The Story of the Nations: Portugal
Date: 2014-05-04T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Portugal -- History

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Title: The Story of the Nations: Portugal

Author: H. Morse Stephens

Release date: May 4, 2014 [eBook #45581]
Most recently updated: January 25, 2021

Language: English

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Contents.
Genealogical Tables
List of Illustrations.
The Kings of Portugal
Index.

(etext transcriber's note)

Stories of the Nations

A Series of Historical Studies intended to present in graphic narratives the stories of the different nations that have attained prominence in history.

In the story form the current of each national life is distinctly indicated, and its picturesque and noteworthy periods and episodes are presented for the reader in their philosophical relations to each other as well as to universal history.

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FOR FULL LIST SEE END OF THIS VOLUME

PORTUGAL

PRINCE HENRY OF PORTUGAL.
(From an Engraving of the Miniature in the MS. of “The Discovery of Guinea,” 1448.)

THE STORY OF THE NATIONS

PORTUGAL

BY
H. MORSE STEPHENS
BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD; OXFORD UNIVERSITY EXTENSION LECTURER
AUTHOR OF “A HISTORY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION”

——
NEW YORK
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
LONDON: T. FISHER UNWIN
1903

Copyright, 1891
BY
G. P. Putnam’s Sons

Entered at Stationers’ Hall, London
By T. Fisher Unwin

Electrotyped, Printed, and Bound by
The Knickerbocker Press, New York
G. P. Putnam’s Sons

PREFACE.

THIS volume is written on a different plan to that adopted in most of the volumes in the same Series which have preceded it, and attempts to give a short chronological history of Portugal. An episodical history, though more interesting than a consecutive narrative, in that it treats only of the most striking events, demands from the reader a groundwork of accurate knowledge. This is not given with regard to the history of Portugal in any book in the English language with which the author is acquainted. Dunham, who combined a history of Portugal with that of Spain, in five volumes published in Lardner’s Cabinet Cyclopædia between 1838 and 1843, based his account on Vertot’s Révolutions de Portugal, first printed at Paris in 1678, and modern English standard books of reference still make use of Dunham, and contain the old blunders of identifying Portugal with Lusitania, recognizing the fictitious Cortes of Lamego in 1143, regarding the victory of Ourique as a “prodigious” victory, &c., &c. Since the time of Dunham, a few books have been published in England bearing on special periods of Portuguese history, such as the lives of the Marquis of Pombal and the Duke of Saldanha, published by John Smith, Count of Carnota, and two volumes of a History of Portugal, by E. MacMurdo, and which is still in progress; but there exists no book containing a complete and trustworthy history to which students may be referred.

Yet within the last fifty years the history of Portugal has been entirely rewritten. The modern school of historians, which derived its first impulsion from Niebuhr and Ranke, found a brilliant representative in Alexandra Herculano, who saw that history could only be written after a careful examination of contemporary documents, and who in his Historia de Portugal, published between 1848 and 1853, swept away much of the cobweb of legend which had enveloped the early history of his country. Herculano undoubtedly owed much to Heinrich Schäfer, who wrote the history of Portugal in the Geschichte der Europäischen Staaten edited by Heeren and Ukert; but he went much further than Schäfer, and the history of the latter is now quite out of date. The works of Herculano and his followers have quite superseded the histories of Lemos, Sousa Monteiro, and J. F. Pereira, which are mentioned here only as books to be avoided by the historical student.

It is not intended to give a complete bibliography of the works of the modern Portuguese school of historians, but the author thinks it worth while to refer to some of the books which he has used, and which can be recommended as trustworthy guides to those who may wish to examine further into the history of Portugal. First with regard to documents, the Colleccão de Livros ineditos de Historia Portugueza, edited by Correa da Serra, and the Colleccão dos principaes Auctores da Historia Portugueza, and the Portugalliæ Monumenta Historica, edited by Herculano, contain the best editions of the old chroniclers; while perpetual reference must be made to the Quadro elementar das Relacões politicas e diplomaticas de Portugal of the Viscount of Santarem, which was continued by Rebello da Silva as the Corpo diplomatico Portuguez, and contains in thirty-six volumes, published between 1856 and 1878, the “fœdera” of Portugal up to 1640, and to the Colleccão dos Actos publicos celebrados entre a Coroa de Portugal e as mais Potencias desde 1640 até o Presente, edited by J. Ferreira Borges de Castro and J. Judice Biker. As consecutive narratives, the short history of J. P. Oliveira Martins, and the illustrated popular history, which is the joint work of Antonio Ennes, B. Ribeiro, E. Vidal, G. Lobato, L. Cordeiro and Pinheiro Chagas may be read; but it would be far better to study the more scientific works of Alexander Herculano, Historia de Portugal, 4 vols., 1848-53, which goes to 1279, and Da Origem e Estabelecimento da Inquisicão em Portugal, 2 vols., 1854-57; the Historia de Portugal pendente XVI. e XVII. Seculos, 5 vols., 1860-71, by L. A. Rebello da Silva; Historia de Portugal desde os Fins do XVII. Seculo até 1814, 1874, by J. M. Latino Coelho; and Historia da Guerra civil e do Estabelecimento do Governo Parlamentar em Portugal, 6 vols., 1866-1881, by S. J. da Luz Soriano. Among special books of interest in different languages may be noted Memorias para a Historia e Theoria das Cortes, by the Viscount of Santarem, 1828; Las Rainhas de Portugal, by F. da Fonseca Benevides, 1878; History of the Revolutions of Portugal from the Foundation of that Kingdom to the year 1677, with the Letters of Sir R. Southwell during his Embassy there to the Duke of Ormond, by R. Carte, 1740; Les Faux Don Sébastien, by Miguel Martins d’Antas, Paris, 1866; Le Chevalier de Jant; Rélations de la France avec le Portugal au temps de Mazarin, by Jules Tessier, Paris, 1877; and Life of Prince Henry the Navigator, by R. H. Major, 1868. Coming to the history of the present century, the great History of the Peninsular War, by Gen. Sir W. F. P. Napier, is justly famous in all countries, and it is so well known that only a very few pages have been devoted to the subject in the present volume; but reference has also been made to the Historia geral da Invasão dos Francezes em Portugal, by Accursio das Neves; to the Excerptos Historicos relativos a Guerra denominada da Peninsula, e as anteriores de 1801, de Roussillon e Cataluna, by Claudio de Chaby; and to the Wellington Despatches. On the history of the civil wars the best authorities are Memorias para a Historia do Tempo que duron a Usurpacão de Dom Miguel, by J. L. Freire de Carvalho, 1841-43; Historia de Liberdade em Portugal, by J. G. de Barros e Cunha, 1869; Despachos e Correspondencia do Duque de Palmella, 1851-54; Correspondencia Official de Conde de Carneira com o Duque de Palmella, 1874; Memoirs of the Duke of Saldanha, by the Count of Carnota; The Wars of Succession in France and Portugal, by William Bollaert, vol. i., 1870, and The Civil War in Portugal, and the Siege of Oporto, by a British Officer of Hussars [Colonel Badcock], 1835. Much valuable historical material is also buried in magazines and the transactions of learned societies, and special reference may be made to two particularly interesting essays in the Annaes des Sciencias Moraes e Politicas, Dom João II. e a Nobreza, by Rebello da Silva, and Apontamentos para a Historia da Conquista de Portugal por Filippe II., by A. P. Lopes de Mendonça.

Apart from Portuguese history, Portuguese literature deserves to be studied. Several pages have been devoted to it in the present volume, and with regard to the early poetry of the troubadour epoch, the author desires to express his obligations to the learned introductions of Theophilo Braga, himself a poet of no mean rank, to his Antologia Portugueza, 1876, and his Cancioneiro Portuguez, 1878. The glory of Portuguese literature is Camoens, and it is fortunate that his great poem, The Lusiads, has found an adequate translator at last. I know of no translation of any classic which can compare with Sir Richard Burton’s translation of The Lusiads. By his profound knowledge of the Portuguese character no less than of the Portuguese language, by his intimate acquaintance with the places which Camoens describes, and, above all, by his temperament, which resembled that of the conquistador-poet, Sir Richard Burton was fitted to reproduce for the English people the thoughts and words of the greatest Portuguese poet. Every lover of Camoens, like every lover of Homer, has been tempted to translate his mighty poem; but, at last, so it seems to me, the work of translation has been done once for all for Camoens by the loving labour of Sir Richard Burton, and Englishmen may read The Lusiads, reproduced faithfully into their own language, alike in spirit and in words. That the life-poem of a hero of the sixteenth century should have been worthily translated by a hero of the nineteenth, seems to me a circumstance of which all lovers of literature in both England and Portugal should be glad and proud.

In conclusion, the writing of this volume has been to the author a labour of love. In the intervals of a minute study of the history of another period, that of the French Revolution, he has turned with pleasure to the task of writing this “Story of Portugal.” He has not been able to work at original authorities as thoroughly as he might wish, owing to the absorbing nature of his more important work, but he hopes the time may come when he will be enabled to spend a few years among the Archives at the Torre del Tombo, and investigate more thoroughly the history of the early relations of England and Portugal, and of the Portuguese in the East. Is he too presumptuous also in hoping that a clearer knowledge of the old and tried friendship of the English nation with the Portuguese may influence in some degree the attitude taken by a portion of the English people towards their ancient ally in the dispute with regard to the extent of the Portuguese possessions in Africa?

H. MORSE STEPHENS.

Oxford,
March 1, 1891.

CONTENTS.

I.
PAGE
Early History | 1

The importance of, and features of interest in, Portuguese history—Greeks, Phœnicians, and Romans—Portugal is not the ancient Lusitania—The influence of Rome—The Visigoths—The rule of the Mohammedans—The Christian princes commence their incursions—Ferdinand “the Great” captures Coimbra—The successes of the Almoravides—The formation of the County of Portugal.

II.
The County of Portugal—Donna Theresa | 20

The character of Henry of Burgundy, first Count of Portugal—The Countess Theresa—Her policy—Count Henry fights in Spain—His death—The regency of Theresa—The nobility and the bishops—The wars of Theresa—Theresa styled Infanta—The battle of S. Mamede—Theresa introduces the religious military orders—Death of Donna Theresa.

III.
Portugal becomes a Kingdom—The Reign of Affonso Henriques | 34

The youth of Affonso Henriques—The heroism of Egas Moniz—The Gallician wars—Affonso assumes the title of king—He is recognized by the Pope—The Treaty of Zamora—Independence won by the Gallician wars—The state of the Moors—Affonso’s first war with the Moors—The victory of Ourique—Legends concerning it—The wars of conquest—The capture of Santarem and Lisbon—The assistance of the English crusaders—Capture of Alcacer do Sal—The Treaty of Cella Nova—Affonso taken prisoner at Badajoz—Truce with the Moors—Further fighting—Great victory over the Moors at Santarem—Death of Affonso Henriques.

IV.
Portugal attains its European Limits | 60

The reign of Sancho I.—The successes of the Moors—Sancho’s internal administration—His quarrels with the clergy and the Pope—The marriages of his children—The reign of Affonso II. “the Fat”—Recapture of Alcacer do Sal and defeat of the Moors—Arrival of the friars—The reign of Sancho II.—The capture of Elvas—His quarrels with his bishops—He is deposed by the Pope—The reign of Affonso III.—His conquest of the Algarves—His alliance with his people—The Cortes—His death.

V.
The Consolidation of Portugal | 85

The reign of Diniz—The Order of Christ—His internal administration—His encouragement of literature—Portuguese poetry—Stanzas of Camoens on Diniz—Affonso IV. “the Brave”—The victory of the Salado—Friendship between Portugal and England—The murder of Ines de Castro—Pedro “the Severe”—Ferdinand “the Handsome”—The Queen Leonor—Riot in Lisbon—War between Portugal and Castile—The wickedness of the queen—The Treaty of Salvaterra—The Portuguese revolt under Dom John of Aviz—The defence of Lisbon—Dom John elected king—The victory of Aljubarrota—The Treaty of Windsor and alliance with John of Gaunt—Peace with Castile.

VI.
Portugal during the Age of Exploration | 115

The policy of John “the Great”—The alliance with England—His internal administration—The power of the feudal nobility—The capture of Ceuta—The king’s sons—The growth of Portuguese literature—The reign of Duarte or Edward—The expedition to Tangier—The “Constant Prince”—Dispute as to the regency—Dom Pedro regent—Overthrown at battle of Alfarrobeira—The reign of Affonso V. “the African”—His African expeditions—War with Castile—Defeated at Toro—His patronage of literature.

VII.
The Portuguese Explorers | 140

Prince Henry “the Navigator” and his work—The importance of a direct route to India—The discovery of Madeira—The story of Robert Machin—The discovery of the Azores—Cape Bojador passed—The commencement of the African slave trade—The discovery of Guinea, and of Cape Verde—The voyage of Cadamosto—Death of Prince Henry—The equator crossed—Discovery of the Congo—The Cape of Good Hope reached and doubled.

VIII.
The Heroic Age of Portugal | 158

John II. “the Perfect”—Overthrow of the power of the nobility—His foreign policy—Treaty of Tordesillas with Spain—Friendship with England—His encouragement of exploration—His court—Emmanuel “the Fortunate”—Expulsion of the Jews—His policy and marriages—The discoveries of the Portuguese—The seeds of decline—John III.—His policy—The abandonment of the ports in Morocco—Corruption at Court—Rapid depopulation of Portugal—The Inquisition and the Jesuits—Death John III.

IX.
The Portuguese in India and the Eastern Seas | 185

Romantic interest of the story of the Portuguese in India—The voyage of Vasco da Gama—State of India, when he reached it—His return—The voyage of Cabral and the victory of Pacheco—The viceroyalties of Almeida and Alboquerque—The capture of Goa—Alboquerque establishes a factory at Malacca and attacks Aden—The policy of Alboquerque—The rule of his successors—Their policy and the nature of their government—The Christian missionaries—S. Francis Xavier—The viceroyalty of Castro—His victory at Diu—The successors of Castro—The settlements in South-east Africa—The Portuguese at Malacca and in the Spice Islands—Their communications with China and Japan—The career of Mendes Pinto—Extraordinary energy of the Portuguese in Asia.

X.
The Portuguese in Brazil | 220

Importance of Brazil to Portugal—Cabral’s discovery of the country—Spain abandons its claims—The aboriginal inhabitants—Early days—The first settlers and their government—Emigration from Portugal—The viceroyalty of Thomas de Sousa—The Jesuits and their work—The government of Duarte da Costa—Failure of the French Huguenots to establish themselves in Brazil.

XI.
The last Kings of the House of Aviz—Dom Sebastian and the Cardinal Henry | 236

The rapid decay of Portugal—The accession of Sebastian—The regency of Queen Catherine—The regency of the Cardinal Henry—The character of Sebastian—His crusading ardour—The Portuguese in India—Athaide’s defence of Goa—Sebastian determines to invade Morocco—His applications for foreign aid—His preparations—He lands in Africa—The defeat of Alcacer Quibir—The death of Sebastian—The reign of the Cardinal Henry.

XII.
Portuguese Literature—Camoens | 259

The “Golden Age” of Portuguese literature—The revival of classical learning—History of the University of Coimbra—Gil Vicente—Bernardim Ribeiro—Sá de Miranda—Ferreira—Camoens—His life—His “Lusiads”—João de Barros—Other writers—Decline of Portuguese literature.

XIII.
The Sixty Years’ Captivity | 278

The claimants to the Portuguese crown—Defeat of the Prior of Crato—Philip II. of Spain recognized as king of Portugal—Further efforts and death of the Prior of Crato—The false Dom Sebastians—The government of Spain and its disastrous results—The reign of Philip II.—The Portuguese in Asia—The conquest of Kandy—The missionaries and the Inquisition—The Dutch and the English overthrow the Portuguese power in Asia—The Dutch in Brazil—Count Maurice of Nassau—Results of the rule of Spain.

XIV.
The Revolution of 1640 | 300

Discontent of the Portuguese at the rule of the Spaniards—Fostered by Richelieu—The Duke and Duchess of Braganza—The Duchess of Mantua, and her advisers—Preparations for revolt—The leaders—The Revolution of December 1, 1640—The Duke of Braganza crowned as John IV.—He obtains help from Holland and France—The “Caminha” conspiracy—The victory of Montijo—Brazil expels the Dutch—War with Holland—The King despairs, and offers to abdicate—Treaty of alliance with France—Death of John IV.

XV.
The English Alliance | 326

The Queen as Regent—Schomberg organizes the army—Victory of Elvas—Marriage of Charles II. of England to Catherine of Braganza—Affonso VI. declares himself of age—The Ministry of Castel Melhor—Victories of the Portuguese—Court revolution—Dom Pedro regent—Peace with Spain—The rule of Pedro II. as Regent and King—His foreign policy—Death of Charles II. of Spain—The Methuen treaty and its results—The war of the Spanish Succession—Death of Pedro II.—The decline of the Portuguese power in Asia—Prosperity of Brazil—Discovery of gold there.

XVI.
Portugal in the Eighteenth Century—The Marquis of Pombal | 349

Portugal in the eighteenth century—Accession of John V.—End of the war of the Spanish Succession—Peace policy of the King—His long and prosperous reign—Accession of Joseph—Early career of Pombal—The earthquake of Lisbon—Pombal, prime minister—He attacks the Jesuits—The “Tavora” plot—Banishment of the Jesuits—Short war with Spain—Suppression of the Jesuits—Death of Joseph—The administration of Pombal—His great reforms—Accession of Pedro III. and Maria I.—Disgrace of Pombal—The reign of Pedro and Maria—Death of Pedro III.—The Portuguese in India in the eighteenth century—The prosperity of Brazil—Discovery of diamonds there—Literature in the eighteenth century.

