A Wind From the North (30 page)

When he began his voyages of exploration, the farthest point known on the African coast was Cape Not, opposite the Canary Islands on approximately the latitude of 29 degrees north. In over forty years of steady navigation, his seamen had explored and charted a coastline stretching over 18 degrees of latitude —a little more than one thousand miles. In the four decades that followed, Africa would be rounded, and contact made by sea with India, the Far East, and the Americas. Distances like a thousand miles were to be constantly covered by ships, sailing entirely out of sight of land, within thirty years of his death. Henry initiated the great Age of Discovery; he did not live to see its full growth. But it is the first step in any new venture that is the most difficult, and Henry had to combat a whole climate of superstition and destroy a centuries-old conception of a limited world. He and his assistants had to evolve by trial and error the charts, the instruments, and the ships for longdistance seafaring. He had to train and educate a new type of man, making navigators out of courtiers, and deep-sea sailors out of coastal fishermen.

His achievement was unique—something that can never be repeated. For tens of thousands of years, the races of mankind had been living in separate continents and islands. Vast and complex civilizations in Europe and the East had risen and sunk into decay, without ever having communicated with each other. The wisdom, the technical knowledge, and the culture of one group of peoples were kept apart from those of others by the barriers of the ocean. Henry changed all that, and in doing so changed the course of world history. The Renaissance was a rebirth of the knowledge and skills of the classical world —a rediscovery, in fact. Prince Henry’s achievement was the discovery of things that had never been known before.

It was curiosity and the spirit of inquiry—voiced in that one word “Farther!”—that drove the caravels into the Atlantic and down the coast of Africa. The years of apparent failure between 1418 and 1434 (when Gil Eannes finally rounded Cape Bojador) were perhaps the most significant in Henry’s life. It was during this period that he, and he alone, persevered in the face of contumely, ridicule, and endless expense. It was the ability to go on and on, listening always with tact and patience to tales of failure, that distinguished this man. He set in motion not only the Age of Discovery but four hundred years of European colonization—a process that has been decried in our own time, but without which vast regions of the globe might still be in a state of barbarism.

After his return from the triumph of Alcagar in November, 1458, Henry was busy setting his affairs in order. Aware perhaps that his death was not far off, he began to plan the extension of his life’s work into the future by seeing that the foundations were well ordered. Businesslike and methodical, he was attending to the affairs of his islands, to the University of Lisbon, the chapel he had founded at Belem near the mouth of the Tagus, the hospital he had built at Tomar (the headquarters of the Order of Christ), and the erection of further buildings on Sagres. The sound of the sea was always in his ears—the ceaseless rumor of the Atlantic and the sigh of the wind over the headland.

In the summer of 1460 he formally transferred the islands of Terceira and Graciosa in the Azores to his adopted son, Fernando. He arranged for the Cape Verde group to be administered by the crown, and two of the Azores by the Order of Christ. The first discoveries of his life, Madeira and Porto Santo, were already under the spiritual jurisdiction of the Order, and Henry requested that in them, and in the other islands where churches had been founded, Masses should be said for his soul. Like a sailor securing his ship for sea, he made his last preparations.

Diogo Gomes was always with him in these months. It was Gomes, one of Henry’s finest navigators and closest companions, who left us the short record of his master’s death. “In the late autumn of 1460 Prince Henry fell ill in his town on Cape St. Vincent.…” The sailing season was over, and all the ships were home from Africa and the islands. Morocco was quiet. All was well at Ceuta, the garrison at Alcagar had been reinforced, and the new mole had been completed. There was nothing to keep him any more. He had known “that lust for search which drives sails toward undiscovered lands” and now he could cry, “The shore has faded! The last fetter has fallen from me… .”

On Thursday, November 13, 1460, Prince Henry died in his palace on the rock of Sagres. He was sixty-six years old. That night they carried his body to the church of Santa Maria in Lagos, and “King Affonso and all the people of Portugal mourned the death of so great a prince.”

