The Twelve of England
Encyclopedia
The Twelve of England is a Portuguese
chivalric
legend of 15th century origin, famously related by the poet Luís de Camões
in his 1572 Os Lusíadas
(Canto VI). It tells the story of twelve Portuguese knights who travelled to England at the request of twelve English ladies to avenge their insult by a group of English knights.
knights insulted twelve ladies-in-waiting
of the household of the Duchess of Lancaster. The ladies appealed to their master, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster
, but he was unable to find any English champions to defend the honor of the ladies. The twelve offending knights, renowned for their martial prowess, were too widely feared. Recalling his Iberian campaigns of the 1370s and 1380s, and the bravery of the Portuguese
knights he encountered there, Lancaster recommended that they search for a champion among them.
In one version of the legend, John the Gaunt wrote down the names of twelve Portuguese knights from memory, had the ladies draw lots to be matched with a knight, and then had each of the ladies write a letter of appeal to their champion. John of Gaunt wrote a separate letter himself to his son-in-law, John I of Portugal
, asking him to grant the Portuguese knights permission to travel to England for this noble endeavor.
(In another version, related in Teófilo Braga
's poem, John the Gaunt made an open request to John I, and scores of Portuguese knights applied, from which twelve were selected from an urn by Queen Philippa of Lancaster
in Sintra
. Their exact match with an English lady was sorted later - John of Gaunt shuffled the anonymous chivalric mottoes of the twelve knights, and had each of the twelve ladies select one, only learning the exact identify of their champion afterwards.
The Twelve were scheduled to set out by ship from Porto
, but one of them, Álvaro Gonçalves Coutinho, nicknamed o Magriço ("the Skinny One") told the others to go ahead without him, that he would make his way overland via Spain and France.
The eleven knights set sail from Porto and landed in England, where they were well-received in London by the Duke of Lancaster and the ladies, but there was great nervousness about whether Magriço would arrive on time. Magriço travelled overland at a languid pace, taking time to meander on the route, and visit various curious locations along the way.
The day of the tournament
arrived, legendarily held at Smithfield, London
, there was still no news of Magriço, leaving the damsel destined to be defended by him (named 'Ethwalda' in one version) quite distraught. But just as the fight was about to be enjoined, Magriço arrived on the scene with great fanfare, just in time to take his position alongside his compatriots, heartening the distressed lady.
The Twelve Portuguese champions successfully dispatched the offending English knights that day, in what was characterized as an unusually hard and brutal fight. The ladies honor was successfully defended. But a few of the English knights had been killed in the tournament field, and in the aftermath, the Portuguese were threatened with revenge by the friends of the fallen. Fearful of being betrayed if they lingered in England, the Portuguese knights applied to John of Gaunt to secure them passage back to Portugal quickly. However, Magriço, still possessed by a spirit of adventure, decided to linger on in northern Europe, and eventually entered the service of the Count of Flanders
for some time. Álvaro Vaz de Almada also went on adventures in continental Europe (legendarily engaging in a duel with a German knight in Basel
).
in his 1572 epic poem Os Lusíadas
. In Canto VI, Stanzas 40-69, while Vasco da Gama
's fleet was crossing the Indian Ocean, a soldier named Fernão Veloso regales his fellow Portuguese sailors with the story of "the Twelve of England" to pass the time and inspire their bravery.
Historians have found some versions of the legend prior to Camões's telling, notably a mid-15th C. manuscript known as Cavalarias de Alguns Fidalgos Portugueses. Jorge Ferreira de Vasconcelos's 1567 Memorial das Proezas da Segunda Tavola Redonda (which precedes Camões by a few years) briefly mentions that 'thirteen' (not twelve) Portuguese knights were dispatched to England "to defend the ladies of the Duke of Lancaster". The summaries by Pedro Mariz (1598) and Manuel Correia
(1613), although published after Camões, seem to rest on pre-Camões sources. The legend was retold in various versions after Camões, with occasional embellishments and variations.
