Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/707

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HENRY
673
out in 1415 on an expedition against the important Moorish city of Ceuta, which, after much hard fighting, they succeeded in taking in one day. All the princes distinguished themselves at the siege, but Prince Henry so pre-eminently that, but for his own entreaties, his father would have knighted him in precedence of his brothers. His renown after this became so high that he was invited severally by the pope, the emperor, and the kings of Castile (Juan II.) and England (Henry V.) to take the command of their respective armies. The prince, however, had set his mind on other and larger plans, involving no less than the hope of reaching India by the south point of Africa. To this end he had several encouragements: the geographical position of Portugal was in his favour; the large revenues of the order of Christ, of which he was grand-master, provided him with means; and he had contrived to gather important information from the Moors with regard to the coast of Guinea and the populous nations of the interior of Africa. Accordingly in 141819 he took up his abode on the extreme south-western point of Europe, the promontory of Sagres, in Algarve, of which kingdom he was made governor in perpetuity, with the purpose of devoting himself to the study of astronomy and mathematics, and to the direction and encouragement of the expeditions which he proposed to send forth. There he erected an observatory, the first set up in Portugal, and at great expense procured the services of one Mestre Jacome from Majorca, a man very skilful in the art of navigation and in the making of maps and instruments, to instruct the Portuguese officers in those sciences. An account has already been given of his principal explorations in the article Geography, vol. x. p. 180 (q.v.). At first his efforts seemed to be crowned with little success, and his various expeditions called down upon him much obloquy from the nobles, who complained of such an amount of useless expenditure; but on the prince vituperation fell harmless. The king died in 1433, and the troubles which followed occupied Prince Henry until 1440. In the following year Cape Branco was reached, and in 1443 intercourse was established with negro states in Senegal and Gambia. In 14423 Henry VI. of England conferred on the prince the riband of the order of the garter. In 14445 were discovered the river Senegal, Cape Verd, Cape St Anne, Cabo dos Mastos, and the Rio Grande. During the later years of his life Gomez and others made important voyages of discovery in Prince Henry s service (see vol. x. p. 180). He died November 13, 1460, in his town on Cape St Vincent, and was buried in the church of St Mary in Lagos, but a year later his body was removed to the superb convent of Batalha. His great-nephew, King Dom Manuel, had a statue of him placed over the centre column of the side gate of the church of Belem. On July 24, 1840, a monument was erected to him at Sagres at the instance of the Marquis de Sa da Bandeira.


The glory attaching to the name of Prince Henry does not rest merely on the achievements effected during his own lifetime, but on the stupendous subsequent results in maritime discovery to which his genius and perseverance had lent the primary inspiration. The sovereigns loyally continued what the prince had begun. The marvellous results effected within a century from the rounding of Cape Bojador in 1433 formed one unbroken chain of discovery, which originated in the genius and the efforts of one man. They were the stupendous issue of a great thought and of indomitable perseverance, in spite of twelve years of costly failure and disheartening ridicule. As Mr Major, in his Life of Prince Henry, has justly said, Had that failure and that ridicule produced on Prince Henry the effect which they ordinarily produce on other men, it is impossible to say what delays would have occurred before these mighty events would have been realized ; for it must be borne in mind that the ardour, not only of his own sailors, but of surrounding nations, owed its impulse to this pertinacity of purpose in him."

HENRY the Lion (11291195), duke of Saxony and Bavaria, son of Henry the Proud, was born in 1129. After the death in 1139 of his father, who had been deprived of his possessions by Conrad III., the bravery and energy of his mother Gertrude and his grandmother Richenzi secured to him the duchy of Saxony. Shortly after coming of age he at the diet of Frankfort in 1147 demanded also the restoration of Bavaria, but was refused, upon which, along with his uncle Welf VI., he made an unsuccessful attempt to seize it by force of arms. In 1154 he, however, received from Frederick I. the formal recognition of his claims to its possession, and in 1156 Henry Jasomirgott was compelled to deliver it up to him. Besides distinguishing himself in the wars of Frederick in Italy, Henry now devoted his energies to establishing his power in his own dominions, both by conquest and by encouraging agriculture and trade. He extended the boundaries of Saxony beyond the Elbe by successful battles against the Slavs, founded Munich in Bavaria, colonized Mecklenburg and Holstein, and fostered the growth of Hamburg and Liibeck. His ambitious projects and his arrogant bearing awakened, however, the hostility of several of the secular and ecclesiastical potentates, who in 1166 concluded a league against him at Merseburg, and a stubborn contest of two years duration ensued, which was finally ended by Frederick in 1169 deciding at the council of Bamberg in Henry s favour. In February 1168 Henry, having previously divorced dementia of Zahringen, married Matilda, daughter of Henry II. of England ; and, elated by such an influential alliance and by the increasing resources of his dominions, he shortly after his return from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1172 began to manifest a tendency to treat the emperor with coldness and to revive the traditional rivalry of his race with the Hohenstaufens. He took no part in the Italian expedition of 1174, and in 1176 his sudden desertion of Frederick in the crisis of his struggle with the Lombard cities resulted in the disaster at Legnano. On Frederick s return from Italy in 1177 Henry was summoned to appear before him at the diet of Worms, and declining to do so he was placed under the ban of the empire, and his lands were divided among other princes. For more than a year he endeavoured to resist the execution of the imperial decree, but he found it necessary at last, in November 1181, to give in his submission to Frederick, who, on condition that he remained three years in England, agreed to reinstate him in the possession of Brunswick and Liineburg. Having in 1189 refused to accompany Frederick on his crusade, he was again compelled to withdraw to England, but shortly after Frederick s departure he returned, and, concluding an alliance with the archbishop of Bremen, made a second attempt to recover his territories ; but, though at first he gained several im portant victories, he was ultimately compelled in July 1190 to conclude a peace at Fulda, which secured to him scarcely any advantages from the contest. Emboldened by the hostile alliance formed against the emperor Henry VI. in 1192, he again renewed the struggle; but after Richard of England fell into the hands of the emperor in the following year, he found it necessary again to give in his submission; and shortly afterwards a pledge of amity between the two houses was given through the marriage of the eldest son of Henry the Lion to Agnes, niece of Frederick I., and cousin of the reigning emperor. Henry died 6th August 1195 at Brunswick, and was buried in the church of St Blaise. Otto, his second son, became emperor under the title of Otto IV. A colossal statue of Henry was unveiled at Brunswick 4th July 1874. Though ambitious, headstrong, and pugnacious, Henry showed that while he possessed no small skill in the art of war he could appreciate the arts of peace, and he gave