Beneath the dark November sky, to the boom of Atlantic rollers on the cape, the procession made its way by torchlight to the Port of the Caravels. For over a month Diogo Gomes remained in Lagos near the body of the Prince. While the priests kept their vigils, and Masses were said for the repose of his soul, the faithful navigator watched over his master.

It was not until the end of December that the coffin was transferred to Batalha, where King Affonso and his brother Fernando awaited the last of their uncles. When Gomes looked at the body before its removal to Batalha, he found that Prince Henry, in death as in life, was wearing a hair shirt next to his skin. Without any great pomp or ceremony, he was laid to rest in the chapel, next to King John and Queen Philippa and his brothers. “I will have no mourning made for me,” he had ordered in his will. “Only let me be commended to God decorously and simply.”

Such was the end of one of the most outstanding men the world has ever known—Henry, Prince of Portugal, Grand Master of the Order of Christ, Governor of Ceuta and the Algarves, Duke of Viseu, and Lord of Covilham, Knight of the Garter—the Navigator. “Fortunate Prince … I think of the manner in which you welcomed all, how you gave ear to all, and how you passed most of your days and nights busy with so many cares and labours, in order that many people might profit thereby. I see, too, how the land and the seas are full of your name; for, by continual effort, you have united the East with the West…

On the frieze of his tomb is carved his motto: Talent de bien faire. The carved stone figure of the Prince tells us nothing. His monument is on the sea, where the ships of all nations pass the Sacred Headland along the ocean trade routes of the world.

1394, March 4 Birth of Prince Henry

1411 Peace with Castile

1412-15 Preparations for capture of Ceuta

1415, July 18 Death of Queen Philippa

1415, August 21 Capture of Ceuta

1416 Prince Henry made Governor of Ceuta

1418 Return to Ceuta with Prince John

1418 or 1419 Porto Santo discovered by Zarco and Teixeira

1420-23 Discovery of Madeira

1424-25 Colonization of Madeira begun

1431-32 Gongalo Velho Cabral discovers Santa Maria, Azores 1433, August 14 Death of King John I

1434    Gil Eannes doubles Cape Bojador

1435    Eannes returns to Bojador with Baldaia

1436    Baldaia discovers the Rio de Ouro

259

260    CHRONOLOGY

1436,    March 7 Prince Henry adopts his nephew Prince Fernando

as his son and heir

1436-37 Preparations for expedition to Tangier

1437,    September 20 Portuguese attack Tangier 1437, October 13 Portuguese capitulation

1437,    October 16 Prince Fernando delivered as a hostage to Sala-

ben-Sala

1438 Prince Henry returns to Portugal

1438,    September 9 Death of King Edward 1438-41 Troubles of the regency

1441 Gongalves and Nuno Tristao to Rio de Ouro. Discovery of Cape Blanco by Nuno Tristao

1442,    October Death of Prince John

1443,    October 22 Royal decree grants Prince Henry exclusive

rights to send ships south of Cape Bojador

1443 Second voyage of Gongalves to Rio de Ouro

1443    Voyage of Nuno Tristao to Arguim Bay 1443, July 5 Death of Prince Fernando at Fez

1444    Cape Verde discovered by Denis Dias 1444 Death of Gongalo de Cintra

1444    Slave market at Lagos

1444    Joao Fernandes left on mainland of Africa near Cape Blanco

1445    Alvaro Fernandes sails to Senegal and the Cape of Masts

1445    Langarote and others to Senegal and Cape Verde

1446    Death of Nuno Tristao Return voyage of Aires Tinoco

CHRONOLOGY    *
⁰¹

1447 Voyage and death of Abelhart the Dane at Cape Verde 1447 Lease of Langarote in Canaries by Maciot to Henry

1447    End of Prince Peter’s regency

1448    onward Fort erected at Arguim

1449,    May 20 Alfarrobeira and death of Prince Peter

1450,    January 8 Bull of Pope Nicholas V confirms Portuguese

rights to all the newly discovered lands. Second bull grants Henry monopoly of exploration as far as India

1452    Voyage of Diogo de Teive to Newfoundland Banks

1453    Constantinople falls to the Turks

1455-56    Cadamosto to Gambia 1456 Diogo Gomes to Gambia

1456-60    Discovery of Cape Verde Islands 1456-58 Preparations for conquest of Alcagar 1458, October 17 Capture of Alcagar

1458, November Prince Henry returns to Portugal

1460 Last Will and Testament

1460, November 13 Prince Henry dies at Sagres

Azurara, Gomes Eannes de: Cronica da Tomada de Ceuta.

