Portuguese portraits

(1360-1431)

Fifty years after the death of King Dinis it seemed as if the kingdom that he had so carefully built up was to crumble away like dry sand. The disorders and extravagances of King Ferdinand’s reign had brought it to the verge of ruin, and the marriage of his only child Beatrice with the King of Castille in 1383 appeared to destroy the last hope of an independent Portugal.

It is ten years before that date that Nun’ Alvarez Pereira, to whom mainly Portugal was to owe her continued existence as a separate nation, first comes on the scene. His father was the powerful Prior of Crato, Dom Alvaro Gonçalvez Pereira, in high favour at Court, son of the Archbishop of Braga and descendant of a long line of nobles. His mother, Iria Gonçalvez, was lady-in-waiting to the Princess Beatrice.

In 1373 there was war between Portugal and Castile, and a rumour spread that the enemy was approaching Santarem. The Prior sent Nuno and one of his brothers with a few horsemen to reconnoitre. On their return they were received by the King and Queen. Queen Lianor, struck by the bearing of the shy, precocious boy of thirteen, took him for her squire, and the King knighted him, after a suit of armour of his size had at last been found, belonging to the king’s half-brother John, the Master of Avis, he who was king thereafter.

For three years in the palace the Queen’s squire gave his days to riding and the chase, and to the reading of books of chivalry, of Sir Galahad and the knights of the Round Table. Then his father arranged a marriage for him with the rich and noble Dona Lianor d’Alvim, a young widow of Minho.

Marriage was not in Nuno’s thoughts, but Dona Lianor had consented, the King approved, and reluctantly he yielded. His life on their estate was happy. Fifteen squires and thirty henchmen were in attendance in their house, and after hearing his daily mass Nun’ Alvarez would spend long days hunting the boar and the wolf in the wooded hills of Minho or exchanging visits with the Minhoto nobility.

Of their three children two sons died in infancy; the daughter, Beatriz, was married to the Count of Barcellos, son of King João I, and through her Nun’ Alvarez was the ancestor of that line of kings which was still reigning in 1910.

It was a life too quiet for the times, and a few years later Nuno was ordered to Portalegre to defend with his brothers the frontier against the Spanish. As they marched from Villa Viçosa to Elvas, Nuno, the wish father of the thought in his keenness to encounter the enemy, mistook the glint of the morning sun on the lances of their own footmen, who had been sent on ahead, for the enemy advancing and gave the alarm. To his vexation there was no fighting, and when he challenged the son of the Master of Santiago to combat, ten against ten, the king forbade the encounter, and the Earl of Cambridge, then at the Portuguese Court, to whom Nun’ Alvarez appealed, pleaded for him in vain.

In 1382 a powerful Spanish fleet besieged Lisbon. The defence of the city was entrusted to Nun’ Alvarez and his brothers. It was in late summer, quando l’uva imbruna, and parties from the fleet would land to gather grapes and other fruit. Nun’ Alvarez saw his opportunity and, leaving the city one night with some fifty horse and foot, lay in ambush in the vines by the bridge of Alcantara. The first boatload of twenty Spaniards to land was driven headlong into the sea, but a larger force came ashore and the Portuguese, seeing themselves outnumbered five to one, fled.

Nun’ Alvarez, left alone, spurred his horse to a gallop and dashed into the midst of the enemy. His excellent armour stood him in good stead, but his lance was shattered, his horse cut down, and one of his spurs caught in the saddle as he fell. Thus disabled he still fought on, and then for very shame his followers turned to assist him. The first to come up was a Lisbon priest, afterwards Canon of Lisbon Cathedral.

Nun’ Alvarez, hearing a few months later that the King was to engage the enemy between Elvas and Badajoz, proposed to his elder brother Pedr’ Alvarez, who had succeeded their father as Prior of Crato, that they should have a hand in the fighting. Pedro, who had orders to defend Lisbon and intended to obey them, refused, and, having previous acquaintance of Nuno’s methods, gave instructions that no armed persons should be allowed to leave the city. Nuno with a few attendants dashed past the guard at the gate and rode post-haste to Elvas. He was well received by the king, but again there was no fighting. Peace and the betrothal of Beatrice were celebrated in a banquet at Elvas. King Ferdinand was too ill to attend, but King Juan was present.