XVII.
The Era of the French Revolution—The Peninsular War | 382

The French Revolution—Persecution of sympathisers with it in Portugal—Dom John sends help to Spain in the war against France—Deserted by Spain at the Treaty of Basle—The Treaty of San Ildefonso—Alliance with England—Dom John declared Regent—The war of 1801—The Treaty of Badajoz—Policy of Napoleon against Portugal—Mission of Lannes—Treaty of Fontainebleau, 1807—Junot invades Portugal—The Regent escapes to Brazil—Junot’s rule—Forms the Portuguese Legion—General insurrection against him—The Portuguese appeal to England—Victory of Vimeiro and Convention of Cintra—Soult occupies Oporto—Expelled by Wellesley—Beresford reorganizes the Portuguese army—The Regency—Masséna before Torres Vedras—The Portuguese troops during the Peninsular War—Conclusion of the War—Death of Queen Maria Francisca.

XVIII.
Modern Portugal—Civil Wars and the Establishment of Parliamentary Government | 409

John IV. his queen, and his sons Dom Pedro and Dom Miguel—Oporto and Lisbon revolt against the Regency—The Constitution of 1821—Brazil declares itself independent—The Constitution abrogated—Death of John VI.—The influence of the army—The Charter of 1826—Pedro IV. abdicates in favour of Maria II.—Dom Miguel, Regent—Elected King—Reign of Dom Miguel—The “Miguelite” war, 1830-34—Convention of Evora Monte—Reign of Maria da Gloria—Civil wars and “pronunciamentos”—Era of peaceful parliamentary government—Reigns of Pedro V. and Luis I.—Accession of Carlos I.—The Portuguese settlements in Africa—Material prosperity—The literary revival—Lessons taught by the history of Portugal—Conclusion.

Index: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, Y, Z | 433

Genealogical Tables—

I. | The Descendants of John “the Great” | 139
II. | The Descendants of Emmanuel | 279
III. | The Dukes of Braganza | 303

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE
PRINCE HENRY OF PORTUGAL | Frontispiece
SPECIMEN OF ROMAN ARCHITECTURE | 9
VIEW OF OPORTO AND VILLA NOVA FROM THE SERRA CONVENT | 16
COIMBRA (PRESENT STATE) | 27
A VIEW OF THE ANCIENT MOORISH BATH AT CINTRA | 42
ARCH OF THE WESTERN ENTRANCE TO AN OLD CHAPEL AT LEIRIA | 47
VIEW OF LISBON | 50
CONVENTO DE CHRISTO AT THOMAR | 61
PRINCIPAL FAÇADE OF THE IGREGA DOS JERONYMOS AT BELEM (PRESENT STATE) | 68
GATE AND WINDOW OF THE MONASTERY OF BELEM | 77
FAÇADE OF LISBON CATHEDRAL | 82
INES DE CASTRO | 96
VIEW OF THE PALACE AT LISBON | 108
TWO SIDES OF THE ROYAL CHAPEL OF THE MONASTERY OF BATALHA (PRESENT STATE) | 112
KING JOHN THE GREAT | 116
QUEEN PHILIPPA | 123
PORTUGUESE GOLD COINS | 136, 137
ST. SALVADOR IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY | 142
STATUE OF PRINCE HENRY | 152
TOMB OF PRINCE HENRY | 155
CHART OF GOA | 166
VASCO DA GAMA | 168
ALBOQUERQUE, FROM THE SLOANE MS. | 194
ALBOQUERQUE, FROM AN ENGRAVING BY SILVA | 202
DOM JOÃO CASTRO | 210
PROCESSION OF AN AUTO DA FÉ | 232
LISBON IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY | 239
VIEW UP THE DOURO TOWARDS OPORTO | 250
LUIS DE CAMOENS | 269
JOÃO DE BARROS | 275
PHILIP II. | 282
FIGURES OF MEN AT AN AUTO DA FÉ | 293
PORTUGUESE GENTLEMEN | 310
JOHN IV. | 322
CATHERINE OF BRAGANZA | 328
PEDRO II. | 335
OPORTO (PRESENT STATE) | 339
SPECIMENS OF PORTUGUESE AND COPPER COINS | 344, 345
THE MARQUIS OF POMBAL | 356
BULL FIGHT | 366
A PORTUGUESE MERCHANT, WITH HIS WIFE AND MAID-SERVANT | 384
MARSHAL JUNOT, DUKE OF ABRANTES | 394
PORTUGUESE PEASANTS | 398
A FEMALE PEASANT FROM THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF CALDAS DA RAINHA | 403

[A number of the views illustrating Portuguese scenery are taken from photographs; others are copied from W. M. Kinsey’s “Portugal Illustrated,” London, 1829; other volumes which have supplied illustrations are “Les Royaumes d’Espagne et Portugal,” La Haye, 1720; Murphy’s “Travels in Portugal,” 1798; Major’s “Prince Henry the Navigator,” &c., &c.]

THE KINGS OF PORTUGAL

The House of Burgundy.
DATE
Affonso Henriques (Count of Portugal 1114), King | 1140
Sancho I. “the City-Builder” | 1185
Affonso II. “the Fat” | 1211
Sancho II. | 1223
Affonso III. “of Boulogne” (Defender of the Realm 1246) | 1248
Diniz “the Labourer” | 1279
Affonso IV. “the Brave” | 1325
Pedro I. “the Severe” | 1357
Ferdinand “the Handsome” | 1367
The House of Aviz.
John I. “the Great” | 1385
Edward | 1433
Affonso V. “the African” | 1438
John II. “the Perfect” | 1481
Emmanuel “the Fortunate” | 1495
John III. | 1521
Sebastian | 1557
Henry “the Cardinal” | 1578
The Spanish Dominion.
Philip I. (Philip II. of Spain) | 1580
Philip II. (Philip III. of Spain) | 1598
Philip III. (Philip IV. of Spain) | 1621
The House of Braganza.
John IV. | 1640
Affonso VI. | 1656
Pedro II. (Regent 1667) | 1683
John V. | 1706
Joseph | 1750
Maria I. and Pedro III. | 1777
Maria I. alone | 1786
John VI. (Regent 1799) | 1816
Pedro IV. abdicated | 1826
Maria II. | 1826
(Miguel, 1828-1834.) |
Maria II. | 1834
Pedro V. | 1853
Luis I. | 1861
Carlos I. | 1889

THE STORY OF PORTUGAL.

I.

EARLY HISTORY.

THE Story of Portugal possesses a peculiar interest from the fact that it is to its history alone that the country owes its existence as a separate nation Geographically, the little kingdom is an integral portion of the Iberian peninsula, with no natural boundaries to distinguish it from that larger portion of the peninsula called Spain; its inhabitants spring from the same stock as the Spaniards, and their language differs but slightly from the Spanish. Its early history is merged in that of the rest of the peninsula, and but for two great men, Affonso Henriques, the first king of Portugal, and John I., the founder of the house of Aviz, Portugal would not at the present day rank among the independent nations of Europe. The first of these monarchs created his dominions into a kingdom like Leon, Castile, and Aragon, and the latter encouraged the maritime explorations which gave the little country an individuality and national existence, of which it was justly proud. When Philip II. annexed Portugal in 1580, it was at least a century too late for the Portuguese to coalesce with the Spaniards. They had then produced Vasco da Gama and Alboquerque and other great captains and explorers, who had shown Europe the way to India by sea; and their tongue had been developed by the genius of Camoens and Sá de Miranda, from a Romance dialect, similar to those used in Gallicia, Castile, or Aragon, into a great literary language. Conscious of its national history, Portugal broke away again from Spain in 1640, and under the protection of England maintained its separate existence during the eighteenth century. There was some probability of a union with Spain at the beginning of the present century, when, after the conclusion of the Peninsular War against Napoleon, certain statesmen began to point out the anomaly of the Iberian peninsula being divided into two separate kingdoms, but a generation of great historians and poets soon arose, who reminded the people of the days of Portuguese greatness and of the glories of the past, and made it impossible for the modern Portuguese to lose the consciousness of their individuality as a nation.

But, though the history of Portugal possesses its peculiar interest as showing how one small portion of the Iberian peninsula maintained a separate existence, it presents also many features of romantic incident, especially during the epoch when it was for a time the leading nation of Europe. The extraordinary vigour shown by the inhabitants of this small corner of Europe during the latter half of the fifteenth and first half of the sixteenth centuries is most remarkable. Not only were Portuguese navigators the first to creep down the west coast of Africa in small boats, in which modern sailors would hardly like to cross the English Channel, but they dared to double the Cape of Good Hope, and to sail across the Indian Ocean to India and Ceylon. Thence they ventured round the point of Singapore, and established themselves at Macao, from which centre they explored the coasts of China and Japan. In the other direction, to the west, they crossed the Atlantic and discovered and colonized Brazil. Lisbon became the storehouse and centre of distribution for the products of the East, and attained to a height of wealth and luxury unrivalled since the days of ancient Rome. The history of the Portuguese “conquistadores” in India for the first hundred years after the discovery of the route round the Cape of Good Hope is one long romance; the vastness of their designs, the grandeur of their exploits, and the nobility of character of their great captains, combine to make a story of surpassing interest. And when it is remembered that the soldiers and sailors of these great discoverers and conquerors were inhabitants of the smallest country in Europe, their success seems the more extraordinary, and the interest in the story of the nation which trained the Portuguese heroes becomes the more absorbing. As invariably happens during the heroic age of a nation’s history, literature and the arts flourished at a time distinguished by military and naval prowess, and as Spenser and Shakespeare illustrated the Elizabethan age in England as much as Drake and Raleigh, the age of Vasco da Gama and Alboquerque in Portugal could boast also of Gil Vicente, Sá de Miranda and Camoens. The abrupt fall of Portugal from the greatness and wealth of its heroic period to an insignificant place among the nations is as full of the great lessons which history teaches as the story of its growth. Just as the chivalry induced by the constant fighting with the Moors, and the inspiration to great deeds fostered by freedom and the good government of worthy kings, produced a race of heroes, so not less surely did the growth of luxury and absolutism, assisted by the narrow-mindedness of a dynasty of bigots, lose for Portugal the lofty place which her heroes had won for her. These are things well worth pondering upon and lessons well worth learning, for the great value of the study of history is in teaching such truths as these—truths which are eternal, while nations wax and wane.

The early history of the country, which took the name of Portugal from the county which formed the nucleus of the future kingdom, is identical with that of the rest of the Iberian peninsula, but deserves some slight notice because of an old misconception, immortalized in the title of the famous epic of Camoens, and not yet entirely eradicated even from modern ideas. Portugal, like the rest of the peninsula, was originally inhabited by men of the prehistoric ages, whose implements are frequently dug up at the present day, and remains of the cave-dwellers have been found all over the province of the Alemtejo, and more especially in the great cave near Alter do Chão. The most famous prehistoric monument is, however, the beautiful “Anta de Guimaraens,” about the exact date of which Portuguese archæologists are much exercised. These prehistoric people were conquered and exterminated by the first waves of the great Aryan race which has spread all over Europe. There seems to be no doubt that the Celts, the first Aryan immigrants, were preceded by a non-Aryan race, which is called by different writers the Iberian or the Euskaldunac nation, but this earlier race speedily amalgamated with the Celts, and out of the two together were formed the five tribes inhabiting the Iberian peninsula, which Strabo names as the Cantabrians, the Vasconians, the Asturians, the Gallicians, and the Lusitanians. It is Strabo, also, who mentions the existence of Greek colonies at the mouths of the Tagus, Douro, and Minho, and it is curious to note that the old name of Lisbon, Olisipo, was from the earliest times identified with that of the hero of the Odyssey, and was interpreted to mean the city of Ulysses. The Celtic Iberians certainly possessed the elements of civilization, and from a very early period they had learnt to write, and it is a remarkable fact that the formation of the letters of their alphabet is traceable rather to Greek than Phœnician characters. This is the more remarkable, when it is remembered that the Phœnicians, and not the Greeks, are always mentioned in history as monopolizing the trade of Iberia. The Carthaginians, though they had colonies all over the peninsula, established their rule mainly over the south and east of it, having their capital at Carthagena or Nova Carthago, and seem to have neglected the more barbarous northern and western provinces.

It was for this reason that the Romans found far more difficulty in subduing these latter provinces than they had in taking possession of the former, which the Carthaginians had already conquered. The Romans were at first satisfied with these provinces, which were ceded to them after the conclusion of the second Punic war, but eventually they began to spread over the hitherto neglected districts; and in 189 B.C. Lucius Æmilius Paullus defeated the Lusitanians, and in 185 B.C. Gaius Calpurnius forced his way across the Tagus. There is no need here to discuss the gradual conquest by the Romans of that part of the peninsula which includes the modern kingdom of Portugal, but it is necessary to speak of the gallant shepherd Viriathus, who sustained a stubborn war against the Romans from 149 B.C. until he was assassinated in 139 B.C. because he has been generally claimed as the first national hero of Portugal. This claim has been based upon the assumed identification of the modern Portugal with the ancient Lusitania, an identification which has spread its roots deep into Portuguese literature, and has until recently been generally accepted.

The first Portuguese writer who assumed the identity of Portugal with Lusitania was Dom Garcia de Meneses, Bishop of Evora, who wrote in the reign of John II. at the close of the fifteenth century, though the two terms had been used distinctively by early chroniclers, such as Lucas de Tuy in his “Chronicon Mundi,” and Matthew de Pisano in his “Guerra de Ceuta.” The mistaken notion was further developed in the days of the Renaissance and of the Revival of Learning, and became generally accepted by the close of the sixteenth century, and exaggerated by the very title of such books as the “Monarchia Lusitana” of Bernardo de Brito and the “De Antiquitatibus Lusitaniæ” of the great antiquary Andrea de Resende. In fact, the Portuguese writers of that epoch delighted in calling Portugal by the classical name of Lusitania, and Camoens, the very greatest of them all, has, by the title of his famous epic, “Os Lusiadas” or “The Lusiads,” stamped the mistake permanently on Portuguese literature.

This false identification has had important historical consequences. Modern writers have on this supposition spoken of the Portuguese as a distinct branch of the Celtic population of the Iberian peninsula identical with the tribe of Lusitanians spoken of by Strabo. They have further identified them with the Lusitanians who struggled so gallantly against the Roman Republic under the leadership of Punicus and Viriathus; they have found passages in the Latin historians describing the Lusitanians, and have moralized upon the manner in which the characteristics of the ancient Lusitanians re-appear in the modern Portuguese. The identity of two nations must consist in proving their perfect succession in either race or territory, and in neither respect can the identity be shown in the present instance. The Celtic tribe of Lusitanians dwelt, according to Strabo, in the districts north of the Tagus, while the Lusitania of the Latin historians of the Republic undoubtedly lay to the south of that river though it was not used as the name of a province until the time of Augustus, when the old division of the peninsula into Hispania Citerior and Hispania Ulterior was superseded by the division into Betica, Tarraconensis, and Lusitania. Neither in this division, nor in the division of the peninsula into the five provinces of Tarraconensis, Carthaginensis, Betica, Lusitania, and Gallicia, under Hadrian, was the province called Lusitania coterminous with the modern kingdom of Portugal. Under each division the name was given to a district south of the Tagus, and therefore not embracing the modern provinces of the Entre Minho e Douro, Trasos-Montes, and Beira.

SPECIMEN OF ROMAN ARCHITECTURE.
(The Castellum of Q. Sertorius at Evora.)

It is important to grasp the results of this misconception, for it emphasizes the fact that the history of Portugal for many centuries is merged in that of the rest of the Iberian peninsula, and explains why it is unnecessary to study the wars of the Lusitanians with the Roman Republic, as is often done in histories of Portugal. Like the rest of the peninsula Portugal was thoroughly Latinized in the days of the Roman Empire; Roman coloniæ and municipia were established in places suited for trade, such as Lisbon and Oporto, and commanding high-roads, such as Lamego and Viseu; Roman institutions were generally adopted, and the Latin language superseded the old Celtic dialects. The chief Portuguese towns, like those in the rest of the peninsula, were granted the “Jus Latinum” by Vespasian, and all the inhabitants became Roman citizens under the famous decree of Caracalla. The influence of the mighty sway of Rome has left its traces all over the peninsula, and to as great degree in Portugal as in Spain. Portuguese law is based on the old Roman law, as well as the Portuguese language upon Latin; and many Portuguese institutions show the direct influence of Roman government. Notably is this the case with regard to municipal institutions; many Portuguese cities can boast of distinct existence ever since the Roman Empire, and the duumviri and boni homines of those days have their counterparts in the municipal government of the present day. During these days of peace and prosperity Portugal also received the Christian religion, and welcomed it as cordially as France and Spain, and bishoprics were founded which still exist. In more material things the dominion of Rome has left its traces in the roads and bridges made by that race of engineers, in the beautiful remains at Leiria, and in the aqueduct and the ruins of the temple of Diana at Evora.

Peaceful existence under the sway of Rome continued until the beginning of the fifth century, when the Goths first forced their way across the Pyrenees. During the first barbarian occupation, the Suevi seized Gallicia and Tarraconensis, the Alans Lusitania and Carthaginensis, and the Vandals Betica or Andalusia. The irruption of the Visigoths changed this settlement; the Alans and the Vandals crossed to Africa, and the Suevi occupied Betica and Lusitania. The Visigothic Empire left but slight traces in Portugal, slighter even than in Spain, and the Portuguese nobility do not, like the Spanish, invariably lay claim to Gothic descent. Ethnologically the Gothic element is very slight in Portugal, though the country passed under the rule of the Visigoths during the reign of Ataulphus, who married the sister of the Roman Emperor Honorius, and remained part of their dominion for three centuries. While the Roman rule left so many traces of its existence, and entirely modelled the language and civilization alike of Spain and Portugal, that of the Visigoths, which lasted nearly as long, left hardly any traces at all. The cause is to be found in the natural assimilation of a race in a low state of civilization to the status of a higher race. The number of Romans who actually settled in the peninsula must have been very small, yet the Celts adopted their language and civilization, while the conquering Visigoths, on the other hand, adopted the religion and civilization of the people they had conquered. The Visigothic power reached its zenith in the reign of Euric at the end of the fifth century, and afterwards steadily declined, being torn by internal dissensions, and especially by the great struggle between the nobility and the rulers of the Christian Church. It was the leaders of the latter party, Count Julian and Archbishop Oppus, who invited the Mohammedans from Africa into Spain, and in fighting against them, Roderick, the last Visigothic king, was killed near Xeres, at the battle of the Guadelete, in 711.

