The UK and Portugal will celebrate the 650th
anniversary of the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance with a
service at the Queen’s Chapel and a UK-Portugal Strategic
Dialogue
- The Foreign Secretary will join His
Majesty The King to honour the 650-year-old diplomatic
alliance.
- Tomorrow he will meet the
Portuguese Foreign Minister to sign a new agreement on
international development.
- The UK and Portugal share the
oldest diplomatic alliance in the world still in force
today.
This week the UK and Portugal will celebrate the 650th
anniversary of their alliance, an unprecedented milestone in the
history of diplomacy. 16th June marks 650 years since
the signing of the Treaty of London in 1373, an alliance
originally between King Edward III of England and King Ferdinand
and Queen Eleanor of Portugal.
A service will be held at the Queen’s Chapel in central London
where the Foreign Secretary , alongside His Majesty The
King, the President of the Portuguese Republic and the Portuguese
Foreign Minister, will celebrate the historic ties. An original
copy of the Treaty, signed almost 20 years after The Plague
struck Europe and committing the nations to “peace, friendship
and alliance”, will be on display from The National
Archive.
Ahead of the events, Foreign Secretary said:
“The rich history between the UK and Portugal says something
special about how we see the world and how our people get along.
No other relationship on the planet has survived the test of time
as well as ours.
“We are now building on those solid foundations to deliver
security and prosperity for our countries, progress towards net
zero, and support to Ukraine.”
The Foreign Secretary will also host a Strategic Dialogue with
the Portuguese Foreign Minister on Friday (16th June),
where they will discuss cooperation on climate change, defence
and trade. The two ministers will also sign a Memorandum of
Understanding, which will strengthen international development
cooperation between the UK and Portugal.
The UK and Portugal have been commercial partners for almost
seven centuries and now hold a modern trade relationship that
delivers clean growth, renewable energy and resilient supply
chains. Trade between the two countries more than doubled from
2021 to 2022, now worth £11.6 billion and delivering on the Prime
Minister’s priority to grow the UK economy.
As NATO Allies, the security and prosperity of the Euro-Atlantic
is at the heart of the relationship, with both countries
providing practical aid and support to Ukraine, and a new
bilateral Defence Agreement, due to be signed later in the year,
set to take our defence cooperation to the next
level.
Notes for editors:
- The friendship between the UK and
Portugal was formalised with the signing of the Treaty of Tagilde
on 10 July 1372. The signing of this treaty happened around 20
years after the end of The Black Death.
- Less than a year after the Treaty
of Tagilde, King Edward III of England and King Fernando and
Queen Leonor of Portugal signed the Treaty of Peace, Friendship
and Alliance also known as The Treaty of London in St. Paul’s
Cathedral on 16 June 1373.
- The Treaty pledged “perpetual
friendships, unions, alliances and deeds of sincere affection”
and described us as “faithful and true friends”. This alliance
was renewed in the Treaty of Windsor of 1386, and in several
other treaties throughout the centuries.
- The Queen’s Chapel was the Chapel
of the Portuguese born Queen Catherine of Braganza wife of King
Charles II. Above the altar and in the Gallery is her coat of
arms combining the arms of Portugal and the United Kingdom.
