The Treaty of Windsor - Talk by Peter Kingdon Booker, Municipal Library Tavira
In 1986, the special exhibition which took place in Lisbon to record the 600th anniversary of the Treaty of Windsor was timed to coincide with the accession of Portugal to the European Economic Community. The exhibition was a joint venture between the National Archive of the Torre do Tombo in Lisbon and the British Historical Society of Portugal and it featured 137 documents dating from 1147 until 1943, representing the documentary skeleton of the alliance between Portugal and England.  The actual Treaty of Windsor, celebrated in 1386 between D João I of Portugal and Richard II of England, still exists in both the Torre do Tombo and in the Public Record Office.  This treaty was an important milestone in the history of the Anglo-Portuguese Atlantic alliance against the natural and powerful Franco-Spanish continental land alliance, and was one of the cornerstones of the military alliance between the two countries which lasted until the formation of NATO and the European Economic Community.  In this lecture, Peter Booker examines the alliance and how a succession of treaties has bound the two nations together, and considers the military interventions of English troops in Portugal, and the expedition of Portugal´s navy to English waters.