ENGLAND’S OLDEST ALLY
My wife and I having spent the New Year 2024 with some old friends in Lisbon, I am reminded of what wonderful people the Portuguese are, and that Lisbon must be one of the nicest capitals in Europe – lots to see, many delightful patisseries and cafés, and a complete absence of the more usual ‘fleece the foreigner, particularly if he is British’ attitude found elsewhere. Indeed Portugal is probably the only country in Europe, with the possible exception of Norway, where they actually like the British. Most people know that Portugal is England’s oldest ally, but are not entirely sure how that came about.
In 1337 the twenty-five year old King Edward III of England stated his claim to the throne of France as of right. Edward, through his mother Isabella, was the nearest male relative of the last of the French Capetian kings who had died without issue. He was the grandson of a French king and a first cousin to three. The French gave the throne to Philip of Anjou, who was but a nephew of a king, and so began the series of battles and campaigns that have become known as ‘The Hundred Years War’ which lasted for rather more than a hundred years until 1453.
At this time Spain had not yet been united, and while the borders of Portugal had been fixed by 1200 (they are the oldest borders in Europe and unchanged since then) she was a vassal state of Castile Léon, the latter allied to France. Portugal sought independence and it was in England (not yet the United Kingdom)’s interest to support anything that would weaken the traditional enemy, France. The first English-Portuguese alliance was signed in 1373 and England sent a military training team to teach the Portuguese English methods and tactics, In 1385 seven thousand Portuguese, supported by a one hundred strong company of English archers, roundly defeated thirty thousand French and Castilian troops at the Battle of Aljubarrota. Professionalism, disciplined infantry and the missile weapon of the archers had triumphed over French feudalism. Portugal, with a population of only one million, despite being desperately poor, was now independent and looking to England as her protector from French and Spanish designs. The alliance was formalised by the Treaty of Windsor in 1386, the oldest treaty still in existence and still valid. The following year, in 1387, Phillipa of Lancaster, the daughter of John of Gaunt and a grand-daughter of Edward III, married King John I of Portugal. Both were old for royal marriages, she twenty-seven and he ten years older, but between them they had nine children of whom six survived into adulthood.
King John and Queen Phillipa’s fifth child and second son, Henry, led the invasion of the Muslim port of Ceuta, which was the beginning of the Portuguese Empire. Known as Henry the Navigator he despatched sea-born expeditions to find a route to India and the East as an alternative to the overland Silk Road, dominated by the Chinese and the Ottoman Turks. It was Henry who ushered in the ‘Age of Discovery’ and successive Portuguese explorers posted stone pillars along the west coast of Africa to show how far they had gone. Henry died before the Cape of Good Hope was discovered but in 1488 Bartolomeu Dias rounded the Cape but found his men would go no further, and it was not until 1497/99 that Vasco da Gama established contact with India via the Cape. In the meantime King John II had told Christopher Columbus that he was not interested in financing an expedition to find a westerly route as they already had one. Columbus went to the Spanish instead. Departing in 1519 it was Ferdinand Magellan’s expedition that first circumnavigated the world, although Magellan himself was killed in the Philippines. Although Portuguese with Portuguese ships and crew, he was financed by Spain, having fallen out with King Manuel of Portugal. Of the 300 men and five ships that set out, only two ships and seventy men returned.
Monument to Henry the Navigator on the bank of the River Tagus in Lisbon
In 1581 King Phillip II of Spain, he who had been married to but abandoned Mary Tudor, queen-regnant of England, invaded Portugal. England under Elizabeth I sent troops but the expedition arrived too late and Phillip, now proclaimed as Phillip I of Portugal, suspended the treaty. The result was that the Spanish Armada, of 1588, contained 28 Portuguese ships, out of a total of 130, crewed by reluctant sailors who would much rather have been fighting for England than against her.
It was not until 1640 that an anti-Spanish revolt began the process of regaining Portuguese independence and in a number of engagements over the next ten years Portuguese armies supported by English troops drove out the Spanish. The duke of Braganza was proclaimed as King John IV of Portugal and reinstated the Treaty of Windsor, suspended under Spanish rule.
Next Week: Portugal in England’s Wars.
I take it you mean John Fox Burgoyne Royal Engineer, Retreat to Corruna, Peninsula War, War of 1812, versus Dom Miguel 1826, Crimean War? I have lectured on engineers in the Peninsula, but there are so many interesting soldiers, both British and Portuguese, who served there that I would probably take up a year of Substack devoted to them alone!
Looking forward to the chaser of this lesson. One of my beloveds was in Portugal for New Years this year as well. A happy connection!