14th August is an important date in the history
of Portugal and in Portuguese/British relationships. It was the day of which
the Battle of Aljubarrota was fought in 1385, with far-reaching consequences.
The central figure of the story was João o Bastardo, which translates
as John the Bastard. He was the illegitimate son of King Pedro I, and therefore
not able to inherit the throne when his father died. However, when João’s
half-brother also died the throne fell vacant and widowed Queen Leonor was
persuaded to invite John I of Castile (a Spanish kingdom) to become King of
Portugal as well.
This move did not please a group of Portuguese noblemen, one
of whom, Pereira Nuno Alvares, urged João to seize power on his own behalf.
Queen Leonor fled the country and implored John of Castile to invade Portugal in
order to defeat her late husband’s half-brother. This he did, assisted by a
contingent of 2,000 knights from France.
John’s army was met by that of João and Pereira at
Aljubarrota, which was on the road to Lisbon. João also had a powerful ally,
namely England, which supplied a brigade of longbowmen.
1385 was well within the period known as the “Hundred Years
War” when English and French monarchs did battle against each other for mastery
within western Europe. On this occasion the struggle for Portugal became a
proxy battle in a much larger conflict. The battle turned out to be an echo of
earlier ones (notably Poitiers in 1356) and a model for later ones (such as
Agincourt in 1415) in that it featured French mounted troops facing English
bowmen and coming off worse.
The most familiar feature was the ability of a relatively
small force to defeat a much larger one by the use of superior tactics. John of
Castile sought to outflank the Portuguese/English force by taking a long march
on a hot day that only succeeded in exhausting his troops. João and Pereira
merely had to wait in their well-defended positions for the enemy to approach
and be soundly defeated. Losses were heavy on both sides, but the Portuguese
victory was decisive.
The French and Castilians were eventually forced to
withdraw, with many of them being killed by Portuguese civilians as they tried
to escape back to Spain. King John fled the field but was able to escape by sea
to Seville.
João, now firmly established as King of Portugal, thus
established the independence of his country. He showed his gratitude to the
English the following year by signing the Treaty of Windsor that pledged “an
inviolable, eternal, solid, perpetual and true league of friendship”. The
alliance has indeed remained solid down the centuries and is the oldest in
European history. João cemented the alliance by marrying Philippa, the daughter
of John of Gaunt, brother to Edward the Black Prince.
Pereira was also well rewarded for his efforts and later
used his riches to found a Carmelite monastery. Some would say that his reward
was the best of that of all the participants in the Battle of Aljubarrota, in
that – some 500 years later – he was declared a saint.
© John Welford