Nun’ Alvarez, in his bitterness at seeing Portugal given over to Castille, for once forgot his manners. He and his brother Fernão, going in more leisurely than the rest, found all the tables crowded, and, unable to obtain a place, he pushed away the support from one of the tables, which went crashing to the ground, and calmly went out. King Juan remarked that he who so acted had a heart for greater things, but, in the words of the old chronicle, had they been Castilians he might have spoken differently.

After King Ferdinand’s death Nun’ Alvarez, brooding over his country’s wrongs, keenly took the part of the young Master of Avis. He was not present at the murder of the Queen’s favourite, the Count Andeiro, but he approved the act, and when news of it reached him at Santarem he hastened to Lisbon to the Master of Avis.

It was at Santarem one evening as he sauntered along the banks of the Tagus after supper that he chanced to pass the door of an armourer and sent for his sword to be sharpened. The alfageme refused any payment till he should return as Count of Ourem. Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor! The story adds that Nun’ Alvarez, returning Conde de Ourem to Santarem after the battle of Aljubarrota, found the armourer in prison as a friend of Castille and his property confiscated, and was able, by protecting him, to pay his debt.

Nun’ Alvarez now became one of the Prince of Avis’ Council, his most loyal and most trusted counsellor to the end of their lives. His first important command was in Alentejo, and after delaying in order to take part in a fight with eight Spanish ships in the Tagus he set out at the head of his two hundred horsemen. Henceforth Evora, the ancient walled city in the wide plain of Alentejo, was his headquarters. He instilled confidence into his men and increased his army, although it rarely exceeded five hundred horse and as many thousand foot, and was often very much below that number.

The war continued with varying success. At one time Nun’ Alvarez advanced to Badajoz, at another the Spanish were at Viana, but a couple of leagues from Evora across the flowered charneca. But Nun’ Alvarez seized town after town and more than once defeated the enemy in the open field. Monsaraz was taken by a wile, for some cows were driven temptingly beneath the walls and when the commander sallied out to seize them the Portuguese rushed in through the open gate. Nun’ Alvarez’ favourite method was to ride all night across the charneca and appear unexpectedly before a town in the early dawn, so that the enemy called him “Dawn Nuno,” Nuno Madrugada.

Thus he attacked Almada. He had but recently taken Palmella on the height overlooking the Tagus, and, hunting in the neighbourhood, had slain a boar and sent it as a present to the commander of Almada, promising to pay him a visit soon. He now set out to ride thither by night across the charneca, but they lost their way in the many paths, and the sun was up when Nun’ Alvarez, in his eagerness outriding his companions, advanced alone into the town. Four squires presently came up to his support, and Almada was taken without difficulty.

The Master of Avis had summoned Nun’ Alvarez to Lisbon or Nun’ Alvarez had determined to see the Master. From Palmella one night looking across the river he saw the whole city apparently in flames. Not knowing that the fires were lit by the King of Castille, whom plague in his camp had forced to raise the siege, and aware that the Master had powerful enemies within the walls, he watched the conflagration in dismay, but next morning the city reappeared in all its beauty.

The Spanish fleet remained in the Tagus, and a squire besought Nun’ Alvarez not to cross, saying that he had dreamt that the enemy had captured him as he passed through their fleet. Nun’ Alvarez went on his way, leaving the squire with his dream on the further shore. When he was in mid-stream, still perhaps thinking of the timid escudeiro, he bade his trumpets blow the enemy a challenge. But the Castilians little imagined what a prey was within their grasp, and his small boat passed through safely to Lisbon.

A little later he joined the Master of Avis at Torres Vedras and together they advanced to Coimbra, where the Master was crowned king as João I. His first act was to appoint Nun’ Alvarez his Constable.

At Oporto, whither he went to organise a fleet, Nun’ Alvarez found his wife and daughter, who had been prisoners of the Castilians for a time at Guimarães.

From Oporto he set out on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. His purpose was threefold, “to serve God in pilgrimage,” to reduce Minho on the way, and to secure mounts for his men. But the River Minho was too swollen to cross, and the news that Braga was wavering thus came opportunely. Leaving Viana do Castello he turned east along the beautiful valley of the Lima and seized the little granite town of Ponte do Lima and Braga on its steep hill. The King had also come north, but the news that King Juan had crossed the Beira frontier and was advancing rapidly into the heart of Portugal brought them south again.