names five (Coutinho, Almada, Agostim, Lopo Pacheco, and Pedro Homem) while the remaining seven were identified in a 1732 tract by Védouro. Although many Portuguese noble families would later claim an ancestor of theirs was among the Twelve, expanding the list enormously, the following is most generally accepted list of the Twelve:
Named by Correia:
Added by Védouro (and Soares da Silva)
Common alternates to the above list are:
In Teófilo Braga
's 1902 poem, the twelve English knights are named as Austin (killed in the opening fight by Álvaro Vaz de Almada), Athelard, Blundell, Loveday, Argenton, Clarency, Corleville, Otenel, Turneville, Morley, Glaston and Reginald (who fought Magriço in the last fight). The twelve English ladies are also named: Adhelm, Egberte, Oswalda, Jorceline, Luce, Florence, Egwin, Gotslina, Gerlanda, Ailmer, Tatwine and Ethwalda (Magriço's lady). These names are purely literary fiction by Braga, with no known historical counterparts.
was sealed by the marriage of John I of Portugal
and Philippa of Lancaster
, daughter of John of Gaunt) and before the death of John the Gaunt in 1399. Narrowing the window further, it was probably sometime after 1389, when John of Gaunt returned to England from his failed Iberian campaign, and before the death of John of Gaunt's wife, the Duchess of Lancaster, Constance of Castile in 1394. The common date frequently cited is 1390.
The Duchess's Castilian
nationality may lead credence to such an event, and her twelve ladies-in-waiting were also, likely, Castilian rather than English, which may explain John the Gaunt's difficulty in finding English champions to pick up arms against their English brethren in their defense. The early 1390s also marks a difficult period in John of Gaunt's political life, at a low point in his fortunes, trying to navigate an England riven with great tension between the King Richard II of England
and the English nobility. With the humiliating failure in Iberia still stinging, it was not unlikely disgruntled English knights might have taken to poking at the Duke of Lancaster and his household, in particular the Castilian Duchess who could be blamed for the hare-brained Iberian adventure to begin with. Finally, it is possible that if the event happaned as early as 1389-1390, Lancaster may not have had to send to Portugal for knights, but may have had a few already in his entourage - Portuguese knights who served with him in the Castilian campaign and accompanied him to England, possibly as a bodyguard when John of Gaunt was still uncertain as to what kind of reception he might receive at home. Add a few others from his son-in-law's embassy, and there might have been enough Portuguese knights in England at the time to engage in some sort of tournament over some offense against Lancaster's household.
Setting the event in the early 1390s, however, eliminates many of the identified Twelve, who were merely children at the time, if born at all. But it is probably safe to assume that the list is largely fanciful and anachronistic anyway. Most of the named knights were known to have gone abroad at some point - e.g. Álvaro Vaz de Almada served for a long time in England and was made a Knight of the Garter and Count of Avranches in 1445; Soeiro da Costa fought in Aragon and Italy in the early 1400s, and was at the Battle of Agincourt
in 1415; Álvaro Gonçalves Coutinho, the Magriço himself, is reported to have fought in tournaments in France. The French chronicle of Enguerrand de Monstrelet
records a chivalric fight (over women) in Saint-Ouen in 1414 between three Portuguese knights (named simply D. Álvares, D. João and D. Pedro Gonçalves) and three Gascon
knights (François de Grignols, Archambaud de la Roque and Maurignon). News of the feats of various Portuguese knights abroad in different countries - filtered back home in the early 1400s and somehow, inchoatly and anachronistically, congealed in popular memory into a single English tournament set around 1390.
Other influences in this story is the rise of the Arthurian legend, probably brought to the Portuguese court by Philippa of Lancaster. The story of the Twelve of England evokes the image of John I of Portugal, as some sort of Portuguese King Arthur, sending out his knights of the round table
in feats of chivalry, saving distant damsels in distress (a marked change from the old reconquista
tales of battling Moors.) The number - twelve - is also not accidental. As pointed out by Camões himself, it happens to match the Twelve Peers of Charlemagne
, that other great source of chivalric literature, re-popularized in the 16th C. by Boiardo and Ariosto ("For the Twelve Peers, I put forth the Twelve of England, and their Magriço", Camões
Lusiadas, Canto I, Stanza 12 ).
poet Almeida Garrett
worked for many years on a extended poem, Magriço ou Os Doze de Inglaterra, which used the story of the Twelve as a device for wider philosophical meanderings, which was never completed. Many decades later, in 1902, Teófilo Braga
composed his own more straightforward poetic version of the story of the Twelve, with a more nationalist tone, apparently inspired by his research into Camões and Garrett, but also possibly motivated by the 1890 British Ultimatum, which had provoked a strong anti-British feeling in republican-nationalist circles in Portugal at that time.
