Prince Henry the Navigator

Prince Henry the Navigator

The linkage of England and Portugal and the beginning of Portugal's Age of Discovery can be traced back to the 14th century, when England's John of Gaunt gave his daughter, Philippa of Lancaster, in marriage to King João I. The couple's third son, Infante Dom Henrique, is known widely today as Prince Henry the Navigator (1394-1460). By the end of his lifetime, this multidimensional soldier-scientist had conceptualized, funded, and inspired discoveries beyond the borders of the world that Europe knew. No matter how they assess later misuses of exploration and conquest, scholars today generally agree that the prince paved the way for explorers such as Vasco da Gama and Ferdinand Magellan.

Unusual for a royal family in those (or any) times, João and Philippa raised six intelligent, apparently happy children. Alternately contemplative and restlessly athletic, Henry persuaded his father to let the four boys earn their knighthoods in an invasion of Morocco and the capture of its fortress at Ceuta. If the prince had not led his 70 soldier-filled ships to a victory worthy of Steven Spielberg replay, Portugal's Age of Discovery might have been very different.

At least three achievements secured Henry his place in the vanguard of explorers. In the Algarve, where he was governor, he founded a nearly legendary marine navigation school, which applied scientific principles to what was previously a haphazard endeavor. He also sent ships where none had gone before -- especially around Cape Bojador, the "impassable wall" jutting out from West Africa at the end of the European-known Atlantic ocean. And he required that expeditions chart the seas as they sailed. Charts made of Cape Bojador later led Vasco da Gama to sail around it, then past the Cape of Good Hope and on to India.

Seen through the prism of history, Prince Henry seems a royal contradiction. He earned his knighthood defeating infidels and was eventually named Grand Master of the Order of Christ, the successor to the Knights Templar. But since he lived before the Inquisition began, he may have met some of the Latin-, Greek-, and Hebrew-speaking scholars who came to the royal court. Further, his ships engaged in Africa's lucrative slave trade, but he himself lived simply and, having given away his profits to fund further expeditions, died broke. The navigator-prince was not technically a navigator, and he rarely boarded a ship, but he pointed the way for generations of future explorers -- such as yourself. In Lisbon, stop at breezy Belém on the Rio Tejo, where, at the prow of the ship-shaped Padrão dos Descobrimentos (Monument to the Discoveries), Prince Henry stands, leading other Portuguese explorers and even King Afonso V.