The Story of the Nations: Portugal

by H. Morse Stephens

The last years of Theresa’s life were quite out of keeping with the brilliancy of her regency. After her expulsion she wandered about in the mountains of Gallicia with her lover until her death, in poverty, on November 1, 1130. Her body was taken to Portugal, and buried beside that of Count Henry, her husband, in the Cathedral of Braga, and both of them are reverenced by modern Portuguese as the founders of the independence of their country. Her history is a strange one. To political instincts and a capability for government which rank her among the most remarkable women of the whole period of the Middle Ages; to a manly courage, which inspired her to lead her soldiers in person to the fight and enabled her to withstand a Moorish siege, she joined the most feminine of qualities—that of entire devotion to the man she loved. Her love for Fernando Peres may have made her deviate from the path she should have followed as regent of Portugal, but it does not make her a less interesting character in the eyes of posterity. If she loved too greatly, she was greatly punished, and her death in exile more than atoned for the favour she bestowed on her lover. The task commenced by Count Henry and Donna Theresa was destined to be accomplished by one greater than either of them, by the hero of early Portuguese history, Affonso Henriques, who united his father’s restless and chivalrous valour with the political ability of his mother.

III.
PORTUGAL BECOMES A KINGDOM. THE REIGN OF AFFONSO HENRIQUES.

AFFONSO HENRIQUES, the only son of Count Henry and Donna Theresa, who at the age of seventeen, after the battle of S. Mamede, began his long and prosperous reign, was one of the heroes of the Middle Ages. He succeeded to the government of Portugal when it was still regarded generally, in spite of Theresa’s claims, as a county of Gallicia, and after nearly sixty years of incessant fighting he bequeathed to his son a powerful little kingdom, whose independence was unquestioned, and whose fame was spread abroad throughout Christendom by the victories of its first monarch over the Moors. The story of his early years abounds in miraculous legends and tales, like those told of the youth of Arthur and Charlemagne, which, if not credible in themselves, are interesting as showing the feelings of the Portuguese chroniclers and poets towards him. His boyish exploits in the mountains around Guimaraens, in which he is said to have fought wolves as he afterwards fought the Moors, and the tale of the fire which played about his cradle without hurting or even terrifying the youthful hero, savour of the marvellous and were evidently invented in after years. But in telling the tale of his education and bringing up his biographers were on firmer ground. His father had died when he was but an infant, and his mother was too much occupied with her lover and with the cares of government to pay much attention to him. He was handed over entirely to the charge of a gallant Portuguese nobleman, Egas Moniz, the governor of Guimaraens. The young count showed himself an adept in all knightly exercises; he became a skilful horseman and a fearless hunter; and added to these accomplishments, a knowledge of reading and writing rarely acquired in those times by any but ecclesiastics. His disposition was that of knight of the Middle Ages; with the greatest personal bravery, he possessed a love for poetry and romance, and delighted in the tales of chivalry which were sung before him; and he was moreover a typical Christian of the period, uniting a belief in superstitions, which made him a fanatic, with a looseness of life, when love for women or romantic adventure was in question, which directly belied his religious professions.

His initiation into public life began at the age of fourteen, when he was taken by his tutor and guardian to Zamora to receive the honour of knighthood, in the cathedral from his cousin, Alfonso VII. It was at the feast of Pentecost, in 1125, that he thus devoted his life to chivalry, and he made his vows and watched his arms throughout the night in the cathedral with all the ardour of his age and temperament. He was to fight in many a war with the cousin who then made him a knight; but neither of them, though failing to lead moral lives, ever failed to acquit himself as a chivalrous knight. Affonso returned to Guimaraens with Egas Moniz, and many of the Portuguese nobility at once proposed that he should assume the government of his county in person and deprive his mother of the regency. He was trained to this idea by Archbishop Paio Mendes and his party, and when Donna Theresa and Egas Moniz promised for him that he would submit to Alfonso VII. he refused to ratify their promises, and declared himself of age in 1128. He speedily defeated his mother at the battle of S. Mamede, and then became the real ruler of his county. In his conduct after this behaviour of his ward and pupil, old Egas Moniz showed how fit he was to have been the tutor of a hero. When the old nobleman understood that Affonso would not make the submission to the King of Castile, Leon, and Gallicia, which he had promised in the young count’s name, he went to Toledo with his wife and children, and, surrendered himself to Alfonso VII. The young king honoured the old man’s loyalty to his word, and, instead of punishing him, pointed him out to his courtiers as a model to be imitated, and said aloud, “What great things will not the pupil of such a noble knight be able to perform!”