The legend took a new life when the Portugal national football team
made their debut at the 1966 FIFA World Cup
hosted in England. Led by eventual top-scorer Eusebio
, they reached third place in the tournament. The Portuguese newspaper press gave the fabled team the nickname Os Magriços, in reference to the Twelve of England. Although the legend was familiar to the Portuguese public, it became even more prominent in the aftermath of the World Cup campaign.
Kingdom of Portugal
The Kingdom of Portugal was Portugal's general designation under the monarchy. The kingdom was located in the west of the Iberian Peninsula, Europe and existed from 1139 to 1910...
chivalric
Chivalry
Chivalry is a term related to the medieval institution of knighthood which has an aristocratic military origin of individual training and service to others. Chivalry was also the term used to refer to a group of mounted men-at-arms as well as to martial valour...
legend of 15th century origin, famously related by the poet Luís de Camões
Luís de Camões
Luís Vaz de Camões is considered Portugal's and the Portuguese language's greatest poet. His mastery of verse has been compared to that of Shakespeare, Vondel, Homer, Virgil and Dante. He wrote a considerable amount of lyrical poetry and drama but is best remembered for his epic work Os Lusíadas...
in his 1572 Os Lusíadas
Os Lusíadas
Os Lusíadas , usually translated as The Lusiads, is a Portuguese epic poem by Luís Vaz de Camões ....
(Canto VI). It tells the story of twelve Portuguese knights who travelled to England at the request of twelve English ladies to avenge their insult by a group of English knights.
Legend
According to the legend, in the 1390s, twelve EnglishKingdom of England
The Kingdom of England was, from 927 to 1707, a sovereign state to the northwest of continental Europe. At its height, the Kingdom of England spanned the southern two-thirds of the island of Great Britain and several smaller outlying islands; what today comprises the legal jurisdiction of England...
knights insulted twelve ladies-in-waiting
Lady-in-waiting
A lady-in-waiting is a female personal assistant at a royal court, attending on a queen, a princess, or a high-ranking noblewoman. Historically, in Europe a lady-in-waiting was often a noblewoman from a family highly thought of in good society, but was of lower rank than the woman on whom she...
of the household of the Duchess of Lancaster. The ladies appealed to their master, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster
Duke of Lancaster
There were several Dukes of Lancaster in the 14th and early 15th Centuries. See also Duchy of Lancaster.There were three creations of the Dukedom of Lancaster....
, but he was unable to find any English champions to defend the honor of the ladies. The twelve offending knights, renowned for their martial prowess, were too widely feared. Recalling his Iberian campaigns of the 1370s and 1380s, and the bravery of the Portuguese
Kingdom of Portugal
The Kingdom of Portugal was Portugal's general designation under the monarchy. The kingdom was located in the west of the Iberian Peninsula, Europe and existed from 1139 to 1910...
knights he encountered there, Lancaster recommended that they search for a champion among them.
In one version of the legend, John the Gaunt wrote down the names of twelve Portuguese knights from memory, had the ladies draw lots to be matched with a knight, and then had each of the ladies write a letter of appeal to their champion. John of Gaunt wrote a separate letter himself to his son-in-law, John I of Portugal
John I of Portugal
John I KG , called the Good or of Happy Memory, more rarely and outside Portugal the Bastard, was the tenth King of Portugal and the Algarve and the first to use the title Lord of Ceuta...
, asking him to grant the Portuguese knights permission to travel to England for this noble endeavor.
(In another version, related in Teófilo Braga
Teófilo Braga
Joaquim Teófilo Fernandes Braga ]] 24 February 1843 – 28 January 1924) was a Portuguese writer, playwright, politician and the leader of the Republican Provisional Government after the abdication of King Manuel II, as well as the second elected President of the First Portuguese Republic, following...
