And since there should be no sadness, nor tears, when feats of arms are contemplated, I order you, your brothers, and your knights, to dress as you were before your mother’s death. Later, if God is willing, we shall find time to mourn.”

When Prince Henry announced that the fleet would sail, there were many among the people of Lisbon who murmured that it was the young Prince who was driving his father into a dangerous enterprise at a time when, by all custom and convention, he should be mourning the Queen. If this was the first time, it was not to be the last that an implacable quality in Henry’s nature made him disliked by the ordinary people. “The King,” they said, “has always held this son of his to be more of a man than his brothers, both in feats of arms and combats. But slaying wild boars in the forests of Beira is one thing, and meeting an armed foe face to face is another. Let us only pray that all this does not come to a bad end.”

The reaction in the fleet was quite different. Soldiers and sailors who have been keyed up for action are always loath to postpone it. So it was with pleasure, as well perhaps as some astonishment, that they saw the princes come down to the quayside in colorful clothes. It was with excitement that they heard the trumpets sound, and saw the boats of the captains make their way for a conference on the princes’ galley.

“In the morning the fleet was like a forest which had lost all its leaves and fruit. Then, suddenly, it was changed into a glowing orchard, brilliant with green leaves and many-colored flowers; for the thousands of flags and standards were of every color and shape. And in this floating orchard one might have imagined that strange birds had suddenly begun to sing, for from every ship there sounded musical instruments and the music did not cease all that day… .”


4

❖ 

Three days later the fleet set sail. Queen Philippa’s prophecy had come true. It was July 25, the feast of St. James.

The wind was still in the north, and as the ships lifted over the bar at the river mouth, their new canvas began to crackle and fill. Square sails lifted in proud curves, lateen sails leaned like wings, ropes shook, and tackles sighed and squealed. The sunlight flared on armored men, on sailors sweating over Spanish windlasses as they boused in shrouds and standing rigging, and on the gay liveries and dress of the nobility and their attendants. The people of Lisbon gathered to watch them go. It was so fine, so noble a sight, that they stood all afternoon on the hills, along the riverbanks, and on the foreshore. It seemed as if they could not gaze long enough at these ships that symbolized their country’s power and pageantry.

As night fell, the last of the hulls were dropping below the horizon, and the watchers on the shore turned homeward. When they looked back, they could just see a faint twinkle along the dark rim where sky met sea—the lights of the fleet like starshine on the water.

Driven by the Portuguese trade winds, fifty thousand men were southward bound; twenty thousand of them men-at-arms, the remainder oarsmen and sailors.

The combined fleet was one of the largest that had ever been assembled; sixty-three transports, twenty-seven triremes, thirty-two biremes, and one hundred and twenty other vessels.

The Mediterranean oared galley was still in predominance. Within twenty years its place would be taken by more efficient ships, sailing ships that would be as at home in coastal waters as on the broad planes of the Atlantic. These galleys had been brought to a high degree of perfection by the Venetians and Genoese, who chartered them all over Europe as trading vessels. With two or three banks of oars—biremes and triremes— they differed from their classical prototypes by having longer oars or sweeps. This increase in the weight of the oars meant that more than one man was employed to each—in some cases as many as seven. A framework stood out on either side of the galley’s hull, in which were set the tholes against which the oars were rowed. The introduction of this framework to the medieval galley meant that the oars were arranged horizontally one above the other, instead of obliquely as in the ancient galleys. The bulk of the Portuguese fleet was of this type— vessels well suited to the long calms of the summer Mediterranean, but unwieldly in high seas or strong currents. Some of them carried no sails at all, but many stepped a mainmast from which they set a single square or lateen sail.

The fleet came slowly down the coast at two or three knots toward Cape St. Vincent. The sun was setting on the evening of July 27 when the bulk of the armada rounded the headland.