Prince Henry, Never Called Navigator: Templar Funds, Tuna and Cape Bojador

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Prince Henry of Portugal, born in 1394 as the third surviving son of King John I and Philippa of Lancaster, was never called the Navigator in his lifetime: German and British historians coined the title some 400 years after his death. At 21 he joined the 1415 conquest of Ceuta and, cut off with 17 men, held a gate between the lower town and the citadel for hours while rumors reached the king that he was dead. Questioning prisoners and merchants about caravans bringing gold from Timbuktu, he set out to reach West African markets by sea and bypass the Islamic monopoly on the Saharan routes. From 1420 he ran the Order of Christ, heir to the Portuguese Templar estates at Tomar, and held a monopoly on Algarve tuna fishing.

Later he also received the royal fifth on profits from new lands and the sole right to license voyages down the African coast. The famous School of Sagres never existed, but at Lagos and Sagres he employed the cartographer Jehuda Cresques, and his captains used lateen-rigged caravels and the volta do mar. In 1434 Gil Eanes finally passed Cape Bojador, and Portugal reached the Senegal River and was minting the gold cruzado by 1452. A trading post on Arguin bought enslaved Africans, sanctioned by the papal bull Dum Diversas. Henry's failed 1437 attack on Tangier left his brother Ferdinand a hostage who died in a Moroccan prison after Portugal refused to return Ceuta. Henry died in November 1460.

• His brother Peter, Duke of Coimbra, brought home a Venetian world map and a copy of Marco Polo's travels.
• Sailors believed the sea beyond Cape Bojador boiled, an idea fed by surf on shallow reefs and red Saharan dust.
• Henry financed 15 failed attempts over 10 years to get past the cape.
• As many as 40 vessels sailed on his behalf in a two-year span of the 1440s.
• At his death his captains had reached only present-day Sierra Leone, decades before Bartolomeu Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope and Vasco da Gama reached India in 1498.