The history of the Mohammedans in the Iberian peninsula has been treated in another volume of this Series,[1] and it is only necessary to note here that under the wise and tolerant rule of the Ommeyad sultans, the rich plains alike of Spain and Portugal maintained the prosperity which they had enjoyed under the Roman emperors and the Visigothic kings, and that the old Roman coloniæ and municipia retained their Roman self-government, and Lisbon and Oporto increased in wealth and commercial importance. Though the Arabs were fanatical conquerors, the Ommeyads were enlightened rulers, and the Christian religion was protected, though not encouraged, as long as the Christian bishops refrained from active exertions against the Mohammedans. In Portugal also, owing to its distance from Cordova, the duties of government were granted almost entirely to the Mosarabs, as the numerous native converts to Islam were called, men who felt the importance of keeping the adherents of the two prevailing religions from coming to blows.

But this peaceful state of things was not to last; the Iberian peninsula, which had remained prosperous under Romans, Visigoths, and Mohammedans, was to suffer centuries of fierce war, war which was to devastate its fields and destroy its cities, but from which its people were to develop into a race of hardy and chivalrous warriors. The people of the peninsula under the rule of foreign sovereigns had become soft and weak, occupied only in accumulating wealth, in which to live in comfort and luxury. Architectural remains of the first thousand years of the Christian era show to what a pitch of comfort the people had attained, but the easy conquests of the Visigoths and the Moors prove that they had become enervated by luxury. During the next five hundred years a different state of things was to appear. The land and the cities alike of Spain and Portugal were to be ravaged and destroyed in terrible wars, and a race of soldiers, bred in all the laws and customs of chivalry, was to arise—a race which, after finding no further exercise for its energies at home, was to extend its power to India and to the New World, as yet unknown, across the Atlantic. Whether it were better to spend lives of luxurious ease or to become warriors was a question not asked of the people of the Iberian peninsula; they had no choice in the matter; but it must not be forgotten in watching the gradual development of this race of warriors in one part of the peninsula, in Portugal, that it was, when formed, to do great things for Europe and for the advancement of a higher civilization than that of the stormy centuries in which it arose.

Towards the close of the tenth century as the Ommeyad caliphate grew weaker, the Christian princes of Visigothic descent, who dwelt in the mountains of the Asturias, began to grow more bold in their attacks on the declining power; and in 997 Bermudo II., king of Gallicia, won back the first portion of modern Portugal from the Moors by seizing Oporto and occupying the province now known as the Entre Minho e Douro. At the beginning of the eleventh century, the great Moorish caliphate finally broke up, and independent Mohammedan emīrs established themselves in every large city, against whom the Christian princes waged incessant and successful wars. In these wars the Celtic inhabitants of the peninsula took but little part; the Moorish armies consisted of Mohammedans, the descendants of the fierce soldiers of Abder-Rahmān and a few Mosarabs, while the Christian armies consisted only of the feudal chivalry of the northern mountains.

In each army different customs prevailed; the strength of the Moors lay in their perfect military discipline and absolute obedience to their generals; that of the Christians in the new impulse to valour given to each individual knight by the laws of chivalry. On neither side was personal ambition without an incentive; Moorish generals hoped to become emīrs, Christian knights, feudal counts. The finest soldiers of both armies were foreigners to the peninsula, being on the one side Africans, on the other either of Gothic descent or else the flower of the chivalry of northern Europe, which went to win its spurs in the wars against the unbelievers, and especially admired and followed the Cid, Rodrigo Diaz de Bivar. Between these two contending bands of warriors the unfortunate Celtic inhabitants of the middle zone of the peninsula were crushed; those of the mountains of the north were by feudal custom obliged to take up arms to follow their lords, and after a century or two those of the centre by the force of necessity became warriors also, and proceeded to drive the Moors back to Africa.

The eleventh century was at first marked by great Christian successes, especially in the west of the peninsula. In 1055 Ferdinand “the Great,” king of Leon, Castile, and Gallicia, invaded the Beira; in 1057 he took Lamego and Viseu; and in 1064 Coimbra, where he died in the following year. He arranged for the government of his conquests in the only way possible under the feudal system, by forming them into a county, extending to the Mondego, with Coimbra as its capital. The first count of Coimbra was Sesnando, a recreant Arab vizir, who had advised Ferdinand to invade his district and had assisted in its easy conquest. He had married a Christian, and was ready to defend his new religion and the dominions he held under the Christian king with all the more vigour from the knowledge that the Moorish emīrs and wālis to the south regarded him as an apostate. But though Sesnando’s county of Coimbra was the great frontier county of Gallicia, and the most important conquest of Ferdinand “the Great,” it was not thence that the kingdom which was to develop out of his dominions was to take its name. Among the counties of Gallicia was one called the “comitatus Portucalensis,” because it contained within its boundaries the famous city at the mouth of the Douro, known in Roman and Greek times as the Portus Cale, and in modern days as Oporto, or “The Port.” This county of Oporto or Portugal was the one destined to give its name to the future kingdom, and was held at the time of Ferdinand’s death by Nuno Mendes, the founder of one of the most famous families in Portuguese history.

VIEW OF OPORTO AND VILLA NOVA FROM THE SERRA CONVENT.
(After a print by Godhino.)

Ferdinand “the Great” was succeeded in his three kingdoms of Castile, Leon, and Gallicia, by his three sons, Sancho, Alfonso, and Garcia, the last of whom received the two counties of Coimbra and Oporto as fiefs of Gallicia, and maintained Nuno Mendes and Sesnando as his feudatories. Under them were many feudal barons, who held their lands on condition of military service. It is fortunately not necessary to enter into the history of the wars between the sons of Ferdinand; it is enough to say that the second of them, Alfonso of Leon, eventually united all his father’s kingdoms in 1073, as Alfonso VI. The successes of the Christians aroused the stubborn resistance of the Moors; a fresh wave of fanaticism passed over the Mohammedans of Africa and of the peninsula, and a new dynasty, that of the Almoravides arose, which subdued the various emīrs and wālis who had usurped the government of various portions of the old Ommeyad caliphate, and once more united the Moorish power. The new dynasty collected great Moslem armies, and in 1086 Yūsuf Ibn Teshfīn routed Alfonso utterly at the battle of Zalaca, and reconquered the peninsula up to the Ebro. In this battle all the chivalry of the Moors and Christians was engaged, and among the latter was Sesnando, Count of Coimbra, followed by his knights. Alfonso tried to compensate for this defeat and his loss of territory in the east of his dominions by conquests in the west, and in 1093 he advanced to the Tagus and took Santarem and Lisbon, and made Sueiro Mendes count of the new district. But these conquests he did not hold for long; the Almoravides were in the full flush of success, and their armies were made almost irresistible by the fresh fanaticism inspired into them. Their conquests in the east of the peninsula after the battle of Zalaca were followed by rapid successes in the west. In 1093 Seyr, the general of the Almoravide caliph Yūsuf, took Evora from the Emīr of Badajoz; in 1094 he took Badajoz itself, and killed the emīr; and retaking Lisbon and Santarem forced his way up to the Mondego. To resist this revival of the Mohammedan power, Alfonso summoned the chivalry of Christendom to his aid. Among the knights who joined his army eager to win their spurs, and win dominions for themselves were Count Raymond of Toulouse and Count Henry of Burgundy. To the former, Alfonso gave his legitimate daughter Urraca and Gallicia; to the latter, his illegitimate daughter Theresa, and the counties of Oporto and Coimbra, with the title of Count of Portugal.

The history of Portugal now becomes distinct from that of the rest of the peninsula, and it is from the year 1095 that the history of Portugal commences. The son of Henry of Burgundy was the great monarch Affonso Henriques, the hero of his country and the founder of a great dynasty. Up to this time it has been impossible to separate the history of Portugal from that of Spain, but it has been necessary to point out the fact that the history of the two countries had been hitherto identical, in order to dissipate the common error that the Spaniards and Portuguese belong to distinct races. The fact that the history of Portugal does not begin until such a comparatively recent date teaches another important lesson, that the nations of modern Europe must not be looked upon as having been complete entities from the earliest times, but in some instances owe their distinct nationality at the present day to fortuitous circumstances.

In 1095 a powerful county of Portugal was formed: its growth to a kingdom and the extension of its dominions by conquests from the Moors will now have to be studied, as well as its difficulty in maintaining its independence among the other nations of the peninsula, before it can be seen as the leading nation of the world, in the van of the march of European civilization.

II.

THE COUNTY OF PORTUGAL.

COUNT HENRY of Burgundy, his wife Theresa, and his son Affonso Henriques, were the three founders of Portugal, and they were all of them individuals of marked personality. They were typical figures of their epoch, possessing the curious mixture of virtues and vices which characterized the age of chivalry.

Count Henry was the second son of Henry, who was the third son of Robert, first Duke of Burgundy, and he was like his father and grandfather, a knight of the old French school, combining a passionate love for adventure and for war with an ambitious and self-seeking temperament. He had come to Spain to the assistance of the Christians, as much with the purpose of founding a dynasty as for the love of war, and from the first he turned his thoughts more to the hope of succeeding his father-in-law, Alfonso VI., in one at least of his kingdoms, than to carving a kingdom for himself out of the dominions of the Arab caliphs. He received his county of Portugal, the dowry of his wife, Theresa, illegitimate daughter of Alfonso VI., as a direct fief of the crown of Gallicia, one of the three kingdoms of his father-in-law. This kingdom Alfonso had granted, as a fief, not as a kingdom, to Count Raymond of Toulouse, who had married his legitimate daughter, Urraca, and Count Henry highly disapproved of being in some sort a feudatory of his fellow-adventurer. At first the jealousy between Henry and Raymond did not show itself; for Count Henry had to fight hard to defend his southern frontiers against the incursions of the Mohammedan general Seyr. To his help he summoned the chivalry of France, and the knights of his native country flocked to his assistance, and were promoted to high military positions and to feudal dignities by him. Battle succeeded battle without either side gaining any decisive victory, until after seven years’ hard fighting both Christians and Moors decided to rest awhile to recover from their exhaustion.

Count Henry was, however, too much the restless knight of the Middle Ages to remain quiet long. Since his Portuguese warriors were weary, and the battle-ground for miles on each bank of the Tagus was laid utterly waste, he could fight no longer in his own country against the unbelievers, and so hurried off in 1103 with Maurice, Bishop of Coimbra, to fight them in Palestine. For two years he served in the expedition known as the Second Crusade, and when he returned he was still ready for more fighting at home. His restlessness was typical of his epoch. The knights of the Crusades were always knights-errant, always in search of adventure, and never satiated with war. This spirit was encouraged by the Church, and while the Almoravide caliph Yūsuf was organizing his military forces for a fresh assault on the Christians, Count Henry, on the other hand, went off in search of adventure abroad, leaving his county under the government of his wife, Theresa.

Fortunately for Portugal, Theresa was a singularly able woman. Beautiful and accomplished, the idol of poets and musicians, and capable of inspiring the deepest devotion, she threw herself heart and soul into the task which her restless husband abandoned, and spent the years of his absence in training the Portuguese for fresh struggles. She too possessed all the faults and virtues of her epoch; passionate to a degree in every sense, she became the adored divinity of her nobles, and prepared herself during this brief regency for the longer regency of her widowhood. Her great aim at this time, as it was throughout her stormy life, was to make the Portuguese nobles regard themselves as Portuguese, and not as Gallicians, and thus prepare them to make their country independent. But though her chief endeavour was to heighten and animate the spirit of her nobles, she did not neglect other classes of her subjects; she encouraged the citizens of her cities in their ideas of municipal independence, and urged them to keep their fortifications in good repair, and to be ready to go forth to war under captains of their own choice, instead of under hereditary leaders from among the nobility. The result of this policy was that, in the next generation, the military retainers of the great nobles, who resided in their castles, went forth to fight side by side with the free citizens under their elected leaders, and that her son was able to lead two distinct classes of soldiers under his banners, who vied with each other in prowess against foreign foes, while they were a check upon each other at home, and could be played off against one another in case either class became dangerous to their suzerain.

When Count Henry returned from Palestine in 1105, he became united with his former brother-in-arms, Count Raymond of Gallicia, by a common feeling of jealousy. Both looked forward to inheriting portions of King Alfonso’s dominions, and were extremely suspicious lest the old monarch should favour his natural son, Sancho, whose mother was a Moorish princess, Zaida, daughter of Ibn Abbad, Emīr of Seville. In their dislike for Sancho they were encouraged by the priests, to whom Alfonso’s affection for a Moorish woman was abhorrent, and an agreement was made between the brothers-in-law by an ambitious French monk, named Hugh of Cluny, afterwards Bishop of Oporto, to oust the son of the infidel. This peaceful arrangement had no result, owing to the death of Count Raymond in 1107, followed by that of young Sancho at the battle of Uclés with the Moors in 1108, and finally by the death of Alfonso VI. himself in 1109.

The king’s death brought about the catastrophe. He left all his dominions to his legitimate daughter, Urraca, with the result that there was five years of fierce fighting between Henry of Burgundy, Alfonso Raimundes, the son of Count Raymond, Alfonso I., of Aragon, and Queen Urraca, during which the Almoravides quietly consolidated their power and prepared for a fresh attack upon the Christians. Nothing proves more certainly that the crusading spirit was often only a cloak for personal ambition than this terrible internecine war, in which princes and nobles changed sides and broke their plighted words with a recklessness supposed to be distinctive of a most abandoned age. While they fought with each other, the Mohammedans advanced. The Almoravide Ali, who had succeeded his father, Yūsuf, in Spain and Morocco, reconquered Talavera and Madrid, and laid siege to Toledo, while his famous general, Seyr Ibn Abi-Bekr, reconquered the Moorish emīrs of the western towns, who had revolted, and in 1112 besieged Santarem, which then formed the southernmost outpost of the county of Portugal. Before he took it however, Seyr died, and Count Henry, who had been forced to come south in order to meet the invaders, once more returned to continue his wars with the Christian princes. Only one incident in Count Henry’s march against the Mohammedans deserves record, and that is the refusal of the citizens of Coimbra to admit their count into their city, or to follow him to the front, unless he confirmed the privileges granted to them by Donna Theresa, and granted them certain fresh concessions. Henry was forced to grant them, and on the death of Seyr, he again advanced into Spain, and joined in further intrigues. These did not last long, for on May 1, 1114, Count Henry died at Astorga, not without a suspicion that he had been poisoned by Queen Urraca, leaving his wife Theresa as regent during the minority of his son, Affonso Henriques, who was but three years old.

Theresa, who made the ancient city of Guimaraens her capital, devoted all her energies to building up her son’s dominions into an independent state; and under her rule, while the Christian states of Spain were torn by internecine war, the Portuguese began to recognize Portugal as their country, and to cease from calling themselves Gallicians. This distinction between Portugal and Gallicia was the first step towards the formation of a national spirit, which grew into a desire for national independence. The people were the same in origin, and spoke the same language. The province of Gallicia had both in Roman and Gothic times spread as far south as the Tagus, and no distinction had been made between the Gallicians of the north and south until Alfonso VI. had given Count Henry his large domain. It was Donna Theresa who first tried to make the distinction more marked. Count Henry had looked upon his county as a step to the succession to the kingdom of Gallicia, if not to the two kingdoms of Leon and Gallicia. Donna Theresa, on the other hand, looked upon Portugal as an independent country, and desired rather to extend her frontiers at the expense of Gallicia than to succeed to the throne of that kingdom.

In her efforts to promote the unity of Portugal and its independence of Gallicia, Donna Theresa was warmly seconded by her people, and especially by the inhabitants of the cities whom she favoured, while among the ruling classes she had the support of the clergy and the opposition of the greater part of the nobility. Most of her nobles owned great estates in both Gallicia and Portugal, for the feudal grants of land conquered by the Christian kings from the Mohammedans were generally made to noblemen, who had led large contingents to their help. These nobles were naturally opposed to a separation between Portugal and Gallicia, which would make them feudatories to two different lords, and often oblige them in case of disputes between their suzerains to sacrifice one of their properties. On the other hand, the Portuguese bishops were suffragans of the reconstructed archbishopric of Braga, and owed no obedience to any Gallician bishop; indeed, they were especially hostile to the wealthiest of them, the powerful bishop of the great pilgrim city of Santiago da Campostella. It has been said that many of the Christian bishoprics continued to exist during the Moorish occupation, and had a continuous history from the first conversion of the people to Christianity, but some had lapsed owing to the poverty of their sees. The advance of the Christian princes, which was due as much to religious as to political motives, brought about the re-establishment of the bishoprics which had lapsed, and the increased endowment of those which had continued to exist. The new bishops held a very different position from their predecessors. They were not the poor shepherds of poor flocks, in a land ruled by infidels, but powerful barons, holding great estates on military tenure, who united the influence of their sacred rank to their temporal power. The metropolitan of these Portuguese bishops was the Archbishop of Braga, and it was naturally his policy to support the independence of the county of Portugal, for it was better for him to be the head of the Church of an important county than to be merely one of the archbishops of the kingdom of Gallicia. This was the attitude taken up by the first great Archbishop of Braga, Mauricio Burdino, a Frenchman, and the companion in Palestine of Count Henry, who had promoted him from the bishopric of Coimbra to the metropolitan see. In it he was supported by Hugh, Bishop of Oporto, the most wealthy of his suffragans, and the history of the ensuing century gives many instances of the patriotism of the Portuguese bishops, and of their efforts to promote and maintain the independence of the new state.

