The administration of Henry was vigorous, and his military conduct glorious. His triumphs over the Mohammedans were frequent, whether achieved in concert with his father-in-law, Alfonso, or by his own unaided arm. Nor were his efforts to crush rebellion, whether of his local Christian governors or of his Mohammedan vassals, less successful. One of his last acts was to assist his natural sovereign, Urraca, daughter of Alfonso, against her husband the king of Aragon. He died in 1112, leaving many ecclesiastic structures enriched by his liberality. Braga, Oporto, Coimbra, Lamego, and Viseu were the places most indebted to his piety. Unfortunately for his memory, many of the great deeds recorded of him by his partial people rest on authority too disputable to be received. Probably some of them have been confounded with those of his more famous son.
During the minority of Alfonso [or Affonso], the son of Henry, who, at his father’s death, was only in his second year, the administration of the kingdom was assumed by the widowed Theresa. The character of this princess is represented as little superior to that of her sister Urraca: the same violence, the same unbridled passions, and the same unnatural jealousy of her son appear, though in a degree undoubtedly less criminal, to have distinguished her conduct. Yet on that sister and her nephew, the successor of Urraca, she sometimes made war, in the hope of profiting by the dissensions of the period; on every occasion she was repulsed, and was forced to sue for peace. Her intimacy with Dom Ferdinand Peres, whom she is supposed to have secretly married, and through whom all favours were to be solicited, roused the jealousy of the courtiers. By their persuasion Alfonso, whom she had rigorously endeavoured to exclude from all participation in public affairs, undertook to wrest the sovereignty from her hands. He had little difficulty in collecting troops; for no sooner did he erect the standard of resistance, than the discontented nobles flocked round it. His preparations reached the ears of his mother, who wrathfully armed to defend her authority. The two armies met near the fortress of Guimarães, where the princess was utterly routed, and forced to seek refuge in the castle of Leganoso. There she was speedily invested, and compelled to surrender the reins of government into the hands of her son, while her favourite or husband fled into Galicia. She survived her fall about two years.[137]
The new count was destined to prove a more formidable enemy to the Mohammedans than even his able father. During the first years of his administration, he was at variance with his cousin, Alfonso VII or VIII, whose Galician territories he invaded, and with whose enemy, the king of Navarre, he entered into alliance.[h]
When Alfonso Henriques was no longer checked by the enmity of his Christian neighbours, he prosecuted his enterprises against the Moors with such vigour that he soon extended his sway nearly to the Tagus; and, by the terror of his progress, obliged Ali to send from Africa a powerful army, to support the walis, next threatened against him. A battle ensued, esteemed the most memorable in Portuguese annals, but which has been so disfigured by national vanity or ignorance that the facts relating to it are not easily ascertainable. The numbers of the Mohammedans are rated at three hundred thousand, and even at six hundred thousand men; and this host is said to have been commanded by five kings. Since the establishment of the Almoravid domination, there were no Moorish kings left in Spain; but the name was erroneously given to the walis who led the troops of their respective provinces. What does seem certain respecting the battle in question is that the Mussulman forces were incomparably superior to the Portuguese; that, dreading an invasion, which, even if ultimately foiled, must still bring inevitable ruin upon his territories, the count boldly crossed the Tagus, and advanced to the plain of Ourique [or Orik], where he entrenched himself strongly, and awaited the attack; that the Moors repeatedly assaulted his fortifications and were as often repulsed, until at last, from weariness and mortification, they fell into some disorder; and that Alfonso Henriques, seizing the critical moment, burst out upon them from behind his lines, and completed their discomfiture. Upon the field of victory the army were said to have hailed their count king of Portugal; and this glorious day, the 25th of July, 1139, is considered the epoch of the foundation of the monarchy. The five walis of Badajoz, Beja, Elvas, Evora, and Lisbon were found amongst the dead, and honoured with the royal title. The conqueror assumed, as the arms of Portugal, their five shields, arranged in what he called a cross, though the figure they present more resembles that of a cinque upon dice; and accordingly the Portuguese arms are termed As Quinas, the Cinques.
[1139-1147 A.D.]
Alfonso’s military election was said to have been subsequently confirmed by the cortes of Lamego, with a solemnity well deserving attention, as perhaps the only instance on record of a formal compact between prince and people, at the original establishment of a monarchy.[i] But it is now denied that such a cortes ever sat, the story being of much later date. The true kingship of Alfonso Henriques dates from 1143 when, at the intervention of a papal legate, Alfonso VII recognised him as king and vassal of the pope.[a]
Having established his own independence of foreign authority, the new king proceeded to the emancipation of his clergy from their subjection to the archbishop of Toledo, whose primacy extended over the whole peninsula. This was the subject of long negotiations with the papal see; but Alfonso Henriques at length obtained from Pope Alexander III a bull dissolving the connection with Toledo, and constituting the archbishop of Braga primate of Portugal.
Alfonso Henriques’ last conquest from the Moors was the city of Lisbon, which he took by the help of a fleet of French, English, and German crusaders, who put into the Tagus in their way to the Holy Land. He easily persuaded these champions of Christianity that it would be no violation of their vow to suspend their voyage for a while, in order to fight the Mohammedans in Portugal; and some of them, chiefly English, he is said to have induced permanently to settle in his new acquisitions.[i]
[1147-1169 A.D.]