A Wind From the North (14 page)

“St. Mary’s roses!”

Eannes could not quite understand why it had been so important to round Cape Bojador, but he knew that in some way it was. He felt slightly ashamed of the fears that had possessed him. It was only another cape after all. He knew that the sight of the plants would please Prince Henry. He ordered the sailors to box them carefully and keep them safe until their return to Sagres.

The rounding of Cape Bojador inspired Prince Henry’s captains, navigators, and sailors. It also confirmed his trust in the scientific approach to exploration. From 1434 onward—the year of Gil Eannes’s achievement—we hear no more of “impossibilities” in the conquest of the ocean. Gradually, as cape after cape was left behind, and as the men became more and more familiar with deep-sea voyaging and with the tools of their trade, the chronicles of their voyages assume an almost matter-of-fact tone.

The “boiling” ocean, the flood of waters at the world’s end, the magnetic rocks that drew the fastenings out of ships—all these stories were soon forgotten. No doubt too, in the normal way of human nature, the sailors were eager to forget the superstitions that had once oppressed them. Later generations forgot them altogether, or, if they read of them, laughed at the credulity of their forebears. But one thing that should not be forgotten is the debt the world owes to the man of Sagres. Without his encouragement, and without his passionate belief in the rational explanation of natural wonders, the course of history would have been different.

Some historians incline to the theory that the “great” men of history are no more than gifted figures standing at the head of general and popular movements. But this is not the case with Prince Henry of Portugal. He represented no general trend of thinking, no popular movement—the antithesis, in fact. Until a little profit began to come back to Portugal from Madeira, the Azores, and the African ventures, he was generally held to be a fanatical monomaniac. No group of courtiers or of merchants backed his enterprises.

There was not even any population pressure in Portugal driving the race to seek new lands. It was the reverse, in fact, for the country was very much underpopulated. One of the chief criticisms leveled at Prince Henry in his lifetime was that he took men away from a country that urgently needed them* to populate remote islands and to engage in apparently unproductive ventures by sea. From the Portuguese point of view the criticism is well justified. The nations that later benefited from the Portuguese pioneers were Spain, France, England, and Holland—which had men and money to spare on overseas adventures.

In the histories of these countries, Prince Henry usually occupies no more than a few lines, or a footnote. It is time perhaps that history was rewritten and revalued—from a world, and not from a national, point of view. Such an action would certainly lead to some strange changes in the Hall of Fame. This fifteenth-century Portuguese prince, little known in English-speaking countries, might well stand higher than Francis Drake or Christopher Columbus—two men who reaped where he had sown. Prince Henry’s real achievement, which begins to be apparent from the year in which Cape Bojador was doubled, was that he set in motion the process of continuous exploration. It is a process that takes on a new meaning today as man reaches out toward the stars.

The activity at Sagres continued. Now that more and more ships were bound south for Africa, the importance of this southern base increased. It had always been Henry’s hope that he would be able to establish at Sagres a new port that would gradually monopolize the African trade. He had visualized the merchandise from Ceuta and Morocco being landed in the bay, and being distributed from there all over Portugal. For two reasons, this never took place: Sagres was too near Lagos, which was already established as an efficient port and ship repair yard; and the Bay of Sagres was unsuitable for ships other than galleys or light-draft caravels. These could anchor here during the summer months, with adequate shelter from the north. But for nearly six months of the year the bay was dangerously open to the strong southerly gales. Apart from this, the trade that he had hoped would flow through Ceuta to the benefit of Portugal never came. It dried up at source as the Mohammedans diverted it to Tangier. Prince Henry had always realized that this might happen, and it was for this reason that he had for so long pressed his father to allow him to complete the operation by taking Gibraltar, and then Tangier.

The fact that Sagres was doomed to failure as a trading port escaped most people’s notice for a long time. So redoubtable was the Prince’s reputation for making a success of everything he put his hand to that the Genoese—hearing he was building a port at Sagres—were quick to make a bid for it. Azurara comments drily: “And the Genoese, as you know, are not people who venture their money unless they have great hope of gain.” Prince Henry ignored the offer, but a treaty was concluded with Genoa, making Sagres an open port for Italian shipping.