COIMBRA. (PRESENT STATE.) (After a Photograph.)

The regency of Donna Theresa was marked by many struggles, the history of which it is now difficult to trace, but throughout them all, the growing unity of Portugal can be perceived. She took a keen interest in the politics of Gallicia, for she hoped to extend her frontiers to the north, and in 1116 she led her forces in person to the assistance of Diogo Gelmires, Bishop of Santiago da Campostella, and the Count de Trava, who had headed a rising, intended to depose Queen Urraca, and to place her young son Alfonso Raimundes at once upon the throne of Gallicia. In this war Theresa took the towns of Tuy and Orense, and the warrior countess met, in the course of it for the first time, the young hidalgo, Don Fernando Peres de Trava, with whom she fell passionately in love, and whose history was for the future to be linked with hers. In 1117 the Moors, under their caliph Ali in person, invaded her dominions, and besieged her in Coimbra, but she succeeded in beating them off, and spent the following years in peace and quiet, in the constant company of her lover, whom she made governor of Coimbra and Oporto, and Count of Trastamare; while to his elder brother, Bermudo Peres de Trava, she gave the hand of her second daughter by Count Henry, the Donna Urraca, and the governorship of Viseu.

But this quiet enjoyment of peace and love was not long allowed to the beautiful ruler of Portugal. Her half-sister Urraca, the Queen of Castile, Leon, and Gallicia, had been hitherto too much engaged in fighting with her second husband, Alfonso I. of Aragon, to pay any attention to her; but she too was a warrior princess, and in 1121 she ordered Theresa to surrender the city of Tuy. Theresa refused, and Urraca led an army against her, which defeated the Portuguese at Tuy, and eventually the queen took the Countess of Portugal prisoner after a long siege of the castle of Lanhoso. It seemed as if the nascent independence of Portugal was about to be crushed, but Bishop Gelmires came to the assistance of Theresa, who had done so much for his friends and relatives, the De Travas, and threatened to attack Urraca unless she made peace with her half-sister. Urraca was forced to comply, and the treaty of peace which was then signed marks another stage in the growth of the independence of Portugal, for in it Donna Theresa is styled Infanta, and treated as the equal of Queen Urraca, who further promised to cede to her the cities and districts of Toro, Zamora, and Salamanca.

For the next few years the careers of the half-sisters were singularly similar. Queen Urraca showered favours on her lover, Don Pedro de Lara, until her young son, Alfonso Raimundes, assisted by Bishop Gelmires, revolted against her; while Donna Theresa, with equal blindness, devoted herself to her love for Don Fernando Peres de Trava, and thus aroused the hatred of her boy-son Affonso Henriques and of Paio Mendes, who in 1121 had succeeded Mauricio Burdino as Archbishop of Braga. Her quarrel with Paio Mendes commenced in the year after he became archbishop, and well illustrates the attitude of the Portuguese bishops. As long as Theresa had remained the living symbol of Portuguese unity and independence the bishops had followed her, but as soon as she showed her love for a Gallician nobleman they turned against her. Paio Mendes was quite ready to lead the malcontents, for he was the brother of Count Sueiro Mendes of Oporto, surnamed the Great, who was the head of the purely Portuguese, as opposed to the mixed Portuguese and Gallician, nobility. In 1122 Archbishop Paio protested against the gift of so many important posts to Don Fernando, and the proud countess immediately cast him into prison. She was obliged in a few days to release him, for fear of a papal interdict; but she had made a bitter enemy, who was soon to have an opportunity for revenge.

The discontent with Theresa did not show itself openly until 1127, when Alfonso Raimundes, who had succeeded his mother Urraca in the preceding year, and taken the title of Alfonso VII., King of Castile, Leon, and Gallicia, invaded Portugal and forced Theresa to recognize him as suzerain, and to surrender her claims to Tuy and Orense. The citizens of Guimaraens, the capital of the county, at once declared Affonso Henriques of age, and competent to reign; but Alfonso VII. marched against the city, and Egas Moniz, the former tutor of the young count, who was its governor, in order to make peace, promised on behalf of his former pupil that he would ratify Theresa’s submission. Affonso Henriques, however, though only a boy of seventeen, absolutely refused to recognize the submission made by his mother and his tutor, and in 1128 he raised an army with the declared intention of expelling Donna Theresa and her lover from the country. In this movement the boy was encouraged by Archbishop Paio and his brother Sueiro Mendes, by one of his brothers-in-law, Sancho Nunes, by his half-brother, Pedro Affonso, an illegitimate son of Count Henry, by Emigio Moniz, and by Garcia Soares. Donna Theresa also collected an army, consisting chiefly of Gallicians, but she was defeated by her son at the battle of S. Mamede, near Guimaraens, and taken prisoner, and was shortly afterwards expelled, with Don Fernando, from the county she had ruled so long.

Thus ended the regency of Donna Theresa. She had not added a single town to her son’s dominions, for her early conquests had been recaptured by Queen Urraca and Alfonso VII. But she had done more for Portugal than making conquests. She had asserted its independence, and though she seldom called herself Queen, she never took any title less than that of Infanta. She had also prepared for the extension of Portugal towards the south at the end of her regency by encouraging the settlement of the orders of religious knights there. To the Knights Templars she had granted, in 1128, the frontier town of Soure; to the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre S. Payo de Gouvea, Lodeiro, and Paços de Penalva; and to the Knights of the Hospital, the town of Leça. From these beginnings great results were to arise during the reign of her son.

The last years of Theresa’s life were quite out of keeping with the brilliancy of her regency. After her expulsion she wandered about in the mountains of Gallicia with her lover until her death, in poverty, on November 1, 1130. Her body was taken to Portugal, and buried beside that of Count Henry, her husband, in the Cathedral of Braga, and both of them are reverenced by modern Portuguese as the founders of the independence of their country. Her history is a strange one. To political instincts and a capability for government which rank her among the most remarkable women of the whole period of the Middle Ages; to a manly courage, which inspired her to lead her soldiers in person to the fight and enabled her to withstand a Moorish siege, she joined the most feminine of qualities—that of entire devotion to the man she loved. Her love for Fernando Peres may have made her deviate from the path she should have followed as regent of Portugal, but it does not make her a less interesting character in the eyes of posterity. If she loved too greatly, she was greatly punished, and her death in exile more than atoned for the favour she bestowed on her lover. The task commenced by Count Henry and Donna Theresa was destined to be accomplished by one greater than either of them, by the hero of early Portuguese history, Affonso Henriques, who united his father’s restless and chivalrous valour with the political ability of his mother.

III.

PORTUGAL BECOMES A KINGDOM. THE REIGN OF AFFONSO HENRIQUES.

AFFONSO HENRIQUES, the only son of Count Henry and Donna Theresa, who at the age of seventeen, after the battle of S. Mamede, began his long and prosperous reign, was one of the heroes of the Middle Ages. He succeeded to the government of Portugal when it was still regarded generally, in spite of Theresa’s claims, as a county of Gallicia, and after nearly sixty years of incessant fighting he bequeathed to his son a powerful little kingdom, whose independence was unquestioned, and whose fame was spread abroad throughout Christendom by the victories of its first monarch over the Moors. The story of his early years abounds in miraculous legends and tales, like those told of the youth of Arthur and Charlemagne, which, if not credible in themselves, are interesting as showing the feelings of the Portuguese chroniclers and poets towards him. His boyish exploits in the mountains around Guimaraens, in which he is said to have fought wolves as he afterwards fought the Moors, and the tale of the fire which played about his cradle without hurting or even terrifying the youthful hero, savour of the marvellous and were evidently invented in after years. But in telling the tale of his education and bringing up his biographers were on firmer ground. His father had died when he was but an infant, and his mother was too much occupied with her lover and with the cares of government to pay much attention to him. He was handed over entirely to the charge of a gallant Portuguese nobleman, Egas Moniz, the governor of Guimaraens. The young count showed himself an adept in all knightly exercises; he became a skilful horseman and a fearless hunter; and added to these accomplishments, a knowledge of reading and writing rarely acquired in those times by any but ecclesiastics. His disposition was that of knight of the Middle Ages; with the greatest personal bravery, he possessed a love for poetry and romance, and delighted in the tales of chivalry which were sung before him; and he was moreover a typical Christian of the period, uniting a belief in superstitions, which made him a fanatic, with a looseness of life, when love for women or romantic adventure was in question, which directly belied his religious professions.

His initiation into public life began at the age of fourteen, when he was taken by his tutor and guardian to Zamora to receive the honour of knighthood, in the cathedral from his cousin, Alfonso VII. It was at the feast of Pentecost, in 1125, that he thus devoted his life to chivalry, and he made his vows and watched his arms throughout the night in the cathedral with all the ardour of his age and temperament. He was to fight in many a war with the cousin who then made him a knight; but neither of them, though failing to lead moral lives, ever failed to acquit himself as a chivalrous knight. Affonso returned to Guimaraens with Egas Moniz, and many of the Portuguese nobility at once proposed that he should assume the government of his county in person and deprive his mother of the regency. He was trained to this idea by Archbishop Paio Mendes and his party, and when Donna Theresa and Egas Moniz promised for him that he would submit to Alfonso VII. he refused to ratify their promises, and declared himself of age in 1128. He speedily defeated his mother at the battle of S. Mamede, and then became the real ruler of his county. In his conduct after this behaviour of his ward and pupil, old Egas Moniz showed how fit he was to have been the tutor of a hero. When the old nobleman understood that Affonso would not make the submission to the King of Castile, Leon, and Gallicia, which he had promised in the young count’s name, he went to Toledo with his wife and children, and, surrendered himself to Alfonso VII. The young king honoured the old man’s loyalty to his word, and, instead of punishing him, pointed him out to his courtiers as a model to be imitated, and said aloud, “What great things will not the pupil of such a noble knight be able to perform!”

The reign of Affonso Henriques may be divided into four clearly marked periods—the regency of Donna Theresa; the wars of dismemberment, by which the independence of Portugal was established; the wars of acquisition against the Moors, by which the southern frontier of the country was extended; and the period of partial decline after the defeat and imprisonment of the king in 1166. Of these four periods the first has been described, but each of the others deserves a close examination, for each of them possesses a distinct importance in Portuguese history.

The four wars of Affonso Henriques with Alfonso VII. ended in the recognition of the Portuguese hero as king, and in the abandonment by him of all interference in Gallicia. The first Gallician war consisted of an incursion by Affonso Henriques into Gallicia, in 1130, the year of his mother’s death, which was caused by the desire of the Count to punish Fernando Peres, who was preparing on his side an invasion of Portugal. From this incursion Affonso was recalled by the news that Fernando’s brother, Bermudo Peres, who had married Affonso’s sister, and was governor of Viseu, was in open insurrection. Affonso instantly returned, took Bermudo’s castle of Seia, confiscated his estates, and forced him to become a monk; and the Gallician party in Portugal received a blow from which it never recovered. In 1135 Affonso made a second incursion into Gallicia, took the town of Limia, and built the great castle of Celmes. Alfonso VII., who had in this year been elected Emperor, and whose supremacy was acknowledged not only all over Spain, but in Provence as well, was not likely to brook this insolence on the part of the Count of Portugal, and speedily sent an army, which captured Celmes and then withdrew. Affonso did not feel grateful for the leniency with which he had been treated, but in 1137 made a third incursion into Gallicia, at the invitation of Gomes Nunes of Tuy, and Rodrigo Peres of Limia, and utterly defeated the counts true to Alfonso VII., headed by his old enemy Fernando Peres, and by Rodrigo Vela, in the hard-fought battle of Cerneja. This defeat at last roused the Emperor Alfonso, who came in person with a powerful army to punish the count, or as he now termed himself, the Infante of Portugal. Fortunately for Affonso the two armies did not come to blows; the ecclesiastics on both sides argued that it was monstrous for two Christian princes to fight with each other instead of with the Moors, and by the mediation of the Archbishop of Braga and the Bishop of Oporto, on behalf of Affonso, and of the Bishops of Tuy, Segovia, and Orense for the Emperor, the Peace of Tuy was signed on July 4, 1137. By this peace Affonso Henriques promised to abandon all interference with Gallician affairs, and to submit himself as a vassal to the Emperor, and both princes swore to turn their arms against the Mohammedans. But the Portuguese prince did not abide by the terms of the Peace of Tuy, in so far as it made him a vassal; and after winning his famous victory over the Moors at Ourique, in 1139, he again invaded Gallicia, and in 1140 the last battle between the sons of the two brothers-in-arms, the French counts, Raymond and Henry, was fought. Affonso Henriques was wounded, and it was agreed, in consonance with the ideas of the times, to refer the great question of Portuguese independence to a chivalrous contest. In a great tournament, known as the “Tourney of Valdevez,” the Portuguese knights were entirely successful over those of Castile, and in consequence of their victory Affonso Henriques assumed the title of King of Portugal.

This is the turning-point of Portuguese history, and it is a curious fact that the independence of Portugal from Gallicia was achieved by victory in a tournament and not in war. Up to 1136 Affonso Henriques had styled himself Infante, in imitation of the title borne by his mother; from 1136 to 1140 he styled himself Principe, and in 1140 he first took the title of King. There is no document extant in which the Emperor acknowledged his cousin as a sovereign as early as this date, and, indeed, the agreement is only known as the “Truce of Valdevez,” but he obviously acquiesced in it, on condition that Affonso Henriques gave up all idea of interfering in Gallician politics or of extending his frontiers towards the north. But a more important consent than that of the Emperor had to be obtained before the Portuguese prince could obtain admission into the sacred circle of Christian kings, and this was the consent of the Pope. The head of the Church at this period was Innocent II., who was earnestly desirous of promoting the crusading spirit, and was especially grieved at the very existence of the Moors in Spain. He despatched Cardinal Guy de Vico to establish union amongst the Christian princes there, and the cardinal in 1143 drew up a regular peace and treaty between the Emperor and Affonso Henriques at Zamora. By this treaty the latter was recognized as sovereign monarch of Portugal, and the Emperor also granted to him the lordship of Astorga as a fief, in order that he might thus exercise some control over the Portuguese king. In reward for the mediation of the cardinal, Affonso Henriques further declared himself by letter to be a vassal of the Pope, and promised to pay four ounces of gold a year, by which measure he placed himself under the protection of the Spiritual Head of Christendom, and secured a guarantee for the perpetuation of his dynasty.

Portugal was now an independent kingdom. The wars of dismemberment were over; the wars of extension and establishment were now to take their place. The next twenty-five years of the reign of Affonso Henriques were spent in one long crusade against the Moors, and were full of incident and adventure.

But before entering upon a summary description of these wars, which spread the fame of the Portuguese and of their monarch throughout Europe, something must be said of the Moorish wars, which were carried on simultaneously with the wars of dismemberment. These Gallician wars have been described first and by themselves, because of the common mistake made that it was by his successes against the Moors that Affonso Henriques won his crown. This mistake is of old standing; the early Portuguese chroniclers always ascribed the independence of their country as due to the successes of their first king over the infidels, and it was not until the modern school of historians arose in Portugal, which examined documents and did not take the statements of their predecessors on trust, that it was clearly pointed out that Affonso Henriques won his crown by his long struggle with his Christian cousin, and not by his exploits against the Moors. This fact is such an important one that it ranks amongst the most startling discoveries made by the modern scientific school of historians, and to bring it into clearer prominence the early years of war with the Moors have been purposely passed over until now; although there can be no doubt that the exploits of the great Portuguese crusader made the Emperor more ready to recognize him as an independent sovereign, and the Pope more anxious to comply with his desire to be admitted among the sovereigns of Europe. As a proof of his admission it may be noted here that Affonso Henriques married in 1146 the daughter of a European prince, Matilda of Savoy, daughter of Amadeus II., Count of Savoy, Maurrienne, and Piedmont.

A VIEW OF THE ANCIENT MOORISH BATH AT CINTRA.
(From Murphy’s “Travels in Portugal,” 1795.)

The condition of the Moorish power in Spain had been particularly favourable to his early enterprises in Gallicia, for it had left him comparatively free from the fear of invasion from the south, and given him opportunities for winning signal victories. The wave of Mohammedan fanaticism, which had established the Almoravid dynasty in Spain and Morocco, and defeated the Christian chivalry at the battle of Zalaca, had lost its power, and the Almoravides had degenerated.[2] Independent Mohammedan dynasties had again established themselves in the different provinces of Spain, while in Africa, the successor of the Mahdi, Abd-el-Mumin, was destroying the power of the Almoravides with a fresh fanatical movement. The three independent emīrs with whom the Portuguese had to deal were those of the Alfaghar or Algarves, of Al-kasr Ibn Abi Danes, which comprised Badajoz, Elvas, and Evora, and of the Belatha, which included the Mohammedan possessions to the north of the Tagus with the important cities of Lisbon, Santarem, and Cintra. Under these emīrs were numerous “wālis” of districts, “vezīrs” of cities, and “kāids” of castles, who were semi-independent; and as not only the emīrs, but their subordinates were constantly at war with each other, and could expect but little help from the Almoravide caliph, the incursions of the Portuguese were generally crowned with success.

