English Troops in Portugal in 1381, according to Fernao Lopes

In 1380, an ambassador of King Fernando of Portugal made an agreement with the Earl of Cambridge where the latter would provide 2,000 soldiers to help the Portuguese in their war with Castile.  The English troops arrived the following year, but when John of Gaunt failed to arrive with reinforcements, the English troops were left with little to do.  They sent word to King Fernando that if he did not fight they would begin by themselves and if he did not pay them, they would help themselves.  Eventually, the English troops were sent home without having to fight the Castilians, but in the meantime they seemed to have caused many problems for their allies.  The following extract is from the Chronicles of Fernao Lopes, who was the keeper of the Portuguese royal archives from 1418 to 1454.  He composed his chronicle in the 1430s, and is one of the best sources for the history of Portugal in the later middle ages.

CHAPTER 132: Of the evil manners that the English used with the inhabitants of the realm, and how the King did not check it, because he had need of them.

These English folk we have spoken of, when they were lodged in Lisbon, not like men who came to help and defend the land, but as if they had been called to destroy it and seek out all manner of evil and dishonour for its inhabitants, began to spread themselves over the city and district, slaying and robbing and ravishing women, showing such ownership and disdain of all, as if they were their mortal foes whom they had to dominate for the first time; and, at the beginning, none made bold to hinder it, for the great fear they had of the King, who had ordered that no one should do them harm, for the great necessity wherein he was placed of needing them; for little did he think at first that men who came to help him and on whom he expected to bestow great favours, would do in such wise in his land, and when some persons complained to him of the great wrongdoings they were receiving from them, the King spoke to the Earl about it, but small correction was made to it all.

Moreover it must be declared that those of the city and its district were put in such oppression and subjection, fearing them like their great enemies, that the Earl ordained, as a protection to the country properties and villages, that each should have banners with his device, which was a white falcon on a red field; and the place where the English did not find that banner, was straightway robbed of what it possessed; and all the animals that came to the city, both from the estates and from the villages and hills round about, to sell their goods, had to carry one of those banners, which cost a certain sum, so that harm should not be done them. See if it were a good game on their part when they laid hands on the King's animals, as they brought water, and took them by force, saying that the King owed them pay and they wanted to make distraint; and it was so that they seized them and by the Earl's orders they were returned.

Once it happened that some of them came to the house of a man called Joao Vicente, as he lay in bed at night with his wife and a little son, who was not yet weaned, and beat on the door for him to open to them, and he, with fear, dared not do it, and they broke down the door and entered in and began to strike the husband. The mother, with fear of them, put her child in front of her so that they should not strike her, and with a sword they cut it in half, as it was in her arms, which was a cruel thing for all to see, and they took that child, thus slain, and carried it to the King in his palace on a board, to show the cruelty what it was; and he did not dare to hinder it, but bade them show it to the Earl, that he might do justice on those who had done such a deed, and the Earl ordered it to be done.

And in this wise did the King send to petition him many times, for the great complaints they came and made him, that he should chastise his men, so that they should not thus ruin the land and he said it pleased him well, but each day they did worse. Others came to above Loures to rob a village which is nigh there and in robbing it, they killed three men, and they robbed and slew and destroyed provisions, so that often the injury they did was more than what they spent in eating; for some there were that if they wanted to eat a cow's tongue, they would kill the cow and take out its tongue and leave the cow to waste, and so they did with wine and other things.

For these reasons the King, as he found them mounts, sent them to the River Guadiana, to the frontier, and they, instead of entering Castile to forage, turned back on the Ribatejo and robbed all they found, and the people would not receive them in the towns and barred their gates against them, for the great harm they did; they did so in Villa Vicosa, when Maao Borni came there with other English, who raised tumults with those of the place and killed Goncalo Annes Santos and wounded others of the townsfolk; and likewise the townsmen killed some of the English and wounded others. They attacked Borba and Monsaraz and scaled Redondo and attacked Aviz, and sought to scale Evora Monte and could not.

            In the places where they lodged, they went to forage in the boundaries, doing great damage to the crops and vineyards and cattle, and put the men to the torment, until they told them where they had their provisions and robbed them of all they found, or if they tried to defend themselves, they slew them. The people began to requite this as secretly as they could and privily killed many of them in corn pits and in other ways, in such wise that, through their ill behaviour, so many perished, that not two parts of them returned afterwards to their land.

This section is from The Chronicles of Fernao Lopes and Gomes Eannes de Zurara, by Edgar Prestage (Watford, 1928).  A newer translation of some of Fernao Lopes' works can be found in The English in Portugal 1367-87: Extracts from the Chronicles of Dom Fernando and Dom Joao, translated by Derek W. Lomax and R.J. Oakley (Aris & Phillips, 1998).  Please see the Aris & Phillips website for more details.