a hostage in the Saracen's hand
Betrayed himself his 'leagured host to save.
Lest bought with price of Ceita's potent town
To public welfare be preferred his own."[37]
[Footnote 37: Camoëns' _Lusiads_, iv., 52.]
The mere failure to storm Tangier was brilliantly atoned for by the
bravery of the army and the repeated victories over immensely superior
force. But now either Ceuta must be exchanged for Ferdinand, or the
youngest and favourite brother of the House of Aviz must be left to die
among the Berbers. Many, if not most of the Cortés, summoned in 1438 to
Leiria to discuss the ransom, were in favour of letting Ceuta go; but
all the chiefs of the Government, except the King himself, "thought it
not just to deliver a whole people to the fury of the infidels for the
liberty of one man." Even Henry at last agreed in this with Don Pedro
and Don John.
Edward was in despair; he was willing to pay almost any price to recover
Ferdinand, and in hope of finding support he now appealed from his own
royal house and his nobles to the Pope, the cardinals, and the crowned
heads of Europe. All agreed that a Christian city must not be bartered
even for a Christian Prince; Edward's offers of money and "perpetual
peace" were scornfully rejected by the Moors, who held to their bond
"Ceuta or nothing"--and their wretched captive, treated to all the
filthy horrors of Mussulman imprisonment and slavery and torture, died
under his agony in the sixth year of his living death and the
forty-first of his age, 5th June, 1443.
Before this his loss had dragged down to the same fate his eldest
brother, King Edward, and but for the inspiration of a great purpose,
which again put meaning into his life, Henry might have died of the same
"illness of soul." Every Portuguese burned to revenge the Constant
Prince; the Pope was called upon to approve a new crusade, levies were
made and vessels built, when the plague broke out with terrible
violence, and ravaged every class and every district as it had not since
the days of the Black Death. The King, seized by it in his misery and
weakness and bitter disappointment, fell a victim. The wreck of all his
hopes left him with hardly a wish to live, and on September 9, 1438, at
the age of forty-seven, and after a reign of five years, he died at
Thomar, in the act of breaking open a letter, but not before Henry had
come to his side.
To the last he kept on working for his people, and it was in the fatigue
of travelling from one plague-stricken town to another that he caught
the pest. Among all the kings of Christendom there was never a better,
or nobler, or more luckless, an Alfred with the fortune of "Unready"
Ethelred.
By his last will there was fresh trouble provided for Don Henry and Don
Pedro and the Cortés. His successor--the child Affonso V., now six years
of age--was strictly charged to rescue Ferdinand even at the price of
Ceuta; this was nothing to practical politics; but in naming his wife,
Leonor of Aragon, along with Don Pedro and Don Henry, as guardian of his
children and regent of the kingdom, he put power in the wrong place.
The Portuguese were always intensely suspicious of foreign government,
and after the age of Leonora Telles they might well refuse a female
Regent. On the other side King Edward's Queen, who had won his absolute
trust as a wife and a mother, was not willing to stand aside for Pedro
or for Henry. She began to organise a party, and she worked on her side,
the nobles and the patriots counterworked on theirs. Don John was the
first of her husband's brothers to take his natural place as a leader of
the national opposition; Henry for a time seemed to waver between
friendship and loyalty; all who knew the Queen loved her, but the people
hated the very notion of a foreign female reign. Like John Knox they
could not be fair to the Monstrous Regiment of Women, and their voices
grew clearer and clearer for Don Pedro and his rights, real or supposed.
The eldest of the young King's uncles, the right-hand man of the State
since his return from travel in 1428, he was the proper guardian of the
kingdom; Henry was a willing exile from most of Court life, though his
support was the greatest moral strength of any government; John had
begun the movement of discontent, but no one thought of him before his
brothers; while they lived his only part was in helping them on their
way.
Donna Leonor recognised her chief danger in Don Pedro, and tried to win
him over. When she summoned Cortés, she pressed him to sign the royal
writs; then she offered to betroth his daughter Isabel to her son; Pedro
secured a written promise, and waited for the opening of the National
Assembly in 1439. Here a fierce outcry was raised by a party of the
nobles against the marriage-settlement of their King, but Don Pedro was
too strong to be put down. He moved on by slow and steady intrigue
towards the Regency he claimed. Henry had now appeared as peacemaker,
and in his brother's interests arranged a compromise. The Queen was to
keep the actual charge of her children, and to train the little King for
his duties; Pedro was to govern the state as "Defender of the Kingdom
and of the King"; the Count of Barcellos, soon to be Duke of Braganza,
the leader of the factious and fractious party, was to be bought off
with the Administration of the Justice of the Interior.
The Queen at first struggled on against this dethronement; fortified
herself in Alemquer, and sent for help from her old home in Aragon. At
this the mob rose in fury and only Henry was able to prevent a massacre
and a war that would have stopped the expansion of Portugal abroad for
many a day. He went straight to Alemquer (1439), talked Queen Leonor
into reason, and brought her back with him to Lisbon, where she
introduced Affonso to his people and his Parliament. For another year
Henry stayed at Court, completing his work of settlement and
reconciliation, and towards the end of 1440 that work seemed fairly
safe. The fear of civil war was over; Don Pedro's government was well
started; Henry could now go back to Sagres to his other work of
discovery.
It was time to do something on this side. For in the past five years
scarcely any progress had been made to Guinea and the Indies.