The Red Book of Heroes Part 9

Yet in different ways three out of the four are very well known to us.

One flits through a delightful romance of the great deeds of the Crusaders; a second is remembered for having risked her life to save her husband from a speedy and painful death, and for the crosses which he set up on every spot which her body touched on its road to its last resting-place; while the fourth and latest had a troubled life and every kind of insult heaped on her.

_Now_ can you guess?

In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries marriages between England and the countries south of the Pyrenees were very frequent, for in those times Spain was our natural ally, and France our enemy. Two of Edward III.'s sons, John of Gaunt and Edmund of Langley, married the daughters of Pedro the Cruel, king of Castile, and Constance, wife of John of Gaunt, had the pleasure of seeing her own daughter reigning by-and-by in her old home, while Philippa, John of Gaunt's elder daughter by his first wife, became queen of Portugal.

Philippa's husband had no real right to the kingdom of Portugal, for the legal heir was the queen of Castile, the only child of Fernando. But her uncle, grand master of the order of Aviz, was dear to the hearts of the Portuguese, who would tell their children in low voices the sad story of his father's first wife, the beautiful Inez de Castro, whose embalmed body was crowned by her husband, many years after her cruel murder. And besides their love for the master of Aviz, the Portuguese hated the Castilians, as only near neighbours _can_ hate each other, and were resolved to choose their own sovereign. So war followed, and John of Gaunt fought with his English soldiers on the side of the master of Aviz, or 'John I.,' against his wife's nephew, Henry III. of Castile, and during the war he kept his daughters with him in the peninsula.

It was in 1378 that John I. married Philippa, the elder of the two princesses. According to the notions of those times the bride must have been 'quite old,' for she was twenty-seven, only a year younger than her bridegroom, and very happy they were. The queen of Portugal had been brought up in England amongst clever people, had heard grave questions discussed from her childhood, and seen her father grow uneasy as fresh reports of Richard II.'s follies and extravagance came to his ears. From her stepmother, Constance of Castile, she had learned to speak Spanish, and knew much of the customs of the kingdoms south of the Pyrenees; so that it was easy for her to fall into the ways of her new country, though she never ceased to love her old land, and to teach her children to love it too. She trained her sons to bear hards.h.i.+ps without complaining, to be true to their word, and to be affectionate and faithful to each other, while she had them taught something of the histories of other countries, and saw that they could speak Latin and English, as well as Spanish and French. As to the art of war, and all knightly exercises, she left those to her husband.

When the eldest of the princes, dom Duarte, or Edward, was twenty years old, he came one day to the king, telling him that he and his three next brothers, Pedro, Enrique, and John, were burning to strike a blow against the infidel Moors, and besought him to lead an expedition against the town of Ceuta, on the African coast. In those days it was considered a good deed to fight against the followers of Mahomet the prophet, and king John agreed gladly to what his sons proposed; but he was more prudent than they, and did not intend to raise the standard of the Cross before he had made sure of defeating the Crescent. Therefore he took means to find out secretly the exact position of Ceuta, the extent of the fortifications, and other things it was needful for him to know, and then he laid his plans before queen Philippa, who always gave him good counsel. To his surprise and disappointment Philippa prayed him to give it all up.

The country, she said, was still poor from the wars of succession with Castile, which had seated her husband on the throne, and if the men were taken away across the seas, who would till the fields and reap the crops?

But, urged the king, he felt sure that the people would welcome the crusade; he had bidden one of his trusted officers to go amongst them, and had heard how their faces brightened at the bare idea that perhaps _some_ day, no doubt in the future, the golden sh.o.r.es of Africa might be s.n.a.t.c.hed from the unbelievers' grasp. Oh, no, he had no fears about his army, though of course he would take every care to make victory certain.

Queen Philippa listened, but only shook her head.

'At least you will not go yourself?' she answered after a pause; 'the kingdom needs you'; then like a wise woman she held her peace and began to talk of something else.

Although king John did not give up his cherished scheme, he hesitated about carrying it out for three years longer, and then he succeeded in blinding the eyes of Europe as to the real object of his preparations. A large fleet was a.s.sembled in the mouth of the Tagus, 'to punish the Dutch pirates,' it was said; but, just as it was ready to sail, the queen caught the plague which was raging in Portugal. By this time she had made up her mind to the war, though she was hardly convinced of its wisdom, and as soon as she felt that she was nearing death she sent for her sons, and giving them each a splendid sword which she had ordered to be specially forged and beautifully inlaid, she added a few words of counsel. Then she bade her husband farewell, and entreated him to leave her, lest he also should catch the plague and be lost to his country.

Her sons she kept with her to the end.

A week later, on July 25, 1415, the fleet sailed for Ceuta.

Only two of the king's five sons remained in Portugal, and they were the youngest, dom John and dom Fernando. Fernando was a delicate boy of thirteen, versed in Latin, and, like his brother Duarte, a pa.s.sionate lover of books, only happy when alone with some old ma.n.u.script or roll of illuminated prayers, yet thirsting to do his duty by ridding the world of as many infidels as possible. It was a blow when he found that he was not allowed to join the army of Africa, but, as was his way, he made no complaint; only when the news came of the fall of Ceuta his heart burned, half with envy and half with triumph. How he longed to make one of the group of brothers who had covered themselves with glory, and had been knighted by their father in the mosque, which was now consecrated and declared a cathedral. But he was getting stronger every day, and by-and-by he felt that a halo of glory would enshrine his name also. And so it has, and will for all time, only it was won in another way from those of his brothers.