After his accession to the government, Affonso Henriques had chiefly left the duty of harassing the Moors to the Knights Templars and Knights Hospitallers, who engaged in frequent expeditions from their headquarters at Soure and Thomar, where they had been established by Donna Theresa. Busied as he was with his schemes for independence, Affonso did little to assist these knightly monks, except to build a great castle at Leiria, which was intended at once to cover his capital Coimbra, and to serve as a base for expeditions against Santarem and Cintra. The erection of this castle alarmed the Mohammedans of the Belatha, and caused them for a moment to drop their quarrels with each other. They raised a large army, and in 1135, the very year in which the castle of Leiria had been built, they stormed it, killed the 240 knights who had been left as its garrison, and defeated a Christian army at Thomar. At the time of these disasters Affonso was in Gallicia, but when affairs there were temporarily settled by the Peace of Tuy, he prepared to undertake a great expedition against the Moors and gathered all the chivalry of Portugal to follow him.

When he had collected his army in May, 1139, he determined to do more than make one of the usual expeditions into the ruined and devastated districts of the Belatha, and to force his way to the south of the Tagus, and thus drive the war into the heart of the enemy’s country. He knew that the opposition would not be so serious as it would have been in previous years, because Teshfīn, the last Almoravide caliph, who had succeeded his father in 1137, had in 1138 taken the flower of the Mohammedan chivalry of Spain across the straits to Africa to make a last effort to subdue the growing power of the Almohades or followers of the Mahdi. He knew also that his cousin Alfonso was making his second incursion into the heart of Andalusia, and he therefore boldly crossed the Tagus and entered the province of Al-kasr Ibn Abi Danes, as the western portion of the old Moslem emirate of the Gharb was called. The emīr, Ismar or Omar, tried to collect an army, but Affonso advanced with rapidity and utterly defeated him, with four of his “wālis,” at Orik or Ourique eight leagues south of Beja, on July 25, 1139.

This is the famous victory of Ourique, which, until modern investigators examined the facts, has been considered to have laid the foundations of the independence of Portugal. Chroniclers, two centuries after the battle solemnly asserted that five kings were defeated on this occasion, that two hundred thousand Mohammedans were slain, and that after the victory the Portuguese soldiers raised Affonso on their shields and hailed him as king. This story is absolutely without authority from contemporary chronicles, and is quite as much a fiction as the Cortes of Lamego, which has been invented as sitting in 1143 and passing the constitutional laws, on which Vertot and other writers have expended so much eloquence. One ought, perhaps, to speak with more reverence of the legend which tells how Christ crucified appeared to Affonso in his tent, on the evening before the battle, and promised him the victory, even though there is no contemporary tradition referring to it; because it would have been quite in keeping with the mysticism of the Middle Ages for Affonso to assert that he had seen such a vision in order to encourage his soldiers. This tradition was certainly current a century after the battle, and the kings of Portugal to this day bear the five wounds of Christ in a chief upon their coat of arms in memory of it.[3] These legends all deserve record, if only to show how great was the fame of the victory of Affonso, rather from his courage in penetrating so far into the enemy’s country than from his success in the battle itself. That success was a victory over five provincial wālis in a country which hated the Almoravides, at a time when the flower of the Moslem chivalry was fighting in Africa, and it was not by such victories, but by hard struggles with his Christian cousin that Affonso achieved the independence of his country. If any other further proof that the victory was not all that poets and later historians painted it was needed, it might be found in the fact that in the very next year Ismar or Omar, the emīr who was defeated at Ourique, was able to raise a fresh army with which he took the castle of Leiria by storm.

ARCH OF THE WESTERN ENTRANCE TO AN OLD CHAPEL AT LEIRIA.

For many years after the recognition of Affonso’s independence the history of his reign is filled by accounts of the wars against the Moors. But the warfare no longer comprised single expeditions, such as that crowned by the victory of Ourique, but steady persevering conquest of the Belatha. The efforts of the Portuguese were at first directed against cities and castles, and the country districts were ravaged and left to lie waste. The whole of the district between Coimbra and the Tagus was one great battle-ground, and Affonso had all he could do to take and hold the cities, and was obliged to leave the villages in a state of desolation. The population of his original kingdom was not large enough to colonize the new conquests, and Affonso therefore confined his efforts to laying waste the fields and garrisoning the cities he took from the Moors with any soldiers he could manage to take into his pay. It must be noted that the war was not one of extermination; the Mohammedan and Christian soldiers fought fiercely enough, but the Celtic inhabitants of the cities, and the large intermixture of Jews, who dwelt amongst them, passed from the dominion of the one race to that of the other quietly enough. The war was a war of soldiers, and Affonso’s difficulty was to get enough of them to make a successful attempt to maintain his conquests. The nobility of Portugal followed him gladly with their vassals, and the religious orders of knights repaid him by their services for the liberality with which Donna Theresa had received them, but neither of these sources of military strength were so valuable to him as the crusaders of northern Europe. He gained their assistance in two ways. Pope Innocent II. had declared it as praiseworthy to fight the infidels in Spain as in the Holy Land, and many crusaders fulfilled their crusading vows by coming to Portugal and taking service there. But most of the warriors of the cross preferred rather to make their way to Palestine, and as those from England, Flanders, and the north of France went round by sea, and invariably touched at Oporto, Affonso was able to persuade many of them to do a little fighting under his command against the Moors before proceeding to attack the Saracens in the Holy Land. This was what he did in 1143, when, with some French crusaders, he ravaged the district around Lisbon.

The history of the Portuguese conquest of the Belatha is of the greatest importance in itself, and it is noticeable that Affonso’s first incursion into the country, held by the Moors after the signature of the Treaty of Zamora, took place at the invitation of a Moorish emīr. Ahmad Ibn Kasi, Emīr of Mertola, wrote to him in 1144 under the name and title of Ibn Errik, Lord of Coimbra, and begged him to come to his assistance against the Emīr of Badajoz. But the Moorish soldiers of Ahmad Ibn Kasi refused to fight in the same ranks with the Christians, and Affonso was requested to retire and loaded with presents. After this he felt increasingly that it was more advantageous for him to conquer the neighbouring cities one by one than to make these distant expeditions. It was obvious that his first attack should be directed against the great and beautiful city of Santarem, which commanded the upper reaches of the Tagus, and lay at but one day’s march from his capital at Coimbra. Abu Zekeria, the “vezīr” of Santarem, was the most famous Mohammedan warrior in the Belatha, and had inflicted a signal defeat upon the Knights Templars at Soure, and in him Affonso had a worthy opponent. The only way to take his city was to surprise it, and for this end the Portuguese king made elaborate preparations. He told no one of his real intention, except one old soldier, Mem Ramires, and the first Portuguese canonized saint, St. Theotonio, then prior of the convent of Santa Cruz at Coimbra. On March 2, 1147, he led his army forth, and, surprising the city before its “vezīr” had time to provision it, he laid siege for a few days, and on March 15th carried it by storm with but slight resistance from the dispirited garrison.

VIEW OF LISBON. (After a Photograph.)

This feat of arms was surpassed in the same year by a still greater event, the capture of Lisbon, the important city at the mouth of the Tagus, the future capital of Portugal, and the port from which the Portuguese ships were to sail forth on their voyages of discovery both to the east and the west. Affonso Henriques had long wished to capture this great city, for if he possessed it as well as Santarem, he would be able to defend the Tagus as his southern boundary, and have a much better base of operations. This ancient city was, from its position on the Tagus, the natural capital of the western coast of the Iberian peninsula, and had been an ancient Greek colony. The legend that it was founded by Ulysses, who gave its name, Ulyssipo, afterwards corrupted into Olisipo and Lisbon, is an ancient one; and it certainly held that name up to the time of Augustus, when a Roman colony was fixed there, and its name was changed to Felicitas Julia. Its capture by the Moors in 714 had marked one of their greatest stages of advance, and it remained the capital of their province of the Belatha for more than four hundred years. It had three times been captured by the Christians—in 792 by Alfonso the Chaste, of Castile; in 851 by Ordonho I., of Leon; and in 1093 by Alfonso VI., the father-in-law of Count Henry, but had only remained in their possession twenty years after the first recapture, and only a few months upon the second and third occasions. On this occasion Affonso hoped to be permanently successful, and to make it the capital of his kingdom.

It is very doubtful if the Portuguese king would have entered upon this hazardous feat of arms so soon after his capture of Santarem, had not the news reached him from Oporto that a great fleet of crusaders had put in there, and that the Bishop of Oporto had persuaded the soldiers of the cross to commence their holy war against the infidels by assisting to take Lisbon before they proceeded on their way to Palestine. The bulk of these crusaders were Englishmen, and as a letter describing the expedition and siege by one of their number has lately been discovered and published,[4] it is possible to trace the whole history of this most important event in the history of Portugal. The fleet which had sailed from Dartmouth consisted of 164 ships, under several captains, of whom the most important were Arnold of Aerschot and Christian Ghistell, commanding the Germans, Flemings, and men of the county of Boulogne; Hervey Glanvill, constable of the men of Norfolk and Suffolk; Simon of Dover, “constable of all the ships of Kent;” Andrew of London, and Saher de Arcellis. The English crusader tells in his letter that the proposition of the Bishop of Oporto was not universally well received, and that two “pirates,” named William Vitulus and Ralph his brother, succeeded in leading away for a time the men of Hampshire, Bristol, and Hastings, whose cooperation was, however, soon secured by the eloquence of Hervey Glanvill. The northern crusaders thus re-united set sail for the Tagus, and having disembarked at the mouth of the river, marched up to join Affonso and his Portuguese knights. Even with this large reinforcement, the King of Portugal had not sufficient soldiers to blockade the great city, and he concentrated all his efforts on one particular spot, where at last he forced an entrance on October 24th. The resistance does not seem to have been very obstinate; the Moors of the Belatha had been dispirited by the capture of Santarem; those of the provinces to the south were either distracted by internecine war or paralyzed into inaction by fear of the Almohades; and Affonso was allowed to achieve and consolidate his conquest.

In addition to its intrinsic importance, the capture of Lisbon is worth noticing because of the assistance rendered to the Portuguese by the English; it is the first instance of the close connection between the two nations, which has lasted down to the present century, a connection which makes the history of Portugal of especial interest to Englishmen. After the conquest, most of the crusaders sailed on their way to the Holy Land, but the Portuguese king, by liberal offers, managed to persuade a few to settle down in his dominions, some of whom founded great families. It was no wonder that Affonso was almost astounded at his own success. Cintra, Palmella, Mafra, and Almada surrendered to him without a blow in 1147; Alemquer, Obidos, Torres Novas, and Porto de Moz in 1148; and he found himself master of the whole of the southern Beira and of Estremadura. His great difficulty was how at the same time to occupy and settle his new possessions, and to prepare for a further advance, and it was only sheer lack of men that checked his conquering career. Gilbert of Hastings, an Englishman, whom he had made Bishop of Lisbon, went to England to preach the crusade in Portugal with the full consent of King Henry II., but he did not bring many men back with him, and Affonso had to wait ten years before he made his next decisive step in advance. He spent these years in strengthening the fortifications of his new cities, and attracting inhabitants to them from his older cities; nor did he forget to show his gratitude to the Church, which had allowed its sworn soldiers to help him; for he founded, in 1153, the magnificent monastery of Alçobaça, the future resting-place of the kings of Portugal, and the finest specimen of mediæval architecture in the whole country. All this time he was impatiently longing to take a step further in advance and to capture the wealthy city of Alcacer do Sal. In 1152 he was beaten back in his first attack on that city; in 1157 he was again repulsed, although he had the assistance of Thierry of Alsace and a body of crusaders; but at last, on June 28, 1158, he was successful, and reached the height of his greatness and prosperity.

During these years, in which he had been fighting the Moors, Affonso Henriques had observed the terms of the Treaty of Zamora, and had prudently avoided all interference in the affairs of Spain; but the death of his cousin, the Emperor Alfonso, in 1157, which left him the oldest and most famous warrior in the peninsula, seems to have tempted him to abandon this prudent policy. The Emperor had divided his kingdoms, leaving Castile to his son Sancho, and Leon and Gallicia to his son Ferdinand, a division which also seems to have tempted Affonso to believe he could play a part in Spanish affairs. His alliance was sought on all sides, and in January, 1160, he betrothed his eldest daughter, Donna Matilda, to Raymond Berenger, heir to the throne of Aragon; and a little later in the same year he promised his second daughter, Donna Urraca, to King Ferdinand; and concluded the Treaty of Cella Nova, by which it was agreed that each monarch should prosecute his wars against the Moors independently, and that the course of the Guadiana should be the limit between their respective lines of conquest. This treaty was, undoubtedly, caused by the fact that the Moors in Africa had again become united under the rule of the Almohade caliph, Abd-el-Mumin, and that a great invasion of Spain by the Mohammedans was to be expected.

This invasion occurred in the very next year, 1161. Abd-el-Mumin crossed the straits of Gibraltar with eighteen thousand tried Almohade soldiers, and after subduing the independent Mohammedan emīrs, inflicted upon Affonso Henriques his first real defeat, and drove him back to Lisbon and Santarem. The death of Abd-el-Mumin in 1163 again changed the aspect of affairs. A disputed succession kept the Almohade warriors busy in Africa, and independent bands of “salteadors,” who were little better than brigands and free lances, began to establish themselves as petty feudal princes in the various cities and districts of the Alemtejo, the province south of the Tagus, which now became the battle-ground between the Christians and the Moors. Affonso Henriques let them do as they liked; he had a greater ambition, and as he had formerly schemed and planned to take Santarem, Lisbon, and Alcacer do Sal, he now cast his eyes upon the great city of Badajoz, although it lay upon the eastern side of the Guadiana which he had agreed to leave to the King of Leon. With this object in view he took Beja in 1162, Truxillo and Evora in 1165, and Caceres in 1166, thus gradually working up to the city which he coveted. King Ferdinand was not the man to allow these breaches of treaty to pass unnoticed, and founded the city of Ciudad Rodrigo, to command and threaten the north-eastern districts of Portugal.

But Ferdinand was at this time engaged in fighting his nephew, Alfonso IX. of Castile, and Affonso thought that he could take advantage of him. In 1167 he once more occupied Tuy and Limia, the two Gallician frontier cities, which he had formally surrendered by the Treaty of Zamora; and in 1169 he laid siege to Badajoz. This breach of treaty naturally incensed King Ferdinand, who collected a vast army, and besieged his father-in-law in his camp. The Spaniards were in every way successful; the Portuguese were everywhere defeated; their warrior monarch, now in advanced years, had his leg broken, and was forced to capitulate.

Ferdinand used his victory with moderation; he remembered what great things Affonso had done for Christendom; and after two months’ captivity, he allowed the Portuguese king to return to his country on his surrendering the cities in Gallicia, and on the left bank of the Guadiana, which he had taken in violation of treaties. But the spirit of the old warrior was broken; he was never again able to mount a horse, and about the year 1172, he associated his son Sancho with him in the government of Portugal, to whom he gave the title of King, and assigned all the duties of war and the leadership of the Portuguese armies.

Sancho was however a mere boy at this time, though he afterwards proved himself a worthy son of his father, and it was necessary for Affonso to take other measures against the Moors, who were now united under the Almohade caliph Yūsuf. He first promised the Knights Templars one-third of whatever they might conquer in the future, if they defended the Alemtejo. But the Templars were too weak in numbers to do much, and Yūsuf speedily reconquered the whole of the Alemtejo, and then laid siege to Santarem. Here however he was foiled; the defences had been strengthened with all the military skill known in the Middle Ages, and the city was well provisioned. Yūsuf was obliged to retire, and when he did so, Affonso, for the first time in his long career, made a truce with the infidels for seven years.

When his son Sancho, who had in 1174 married Donna Dulce, daughter of Raymond Berenger, Count of Barcelona, and Petronilla, Queen of Aragon, came to years of discretion, he broke this truce; and in 1176 he made an incursion into Moorish Spain as far as the city of Seville, and brought back much booty with him. This incursion revived perpetual fighting with the Mohammedans, and for the next few years the Alemtejo once more became a great battle-ground. In 1179, in which year Pope Alexander III. affirmed the independence of Portugal by a special papal bull, the Moors were beaten back from Abrantes; in 1180, they destroyed Corruche, and in 1181 they were defeated at Evora. The greatest struggle was yet to come. In May, 1184, Yūsuf crossed the straits with the finest and best-equipped Moslem army the Almohades ever brought into Spain; and in June he laid siege for the second time to Santarem. Pestilence defended the Portuguese city, and on 4th of July, 1184, Sancho utterly defeated the fever-stricken army of the Moors in a great battle, in which Yūsuf himself was mortally wounded. A legend runs that Affonso Henriques was carried in his litter at the head of the reinforcements, that enabled Sancho to win this signal victory, which, whether he himself were present or not, formed a worthy close to the reign of the great crusader-king.

During these last years of the Moorish wars, Affonso preserved all the quickness of intellect, if none of the bodily activity of his early years, and as his son Sancho was always at war, he devoted himself entirely to his last remaining daughter, Donna Theresa. The beauty of this princess was sung by the troubadours in all the courts of Europe, and her hand in marriage was eagerly sought by many suitors. In 1183, the old king at last accepted an offer for her, and she left her father and her country to marry Philip, the wealthy Count of Flanders. Poets and chroniclers agree in saying that the departure of this dear daughter broke the old king’s heart; he lived however to hear of, even if the legend be unfounded that he was not present at, the last great victory at Santarem, and he died on 6th of December of the following year, 1185, at Coimbra. He was buried in the church of the priory of Santa Cruz, in that city of which his friend S. Theotonio had been prior, and his tomb has been rightly reverenced as that of the true founder of Portuguese independence.

