Great Britain and Portugal have been diplomatic and military allies for over 600 years. One consequence of this was that Portuguese treasure ships, unlike their Spanish equivalents, were formally off limits to the Royal Navy (although a few privateers were no doubt tempted now and again) and gold, once discovered in Brazil in the late 17th century, moved relatively safely from Brazilian ports to Lisbon.
This was just as well, since it was the gold from the Brazilian Gold Rush of the 1690s that arguably held the alliance together when the treaties designed to promote free trade between the allies during the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714) placed a severe strain on the economics of the relationship.
The Anglo-Portuguese Alliance, or Aliança Luso-Inglesa, is regularly and accurately cited as the oldest operational diplomatic alliance in the world, dating back to the signature of a treaty between Edward III of England and King Ferdinand and Queen Eleanor of Portugal on 16 June 1373. This treaty was subsequently ratified, as the Treaty of Windsor, some 13 years later by Richard II of England and King John 1 of Portugal, and has been reinforced many times since.
The Anglo-Portuguese Alliance, or Aliança Luso-Inglesa, is regularly and accurately cited as the oldest operational diplomatic alliance in the world.
In living memory, the Treaty has made its presence felt on at least two occasions. Within 24 hours of the outbreak of the 1982 Falklands War, for example, the Portuguese, citing the alliance, immediately offered the British forces the use of the Azores as a naval and air refuelling base.
Some 40 years earlier during WWII, as the British Government History Blog explains, “Portugal proved that it was still strongly committed to the alliance. In spite of Portuguese neutrality, British ships were allowed to refuel in Portuguese ports and Portuguese planes participated in reconnaissance missions for the Atlantic convoys.”
Further: “In a telegram to the Foreign Office dated 23 June 1943, the British ambassador to Portugal Sir Ronald Hugh Campbell confirmed that the British government had invoked the 600-year old alliance between the two countries as a basis for requesting the use of military facilities on the Azores.”
It was these arrangements that led Churchill, in a speech to the House of Commons in October 1943, to describe the Alliance as “without parallel in world history”.
It was these arrangements that led Churchill, in a speech to the House of Commons in October 1943, to describe the Alliance as “without parallel in world history”.
Imad al-Din Zengi and Edessa
The long history of friendly relations between the two nations, which has meant that Portugal is one of the few European countries never to have been at war with Great Britain, was not always as smooth as Churchill’s statement suggests. One particular period of strain – admittedly economic rather than military – occurred at the beginning of the 18th century when Portugal was briefly on the ‘wrong side’, in alliance with France. This state of affairs did not last, but there were issues arising which, in the end, had to be settled with gold.
Before delving into the 1690s Brazilian Gold Rush and its impact on the British market and appetite for Port wine, let us consider how the original Anglo-Portuguese relationship developed. For this, we must travel some 5,000 kms (3,000 miles) due east of Lisbon, and some 250 years earlier than the original treaties of alliance were signed, back to the time just before the launch of the Second Crusade.
Portugal is one of the few European countries never to have been at war with Great Britain
From a Christian standpoint, the First Crusade (1096-1099) was a success and led directly to the establishment of ‘Outremer’, four Norman-run Crusader States in the Middle East: the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the County of Antioch, the Principality of Tripoli and the County of Edessa.
Among the various forts and palaces established to protect the newly Christian territories, and to support those making the pilgrimage to the Holy Land, the Mesopotamian city of Edessa (now Urfa in present-day Turkey) was consequential but difficult to defend, particularly as control passed from the original Crusader generation to its less able descendants.
Urfa (Edessa), Turkey. The Euphrates the ruins of Baldwin’s crusader stronghold (Pixabay)
One local leader who decided to test Edessa’s defences, and found them wanting, was Imad al-Din Zengi, a Turkmen warlord and ruler of Mosul and Aleppo. He had previously tried to expand his power in the region by attempting to take Damascus, a feat he finally achieved in 1138. (Damascus was not Crusader-controlled but had allied with the Kingdom of Jerusalem in a failed bid to put a halt to Zengi’s ambitions.)
It is probable that Edessa fell to Zengi between 24 and 26 December 1144, although there’s some uncertainty on the exact date.
In any event, the consequences of the city’s fall are undisputed:
“… on the feast of the blessed Protomatyr Stephen, Zengi, the son of Aq-Sonqur, took Edessa by the sword. They mercilessly killed many for their faith in Christ. May Christ crown them among His saints. Amen.” (Gregory the Priest, continuation of the Chronicle of Matthew of Edessa – translated by Robert Bedrosian).