It was soon after his return from Africa that king John's health began to break down, and though he lived for eighteen years longer, he left the government of Portugal mostly to his son Duarte, who was guided in military matters by the advice of his father's old friend, the constable of the kingdom. Fighting still went on in the neighbourhood of Ceuta, but though the other princes, or infantes, took part, Fernando stayed in Portugal.

We know little as to how he pa.s.sed his time. Probably he shared the studies of prince Duarte, who collected a large library and himself wrote a book of philosophical maxims, which gained him the surname of Duarte the Eloquent. The two brothers were bound together by the same tastes, and we may be sure Duarte approved when by-and-by Fernando refused the pope's offer of a cardinal's hat, on the ground--unheard of at that period--that, not being a priest, he was quite unfitted to wear it. For the same reason, though the cases were rather different, he wished also to refuse the office of grand master of the order of Aviz, which had been held by his father; but in the end Duarte's counsels prevailed, and he kept it.

Fernando was thirty years old when his father died, and never yet had his sword left its sheath, though he longed from his soul to join in the frequent expeditions that went out from Ceuta to attack the strongholds of the unbelievers scattered about the coast. But king John always refused to let him leave the country, thinking he was too delicate to bear the hards.h.i.+ps of a soldier's life; and so Fernando stayed at home, making himself as happy as he could with his books and his prayers, and long philosophical talks with Duarte. Now Duarte was king, and perhaps Fernando would be able to gain his heart's desire.

The new king was putting on his robes for the ceremony of his proclamation when his physician craved humbly an immediate audience. Dom Duarte wondered what could have happened which made an interview so necessary at that inconvenient moment, but master Guedelha was an old friend, so orders were given to admit him at once.

'Oh, senhor,' exclaimed the physician, as soon as they were alone, 'do not, I beseech you, suffer yourself to be proclaimed before noon; the hour you have fixed on is an evil one, and the stars which rule it are against you.'

Sad though he was, dom Duarte could hardly help smiling at the earnestness of the man; but he answered gravely that, greatly as he respected the knowledge of the stars, his faith in G.o.d was greater still, and nothing could befall him that was contrary to His will. In vain Guedelha fell on his knees and implored him to delay till the fatal hour was past; Duarte refused to change his plans, and at length the old man rose to his feet.

[Ill.u.s.tration: In vain Guedelha implored him to wait till the fatal hour was past.]

'I have done all I could,' he said; 'on your own head be it. The years of your reign will be short and full of trouble to yourself, and to those you love, and to the country.'

Although dom Duarte had so steadily declined to listen to the prayers of Guedelha, he had enough 'respect,' as he had said, for the science of astrology, as the study of the stars was called, to feel very uncomfortable at the prophecy of the physician. But he could not draw back now, even if he wished, and 'Eduarte, king of Portugal,' was thrice proclaimed and the royal standard unfurled and raised. When this was done, the n.o.bles and officials kissed the king's hand and swore allegiance to him. Then Duarte went back to his palace, and took off his crown and robes of state, and put on deep mourning for his father.

For some time dom Duarte had been governing the kingdom under the direction of John I., so affairs went on much as before. He and his brothers were the best of friends, and he often sought their counsel, especially that of dom Pedro, only a year younger than himself. Pedro was one of the wisest princes in Europe, as well as one of the best, and if his brothers had listened to his advice the prophecy of master Guedelha might have come to naught. Like the rest, he loved books, and even wrote poetry, and during his father's lifetime made many voyages along the coast of Africa, though he was no discoverer of strange lands like dom Enrique. But for the present his duty was in Portugal, where Duarte wanted him.

In this way things went on for two or three years, during which the plague broke out in Portugal, and people died like flies, as they did in those days when dirt and ignorance helped infection to spread and prevented cure. The king and his brothers did all in their power to check it and a.s.sist the poor people; but nothing was of much good, and, as usual, the plague was left to wear itself out, which in time it did.

Meanwhile the years were going by, and the physician's prophecy was drawing near fulfilment. And this is how the disasters came about.

The infante--so the Spaniards and Portuguese formerly called their princes--the infante dom Fernando grew tired of remaining idle at home, and besought Duarte to allow him to travel and take service under some foreign king, most likely that of England, where his young cousin Henry VI. was reigning. 'Of course,' he said, 'if his own country needed him he would come back at once, but the Portuguese had ever been wanderers, and it was his turn to go with the rest.'

To his surprise Duarte's face clouded as he listened, and there was a long pause before he spoke. Then he implored Fernando to think no more of his cherished plan, but to remain quietly in Portugal, else wrong would be done to both of them in the minds of men, for strangers would hold that he, the king, treated his brother so ill that Fernando was forced to seek his fortune elsewhere, or that Fernando was so possessed by desire for gain that he was ready to give up all for its sake.

