The curtain may be dropped for a time, to be raised again on the scene of a great wedding, which was solemnized at Oporto in 1387 with much pomp and splendour, between King John I., surnamed “the Great,” and an English Princess, Philippa, daughter of John of Gaunt, and the granddaughter of our own King, Edward III.
Not quite two years earlier, at the Battle of Aljubarrota, Dom John, the first King of the House of Avis, had gained a great victory over the Spaniards, who had disputed the independence of his country, and here again we read of 500 English archers fighting on the side of Portugal, and doing yeoman service. Eight months later the Treaty of Windsor was signed, the first great link between England and Portugal, binding them to stand by one another, and in fulfilment of which John of Gaunt, accompanied by his wife and two of his daughters, landed at Corunna with 2,000 English lances and 3,000 archers. His expedition against Spain proved successful, and ended in one of his daughters being given in marriage to the heir to the Spanish throne, and the other to King John of Portugal.
From this time, when English blood first flowed in the veins of the Royal House of Avis, dates the real power of Portugal. From an obscure little country, she rapidly became a powerful nation, with possessions and colonies in every quarter of the globe, and it was one of the sons of our English Princess, Henry, surnamed “the Navigator,” who did so much to help on the explorations and discoveries which were to make Portugal one of the greatest colonial Powers in the world. In the course of twenty-four years—between 1497 and 1521—during the reign of Emanuel, “the Fortunate,” her explorers sailed eastward round the coasts of Africa and India to the East Indian Islands, Siam, and China, and westward to the Brazils, and through the Straits of Magellan out into the Pacific Ocean.
It was a period of great deeds performed by gallant men, and just as mariners and soldiers bore high the honour of their country abroad, so also did the statesmen, poets, and chroniclers at home. Lisbon became the centre for all the commerce of the East. The trade of the Spice Islands, of Africa, Persia, India, China, and Japan, all passed through it, and it was the time of Portugal’s highest prosperity and power.
[ CHAPTER II
] THE DECLINE OF PORTUGAL
The seeds of Portugal’s downfall were, however, already being sown. With added riches the nobles grew self-indulgent, and the old patriotic spirit gave place to a love of ease and luxury. The officials grew corrupt, inclined to oppress the people, and, above all, the best blood in the country was gradually being drained away to supply the wants of her new possessions. Her young men volunteered as sailors to man the fleets, or as soldiers to fight her battles in the far-away lands beyond the seas, and what with the fighting and the unhealthy climates, few of those who sailed away ever returned. There was also much emigration to Madeira and the Brazils, and it was always the strongest and most enterprising who left the mother-country to seek their fortunes abroad.
There were yet other reasons which contributed to the gradual decline.
In 1441 negro slaves had been brought home by the explorer Nuno Tristão, and the slave trade steadily increased as years went on, till by far the greater part of Southern Portugal was cultivated for the nobles by black labour. It was cheap, but it drove out the peasantry for lack of employment, and led to more emigration than would otherwise have been the case.