Meanwhile, the long walls of the fortress went up. After 1437 a chapel was built for the mariners. A hospital was added, and quarters where seamen, merchants, and other attendants of the court could live. It is doubtful whether there was ever a navigation school, as such, on Sagres. There was indeed an austere building that no other prince would have called a palace. There were chart makers, instrument makers, and men from many countries who had information to give in return for the Prince’s hospitality. There is little doubt that at Sagres Henry’s sea captains learned from men like Jaime Cresques how to use their navigational instruments efficiently, and how to plot the positions of the new capes and bays that they were uncovering along the African coast. But Sagres was always more of an advance headquarters (a “field G.H.Q.” one might almost term it) than a true permanent base. After Prince Henry’s death, work on the buildings was abandoned, and the “City of the Prince” stood half finished until its destruction was completed in the sixteenth century when Sir Francis Drake stormed the citadel and carried away its guns as trophies. The trade with Africa and the East, which developed so rapidly in the last part of the century, went to Lagos or Lisbon.

Today the bleached bones of the buildings, the susurrus of the sea, and the rinsed air driving off the Atlantic induce a feeling of melancholy:

My name is Ozymandias, king of kings;

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains… .

But then, turning seaward and gazing out across the Atlantic, one sees a monument to Prince Henry more lasting than any buildings, or any statues of bronze or stone. There, a few miles away, off Cape St. Vincent, the ocean trade routes of the world converge. Liners, merchantmen, and vast oil tankers are passing. Outward or homeward bound, they come from every ocean and every country—a living monument to Prince Henry.

If Sagres failed as a port, it was a useful anchorage for ships fitting out for, or returning from, the summer explorations of the African coast. The fact that the Genoese were interested in the Prince’s new city and harbor must have reached the ears of the merchants of Lisbon and Porto. Certainly in later years, when the importation of African slaves had begun to make such voyages profitable, these merchants were eager to put their capital into ships and expeditions. If they always expected their own voyages to pay their way, they had a good reason for hoping that the Prince’s more remote expeditions would succeed. It was no secret that he was trying, among other things, to establish contact with Prester John and the countries of the East. The merchants’ interest in such possibilities was neither theological nor geographical, and Henry himself must always have been aware that if only his seamen could establish contact with the Orient, he would no longer be worried by the financing of his expeditions. If trade could be established by sea direct with India and the Spice Islands, then Portugal would become the richest nation in Europe.

The economic reason that prompted these voyages was the great demand for spices in Europe, where they were essential for preserving meat during the long winters. Spices were important as seasonings for varying the monotonous diet of the time, and also for their supposed value as medicines. Pepper, for instance, was used as a preservative for meat, and was also highly valued as a sovereign remedy for colds and similar complaints. So valuable was pepper, in fact, that it was often used in negotiations instead of money—a fact of which we are reminded in the English expression “a peppercorn rent.” Camphor, cloves, ginger, nutmeg, and mace were all valued by the apothecaries of the time. Camphor taken in red wine was reputed to be an excellent aphrodisiac, and ginger was prized as a remedy for stomach ailments.

The European demand for spices placed the Mohammedan powers in a happy position, for nothing could pass from East to West except by their permission—and at their price. Early in the fourteenth century, the Sultan of Egypt had passed a decree making it compulsory for all spices to be transmitted through Cairo, and shortly after this he had granted permission to the Venetians to trade in Cairo and Alexandria. The price paid in Europe for spices was controlled, then, firstly by the Mohammedans, and secondly by their Venetian intermediaries. Apart from causing the cost to soar, it was also a long time before the spices from the East arrived in their European markets. (It took two years, from leaving the Moluccas, for cloves and nutmeg to reach the merchants of Mincing Lane in London.)

Long before the Portuguese merchants saw the economic point of their Prince’s attempts to establish contact with the East, Henry had realized in what a fine strategic position his country would stand if only he could outflank the Venetian traders. He knew well how many Mediterranean cities had grown rich on the profits of the spice trade—not only Venice herself, but also Amalfi, Marseilles, Genoa, Barcelona, Narbonne, Nimes.