Fernando heard him to the end without speaking; it was plain that even this brother, who he thought knew him best, had judged him wrongly. For years the young man had kept silence about his desire to see other countries, and the ruins of the cities which had once given law to the world, and the result was that he had been held by all to be a man of no spirit, a bookworm, content with the little duties that every day brought him. Ah, no! the hour for those had gone by, and a freer life called to him!

Seeing that his words made no impression on dom Fernando's resolve, the king sought dom Enrique, praying him to use his eloquence in order to prevail on Fernando to give up his plan. But he would have been wiser to have left things alone, for Enrique merely turned his brother's thoughts into a new and more alarming direction. Why take service under a foreign king when there were Moors at hand to fight? Let them cross the sea and deliver Tangier from the Moslem.

When the king heard of this new project he was nearly beside himself.

After the long wars which seated John on the throne, and the constant expense of maintaining the fortress of Ceuta, the country was too poor to be able to undertake a fresh expedition, and then the plague had carried off so many men that he did not know where the army was to come from. But the match had been put to the wood, and Enrique secretly went to the queen and asked for her help to persuade the king, promising that when he and Fernando should have conquered the north of Africa, they would go and live there, and leave their possessions in Portugal to her children.

The bait took; queen Leonor promised to use all her influence, which was great, with the king, but before she had a chance of doing so the wild scheme of the two infantes received still stronger support from an unexpected quarter. Some time earlier the king had asked the pope to give him a Bull, or papal doc.u.ment, allowing him to raise a crusade whenever he thought it would have a chance of success. At the moment the pope was busy with several other affairs nearer home, and returned no answer. When at last he had leisure to attend to the king of Portugal's request, and sent over an abbot with the Bull, Duarte seems to have forgotten all about the matter, and was filled with dismay. Of course his brothers were delighted and declared that the king could no longer resist!

In spite, however, of wife, pope, and brothers, the king _did_ resist, though he went as far as to say that any expedition which _might_ be undertaken must be directed against Tangier, and that fourteen thousand men would be the utmost that he could furnish. But when he had yielded this much, it was difficult for him to refuse his consent, even though dom John and dom Pedro spoke strongly in a family council of the folly of beginning a war when the treasury was empty and the people unwilling to bear the burden of taxation.

Dom Pedro's words found their echo in the heart of Duarte. They said what his own sense had told him, and he was filled with fears for the future, though he could not break his promise. One last effort he made, and this was an appeal to the pope as to whether it was lawful to impose a tax for the purpose of making war against the infidels. The pope and his cardinals decided that it was _not_, as the infidels had not made war upon _him_, and Duarte, though more than ever cast down, had not the courage to acknowledge that he had been hasty and foolish, and, bitterly though he repented of his weakness, he allowed Enrique to equip fleets in Lisbon and in Oporto.

But when, at the end of August 1436, the hour of departure arrived, the king had recovered himself, and handed Enrique a paper of instructions which would probably have changed the fate of the expedition had they been followed. Unfortunately, Enrique was a headstrong man, and thought that he _must_ know better than his stay-at-home brother, who had not seen a battlefield for eighteen years. He had listened contemptuously to dom Pedro when he pointed out that African conquests were both expensive and useless, that the cities, even if taken, could never become part of Portugal, and would always need garrisons to hold them, and smiled scornfully at the statement that any Portuguese force besieging Tangier would in its turn of a surety be besieged by a Moorish host, who would gather men from all parts and have a supply of provisions constantly at hand.

'Those whom the G.o.ds will to destroy they first infatuate,' says the proverb, and no man was ever more infatuated than the infante dom Enrique. The fourteen thousand men of which the king had spoken had dwindled down to six thousand, and these were but half-hearted. Small as the force was, dom Duarte had instructed Enrique to divide it into three, in order to prevent the Moors from concentrating large numbers upon one place. This counsel Enrique declined to follow, nor did he attempt to surprise and take Tangier by a.s.sault, which might possibly have been successful. Instead, he allowed the Moors to a.s.semble a large army and to put the town in a state of defence. Finally, he totally disobeyed the wise counsel of Duarte to make his camp close to the sea, where his s.h.i.+ps lay at anchor, in order that provisions and a retreat might be secured to them.

Having thus done all in his power to ensure defeat, only one thing remained, and that was 'to die like good men with constant souls,' in the words which the poet Calderon puts into the mouth of Fernando. Too late Enrique perceived the snare into which his folly had led them, and a.s.sembling his little army, gave orders that at night, when the Moorish camp was quiet, they should cut their way through to the s.h.i.+ps and put to sea. Their attacks on Tangier had been repulsed with heavy losses, he told them, and if the enterprise was ever to be carried through they must first seek reinforcements.

The men agreed with him, and prepared to sell their lives dearly.

Silently at the appointed time they crept up to the Moorish tents, beyond which lay safety and the great galleons. But the chaplain, unluckily, had been before them. As soon as darkness fell he had deserted to the enemy, and the sight of the large force drawn up in order of battle was the first sign of warning to the Christians that they had been betrayed.