A.D. 1190. THE ENGLISH IN PORTUGAL. Christendom, and the Christian faith was as yet but in its infancy there, as it was only the year before that it had been wrested from the hands of the pagans, and had become Christian, as already mentioned. The people, therefore, on board the ship, being ignorant where they were, putting out a boat pulled for land, and learned, by certain indications, that the land was inhabited by Christians, and that there was no further [inland] any safe road for them without a good and sufficient escort. Accordingly they approached the city ; and on learning the cause of their arrival, the bishop of the city of Silva, and the clergy and people, received them with congratulations, giving thanks to God for their arrival ; for there were in the ship a hundred young men of prowess and well armed. In the meantime Botac El Emir Amimoli, emperor of Africa and of Saracenic Spain, levying a large army, marched into the territories of Sancho, king of Portugal, to take vengeance for the emperor of Africa, his father, who had died six years before while besieging Santa Erena, a castle of king Alphonso, father of the said Sancho, king of Portugal. On this, the citizens of Silva, being alarmed, refused to allow these young men of London to leave them, but broke up their ship, and with the timbers of it made bulwarks for the city, promising and giving them all kinds of security that the king of Portugal would pay them well for the delay thus occasioned them, and the injury received in consequence of the loss of their ship ; which was accordingly done. The other nine ships of the fleet of the king of England which had been out in the same storm, made land in different parts of Spain ; after which, by the guidance of God, sailing up the river Tagus, they at last arrived at the city of Lisbon. In this city, of Lisbon rests the body of Saint Vincent the Martyr. Before they had arrived there, the before-named emperor of Africa, on the day of the Nativity of Saint John the Baptist, forded the river Tagus, and .aB his army with him, and laid siege to a castle of Sancho, king of Portugal, which is caBed Torresnovas. On this, the king of Portugal sent envoys to the strangers who had come in the ships to the city of Lisbon, and asked succours of them against the Saracens. Accordingly,five hundred men, weB armed, and selected from aB the ships that had arrived, as being the bravest and most courageous, preferred to die in war for the name of Jesus Christ, rather than behold the misfortunes of their race and its