's poem, John the Gaunt made an open request to John I, and scores of Portuguese knights applied, from which twelve were selected from an urn by Queen Philippa of Lancaster
Philippa of Lancaster
Philippa of Lancaster, LG was a Queen consort of Portugal. Born into the royal family of England, her marriage with King John I secured the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance and produced several famous children who became known as the "Illustrious Generation" in Portugal...
in Sintra
Sintra
Sintra is a town within the municipality of Sintra in the Grande Lisboa subregion of Portugal. Owing to its 19th century Romantic architecture and landscapes, becoming a major tourist centre, visited by many day-trippers who travel from the urbanized suburbs and capital of Lisbon.In addition to...
. Their exact match with an English lady was sorted later - John of Gaunt shuffled the anonymous chivalric mottoes of the twelve knights, and had each of the twelve ladies select one, only learning the exact identify of their champion afterwards.
The Twelve were scheduled to set out by ship from Porto
Porto
Porto , also known as Oporto in English, is the second largest city in Portugal and one of the major urban areas in the Iberian Peninsula. Its administrative limits include a population of 237,559 inhabitants distributed within 15 civil parishes...
, but one of them, Álvaro Gonçalves Coutinho, nicknamed o Magriço ("the Skinny One") told the others to go ahead without him, that he would make his way overland via Spain and France.
The eleven knights set sail from Porto and landed in England, where they were well-received in London by the Duke of Lancaster and the ladies, but there was great nervousness about whether Magriço would arrive on time. Magriço travelled overland at a languid pace, taking time to meander on the route, and visit various curious locations along the way.
The day of the tournament
Tournament (medieval)
A tournament, or tourney is the name popularly given to chivalrous competitions or mock fights of the Middle Ages and Renaissance . It is one of various types of hastiludes....
arrived, legendarily held at Smithfield, London
Smithfield, London
Smithfield is an area of the City of London, in the ward of Farringdon Without. It is located in the north-west part of the City, and is mostly known for its centuries-old meat market, today the last surviving historical wholesale market in Central London...
, there was still no news of Magriço, leaving the damsel destined to be defended by him (named 'Ethwalda' in one version) quite distraught. But just as the fight was about to be enjoined, Magriço arrived on the scene with great fanfare, just in time to take his position alongside his compatriots, heartening the distressed lady.
The Twelve Portuguese champions successfully dispatched the offending English knights that day, in what was characterized as an unusually hard and brutal fight. The ladies honor was successfully defended. But a few of the English knights had been killed in the tournament field, and in the aftermath, the Portuguese were threatened with revenge by the friends of the fallen. Fearful of being betrayed if they lingered in England, the Portuguese knights applied to John of Gaunt to secure them passage back to Portugal quickly. However, Magriço, still possessed by a spirit of adventure, decided to linger on in northern Europe, and eventually entered the service of the Count of Flanders
Count of Flanders
The Count of Flanders was the ruler or sub-ruler of the county of Flanders from the 9th century until the abolition of the position by the French revolutionaries in 1790....
for some time. Álvaro Vaz de Almada also went on adventures in continental Europe (legendarily engaging in a duel with a German knight in Basel
Basel
Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...
).
Origins
The legend of the "Twelve of England" was famously related by Portuguese poet Luís de CamõesLuís de Camões
Luís Vaz de Camões is considered Portugal's and the Portuguese language's greatest poet. His mastery of verse has been compared to that of Shakespeare, Vondel, Homer, Virgil and Dante. He wrote a considerable amount of lyrical poetry and drama but is best remembered for his epic work Os Lusíadas...
in his 1572 epic poem Os Lusíadas
Os Lusíadas
Os Lusíadas , usually translated as The Lusiads, is a Portuguese epic poem by Luís Vaz de Camões ....
. In Canto VI, Stanzas 40-69, while Vasco da Gama
Vasco da Gama
Vasco da Gama, 1st Count of Vidigueira was a Portuguese explorer, one of the most successful in the Age of Discovery and the commander of the first ships to sail directly from Europe to India...