It is seldom the case that in one man’s reign a small inconsiderable county has grown into a powerful compact little kingdom, even during the Middle Ages, and that the new kingdom should be perpetuated to modern times is quite unparalleled in the history of Europe. This is what gives the history of the reign of Affonso Henriques such unusual interest and importance in general, as distinct from Portuguese, history. There is no geographical or ethnological reason why the part of the Iberian peninsula called Portugal should have formed an independent kingdom, more than Leon or Castile. It was the greatness of one man which made it an independent country. This is the first lesson taught by the Story of Portugal, that nations are not always marked out by natural geographical limits, or race divisions. The second lesson is, that a nation, which has thus become independent, may under certain circumstances develop a distinct individuality, which gives it a different character in every way to its neighbours. It has been shown that chance, the foresight of Donna Theresa and the greatness of Affonso Henriques made Portugal independent; the course of the history to be narrated will show how, while the other kingdoms of the peninsula coalesced into Spain, Portugal remained independent and developed separately. Spain and Portugal are now two separate countries with different languages, literatures, and national characteristics; how they began to separate has been shown; how they became finally distinct is now to be related.

IV.

PORTUGAL ATTAINS ITS EUROPEAN LIMITS.

CONVENTO DE CHRISTO AT THOMAR. (After a Photograph.)

SANCHO I., the Povoador or City-builder, had already won his reputation as a warrior in his father’s life-time, and his fame as king rests rather on the success of his internal administration of his country. But before he had time to gratify his inclination towards the more peaceful duties of government, he had to continue the life and death struggle with the Moors. The great victory won the year before his accession, gave him a little breathing space, and in 1188 he even proposed to take part in the Third Crusade, for which great preparations were being made all over Europe. But the Moors were not likely to forget their repulse at Santarem, and in the same year Ya’kūb, the son of Yūsuf, the new Almohade caliph landed in the peninsula, and marched without a check until he was once more driven from before Santarem by the conjoined influence of pestilence and of the courage of the Portuguese knights. In the following year King Sancho took his revenge; he stopped at Lisbon first an army of Dutch, Frisian, and Danish crusaders; then a body of French crusaders under Jacques d’Avesnes, Bishop of Beauvais, and the Count of Bar; and finally a well-equipped force of Londoners, all on their way to the Holy Land—and with their help he not only reduced the whole of the Alemtejo, but even took Silves, the capital of the distant emirate of the Alfaghar or Algarves. Ya’kūb was astounded at these successes. He collected a large Mohammedan army, and again crossed to Spain. But ill-luck followed his advance; his army was badly equipped, and not well supplied with provisions; he was foiled by one hundred young London crusaders in an attack on Silves; he was driven back from Thomar, the headquarters of the Knights Templars, by their Grand Master in Portugal, Gualdim Paes; and was finally obliged to abandon the siege of Santarem by a pestilence, which the Portuguese ascribed to a visitation from God. But the great Almohade caliph determined to be more successful the next time; he spent two years in Africa in preaching the Holy War against the Christians, and in 1192 crossed to the peninsula with the finest Mohammedan army which had appeared there since the days of the Almoravides. King Sancho and his Portuguese knights had to oppose this formidable invasion unaided, for the crusaders had gone on their way to Palestine, and were there fighting under Richard Cœur de Lion, and Philip Augustus of France. The Mohammedan soldiers advanced in a triumphal march; they easily reconquered Silves and the Algarves, and then swept across the Alemtejo, taking in rapid succession Beja, Alcacer do Sal, the hard-won conquest of Affonso Henriques, and even Palmella and Almada—the cities which guarded the approach to Lisbon from the south. Sancho, seeing that resistance was of no avail, was only too glad to be permitted to make a treaty with the Moors, which fixed the Tagus as his southern boundary, and the vast Mohammedan army turned into Andalusia and utterly defeated Alfonso VIII. of Castile at the battle of Alarcos in 1195.

King Sancho recognized the fact that the Moors, while united under their great Almohade caliph, were too powerful for him to attack, and he therefore turned his attention to the disputes among the Spanish sovereigns, and to matters of internal administration. It is fortunately not necessary to relate the history of Sancho’s wars with his Christian neighbours. The independence of Portugal was now an established fact, and the minute details of the various wars waged up to the year 1200 have no especial importance or interest, except in so far as they contribute to a knowledge of the causes of the quarrel which ensued between Sancho and the Pope. It will be remembered that the eldest daughter of Affonso Henriques, Donna Urraca, had married Ferdinand II., King of Leon, and that she was the mother of Alfonso IX. This monarch had commenced his reign on friendly terms with Affonso Henriques, and his successor Sancho, and this friendliness had culminated in 1191, in the marriage of Alfonso IX. of Leon to Sancho’s daughter, Donna Theresa. This princess, whose virtues were such that she was canonized as a saint in 1705, was thus first cousin to her husband, and as the canon law was very strict against such marriages, Pope Celestine III. by threats of excommunication and of interdict, forced her husband to repudiate her and to send her back to Portugal in 1195. This insult not only brought about the wars with Leon, which have been mentioned, but left in the mind of King Sancho a rankling animosity against the Papacy, which found its outlet later in his great quarrel with Pope Innocent III.

His truce with the Moors in 1192, and his determination to abandon all interference in Leon and Gallicia after 1200, left King Sancho time to attend to the crying wants of his people. He recognized clearly that there was no use in his pushing across the Tagus and conquering the Alemtejo and the Algarves, when the little kingdom he actually ruled was not half populated. During his father’s reign there had been nothing but fighting, and except in Oporto and Lisbon, where a flourishing trade existed, fostered by the frequent visits of the crusading fleets from the north, and in the northern provinces of the Entre Minho e Douro and the Tras-os-Montes, where agriculture survived, the scanty population subsisted chiefly on the spoils taken in the yearly invasions of Mohammedan territory. The population of the Beira and the northern part of Portuguese Estremadura lived entirely in towns, or in villages clustered round the castles of the nobility, and looked upon war as the only means for obtaining a livelihood. This habit of mind had made a nation of warriors, but it had left the land uncultivated. Tracts of wilderness extended between the towns and villages especially in the more recently conquered districts to the south of Coimbra, and now that the truce with the Moors had deprived the population of their chief means of subsistence, King Sancho saw that it was necessary to revive the pursuit of agriculture.

But, first of all, King Sancho devoted himself to the task of repairing the old city walls, and to the foundation of new towns in commanding strategic positions, which gave him his sobriquet of “O Povoador” or the City-builder. This policy was dictated by the threatening attitude of the Moors under the Almohades; for Sancho, like most of his contemporaries, could not believe that the Moslem dominion in the Peninsula was nearing its close, and he made every preparation for resisting fresh invasions. His first care was to see that all the walls of old cities were put into thorough repair by the citizens, and adequately manned by the city militia; his next, to found new cities, which should command important roads, wherever they were not already in close proximity to powerful towns. Among these new cities, his favourite, and the one which afterwards attained the greatest historical importance was Guarda, which was founded to the westward of the threatening Spanish fortress of Ciudad Rodrigo. In matters of city government Sancho wisely followed the example of the Mohammedans in continuing the old Roman system of municipal administration, which left all matters of internal government entirely in the hands of the citizens, and when he granted the lordship of a city to a bishop, baron, or military order, he carefully regulated their functions, and allowed them only to take a fixed share of the municipal revenue for fulfilling certain fixed duties, such as leading the contingent of the city in war, or holding courts of justice. The rural districts he treated on a different principle. He granted large tracts to noblemen, military orders, and cities on the express condition that they should be cultivated and populated within a fixed period under pain of revocation of the grants. This plan proved effective in the Beira and northern Estremadura, which King Sancho hoped would be sufficiently secured against invasion by the great fortresses on the Tagus, Lisbon, Santarem, and Abrantes, but was quite inapplicable to the Alemtejo. This province he had, in imitation of his father’s policy, entirely portioned out among the great military orders before its recapture by Ya’kūb. He not only confirmed his father’s and grandmother’s large grants to the Templars, Hospitallers, and Knights of the Sepulchre, but greatly increased them; he showed especial favour to the Portuguese order of chivalry, the Knights of St. Benedict of Aviz, which Affonso Henriques had founded; and he introduced from Spain the Order of Caceres, to which he granted Alcacer do Sal, Palmella, and Almada, and that of Calatrava, to which he granted Evora, Alcanede, and Jurumenha, thus attracting to his kingdom some of the most famous warriors of Spain. It was true that the conquests of Ya’kūb had annulled the effect of these grants, but the knights looked upon their possessions across the Tagus, as only in the temporary occupation of the Mohammedans, and were inspired by this feeling into redoubled alacrity in guarding the line of the Tagus, and with an ardent desire for the war against the Moors to begin again.

PRINCIPAL FAÇADE OF THE IGREGA DOS JERONYMOS AT BELEM. (PRESENT STATE.) (After a Photograph.)

The latter years of Sancho’s reign were signalized by his quarrels with his bishops and the Pope, and naturally enough since the Pope was Innocent III. This struggle bears a close resemblance to the contest between Henry II. of England and the Pope a few years before, and also possesses an importance of its own. The main points were that Sancho insisted upon priests accompanying their flocks to battle, and in making them amenable to the civil courts. These ideas seemed monstrous to Pope Innocent III., who sent legate after legate to demand Sancho’s withdrawal of these claims and the payment of his tribute to the Holy See. But Sancho had in his chancellor, Julião, a great statesman, who had been the first Portuguese to study the revival of Roman law at Bologna, and who had learnt broad notions there as to the extent of the Papal authority; and he in the king’s name asserted the supremacy of the royal power in everything, and even his right to resume the estates held by the Church in Portugal. Pope Innocent declared these notions to be heretical, but the king supported his chancellor, who in return took every opportunity to support the royal authority. The lower clergy of Portugal were not unwilling to comply with their sovereign’s demands, and the military orders stood by him as a valiant crusader; his chief difficulty was with his bishops, and especially with the wealthiest among them. The bishops of Lamego, Viseu, Lisbon, and Guarda were all poor, the latter not even possessing a cathedral or a palace in his newly established see; but the Archbishop of Braga, and the bishops of Oporto and Coimbra were ecclesiastical princes disposing of vast revenues, and it was with them that King Sancho quarrelled. His quarrel with the Bishop of Coimbra is worth noting, as affording evidence of the superstitious disposition of even a crusading monarch in those times, for it arose about a so-called witch, whom the king insisted on keeping in his palace. His contest with Martinho Rodrigues, Bishop of Oporto, is far more complicated, but need not be related at length. It is enough to say that the bishop offended not only the king, but his chapter and the people of his city, and that he was eventually shut up in his palace and besieged there for five months. When he made his escape he fled to Rome, and Pope Innocent III. forthwith placed the kingdom of Portugal under an interdict. For a time, Sancho supported by his chancellor and by the inferior clergy, who refused to obey the interdict, paid no attention to the Pope, and went on building towns and castles, notably those of Celorico and Linhares; but at last in 1210, feeling that his health was declining and that he was about to die, he made his submission, received the Bishop of Oporto back into the kingdom, and paid the Pope one hundred marks of gold. He then retired to the convent of Alçobaça, where he died on March 26, 1211, leaving a reputation as a warrior and a statesman second only to that acquired by his father.

Nothing proves more certainly the assured position attained in so short a time by the little kingdom of Portugal than the great marriages made by some of King Sancho’s daughters, and the relations he entered into not only with the kings of Spain, but with the more distant princes of Christendom. It has been noted that one of Sancho’s daughters, Donna Theresa, married Alfonso IX. of Leon, and was repudiated by the order of the Pope, because the marriage infringed the laws of consanguinity. The same interference for the same reason took place with regard to her sister Donna Mafalda or Matilda, who married Henry I. of Castile after her father’s death, and was forced to leave him by Pope Innocent III. The beauty of the Portuguese princesses was so famous that their hands were sought by distant kings. King John of England sent an embassy in 1199 to ask for the hand of an infanta in vain; and Sancho’s youngest daughter, Donna Berengaria, married King Waldemar of Denmark in 1213. Not less brilliant were the marriages of his sons. The eldest, Dom Affonso, married Donna Urraca, daughter of Alfonso VIII. of Castile and Eleanor of England, and sister of Blanche, the famous queen of France and the mother of Louis IX., the crusader-saint; the second, Dom Pedro, married a daughter of the Count of Urgel, and became lord of Segorba; and the third, Dom Ferdinand, married Joanna, Lady of Flanders, and fought at the head of the Flemish troops by the side of John of England at the battle of Bouvines. These alliances show how thoroughly Portugal was recognized at this early date as one of the kingdoms of Europe, although at the death of Sancho her southern boundary was the Tagus, and she had lost all the conquests made by Affonso Henriques in the Alemtejo.

The reign of Affonso II., “the Fat,” is chiefly important in the constitutional history of Portugal, and is only remarkable for one memorable feat of arms, the recapture of Alcacer do Sal. On his father’s death the young king, probably by the advice of the chancellor Julião, summoned a “Cortes” or parliament, consisting of the bishops, “fidalgoes” and “ricos homens” of the realm, which was the first regular assembly of notables ever held in Portugal, for the Cortes of Lamego, generally asserted to have met in 1143, is apocryphal. In the presence of this Cortes Affonso II. gave his solemn adhesion to the final compact which his father had made with the Church, and he then propounded a law of mortmain, drawn up by Julião, by which religious foundations could receive no more legacies of land, because they could not perform military service. The new king proved to be no such warrior as his father and grandfather had been, but he was very tenacious of the wealth and power of the Crown, and he refused to hand over to his brothers the large estates which King Sancho had bequeathed to them by his will. It was not until after a long civil war, in which Alfonso IX. of Leon, Alfonso VIII. of Castile, and Pope Innocent III. intervened, that he gave his sisters their legacies, at the same time taking care that they became nuns; but his brothers were forced to become exiles, and never received the estates bequeathed to them at all.

Though Affonso himself was no soldier, the Portuguese infantry showed how free men could fight in the great battle of Navas de Tolosa in 1212, in which Mohammed En-Nāsir, the successor of Ya’kūb, was utterly defeated; and the Portuguese statesmen, bishops, and captains determined to take advantage of the weakness of the Almohades after this reverse to reconquer the Alemtejo. Fortunately for their purpose there arrived at Lisbon in July, 1217, a great fleet of English, Dutch, and German ships bearing crusaders to the Holy Land. The leaders of the English crusaders were the earls of Wight and Holland, both friends of the exiled prince, Dom Ferdinand, who had fled to his aunt, Donna Theresa, in Flanders. Sueiro, Bishop of Lisbon, made an effort to detain this powerful army, and succeeded in persuading the English division to stop, though the eighty Frisian ships sailed away. The English knights and men-at-arms disembarked at Lisbon, under their earls, and a Portuguese army, not raised by the royal summons or commanded by the royal officers, was led by Sueiro, Bishop of Lisbon, the Abbot of Alçobaça, Martinho, Commander of Palmella, and Pedro Alvitiz, Grand Master of the Portuguese Templars, to join them. The two armies formed the siege of Alcacer do Sal, the city which Affonso Henriques had won with so much difficulty, and which Sancho I. had been forced to surrender. The defence was most obstinate, and in September, 1217, a Mohammedan army of forty thousand infantry and fifteen thousand cavalry came up to relieve the city, under the command of the wālis of Badajoz, Seville, Jaen, Cordova, and Xeres. The Christian and Mohammedan armies met in battle on September 12th; the latter were defeated with immense loss, and were pursued by the Templars for three days; the wālis of Cordova and Jaen were killed; and on October 18th the city of Alcacer do Sal surrendered, and its gallant defender, Abu-Abdallah, in admiration of the valour of the Christians, consented to be baptized.

In this expedition the king took no part; he was more bent upon filling his treasury, a tendency which soon brought him again into conflict with the Church. His chancellor, Gonçalo Mendes, who had inherited the policy of Julião, and the chief officers of his Court, Pedro Annes, the Mordomo Mor or Lord Steward, and Martim Fernandes, the Alferes Mor or Grand Standard-bearer, encouraged him to lay hands on the great estates of Estevão Soares da Silva, the noble and learned Archbishop of Braga. Pope Honorius III. at once espoused the cause of the archbishop, excommunicated the king, and laid an interdict on the kingdom, in order to force Affonso to make restitution to the archbishop and to expel Pedro Annes and Gonçalo Mendes from his Court. Affonso refused to submit, and he was still under the interdict of the Church when he died on the 25th of March, 1223. This avaricious monarch had devoted himself to increasing the wealth and power of the Crown; to this must be attributed not only his quarrels with his brothers and sisters and with the Church, but the great constitutional measures which distinguish his reign. It was for this purpose that he summoned the first Portuguese Cortes to assent to his law of “mortmain,” and despatched the first “inquiracão geral” through the kingdom to examine on oath into the titles of all holders of landed property by sworn juries of inhabitants of the vicinity, a proceeding exactly similar to the commissions sent by Henry II. to inquire into cases of “mort d’ancestor” and “darrein presentment.” Yet the reign of this irreligious and excommunicated king was marked by a revival of religion in Portugal. Sueiro Gomes, one of the earliest followers of S. Dominic, was a Portuguese, and was sent by his master to found branches of the order of preaching friars in his native land, and though in every way checked by Affonso, he made much progress in all the great cities and towns. Far greater was the success of the Franciscan friars, who were introduced into Portugal by Donna Sancha, one of the king’s sisters, who had taken the veil and was canonized in 1705, and for whom Queen Urraca built two splendid convents at Lisbon and Guimaraens. The order took deep root, and its fame was sealed by the martyrdom of the five friars sent by S. Francis of Assisi to Morocco, whose bodies were brought to Portugal by Dom Ferdinand, the king’s brother, and were buried at Santa Cruz in Coimbra, where they were covered by the most sacred shrine in Portugal.