At Abrantes the King held a council. Many were of opinion that he should not advance further against the enemy. Nun’ Alvarez—the same Nuno who had ridden alone into two hundred and fifty of the enemy on the banks of the Tagus and advanced alone into Almada—thereupon set out with his men, and in the name of God and Saint George sent a challenge to the King of Castille. Each fresh success of Nun’ Alvarez had raised him envious backbiters in Portugal, and here was a new opportunity to accuse him of arrogance. King João silenced his accusers by following him to Thomar.

They then went west to Ourem and took up a position towards Leiria. The advance of the King of Castille caused them to turn the front of their battle towards the little village of Aljubarrota. The Portuguese, barely 5,000 strong, were outnumbered seven to one, but they were drawn up on foot in a small compact force and desperate, flight being practically cut off. On the right was the Ala dos Namorados, the lovers’ wing, pledged to yield no inch of ground; on the left fought a few hundred English archers, gens-d’armes Anglois si peu qu’il en y avoit, says Froissart.

The Spanish chronicler and poet, Pero Lopez de Ayala, and Nun’ Alvarez’ brother Diogo rode over before the battle and asked to speak with him alone, but succeeded neither in winning him to their side nor in casting suspicion on his loyalty. As he had said when fighting against his brothers earlier in Alentejo, for the land that gave him birth he would fight against his own father.

At nine o’clock on the morning of August 15, 1385, the battle began with a great hurling of stones, followed by fighting with the lance, and then at still closer quarters with axe and sword. Nun’ Alvarez was constantly where the fight raged most fiercely, and his words “Fight, Portuguese, fight for king and country” kept ringing out above the din. The flower of Castilian chivalry fell that day and many Portuguese nobles fighting for Castille. Nun’ Alvarez saw his brother the Master of Calatrava fall pierced by a lance, but was never able to find his body. The King of Castille fled to Santarem. The Convent of Alcobaça still preserves a huge cauldron taken from the enemy at Aljubarrota, but the noblest memorial of Nun’ Alvarez’ victory is the Church and Monastery of Batalha.

Nun’ Alvarez, not yet as old as Napoleon when he conquered Italy, crossed the Guadiana with a few hundred horse and a few thousand foot and advanced into Castille. All the nobles from the south of Spain who had not been present at Aljubarrota collected to give him battle. The enemy, he was told, were as the grass of the field in number. “All the greater will be our honour,” said Nun’ Alvarez.

A trumpeter with a bundle of rods knelt before Nun’ Alvarez seated to receive him: “My Lord Constable, the Master of Santiago, my lord, sends to defy you with this rod,” and the Master of Calatrava, the Master of Alcantara, the Count of Medina Celi and many another had sent him rods of defiance. The Constable received them one by one patiently, gave the messenger a hundred gold pieces and bade him thank the senders for the rods with which he would presently come and beat them.

The battle of Valverde that followed was an attack of several hills from which the enemy had to be dislodged. “If Portuguese kneel in battle,” said a later, sixteenth-century historian, “it is to the Cross of Christ”; and certainly it was from no fear or weakness that Nun’ Alvarez, wounded by an arrow in the foot, knelt to pray in the thickest of the fight. Anxious messengers came up with news that his men were hard pressed, imploring his presence, but he, without answering, still knelt in prayer. At last rising with a look of great joy he ordered on his standard to the attack, and a few hours later no Spaniard was to be seen.

It was in memory of this battle that the Constable built the Church and Convent of Carmo, still in its ruins one of the most beautiful of Lisbon’s buildings. This was the last of his great battles, although he saw much more fighting (for peace with Castille did not come for many years), and when fifty-five years old took part in the expedition that conquered Ceuta.

But his abiding fame was won when he was twenty-five. His success was due to his singleness of purpose. The independence of Portugal was his object, and to secure that object he put forth his whole strength not only ungrudgingly, but with a passionate eagerness, his strength based on deep piety and faith. A keen judge of men, he was terrible in his calm disdain to those whom he suspected of shirking or treachery; without a word of abuse on his part he made their humiliation unbearable. But he inspired his followers with extraordinary devotion. His clear, piercing eyes and his self-possession gave them confidence—des yeux pleins de mitraille et un air de tranquillité—and he was always generous in rewarding constancy and valour. His energy, fearless courage and fervent serenity won many a fight against overpowering odds.

His fame extended throughout Spain. One evening near Caceres ten henchmen appeared before him. The Count received them kindly, and on hearing that they were from Castille asked how they were so bold as to come without safe-conduct. Relying on his great goodness, they said. He then asked what he could do for them, and they announced that their only object in coming was to see him, and now they had seen him; and so, refusing the supper he ordered for them, they departed as they had come.