Seven years before Prince Henry’s death, when the Turks captured Constantinople and imposed an edict forbidding all trade with Christians, the situation in Europe became acute. It is difficult to imagine nowadays how desperate it was, and the only parallel one can draw is to imagine that some foreign power is suddenly able to prevent the sale of 75 per cent of our medicines and drugs, and nearly all the means whereby we conserve our meat. The situation was finally remedied when first Bartolomew Dias, and then Vasco da Gama, rounded the Cape of Good Hope and made contact with India and the East. Gil Eannes, when he rounded Cape Bojador, sounded the knell not for Venice alone, but for many a Mediterranean maritime state as well. Once the superstitions attached to the Atlantic had vanished like a mist before the trade winds, it was only a question of time before the ocean routes of the world were open to all adventurous seamen.

As an essential step toward his ambitions, Prince Henry saw that he needed another base on the coast of Africa. True, he had Ceuta, but Ceuta was in the Mediterranean and he needed a port somewhere on the Atlantic coast of Morocco. Tangier was clearly the ideal place. It was a good anchorage in almost all weathers, the city was prosperous, and it commanded the western approaches to the Strait of Gibraltar. Even before his father’s death he had had his eye on Tangier, and now with his brother Edward on the throne he saw his way to getting his desires translated into action.

King Edward was not averse to the idea of a further expedition against the Moors. A pacific man by nature, he was at the same time eager to add glory to his reign and to emulate his father’s achievements. He remembered too that King John in his last years, and even on his deathbed, had urged his sons to prosecute the just and holy war against the infidel. Edward knew that Ceuta was already a drain on the country’s economy, and he saw that only by extending their conquests could the Portuguese hope to derive any profit from Morocco. He may at times have considered giving up Ceuta, but no doubt dismissed it as unthinkable in the light of its prestige value. What would the courts of Europe say if he gave away the crowning glory of his father’s life?

There is no doubt that his brother Peter urged him to this course. Peter had returned in 1428 from several years of travel throughout Europe and the Near East. In 1429, the year after Edward married Leonora of Aragon, Peter also married, intending to settle down on his estates. It was to him that King Edward looked for advice and help on the many problems that confronted him in ruling the kingdom. On the subject of Moroccan enterprises, Prince Peter was adamant. They were a drain on the country’s manpower and resources, and they brought no benefit to the peasants—even if they did enable the nobility to distinguish themselves and gain a certain meretricious glory. On the subject of discovery and exploration he agreed with Prince Henry, but when it came to the dream of a Moroccan empire, he could see no benefit in it. The two elder brothers were thus divided on the question, and during the years 1433 to 1436, when the proposed expedition against Tangier was being canvassed among the family and their advisers, it was around Prince Peter that the opposition rallied.

It was unfortunate for family relationships that Prince Peter had married a daughter of the Count of Urgel. The Count of Urgel had been a claimant to the throne of Aragon and the rival, therefore, of Queen Leonora’s father. In the balance of conflicting interests that surrounded the Tangier expedition, the hostility of King Edward’s wife to her sister-in-law proved important. Queen Leonora was also jealous of the influence that this much-traveled brother exerted over her husband. Prince Peter’s references to the manners and customs of other countries, his suggestions as to how various matters might be changed in the court or in Portugal, all seemed to her to infringe on her husband’s authority. For the recluse of Sagres, on the other hand, she had nothing but admiration and affection.

Henry was courteous, polite, and unfailingly respectful to women. Also, like many confirmed bachelors, he doted on children. He—who wrote in his will, “I have no child of my own, nor do I expect to have any”—played the indulgent uncle to Leonora’s children. He was already godfather to her second son, Fernando, and in 1437 he took the small boy as his adopted son. The way to a mother’s heart is through admiration of her children, and this, coupled with her respect for Prince Henry, made the Queen his devoted ally in any enterprise. Another fact, which perhaps made her view Henry in a more favorable light than Prince Peter, was that Henry’s ambitions and interests in no way conflicted with the day-to-day running of the country and the court. Prince Peter, on the other hand, was always ready with advice and with long letters on the principles of government, culled from Latin authors, his experience in other countries, and his own reflections on the subject.