Sancho II. was only thirteen when he succeeded his father, and, as might have been expected during a minority, the turbulent nobility and intriguing bishops tried to undo the effect of the late king’s labours to consolidate the royal authority. The old statesmen and advisers of Affonso II., Gonçalo Mendes, the chancellor, Pedro Annes, and Vicente, Dean of Lisbon, saw that it was necessary to get the interdict removed if there was to be any peace during the king’s minority, and prudently retired into the background, and Sueiro Gomes, the great Bishop of Lisbon, came to the front, and with the help of the pious infantas, the king’s aunts, made peace with the Archbishop of Braga and with Pope Honorius III., who solemnly confirmed the crown to the boy king. The archbishop then became the most powerful man in the kingdom, and with Abril Peres, the new Mordomo Mor agreed with Alfonso IX. of Leon that the Portuguese should attack Elvas, at the same time that the Spaniards laid siege to Badajoz. The opportunity was a favourable one; a disputed succession had resulted in a civil war amongst the Mohammedans both in Spain and Morocco, and Elvas was stormed in 1226. At this siege the young king performed prodigies of valour, and the Portuguese knights and soldiers looked on him with admiration as a worthy successor of Affonso Henriques. Confiding in the love and support of his people, young Sancho, though only seventeen, then took the reins of power into his own hands, and recalled his father’s friends to power making Vicente chancellor, Pedro Annes Mordomo Mor, and Martim Annes Alferes Mor.

This change of power greatly disconcerted the party of the bishops, who began to intrigue for the overthrow of the young king, but he wisely continued to occupy himself with fighting the Mohammedans, knowing well that no pope would dare to attack a crusading monarch. He tried in everything, in his internal administration and his crusading ardour, to imitate his cousin, Louis IX. of France, and this wise policy secured him the protection of the Pope, who, in 1228, sent a legate, John of Abbeville, Cardinal of S. Sabina, with full powers, and with orders to rebuke the Portuguese bishops. The legate did his best to settle long-standing quarrels in the Church, and especially that between Martinho Rodrigues, Bishop of Oporto, the old adversary of Sancho I., and his chapter, and showed his approval of the king’s advisers by making the chancellor, Vicente, Bishop of Guarda. The legate also expressed his satisfaction at the king’s favourable treatment of the friars and the military religious orders, and as the bishops still intrigued against him, he persuaded Pope Gregory IX. to administer a severe rebuke to them by an encyclical letter. The people, the friars, and especially the military orders, simply adored their young monarch at this time, and it was impossible to foresee the catastrophe which was to sadly terminate his reign. The most distinguished military orders at this time were the Knights Hospitallers, whose prior, Affonso Peres Farinha, was the greatest warrior of his time, and who, in 1231, captured the important towns of Moura and Serpa; and the knights of Santiago, whose valiant prior, Paio Peres Correia, in 1234, took Aljustrel. But the king himself was the most ardent crusader of them all, and his youngest brother, Dom Ferdinand, who from Serpa ravaged the districts held by the Mohammedans every year, soon won a reputation second only to his own. In these halcyon days King Sancho II. imitated his grandfather in attempting to settle and cultivate the lands of the Alemtejo, on the same principles that Sancho I. had acted upon in the Lower Beira and Estremadura, while peace was maintained with the neighbouring kingdom of Leon, where, indeed, the greatest men at this period were of Portuguese birth, namely, Dom Pedro, the king’s uncle, who was Mordomo Mor of that kingdom, and Martim Sanches, an illegitimate son of Sancho I., who was the principal general of its armies.

GATE AND WINDOW OF THE MONASTERY OF BELEM.

Meanwhile the wise advisers of the youth of Sancho II. gradually died off, and his Court was thronged with gay young knights and troubadours, who filled him with conceit and encouraged him in foolish courses. The first result of the removal of his old counsellors was to be seen in a serious quarrel with the Church. When on the death of Sueiro Gomes, the famous Bishop of Lisbon, in 1237, the royal candidate was not elected as his successor, the king sent his brother Dom Ferdinand to the city, where he burnt the house of the opposition candidate, João the dean, and killed several priests; and the king’s uncle, Rodrigo Sanches, acted in much the same high-handed manner at Oporto. Such behaviour was not to be tolerated even in a crusading monarch, and a papal interdict was laid on the kingdom; but prompt submission on the part of Sancho, and the journey of his brother, Dom Ferdinand, to Rome to do solemn penance for his misbehaviour, made atonement and the interdict was removed. The king then once again turned his arms against the Mohammedans, and invaded the Algarves, capturing Mertola and Ayamonte in 1239, Cacello in 1240, and Tavira in 1244.

Unfortunately in the interval between these two last campaigns, King Sancho paid a visit to the Court of Castile, where he fell in love with Donna Mencia Lopes de Haro, the widow of a Castilian nobleman, Alvares Peres de Castro, whom he probably married. This woman became the evil genius of his life; the king grew lazy and sensual, and his Court degenerated into a hotbed of vice and intrigue. The connection was most distasteful to the people of Portugal, and gave an opportunity for the bishops and discontented feudal nobility to overthrow Sancho, whom they had always hated, if they could only find a leader and obtain the assistance of the Pope. Even his brother, Dom Ferdinand, deserted him in disgust, and became a vassal of Castile, and his worthless courtiers and favourites, while urging him on to despotism and vicious indulgences, made him more and more unpopular. Pope Innocent IV., who had been forced to fly from Rome to France by the Emperor Frederick II., longed to show his spiritual power over some monarch, and was easily persuaded by the Portuguese bishops that Sancho was both impious and cowardly. A leader was not hard to find, and in 1245, the king’s next brother, Affonso, who had settled at the Court of Blanche of Castile, the mother of Louis IX., and who had there married the heiress to the county of Boulogne, offered himself to the malcontents as a candidate for the throne of Portugal. The Pope then issued a bull “Grandi non immerito,” of which the terms were used as precedents in depositions of the more important monarchs in later days, and João Egas, Archbishop of Braga, Tiburcio, Bishop of Coimbra, and Pedro Salvadores, Bishop of Oporto, went to Paris and offered Affonso of Boulogne the crown of Portugal on certain conditions, which he accepted and swore to observe. Civil war had already broken out before the arrival of Affonso at Lisbon in 1246, when he declared himself Defender of the kingdom; Donna Mencia behaved in a most disgraceful manner to the king, whom she had ruined; Sancho and the Castilian troops which he brought to his help were defeated, and the unfortunate monarch, whose early years had been so full of promise, retired to Toledo where he died, deserted and unhappy, on January 8, 1248.

With such a commencement it might have been expected that the reign of Affonso III. would have been a period of civil war and internal dissension, or at the least of complete submission to the Church and the feudal nobility; but, on the contrary, it was from a constitutional point of view the most important of all the early reigns, and also that in which Portugal concluded its warfare with the Mohammedans in the Peninsula and attained its European limits. In short, Affonso III. proved by the events of his reign to be essentially a politic king, if not a high-minded man. On his brother’s death he exchanged his title of “visitador” or “curador” of the realm for that of king, and, in order to establish his fame as a warrior and a crusader, he at once prepared to complete the conquest of the Algarves, where most of the acquisitions of Sancho II. had been lost to the Moors during the civil war. Aided by his uncle, Dom Pedro, and the Knights Hospitallers under Gonçalo Peres Magro, he was speedily successful, taking Faro, Albufeira, which he granted to the knights of Aviz, and Porches, which he assigned to his chancellor, Estevão Annes, in 1249, and Ayamonte, Cacello, and Tavira in 1250. This extension of the Portuguese territory was by no means acceptable to Alfonso X. “the Wise,” who was now king of Castile and Leon; and after a short war, Affonso III. consented to marry Alfonso’s illegitimate daughter, Donna Beatrice de Guzman, though the Countess of Boulogne was still alive, and to hold the Algarves in usufruct only.

Affonso then turned his attention to his own position in Portugal, and determined to bridle the power of the bishops in spite of his oath at Paris. Perceiving that this could only be done with the assistance of the great body of his people, he summoned a great Cortes at Leiria in 1254, to which representatives of the cities of the kingdom were elected to sit with the nobles and higher clergy. This Cortes is of the greatest importance in the constitutional history of Portugal, and its composition shows that Affonso III. understood, like Simon de Montfort and Edward I. in England, that it was only by an alliance with the people that he could check the power of feudalism and sacerdotalism. His policy was rewarded; the bishops recognized the need for submission; and with the consent of the Cortes, Affonso dared the interdict laid on the kingdom for his second marriage, and forced the clergy to continue their functions. Abroad he maintained peace through his alliance with Alfonso the Wise, and finally, on the petition of the now submissive prelates of Portugal, Pope Urban IV. legalized the king’s second marriage and legitimated his son Diniz in 1262. He was everywhere honoured and successful, and in 1263 Alfonso X. made over the full sovereignty of the Algarves to him, when he assumed the title of King of Portugal and the Algarves.

FAÇADE OF LISBON CATHEDRAL. (After a Photograph.)
The oldest church in the city, as expressed by the proverb, “Velho Como a Sé”.

The people now began to make their power felt in the Cortes, and Affonso soon had to pay for the assistance which they had previously rendered to him. In a full Cortes held at Coimbra in 1261, the representatives of the cities boldly denounced the king’s habit of tampering with the coinage, and compelled his recognition of the principle that taxes were not levied by the inherent right of the king, but by the free consent of the people. As a popular king, he completely mastered the bishops, in spite of their ability and learning, and he was much aided in this work by the orders and regulations specially issued by Pedro Hispano, the great Portuguese scholar and theologian, who had been the king’s friend when Archbishop of Braga, and who became a cardinal, and afterwards for a short time pope, as Pope John XXI. After a prosperous and successful reign, Nemesis came upon Affonso III. for his behaviour to his brother, in the rebellion of his son Diniz in 1277, who remained in arms until 1279, when the king died in a state of despair, and of misery at his son’s ingratitude.

During the reigns of Sancho I., Affonso II., Sancho II., and Affonso III., Portugal attained its European limits, and started on the way to become a great, free, and wealthy nation. The period of war and of territorial extension in the peninsula was now over, and the period of civilization was to dawn. Territorially and constitutionally, Portugal was now an established kingdom; it remained for it to become civilized and thoroughly homogeneous before the great heroic period of exploration and Asiatic conquest should begin. The kingdom and its people had passed through the stage of childhood; now was to come its stirring youth, in which the great qualities of the Portuguese were to be trained and developed, before the period of glorious manhood was to mark the height of its greatness.

V.

THE CONSOLIDATION OF PORTUGAL.

NO better ruler than Diniz, or Denis, could be found for a country which, after centuries of war, needed to have a period of peace and quiet. He was a poet, and loved literature; he was a great administrator, and loved justice; he was a statesman, and avoided foreign wars; he was a far-seeing man, and prepared for the extension of Portuguese energies beyond the sea by encouraging commerce; and, above all, he saw the need of agriculture and of the arts of peace to take the place of incessant wars, and in every respect he nobly earned the sobriquet of the “Ré Lavrador,” or “Denis the Labourer.” From all these points of view his reign is of vast importance in the history of Portugal, for it marks the development of the people into an independent nation, but, like all peaceful reigns of quiet progress, it is not signalized by many striking events.

The civil war, which Diniz had waged with his father, was followed on his accession to the throne by a fierce struggle between Diniz and his brother Affonso, who disputed his legitimacy, which ended in a compromise. He then married, in 1281, Donna Isabel, daughter of Pedro III. of Aragon, who was canonized in later years for her pure and unselfish life. His reign is only marked by one war with Sancho IV. and Ferdinand IV. of Castile and Leon, which was terminated in 1297 by a treaty of alliance, according to the terms of which Ferdinand IV. married Constance, daughter of Diniz, while Affonso, the heir to the throne of Portugal, married Beatrice of Castile, the sister of Ferdinand, but his reputation none the less stood very high in the peninsula, as is shown by his being chosen in 1304 to act as joint arbitrator with the King of Aragon between Ferdinand of Castile and his cousin, Ferdinand of Lacerda. Still more interesting are the king’s relations with Edward I. of England, with whom he exchanged many letters, chiefly on commercial subjects, and with whom he made a treaty of commerce in 1294. He had much correspondence also with Edward II., and in particular he agreed with the English king in 1311 that the Knights Templars had been greatly maligned. When that famous order was suppressed by Pope Clement V. in compliance with the wishes of Philip le Bel of France, Dom Diniz took a course which demonstrated his political wisdom. He recollected the great services which the military orders had formerly rendered to Portugal, and bore in mind their influence and power, and he therefore founded the Order of Christ in conjunction with Pope John XXII. in 1319, and invested it with all the property of the Templars, thus at once obeying the Pope and avoiding a serious disturbance at home. He showed the same wisdom with regard to the knights of Santiago in Portugal, whom he persuaded Pope Nicholas IV. to release from the control of the Grand Master of the Order in Castile, and to establish on an independent footing.

These few lines touch on every important event, in regard to foreign affairs, which occurred during the long reign of Dom Diniz, but they give no idea of the progress of Portugal during this period of nearly fifty years. Agriculture was greatly encouraged by the monarch, who founded agricultural schools and homes for farmers’ orphans, and established model farms. He did much by showing honour to agricultural pursuits to raise them in the consideration of his nobility, and he attempted to wean his people in general from the notion that war was the only occupation fit for a free man. He undertook several important agricultural experiments himself, established farmers in the still barren province of the Alemtejo, paid special attention to the cultivation of vines in the north, and planted the great pine forest of Leiria by which he hoped to reclaim the sandy regions in that neighbourhood. He was also a great builder, and did much to improve the three royal cities of Lisbon, Coimbra, and Santarem, in which the Court used to reside, and he built the towns of Salvaterra and Villa Real. In administrative matters, the feudal system, under which the country districts were ruled was left almost untouched, as were the charters and franchises of the greater cities and towns, and the only important measures passed by the Cortes in 1286 and 1291 were still more stringent laws of mortmain directed against the Church than that passed in 1250. It was in the administration of justice that the greatest reforms were introduced. The period of great chancellors, who were statesmen rather than lawyers, which commenced with Julião, and included Gonçalo Mendes, Vicente, and Estevão Annes, was over, and a new class of chancellors was appointed. These men were invariably ecclesiastics, and looked forward to a bishopric, as the reward of their services. They were essentially lawyers, learned in the Roman law, which they had studied at Padua and Bologna; and applying the maxims of their studies to the common law of Portugal, which was largely founded on Visigothic ideas, they began to build up a system of Portuguese law, of which the importance became visible later. Diniz did not venture to abolish the feudal courts, though he checked their abuses, and among other reforms, he appointed royal “corregidors” in every city and town belonging to the Crown in lordship, who were to act as judges of appeal from the feudal and city courts, as well as to take charge of the police. His wise encouragement of commerce appears in his commercial treaty with England, and by his establishment of a royal navy, commanded by a new official, entitled the “Almirante Mor,” or Lord High Admiral, which office was first granted to a distinguished Genoese sailor, Emmanuel Pessanha.

But the greatest qualification of Dom Diniz for the sovereignty of a country, which had at last got time to learn the arts of peace and to become civilized, was his affection for literature and his encouragement of education. It was Diniz, who, in 1300, founded the first Portuguese university at Lisbon, which after many changes between that city and Coimbra, found its permanent home in the latter city, and became the centre of literary influence in Portugal. The king was also a poet of exquisite taste, and in the number, beauty, and variety of his songs he proved himself the greatest poet of his Court. Educated by Aymeric d’Ebrard of Cahors, whom he made Bishop of Coimbra, he shows in his poems the influence of the troubadours, and not of the trouvères who had thronged his father’s Court. He had inherited poetic feeling and power of expression from his father, Affonso III., who was no mean poet, and who is said to have written a powerful “sirvente” against Alfonso X., but his father had during his long residence at Paris been impressed with the poetry of northern France, and had invited trouvères only to his Court. Dom Diniz, both by education and feeling, belonged to a different school, and preferred the softer themes and methods of the troubadours. With the Courts of Love which he introduced into Portugal came the substitution of the Limousin decasyllabic for the national octosyllabic metre, and the ancient forms were lost in the intricacies of the “ritournelle.” But the best service done by Diniz and his poetic courtiers was in developing the Portuguese dialect into a beautiful and flexible literary language. The king went further; as he grew older, he threw off the trammels of Provençal forms, and perceiving the beauty of his people’s lyrics, he wrote some quaint and graceful “pastorellas” inspired by their influence, which are full of poetic life and truth. The effects of the influence of Dom Diniz, in the words of a recent writer on Portuguese literature, “pervade the whole of Portuguese poetry; for not only was he in his ‘pastorellas’ the forerunner of the great pastoral school, but by sanctifying to literary use the national storehouse of song, he perpetuated among his people, even to the present day, lyric forms of great beauty.”[5] Literary excellence and the growth of a national poetry form the natural sequel of the attainment of national independence; and it is interesting to observe that the king, who peacefully consolidated the Portuguese kingdom, was the founder of Portuguese literature. Camoens happily hits off in a couple of stanzas the characteristics of his reign.

“See, next that Diniz comes in whom is seen
the ‘brave Afonso’s’ offspring true and digne;
whereby the mighty boast obscurèd been,
the vaunt of lib’eral Alexander’s line:
Beneath his sceptre blooms the land serene
(already compast golden Peace divine)
With constitution, customs, laws and rights,
a tranquil country’s best and brightest lights.

The first was he who made Coimbra own
Pallas-Minerva’s gen’rous exercise;
he called the Muses’ choir from Helicon
to tread the lea that by Mondego lies:
Whate’er of good whilere hath Athens done,
here proud Apollo keepeth ev’ery prize:
Here gives he garlands wove with golden ray,
with perfumed Nard and ever-verdant Bay.”[6]

Personally dissolute, as the nature of much of his poetry and his encouragement of the troubadours and their Courts of Love show, the stories told of the Court of Dom Diniz are far from edifying. Yet some of them are full of romantic interest, and exhibit the more constant love of the south instead of the airy fancies of Provence. Of these stories, the most romantic of all is perhaps that of Donna Branca or Blanche, the sister of Diniz and the abbess of Lorvão and Huelgas, who loved a humble carpenter Pedro Esteves, and was the mother of a son, João Nunes do Prado, who became Master of the Order of Calatrava, and was beheaded by Pedro the Cruel of Castile. It is this story which has furnished the plot of one of the most striking of modern Portuguese dramas, Almeida-Garrett’s “Donna Branca.” The king’s favours to his bastards, João Affonso and Affonso Sanches, whom he successively made Mordomo Mor, and Pedro Affonso, whom he made Alferes Mor and Count of Barcellos, involved him towards the end of his reign in bitter disputes with his only legitimate son, Affonso. Open war at last broke out between Dom Diniz and his heir-apparent, and a pitched battle was only prevented by S. Isabel riding between the armies in 1323, and making a peace between her husband and her son, which lasted until the death of the great peace monarch, the “Ré Lavrador” in 1325.