's fleet was crossing the Indian Ocean, a soldier named Fernão Veloso regales his fellow Portuguese sailors with the story of "the Twelve of England" to pass the time and inspire their bravery.
Historians have found some versions of the legend prior to Camões's telling, notably a mid-15th C. manuscript known as Cavalarias de Alguns Fidalgos Portugueses. Jorge Ferreira de Vasconcelos's 1567 Memorial das Proezas da Segunda Tavola Redonda (which precedes Camões by a few years) briefly mentions that 'thirteen' (not twelve) Portuguese knights were dispatched to England "to defend the ladies of the Duke of Lancaster". The summaries by Pedro Mariz (1598) and Manuel Correia
Manuel Correia
Frei Manuel Correia was a Portuguese Baroque composer.He was born in Lisbon, the son of an instrumentalist in the ducal capela at Vila Viçosa, Portugal. He followed his father into this establishment as a singer in 1616. He studied with Filipe de Magalhães, then emigrated to Madrid, Spain...
(1613), although published after Camões, seem to rest on pre-Camões sources. The legend was retold in various versions after Camões, with occasional embellishments and variations.
The Twelve
The identities of the Twelve of England have been subject to speculation. An early 17th C. commentator Manuel CorreiaManuel Correia
Frei Manuel Correia was a Portuguese Baroque composer.He was born in Lisbon, the son of an instrumentalist in the ducal capela at Vila Viçosa, Portugal. He followed his father into this establishment as a singer in 1616. He studied with Filipe de Magalhães, then emigrated to Madrid, Spain...
names five (Coutinho, Almada, Agostim, Lopo Pacheco, and Pedro Homem) while the remaining seven were identified in a 1732 tract by Védouro. Although many Portuguese noble families would later claim an ancestor of theirs was among the Twelve, expanding the list enormously, the following is most generally accepted list of the Twelve:
Named by Correia:
- Álvaro Gonçalves Coutinho, nicknamed o grão Magriço, son of the Marshal of PortugalMarshal of PortugalThe office of Marshal of the Kingdom of Portugal was created by King Ferdinand I of Portugal in 1382, in the course of the reorganization of the higher offices of the army of the Kingdom of Portugal...
Gonçalo Vasques Coutinho, and brother of Vasco Fernandes Coutinho, 1st Count of MarialvaVasco Fernandes Coutinho, 1st Count of MarialvaVasco Fernades Coutinho was a distinguished Portuguese nobleman, the 3rd Marshal of Portugal and 1st Count of Marialva .-Life:... - Álvaro Vaz de Almada, future Count of Avranches.
- João Pereira da Cunha Agostim, second son of Gil Vasques da Cunha (alferes mór, of John IJohn I of PortugalJohn I KG , called the Good or of Happy Memory, more rarely and outside Portugal the Bastard, was the tenth King of Portugal and the Algarve and the first to use the title Lord of Ceuta...
), and thus nephew of the Constable of PortugalConstable of PortugalConstable of Portugal or Constable of the Kingdom was a title created by the King of Portugal Ferdinand I in 1382, to substitute the title Alferes Mór do Reino. The constable was the second most powerful person in the kingdom, after the King of Portugal...
Nuno Álvares PereiraNuno Álvares PereiraDom Nuno Álvares Pereira, O. Carm. , also spelled Nun'Álvares Pereira, was a Portuguese general of great success who had a decisive role in the 1383-1385 Crisis that assured Portugal's independence from Castile...
, nicknamed 'Agostim' for having killed an English knight of that name in a duel. - Lopo Fernandes Pacheco
- Pedro Homem da Costa
Added by Védouro (and Soares da Silva)
- Álvaro Mendes Cerveira
- Rui Mendes Cerveira, brother of the above
- Soeiro da Costa, alcaide-mor of LagosLagos, PortugalLagos is a municipality at the mouth of Bensafrim River and along the Atlantic Ocean, in the Barlavento region of the Algarve, in southern Portugal....