-: Cronica do Descobrimento e Conquista da Guine, edited by

Carreira and Santarem, 1841. English translation by R. Beazeley and E. Prestage, 1896-99. English translation edited by Virginia de Castro e Almeida, 1936.

Barbosa A.: Historia de Ciencia Nautica Portuguesa da Epoca dos Discobrimentos, 1948.

Beazeley, R.: Prince Henry the Navigator, 1895.

Bensaude, J.: Historie de la Science Nautique des Decouvertes Portu-gaises, 1912.

Cortesao, A.: Cartografia e Cartografos Portuguesas, 1935.

Fonseca, Quirino da: Os Navios de D. Henrique, 1959.

Gomes, Diogo: Relagdes do Descobrimento da Guine e das Ilhas dos Agores, Madeira e Cabo Verde, 1847.

Helps, Sir A.: Christopher Columbus, 1868.

Hitchins, H. L., and W. E. May: From Lodestone to Gyro-Compass, 1952.

Howe, S. E.: In Quest of Spices, 1946.

Livermore, H. V.: History of Portugal, 1947.

Major, R. H.: The Life of Henry of Portugal, 1868.

Martins, J. P. Oliveira: The Golden Age of Prince Henry the Navigator. English translation by J. J. Abraham and W. E. Reynolds, 1914, of Os Filhos de D. Joao I.

Mees, J.: Histoire de la decouverte des lies Azores, 1901.

Nowell, C. E.: History of Portugal, 1953.

Oldham, Y.: Discovery of the Cape Verde Islands, 1892.

Prestage, E.: The Portuguese Voyages of Discovery, 1939.

Renault, G.: The Caravels of Christ, 1959.

Sanceau, E.: Henry the Navigator, 1946.

Schefer, C.: Relation des Voyages de Ca’ da Mosto, 1895.

Taylor, E. G. R.: The Haven-Finding Art, 1956.

Torr, C.: Ancient Ships, 1894.

Trend, J. B.: Portugal, 1957.

Veer, G. de: Prinz Heinrich der Seefahrer, 1863.

Villiers, A.: The Western Ocean, 1957.

Walker, W. F.: The Azores, 1886.

Wouwerman, E.: Henri le Navigateur et VAcademie Portugaise de Sagres, 1890.

Ocean Passages for the World, Admiralty, London, 1950.

Throughout the book, none of the dialogue is invented. In some cases I may have paraphrased the conversation as recorded by Azurara. In no case have I altered or distorted his meaning.

The nature of the plague which broke out in Lisbon and Porto—and from which Queen Philippa died—can only be surmised. It may possibly have been typhus fever, which is known to have occurred in epidemic form for many centuries in all countries of Europe. Conveyed by lice, it is the inevitable companion of poverty and overcrowding. On the other hand, it may have been an outbreak of bubonic plague, which for centuries had its home in North Africa, whence it would have been easily conveyed by ships and traders to the Portuguese seaports.

The description of the court of Portugal under the influence of Queen Philippa is based on the book by Prince Edward (Dom Duarte), called The Loyal Counsellor (0 Leal Conselheiro). The analysis of the Queen’s character is quoted from J. P. Oliveira Martins’s Os Filhos de D. Joao I in the translation of J. J. Abraham and W. E. Reynolds (The Golden Age of Prince Henry the Navigator).

The reason King John was unwilling to see any of his sons married to the widowed Queen of Sicily was that, on the death of her husband, Martino I, the kingdom of Sicily had been annexed to Aragon. The Queen had thus lost not only her husband, but also her kingdom. It was her hope that by marrying Prince Edward she might cause the intervention of Portugal in the affairs of Sicily.