Two of his squires rashly suggested to him that the King did not mean to take Ceuta at all. Taking his silence for assent and blind to his rising anger, they went so far as to say that King John was only looking for some way of saving his face, and that he cared little if he lost a few men in the process. Henry was not a man to suffer lightly the halfhearted, or the doubting Thomas, let alone men who dared suggest that his father was a coward. “You force me to tell you,” he said, “something I would have preferred to keep secret. Tomorrow you will see me walking down the gangplank—the first man to land in Ceuta! As for you, I will have two men transferred from another ship to take your places.” As Prince Edward later wrote, “… The most victorious King, my father, may God rest his soul, finding himself between Gibraltar and Algeciras, with me, my beloved brothers Prince Peter and Prince Henry, the Count of Barcellos, and the Constable, was told by some, who were not in favour of our intentions, that for many reasons we should not return to Ceuta, because of the danger of crossing the Straits in a storm.