The shocking news of the fall of Edessa and the subsequent slaughter of its Christian inhabitants filtered back to Europe and demanded a swift response. As Wikipedia explains: “On 1 December 1145, Pope Eugene III issued the papal bull Quantum praedecessores calling for the Second Crusade. This crusade was led by Louis VII of France and Conrad III of Germany, but by 1148 it had ended in disaster, and Edessa was never recovered.”
But was the Second Crusade a disaster? Not from the point of view of King Afonso I of Portugal nor of the Constable of Suffolk, the Anglo-Norman, Hervey de Glanvill.
The shocking news of the fall of Edessa and the subsequent slaughter of its Christian inhabitants filtered back to Europe and demanded a swift response.
The Siege of Lisbon, 1147
As well as seeking the recapture of Edessa, Eugene’s papal bull also brought the Iberian Peninsula, much of which was at that time controlled by the Moors, under the Crusaders’ banners. Without getting into the intricacies of La Reconquista, the near 800-year effort by the Portuguese and the Spanish to drive those they saw as invaders back to their homelands in North Africa, it is sufficient to say that King Afonso I’s plans to capture Lisbon in the second half of 1147 coincided with the voyage of a multinational crew of Crusaders, led among others by Hervey de Glanvill, who were en route from Dartmouth in Kent to the Holy Land when bad weather forced them to put into Porto on 16 June.
In short, the Crusaders met the King, who persuaded them to join forces with his army and to besiege Lisbon, given that fighting in Portugal was, according to Pope Eugene, equally as holy a cause as fighting in the Middle East. This they did, and successfully. Driven by hunger, the Moors surrendered the city on 21 October (dates vary), although it took another 100 years (accurately until 1255) before Lisbon was formally proclaimed Capital of the Kingdom of Portugal.
The Brazilian Gold Rush
A further important contribution to Anglo-Portuguese relations materialised at the beginning of the 18th century. In 1701, the War of the Spanish Succession broke out following the death of the Spanish king, Carlos II, and involved a series of European states fighting in support of either Philippe of Anjou or the Archduke Charles of Austria (Britain’s preferred choice) – both claimants to the Spanish throne.
At that time, Portugal found itself allied with France under Louis XIV, but the British had other plans. The French had encouraged the Portuguese to join forces, declaring they would protect their new friends from hostile acts. However, the Portuguese were soon disabused of this guarantee as an unmolested British fleet sailed close to Lisbon during a voyage from Cadiz (see ‘The Golden Guinea and the Royal Bust’, Alchemist 105).
The Portuguese quickly entered negotiations to return to their old alliance with the British and the two 1703 Methuen Treaties came into force, negotiated by John Methuen (and his son Paul), who was appointed British envoy in Portugal in 1691.
John Methuen, 1650-1706, who among other positions became the British envoy to Portugal in 1691, saying that he looked forward to a “not too onerous position in an agreeable climate”. Portrait by Carpentiers (public domain).
The first Methuen Treaty was largely military in focus, but the second, signed on 27 December 1703 and popularly known as ‘The Port Wine Treaty’, was more commercial.
This Treaty established a low-tax environment for Port flowing to Great Britain and a no-tax agreement for British goods, primarily woollen cloth, being imported into Portugal.
From the British perspective, the discounted price made Port very popular and the ongoing and substantial British involvement in the Port wine trade dates from this period: Cockburn, Sandeman and Taylor, to name three familiar houses. However, from a Portuguese standpoint, the second Methuen Treaty placed considerable strain on the economy and the country quickly found itself with a substantial trade deficit. Fortuitously, gold, in particular the gold arriving into Lisbon from the Brazilian Gold Rush, provided the solution.
Large deposits of gold were discovered in the south-eastern Brazilian state Minas Gerais (General Mines) in the 1690s, and towards a million men, more than half of them slaves, rapidly became involved in digging it out. By 1725, more than half the Brazilian population was to be found in the south-east quadrant of the then colony.
Large deposits of gold were discovered in the south-eastern Brazilian state Minas Gerais (General Mines) in the 1690s, and towards a million men, more than half of them slaves, rapidly became involved in digging it out.
According to Wikipedia, around 800 metric tonnes of gold were formally exported during the 18th century from this find, and the continued intensity of production meant that the Minas Gerais rush, centred on the city of Ouro Preto, has been described as the longest of all gold rushes.
The 20% tax rate levied on the imported gold by the Portuguese government successfully reversed the unintended consequence of the trade deficit prompted by the second Methuen Treaty, at least for a time, and in so doing provided one of the many reinforcements to the world’s oldest diplomatic treaty.
To quote Portugal’s most famous poet, Luis de Camões (1524-1580), from ‘The Lusiad’, and translated in the 17th century by Sir Richard Fanshawe: “To think that a country so remote, the news so long desired they should meet.”
