Anglo-Portugese Alliance
Posted: 2002-11-06 05:29pm
I need info on the Anglo-Portugese Alliance of 1386, the Treaty of Windsor, yet I can't find any info on it, any help?
Alfonso I, aided by the Templars and other military orders sworn to fight the Moors, extended the border of the new kingdom as far south as the River Tagus. His son Sancho I (reigned 1185-1211) encouraged Christians to settle in the reconquered area by establishing self-governing municipalities there. The Cistercian monks occupied the land and promoted efficient agricultural methods. In the late 12th century, the Almohads, a Muslim dynasty from North Africa, temporarily halted the Christians’ southward movement, but after their defeat at Las Navas de Tolosa in Castile (1212) the reconquest continued.
King Alfonso III, who reigned from 1248 to 1279, completed the expulsion of the Moors from the Algarve and moved the capital of Portugal from Coimbra to Lisbon. He also began the practice of governing with the aid of a Cortes (representative assembly), which included members of the nobility, the clergy, and the citizens, and he increased the power of the monarchy at the expense of the Church. His son Diniz, called the Farmer King because of his encouragement of agriculture, founded the nation’s first university at Coimbra and was responsible for the development of the Portuguese navy. In 1294 he signed a commercial treaty with England, beginning a sequence of alliances between the two countries. Diniz’s successor, Alfonso IV, joined with Alfonso XI of Castile to win a major victory over the Moors at the Battle of the Salado River in 1340. In this period the royal houses of Castile and Portugal frequently intermarried, repeatedly raising the possibility that one of the kingdoms might be absorbed by the other.
After the death of Ferdinand I, the last of the legitimate descendants of Henry of Burgundy, his illegitimate half-brother John I secured the Portuguese throne in 1385, after two years of civil war. His branch of the Burgundian line became known as the House of Aviz. John’s reign was one of the most notable in Portuguese history. He successfully defended the kingdom against Castilian attack and in 1385 defeated Castile decisively in the Battle of Aljubarrota. In 1386 England and Portugal allied themselves permanently by the Treaty of Windsor.
The greatest achievement of John’s reign, however, rests on the work done under the direction of his son Henry the Navigator, Prince of Portugal, in exploring the African coast for an eastward route to the Indies. A century of exploration and conquest began, which laid the foundations of the Portuguese Empire and made Portugal one of the greatest colonial powers in the world. In 1418-1419 Portuguese navigators explored Madeira and in 1427 discovered the Azores. A successful Portuguese military campaign in Morocco resulted in the capture of Ceuta in 1415.