Many incidents show his power over his own men. Once, when they were unwilling to go forward to attack a superior force, he just stepped across a stream and bade those who were willing to follow him cross it, and not one held back.

On another occasion an uproar arose in his camp owing to the fact that the day’s booty had consisted of “many and good wines.” The Constable came unarmed from his tent, but many soldiers, seeing him thus and hearing the noise, rushed forward to protect him and formed a canopy of swords over his head.

The irregular pay and supplies received for his men made it difficult to maintain strict discipline; for some days they lived entirely on figs, then as now one of the principal fruits south of the Tagus; for one whole day Nun’ Alvarez’ own food consisted merely of a piece of dry bread, a turnip, and a drink of wine from the flask of a common soldier. Another time there was no bread in the whole camp except five small loaves reserved for Nun’ Alvarez’ table; five starving Englishmen came up, and he entertained them to dinner, giving each a loaf of bread.

It was impossible in such circumstances to forbid or prevent plunder when it was obtainable. But, although he was obliged to allow his followers to live on the land, he set his face against any unnecessary pilfering, and one squire, convicted of taking a chalice from a church, he sentenced to be burnt—indeed, the wood was piled and the fire lit before he pardoned him at the instance of his captains.

In the teeth of great opposition, too, he resolutely forbade the presence of women in his camp.

He was not less renowned for his chivalry towards the weak, women, prisoners, and peasants, than for his victories in battle. He provided pensions for “women who had been honoured and prosperous and were now poor.”

But his chivalry went further. A countess at Coimbra who had held out against him, and then plotted to seize his person by treachery, he secured from the reprisals of his followers; the wife of the commander of a captured town he sent away free to Castille. And these were no isolated instances; his conduct never varied in its simplicity, dignity and charming thought for others.

His biographers love to tell of the poor blind man of Torres Vedras who had no way of escaping from the advancing Castilians and whom Nun’ Alvarez carried behind him on his mule for four leagues out of the town. “Oo que humano e caridoso señor!” exclaims the old chronicler.

But it is the incidents of an illness when he was between thirty and forty that throw most light on his character and on the devoted attachment of those around him. The fever and deep depression that came over him seem to have been in part, at least, due to the perpetual self-seeking and mendicity with which he had to deal now that he was a power in the land as great as the King himself—greater, said his enemies. Sometimes, we are told, he seemed to have recovered from his illness, and then the very sight of a stranger, especially of a man with a letter, would give him a relapse. His secretary found it necessary to intercept all letters.

Nun’ Alvarez, who had sought health in vain at Lisbon, set out to return to Evora. Accompanied by his mother and his daughter, he was carried in a litter to Palmella. His illness prevented him from going further, and he was taken to the small village of Alfarrara, where there were many trees and streams. The very sight of the garden of the quinta where he was to lodge seemed to restore his health. Several of the foremost citizens of Setubal came to welcome him, and he received them gladly; but, as they were leaving, one of them (who was very stout) had the misfortune to bid him “remember the town of Setubal.”

Nun’ Alvarez, thus reminded of “men with letters,” fell into so great a passion and fever that he was like to die. He refused to eat, and it was only after much coaxing that he was persuaded to sit down at table. They brought him water for his hands and roast birds to eat. His daughter began to carve them before him, and his mother fanned him with a fan; but he refused to eat, telling his mother that “that bloated churl with his Setubal has been the death of me.”

His secretary, Gil Airaz, would have excused the offender, but Nun’ Alvarez turned on him in a rage: “The fellow, for what he said, deserved a score of blows, and if you cared for me or my health you would have given him them.”

Gil Airaz said that there was still time, if that was his pleasure, and the Constable answered that such a pleasure would seem to him all too long in coming. So the secretary, in his presence, took a stick and went out. When he came back and told him how he had beaten and kicked and covered with mud and water the citizen of Setubal, Nun’ Alvarez seemed to recover instantly and began to eat and drink.

To any other man, lord of half Portugal, it might perhaps have seemed a little thing to have had a citizen beaten and rolled in a ditch, but presently Nun’ Alvarez stopped eating, his eyes filled with tears, and he began to wish he was dead. “Do you not see, Gil Airaz,” he said, “that it would have been better for me to die than that you should have done what you did to that good man?” “Now would to God I had no part of all that land that God and my Lord the King have given me, so that this thing were undone!”