, Algarve, future captain of Prince Henry the Navigator. Improbably young at this time. - Luís Gonçalves Malafaia, future ambassador of John II of PortugalJohn II of PortugalJohn II , the Perfect Prince , was the thirteenth king of Portugal and the Algarves...
to the court of Castile; also improbably young. - Martim Lopes de Azevedo
- Rui Gomes da Silva, possibly the future alcaide of Campo Maior, son of Aires Gomes da Silva, father of St. Beatrix da SilvaBeatrix da SilvaBeatrice Menezes da Silva, O.I.C. , was a noblewoman of Portugal, who became a nun and was the foundress of the monastic Order of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady...
- Álvaro de Almada, nickamed the Justador, - according to Silva, a nephew of the Count of Avranches, but some other authors assume it is just a confused repetition of Avranches himself.
Common alternates to the above list are:
- João Fernandes Pacheco, lord of Ferreira de Aves, brother of Lopo Fernandes Pacheco, progenitor of the Dukes of EscalonaDuke of EscalonaDuke of Escalona is a Spanish noble title given by Henry IV of Castile in 1472 to Juan Pacheco, first Marquis of Villena.The name Escalona refers to the village Escalona del Alberche, in the Province of Toledo....
in CastileCrown of CastileThe Crown of Castile was a medieval and modern state in the Iberian Peninsula that formed in 1230 as a result of the third and definitive union of the crowns and parliaments of the kingdoms of Castile and León upon the accession of the then King Ferdinand III of Castile to the vacant Leonese throne...
- commonly substituted in place of Almada 'o Justador'. - Vasco Annes da Costa, the first named "Corte-RealCorte-RealCorte-Real, sometimes Corte Real, is a surname of Portuguese origin, which means literally "Royal Court". It may refer to:*João Vaz Corte-Real , Portuguese explorer*Miguel Corte-Real , Portuguese explorer...
", fronteiro-mor of Tavira in the Algarve, ancestor of the Corte-RealCorte-RealCorte-Real, sometimes Corte Real, is a surname of Portuguese origin, which means literally "Royal Court". It may refer to:*João Vaz Corte-Real , Portuguese explorer*Miguel Corte-Real , Portuguese explorer...
explorers and captains of Terceira IslandTerceira IslandReferred to as the “Ilha Lilás” , Terceira is an island in the Azores archipelago, in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean. It is one of the larger islands of the archipelago, with a population of 56,000 inhabitants in an area of approximately 396.75 km²...
of the AzoresAzoresThe Archipelago of the Azores is composed of nine volcanic islands situated in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean, and is located about west from Lisbon and about east from the east coast of North America. The islands, and their economic exclusion zone, form the Autonomous Region of the...
- to bring the number up to 'thirteen', as originally stated by Vasconcelos.
In Teófilo Braga
Teófilo Braga
Joaquim Teófilo Fernandes Braga ]] 24 February 1843 – 28 January 1924) was a Portuguese writer, playwright, politician and the leader of the Republican Provisional Government after the abdication of King Manuel II, as well as the second elected President of the First Portuguese Republic, following...
's 1902 poem, the twelve English knights are named as Austin (killed in the opening fight by Álvaro Vaz de Almada), Athelard, Blundell, Loveday, Argenton, Clarency, Corleville, Otenel, Turneville, Morley, Glaston and Reginald (who fought Magriço in the last fight). The twelve English ladies are also named: Adhelm, Egberte, Oswalda, Jorceline, Luce, Florence, Egwin, Gotslina, Gerlanda, Ailmer, Tatwine and Ethwalda (Magriço's lady). These names are purely literary fiction by Braga, with no known historical counterparts.
History
While the particulars of the legend are doubtlessly fanciful, there may be some (slim) historical basis for such an encounter If such an event happened, it would have to be sometime after 1387 (when the Anglo-Portuguese allianceAnglo-Portuguese Alliance
The Anglo-Portuguese Alliance, ratified at the Treaty of Windsor in 1386, between England and Portugal is claimed to be the oldest alliance in the world which is still in force — with the earliest treaty dating back to the Anglo-Portuguese Treaty of 1373.This alliance, which goes back to the...
was sealed by the marriage of John I of Portugal
John I of Portugal
John I KG , called the Good or of Happy Memory, more rarely and outside Portugal the Bastard, was the tenth King of Portugal and the Algarve and the first to use the title Lord of Ceuta...
and Philippa of Lancaster
Philippa of Lancaster
Philippa of Lancaster, LG was a Queen consort of Portugal. Born into the royal family of England, her marriage with King John I secured the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance and produced several famous children who became known as the "Illustrious Generation" in Portugal...
