PORTUGAL: OLD AND NEW.

CHAPTER I.

THE RISE OF PORTUGAL.

THERE is in human nature a craving for something beyond the mere chronicling of great deeds. In rude times, amid the selfish struggle of the more masterful passions of men, heroic or generous actions possess an impressiveness which strongly affects the sympathies of contemporaries; but such deeds do not always succeed in reaching down to the knowledge of succeeding generations, for it is unfortunate that a rare coincidence of poet and hero should be indispensable for any effectual tradition of renown, and that either without the other's help runs no small peril of oblivion In primitive ages, the imagination of poets seems to be finite. There is no instance of a ballad-monger or early poet having evolved a hero. To most thoughtful men, Homer's poems are evidence enough that great deeds were done before Troy; and if we had no better voucher for the heroism of Ruy Dias, El Campeador, the hero of Spanish mediæval romance, we might be content to find one in the great epic of 'The Cid.'

King Affonso Henriquez, who carved out with his sword a kingdom which his descendants still rule, was perhaps as great a hero as the Cid himself, but only a vague rumour of his exploits has come down to us. Vate sacro caret; he has lacked the meed of poet's song. The two warriors, the Cid and Affonso Henriquez, lived within a generation of each other; both fought chiefly against the same powerful enemy, in the same age of chivalry; but while Ruy Dias missed the purpose of his life, Affonso Henriquez attained the great end he had set to himself. While the mark made upon the age by the Spanish champion was obliterated even in his own lifetime, the achievements of the Portuguese conqueror have changed the whole course of Peninsular history, and established a dynasty which survives to this day;-an impressive monument, among the shifting elements of Peninsular history, of the daring and wisdom of its founder. Yet what avails it to a man to have done great deeds, to live a great life, and to win a wide renown, if the chief part of his fame is to die with the death of the witnesses of his exploits, and only to find a short record in the stupid annals of monkish and Moorish chroniclers? A noble life is rare enough in the world to make us regret that the story of one should be so nearly extinguished.

I shall endeavour in the following pages to revive so much of the life and doings of King Affonso Henriquez as can be extracted from the scanty annals of the chroniclers, Spanish, Portuguese, and Moorish, that have survived the seven hundred years which have elapsed since his death.

The two schools of modern history at present most in vogue might find a very promising battle-field in the life of this great Portuguese King and Conqueror.

A writer of the one school might argue that King Affonso was forced by the tendencies of his age to the course he followed; while a historian of the opposite type might contend that the King's will and strong individuality had impressed themselves on the minds of his contemporaries, and had warped their wills to compliance with his own. Profounder inquirers will reject both theories as being thoroughly insufficient, and, discerning a clear expression of the great law of historical progression even in the scanty records of the early annalists, they will perceive that the changes in the community, both moral and political, were surely and irresistibly evolved from modifications of the opinions and habits and sentiments of the people. Nevertheless, had this warrior prince, the founder of an enduring nationality, been less of a true leader of men, Portugal would probably have shared the evanescent fate of the contemporary Peninsular kingdoms; and so also would King Affonso Henriquez have lost the labour of his life, had he not had to deal with a people singularly apt alike for the arts of war and peace, and had he not lived in an age when all the components of society were ready to be forced into fresh combinations by a strong will and a strong hand.

It is hardly necessary at this day to repeat at any length the history of the recovery of the Peninsula from the Moslem invaders. Nevertheless, to remind the reader of the state of the north-west part of the Peninsula during the eleventh century, and to give a slight sketch of the nature of the country itself, may serve to make what is to follow more clear and more interesting.

If we look at any fairly good map of Spain, we shall see that in the extreme north of the Peninsula

the province of Asturias is almost wholly occupied, as well as the art of the map-maker can represent such features, by frequent, and lofty, and precipitous mountains. If the map be correctly drawn, the hills will appear with a gradual rise from the sea cliffs washed by the waters of the Bay of Biscay, till they tower, at the extreme south of the province, into a mountain range whose highest peaks are snow-capped for almost the whole year, and whose southern wall-like declivities face the modern province of Leon. If we look closer, we shall perceive-sure sign that these mountain ranges overtop those in the surrounding country-that the numerous streams and rivers taking their rise in the Asturian mountain system flow, some of them towards the west, some to the east, and some to the south; forming in each case great water arteries, which, both geographically and politically, have at all times exercised a most important influence upon the history of Northern Spain and Portugal.

The Ebro, rising in or near the eastern spurs of the Asturian ranges, flows south-eastward to the Mediterranean, and divided, in early times, the Navarrese mountaineers from those of the Asturias and from the people of the plain country to the south; just as it has formed, more than once within the present century, a natural boundary between liberal Spain and absolutist Carlism.

The streams of the western Asturian watershed, meeting in the river Minho, flow due west to the Atlantic, separating modern Galicia from Portugal, and formed in medieval times the boundary line which sometimes restrained Saracen invasion of the northern region, and sometimes Galician aggression towards the south.