When Gil Airaz saw that he was in earnest he told him how he had only made a pretence of having beaten the man of Setubal and how all the citizens had gone contentedly home. Nun’ Alvarez was so overjoyed at this that he rose straightway from the table and went out to the orchard and flowing streams. In three months, with the help of the King’s physicians, he was well, and going alone with a page he set to cutting the brushwood in front of him, and found his strength had returned.

There is something infinitely touching in this story about a man who was usually so calm and restrained that he might be in a passion of anger and only show it—to those who knew him—by his smile, and whose whole life was marked by exceptional strength of will. But his old vigour returned, and very soon he was challenging the Master of Santiago, begging him not to tire himself in advancing through so hot a country, as he, “Nun’ Alvarez Pereira, Count of Barcellos and of Ourem and of Arrayolos and Constable of my Lord the King of Portugal,” would save him the trouble.

The great grief of the latter part of his life was the death of his daughter Beatriz, Countess of Barcellos, and his life must have been lonely despite the friendship of the King and especially of Prince Duarte, heir to the throne. Before the expedition to Ceuta they went to ask his advice under pretext of consulting him about some dogs for the chase, so as to keep the secret of their enterprise. None better than the King knew the value of Nun’ Alvarez’ opinion. He always seemed to know precisely the right thing to be done and the right moment to do it, was as far removed from boasting and vanity as from false humility, and respected his own rights as well as those of others.

In charity he gave liberally, but never carelessly. Thus he yearly bestowed the same quantity of cloth, but bestowed it in different districts, and stored the corn from his estates, to be given away in years of scarcity.

Before the end of the fourteenth century (1393) he divided most of his land, that is a great part of Portugal, between his followers. Large portions of Tras-os-Montes, Minho, and Alentejo belonged to him. He was Count of Ourem, of Arrayolos and Barcellos, Lord of Braga, Guimarães, Chaves, Montalegre, and nearly a score of other towns. His policy of dividing these lands among his vassals under condition that they should maintain certain forces in his and the King’s service, proved unsatisfactory. Like the sated Marshals of Napoleon, they were subsequently less willing to leave their estates and risk their persons in battle.

The King, who had been too lavish in his gifts, proposed to buy back his grants of land. Other nobles agreed to sell, but Nun’ Alvarez was resolved not to brook the injustice, and, far from agreeing to the proposal, departed to Alentejo and gathered his followers with a view to leave Portugal, although, as he said, he would never serve any other king.

King João, thoroughly alarmed, sent the Bishop of Evora, the Dean of Coimbra and the Master of the Order of Avis post-haste after him. But Nun’ Alvarez then, as always when he seemed to be acting rashly on impulse, was carrying out a quick but well-reasoned decision, and was only with difficulty persuaded to a compromise. It was finally agreed that his vassals should be transferred to the King, while Nun’ Alvarez was to retain in his own hands most of his territorial possessions. Seven years after the victorious capture of Ceuta he again renounced them.

He had always been a man of great piety; after one of his victories he had gone barefoot in pilgrimage to Santa Maria de Assumar; he had founded churches throughout the country, heard mass twice or thrice daily, and would rise at midnight to pray the hours. But it was probably the death of his only daughter that moved him to retire to serve God in the monastery of Santa Maria do Carmo, which he had founded in memory of his victory of Valverde. There, on August 15, 1423, he professed as Frei Nuno de Santa Maria, after giving away all his lands and titles. Of his daughter’s three children, Isabel married the Infante João, Affonso became Conde de Ourem, and, later, Marquez de Valença, and Fernando, Conde de Arrayolos and, later, Duke of Braganza.

When Nun’ Alvarez, penniless, retired to his cell it was his purpose to beg his daily bread in the streets of Lisbon, and he also intended to end his days where he might be quite unknown; but Prince Duarte went to see him at the Carmo and affectionately ordered him to accept a pension from the King, a great part of which, however, he spent in charities.

In 1431, in his seventy-first year, and two years before his life-long friend, King João, the greatest of all Portugal’s great men died. “God grant him as much glory and honour as in this world was his,” says the old chronicle.

Surely no truer man or more chivalrous knight ever donned helmet or drew sword. Tradition says that the Lisbon people long assembled to sing songs and witness many miracles at his grave. But his fittest and most enduring monuments are the noble buildings of Carmo and Batalha, and, above all, a free and united Portugal.