, daughter of John of Gaunt) and before the death of John the Gaunt in 1399. Narrowing the window further, it was probably sometime after 1389, when John of Gaunt returned to England from his failed Iberian campaign, and before the death of John of Gaunt's wife, the Duchess of Lancaster, Constance of Castile in 1394. The common date frequently cited is 1390.
The Duchess's Castilian
Crown of Castile
The Crown of Castile was a medieval and modern state in the Iberian Peninsula that formed in 1230 as a result of the third and definitive union of the crowns and parliaments of the kingdoms of Castile and León upon the accession of the then King Ferdinand III of Castile to the vacant Leonese throne...
nationality may lead credence to such an event, and her twelve ladies-in-waiting were also, likely, Castilian rather than English, which may explain John the Gaunt's difficulty in finding English champions to pick up arms against their English brethren in their defense. The early 1390s also marks a difficult period in John of Gaunt's political life, at a low point in his fortunes, trying to navigate an England riven with great tension between the King Richard II of England
Richard II of England
Richard II was King of England, a member of the House of Plantagenet and the last of its main-line kings. He ruled from 1377 until he was deposed in 1399. Richard was a son of Edward, the Black Prince, and was born during the reign of his grandfather, Edward III...
and the English nobility. With the humiliating failure in Iberia still stinging, it was not unlikely disgruntled English knights might have taken to poking at the Duke of Lancaster and his household, in particular the Castilian Duchess who could be blamed for the hare-brained Iberian adventure to begin with. Finally, it is possible that if the event happaned as early as 1389-1390, Lancaster may not have had to send to Portugal for knights, but may have had a few already in his entourage - Portuguese knights who served with him in the Castilian campaign and accompanied him to England, possibly as a bodyguard when John of Gaunt was still uncertain as to what kind of reception he might receive at home. Add a few others from his son-in-law's embassy, and there might have been enough Portuguese knights in England at the time to engage in some sort of tournament over some offense against Lancaster's household.
Setting the event in the early 1390s, however, eliminates many of the identified Twelve, who were merely children at the time, if born at all. But it is probably safe to assume that the list is largely fanciful and anachronistic anyway. Most of the named knights were known to have gone abroad at some point - e.g. Álvaro Vaz de Almada served for a long time in England and was made a Knight of the Garter and Count of Avranches in 1445; Soeiro da Costa fought in Aragon and Italy in the early 1400s, and was at the Battle of Agincourt
Battle of Agincourt
The Battle of Agincourt was a major English victory against a numerically superior French army in the Hundred Years' War. The battle occurred on Friday, 25 October 1415 , near modern-day Azincourt, in northern France...
in 1415; Álvaro Gonçalves Coutinho, the Magriço himself, is reported to have fought in tournaments in France. The French chronicle of Enguerrand de Monstrelet
Enguerrand de Monstrelet
Enguerrand de Monstrelet , French chronicler, belonged to a noble family of Picardy.In 1436 and later he held the office of lieutenant of the gavenier at Cambrai, and he seems to have made this city his usual place of residence...
records a chivalric fight (over women) in Saint-Ouen in 1414 between three Portuguese knights (named simply D. Álvares, D. João and D. Pedro Gonçalves) and three Gascon
Gascony
Gascony is an area of southwest France that was part of the "Province of Guyenne and Gascony" prior to the French Revolution. The region is vaguely defined and the distinction between Guyenne and Gascony is unclear; sometimes they are considered to overlap, and sometimes Gascony is considered a...
knights (François de Grignols, Archambaud de la Roque and Maurignon). News of the feats of various Portuguese knights abroad in different countries - filtered back home in the early 1400s and somehow, inchoatly and anachronistically, congealed in popular memory into a single English tournament set around 1390.
Other influences in this story is the rise of the Arthurian legend, probably brought to the Portuguese court by Philippa of Lancaster. The story of the Twelve of England evokes the image of John I of Portugal, as some sort of Portuguese King Arthur, sending out his knights of the round table
Round table
A round table is a table which has no "head" and no "sides", and therefore no one person sitting at it is given a privileged position and all are treated as equals. The idea stems from the Arthurian legend about the Knights of the Round Table in Camelot....
in feats of chivalry, saving distant damsels in distress (a marked change from the old reconquista
Reconquista
The Reconquista was a period of almost 800 years in the Middle Ages during which several Christian kingdoms succeeded in retaking the Muslim-controlled areas of the Iberian Peninsula broadly known as Al-Andalus...
tales of battling Moors.) The number - twelve - is also not accidental. As pointed out by Camões himself, it happens to match the Twelve Peers of Charlemagne
Charlemagne
Charlemagne was King of the Franks from 768 and Emperor of the Romans from 800 to his death in 814. He expanded the Frankish kingdom into an empire that incorporated much of Western and Central Europe. During his reign, he conquered Italy and was crowned by Pope Leo III on 25 December 800...
, that other great source of chivalric literature, re-popularized in the 16th C. by Boiardo and Ariosto ("For the Twelve Peers, I put forth the Twelve of England, and their Magriço", Camões
Luís de Camões
Luís Vaz de Camões is considered Portugal's and the Portuguese language's greatest poet. His mastery of verse has been compared to that of Shakespeare, Vondel, Homer, Virgil and Dante. He wrote a considerable amount of lyrical poetry and drama but is best remembered for his epic work Os Lusíadas...
Lusiadas, Canto I, Stanza 12 ).
Cultural references
In the 1820s, Portuguese RomanticRomanticism
Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...
poet Almeida Garrett
Almeida Garrett
João Baptista da Silva Leitão de Almeida Garrett, Viscount of Almeida Garrett was a Portuguese poet, playwright, novelist and politician. He is considered to be the introducer of the Romanticism in Portugal, with the epic poem Camões, based on the life of Luís de Camões...
worked for many years on a extended poem, Magriço ou Os Doze de Inglaterra, which used the story of the Twelve as a device for wider philosophical meanderings, which was never completed. Many decades later, in 1902, Teófilo Braga
Teófilo Braga
Joaquim Teófilo Fernandes Braga ]] 24 February 1843 – 28 January 1924) was a Portuguese writer, playwright, politician and the leader of the Republican Provisional Government after the abdication of King Manuel II, as well as the second elected President of the First Portuguese Republic, following...
composed his own more straightforward poetic version of the story of the Twelve, with a more nationalist tone, apparently inspired by his research into Camões and Garrett, but also possibly motivated by the 1890 British Ultimatum, which had provoked a strong anti-British feeling in republican-nationalist circles in Portugal at that time.
The legend took a new life when the Portugal national football team
Portugal national football team
The Portugal national football team represents Portugal in association football and is controlled by the Portuguese Football Federation, the governing body for football in Portugal. Portugal's home ground is Estádio Nacional in Oeiras, and their head coach is Paulo Bento...
made their debut at the 1966 FIFA World Cup
1966 FIFA World Cup
The 1966 FIFA World Cup, the eighth staging of the World Cup, was held in England from 11 July to 30 July. England beat West Germany 4–2 in the final, winning the World Cup for the first time, so becoming the first host to win the tournament since Italy in 1934.-Host selection:England was chosen as...
hosted in England. Led by eventual top-scorer Eusebio
Eusébio
Eusébio da Silva Ferreira, GCIH, GCM , commonly known simply as Eusébio, is a retired Mozambican-born Portuguese football forward. He is considered one of the best footballers of all-time by the IFFHS, experts and fans...
, they reached third place in the tournament. The Portuguese newspaper press gave the fabled team the nickname Os Magriços, in reference to the Twelve of England. Although the legend was familiar to the Portuguese public, it became even more prominent in the aftermath of the World Cup campaign.