Immediately on his accession to the throne, Affonso IV., the successor of Dom Diniz, gave full vent to his rage against his half brothers, and with the consent and assistance of the nobility of Portugal, he beheaded João Affonso and confiscated all his lands, as well as those of Affonso Sanches, who had escaped to Castile. This act of revenge, or of justice, as he called it, consummated, he settled down as a worthy successor of his father, and fostered all the schemes of Diniz for the development of Portugal. He also continued his father’s policy of peace with Castile, and made a formal alliance with that country in 1327 when he married his daughter Donna Maria to Alfonso XI. of Castile. This marriage did not prove a happy one; the king neglected his young wife for Leonora de Guzman, and treated her so badly that in 1336 Affonso IV. invaded Castile. A terrible war was impending, when S. Isabel once more played the part of peacemaker. Leaving the convent of Poor Clares at Coimbra, whither she had retired after her husband’s death, she hurried to Estremoz, where the two armies were facing each other, and made peace between the opposing monarchs. Alfonso XI. promised to treat his wife better, and the Infant Dom Pedro, the only surviving son of the King of Portugal, was granted the hand of Constance Manuel, daughter of the Duke of Penafiel. The strength of the new alliance was soon tried; for in 1340 Abu-l-Hasan, king of Morocco, crossed the straits to come to the help of the king of Granada, with a great army. Alfonso XI. sent his wife to beg for the assistance of the Portuguese chivalry, and Affonso willingly complied. In the great battle of the Salado on 29th of October the Moors were utterly defeated, and the two generals who were most conspicuous on the Christian side, were Affonso IV. of Portugal, who won the sobriquet of Affonso “the Brave,” and Don Pedro Fernandez de Castro, Mordomo Mor of Castile. This victory also marks an advance in Portuguese poetry, for on it was written the first Portuguese epic by Affonso Giraldes, the forerunner of Camoens.

It is interesting during this reign to notice the close intimacy growing up between Portugal and England, which was to have many important results. Directly on his accession, Affonso IV. determined to maintain the friendly relations which Diniz had commenced, and in 1325 he sent an ambassador to propose a matrimonial alliance with the English royal family, probably with a view of contracting a marriage between his elder daughter, Donna Maria, and the young Prince of Wales, afterwards Edward III. The English Court, then under the influence of Queen Isabella, replied that the ambassador was not of sufficiently high rank for his application to be received. Accordingly, in the following year, Affonso sent his Lord High Admiral, Dom Manoel Pessanha, and Dom Rodrigo Domingues on the same mission, but their embassy led to no result, probably owing to the disturbed state of affairs in England, and Donna Maria married, as has been said, the King of Castile. Friendly communications continued, nevertheless, between Portugal and England, and in 1344 Edward III. sent two ambassadors, Henry, Earl of Lancaster, and Richard, Earl of Arundel, to draw up a treaty of alliance with Affonso IV. This was followed by the mission of Andrew of Oxford, Richard of Saham, and Philip Borton to ask for the hand of Donna Leonora, the King of Portugal’s younger daughter, for Edward, Prince of Wales, better known as the Black Prince. The marriage was agreed upon, and in 1347 Robert Stratton and Richard of Saham arrived to fix the day for the passage of the infanta to England. But at this moment matrimonial alliances of more political importance occurred to each of the high contracting parties, and in this very year Donna Leonora was married to King Pedro IV. of Aragon, and the Black Prince to the Fair Maid of Kent. The rupture of this marriage scheme did not break the friendship of the two kings, both of whom perceived the wealth to be obtained for their countries and themselves by encouraging commerce. The business relations between the two nations soon became very close, and the wine of Portugal was freely exchanged for the long-cloth of England. On July 25, 1352, Edward III. issued a royal proclamation, ordering his subjects never to do any harm to the Portuguese, and on October 20, 1353, a curious sequel to the commercial treaty of 1294 was signed in London by Affonso Martins Alho. This young wine merchant had been sent to England as representative of the merchants of the maritime cities of Portugal, and the treaty he negotiated with the citizens of London was one guaranteeing mutual good faith in all matters of trade and commerce, with many other technical clauses referring to special lines of business. The very fact of this treaty or agreement being signed is a proof, not only of the close connection between Portugal and England, but of the high degree of wealth, intelligence, and business capacity possessed by the merchants of both countries.

INES DE CASTRO.

The later years of the reign of Affonso IV. were marked by a fearful pestilence and a sad tragedy. In 1348 the plague, or, as it was more commonly called, the Black Death, reached Portugal, after traversing Europe, and more than decimated the inhabitants of Lisbon. On January 7, 1355, Donna Ines de Castro was murdered in the streets of Coimbra. The history of the various dynasties of Portugal is full of romantic stories, some with ludicrous, and others with tragical, endings, which illustrate, not only the characters of the respective monarchs, but the tendencies of their different epochs. The story of Donna Branca, the princess who loved a carpenter, has been told, with the comment that her son became Grand Master of the wealthy Order of Calatrava; the romance of Dom Pedro’s life ended more tragically. Dom Pedro was the only son of Affonso IV. and Beatrice of Castile who had survived his first year. He was born in 1320, and had married in 1336, in order to cement his father’s alliance with Castile, the Donna Constance Manuel, daughter of the Duke of Penafiel. In her suite as lady-in-waiting came the Donna Ines de Castro, daughter of Pedro Fernandez de Castro, Mordomo Mor of Castile, and hero of the battle of the Salado, and sister of Alvaro Peres de Castro, first Constable of Portugal. Dom Pedro fell in love with the beautiful Castilian lady, and though, during his wife’s lifetime, he always treated his wife with the utmost consideration, and was the father by her of Dom Ferdinand, afterwards King of Portugal, and of Donna Maria, afterwards Queen of Aragon, it was well known at the Portuguese Court that the love of Dom Pedro’s heart was centred on Donna Ines. In that dissolute Court little attention was paid to the conduct of the prince; princes were in those days privileged persons, and he was known besides to have another lady-love, the Donna Theresa Lourenço, who was the mother of João, afterwards King of Portugal. It was not until after the death of his wife that it was perceived that Dom Pedro’s love for the Donna Ines was more than the ordinary fancy of a prince, and was an absorbing passion. For love of her, he refused to marry any of the foreign princesses proposed to him by his father, and it is probable that he went through a form of marriage with her after his first wife’s death. However that may be, King Affonso determined to put an end to his son’s infatuation by murdering the object of it, and by his directions Donna Ines was murdered in the streets of Coimbra by three courtiers, Alvaro Gonçalves, the “Meirinho Mor” or Lord Chamberlain, Pedro Coelho, and Diogo Lopes Pacheco. This is the tragedy which Camoens has celebrated in an immortal passage,[7] and which has since become a common theme for the playwrights of the world, good, bad, and indifferent; and it may be said, that it is not so much in the murder itself, as in the events which followed it, that the most romantic part of the story is to be found. Dom Pedro was absent on his estates in the south when he heard of the murder of Ines. He at once collected his vassals, and prepared to attack his father, but, as had happened in the days of S. Isabel, the Queen, Beatrice of Castile, interposed, and a compromise was made, by which father and son agreed to see each other no more, and to abandon active hostilities, and this compact lasted until the death of Affonso “the Brave” in 1357.

The first act of Dom Pedro on ascending the throne was to punish the murderers of Ines de Castro, and he induced the King of Castile to surrender Alvaro Gonçalves and Pedro Coelho to him. Pacheco had escaped to England, and could not be found, and thus escaped the fate of his accomplices, who were slowly tortured to death in front of the royal palace at Coimbra before the eyes of Dom Pedro. The king four years later had the strange ceremony performed, which is far better known than the circumstances of his love affair with Donna Ines. On April 24, 1361, either to show his undying affection for her, or to confirm the story of his marriage and legitimate his children by her, he had her body disinterred at Coimbra, and conveyed to the Convent of Alçobaça, where it was solemnly crowned, and then buried. It is usual to speak of the Convent of Alçobaça as if it had been the burial-place of all the kings and queens of Portugal up to this time. Such was not the case; only Affonso II. and Affonso III. and their queens were buried there. Count Henry and Donna Theresa had their last resting-place in the Cathedral of Braga, Affonso Henriques and Sancho I. and their queens in the Convent of Santa Cruz at Coimbra, Diniz in the Convent of Odivelas, near Lisbon, S. Isabel in that of the Poor Clares at Coimbra, Affonso IV. and his queen in Lisbon Cathedral, and Dom Pedro’s wife, Constance Manuel, in the Convent of S. Francis at Santarem.

The spirit of stern, revengeful justice which had marked the commencement of the short reign of Dom Pedro continued to show itself in all matters of administration; the king loved to dispense justice in person, and the rigour with which he treated all culprits, noble and priest as well as merchant and vagabond, won for him the title of “Pedro the Severe.” This severity was not unpleasing to the people, and many tales are extant of the king’s visits incognito to the law courts, and of his rigorous punishment of unjust judges. Many of the famous stories told in the “Arabian Nights” of the Caliph Harun-ar-Rashid are also told of Dom Pedro, and in them his Chancellor, Vasco Martins de Sousa, played the part of the Vizīr, as companion and butt. In matters of policy Dom Pedro followed in his father’s and grandfather’s steps, avoiding interference with the other kingdoms of the peninsula, and maintaining a close political and commercial connection with England. His reign was too short to leave much trace on the history of Portugal, for he died in 1367 at Estremoz, and was buried at Alçobaça by the side of Ines de Castro.

The accession of Ferdinand, called “the Handsome,” the only son of Dom Pedro by Constance Manuel, marks a crisis in the history of the Portuguese monarchy. As a natural result of the long era of peace and prosperity which had succeeded the final conquest of the Algarves, the people of Portugal had become more wealthy, more cultivated, and more conscious of their nationality than almost any people in Europe while the Court had become more and more dissolute, and more out of consonance with the feelings of the people. If the Portuguese monarchy was to continue to exist, it was obvious that it must again become a truly national monarchy, as it had been in the days of Affonso Henriques and of Diniz, which should lead the way in finding new outlets for the growing energies of the people, and that the kings must remember their duties, and not think only of their pleasures. The affection the people showed for Dom Pedro, who was by no means a good king, but rather a despot of the Oriental type, was a proof that they were ready to recognize with gratitude the efforts of a just monarch, and their energies, now that, owing to long peace, they were the richest nation in the peninsula, only needed to be directed. Neither the priesthood nor the nobility showed any disposition to check the dissoluteness of the Court. The bishops lost their old commanding influence, as the Papacy, on which they depended, became degenerate, and the nobles, now that they had no longer wars to occupy them, either became courtiers and abettors of the vices of the kings and princes, or else lived on their feudal estates and imitated them. The people had now no share in the government. The power which the Cortes had obtained during the reign of Affonso III. was in abeyance, because the king did not need its help against his bishops and nobles, but it was only in abeyance, and ready to spring forth again into new life.

The life and reign of Ferdinand “the Handsome” are marked, like those of his father, by a romantic amour, which, if not so tragic as the story of Ines de Castro, had far greater political importance. Ferdinand was a weak and frivolous, but ambitious, king, who, after binding himself to marry Leonora, daughter of the King of Aragon, suddenly surprised every one by claiming the thrones of Castile and Leon in 1369, on the death of Pedro “the Cruel.” This claim was derived through his grandmother, Beatrice of Castile, and was good in law, and Dom Ferdinand was favourably received at Ciudad Rodrigo and Zamora. But the majority of the Castilians, both noble and plebeian, had no desire to see a Portuguese monarch on their throne, and therefore espoused the cause of the illegitimate Henry of Trastamare as Henry II. of Castile and Leon. The war which followed turned to the advantage of the Castilian pretender, and the contest ended in 1371 by the intervention of Pope Gregory XI., when Ferdinand agreed to surrender his claim to the throne of Castile, and to marry Leonora, daughter of Henry II. However, in spite of the Pope, this treaty was never carried out, for at the marriage of his half-sister, Beatrice, the daughter of Dom Pedro and Ines de Castro, to Sancho Count of Alboquerque, King Ferdinand saw and fell passionately in love with Donna Leonor Telles de Menezes, daughter of a nobleman in the Tras-os-Montes, and wife of João Lourenço da Cunha, Lord of Pombeiro. This passion was the king’s ruin, for the object of it was a sort of Portuguese Lucrezia Borgia, of whom horrible stories are told, which historical research has unfortunately shown to be only too well founded. At this very period, when she first met the king, she made no attempt to repulse his advances, though she was a married woman, and she bore an undying feeling of revenge against her sister, Donna Maria Telles, for her attempts to repulse the amorous monarch. In spite of her sister’s efforts, Donna Leonor managed to captivate the king, who, in his infatuation for her, and in compliance with the dictates of her ambition, refused to marry the daughter of Henry II. of Castile. This refusal exasperated the people of Lisbon, who knew that the Castilians would not tamely suffer such an insult, and a great popular tumult and riot burst forth in the city. The story of this riot has been admirably told by the chief modern historian of Portugal, Alexandra Herculano, in one of his historical novels, and it affords a striking example of the political foresight of the people, and of their conviction of a coming revolution. The popular leader was a tailor named Fernan Vasques, under whose command the mob burst into the palace at Lisbon, hunted in vain for Donna Leonor, and made King Ferdinand swear to marry the Castilian infanta on the very next day. But Ferdinand escaped the same night to Santarem, and once there with his beloved, he forgot his oath, and sent all the troops he could collect to punish the rioters of Lisbon. They made but little resistance, being unprepared for their sovereign’s want of faith to his plighted word, and Fernan Vasques, the tailor, and his principal followers were beheaded. This cruel punishment inflicted, the king betook himself to Oporto, and there married the Donna Leonor at the Church of S. João do Hospital, although her first husband was still alive. It shows to what a depth of degradation the Portuguese nobles had sunk that all the nobility, with the exception of Dom Diniz, one of the king’s half-brothers, acquiesced in this bigamous marriage, and recognized Donna Leonor as queen. At the head of those who submitted were Dom João or John, the elder son of the late king by Ines de Castro, and Dom John, known as “the Bastard,” the Master of the Knights of Aviz, and the son of Pedro by Theresa Lourenço.

The people of Lisbon were right in believing that the Castilians would regard the marriage of Ferdinand to Donna Leonor as a deadly insult to their infanta. Henry II. at once invaded Portugal, and laid siege to Lisbon; Ferdinand lived meanwhile quietly at Santarem with his queen, and made no effort to intervene; and the war would have ended badly for Portugal, had not Cardinal Guy of Boulogne, who happened to be in Spain as legate, interfered, and by using all the authority of the Church, forced Henry II. to retire, and to make a treaty of peace with Ferdinand at Santarem. Even after this proof of the power of Castile, and after the sufferings incurred by the people of Lisbon during the siege, Ferdinand refused to keep the peace. He would not believe that Henry II. was firmly established on the throne, and in 1373 he treacherously renewed the negotiations which he had entered into the year before with John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster. This son of Edward III. claimed the throne of Castile for his wife Constance, the daughter of Pedro “the Cruel,” and Ferdinand signed a treaty of alliance with Edward III., through his ambassadors, João Fernandes Andeiro and Vasco Domingues, by which he agreed to support the claims of the English prince. But Donna Leonor did not approve of the English alliance, and in 1374, Ferdinand as usual broke his plighted word, and again made peace with Castile.

The queen was now supreme; her weak and vacillating husband was her slave, and the tyranny which she exercised was odious in the extreme. Her wealth was great, for the king had in his infatuation granted her for her own use the lordship of many of the most important cities belonging to the Crown, including Villa Viçosa, Abrantes, Almada, Cintra, Saccavem, Alemquer, Obidos, Torres Vedras, and Pinhel, and she had obtained great estates for her brothers, of whom the elder, João Affonso Telles de Menezes, became Count of Barcellos, and the younger, Gonçalo, Count of Neiva. Her former husband, João Lourenço da Cunha, tried to revenge himself for the loss of his wife by attempting to poison the king; she at once had his lands confiscated, and ordered his execution, which he only escaped by a timely flight into Gallicia. Her revenge upon her sister, Maria Telles de Menezes, whom she had never forgiven for opposing her marriage with the king, was horrible in its wickedness, and affords an indisputable proof of her cruelty of disposition. Maria, who was as beautiful as her sister, and far more virtuous, had inspired a real passion in the bosom of Dom John, the king’s half-brother and the elder son of Ines de Castro. The young couple were married in 1376, and were as happy as they deserved to be. Enraged at their happiness, and the more so, because they had a little son, whereas her own sons both died in childhood, the queen set to work, like Iago, to instil the passion of jealousy into the young husband. She was soon successful, and Dom John murdered his wife with his own hand, in his palace at Coimbra, while she was vainly protesting her innocence. When the deed was done, the queen came into her dead sister’s presence, and laughingly informed the unhappy wife-murderer that the accusations were untrue. At this mockery, Dom John would have slain her, and on being prevented by her guards, he fled to Castile. Donna Leonor had not even the merit of being constant to her uxorious spouse, but carried on an open intrigue with João Fernandes Andeiro, the former ambassador to England, whom she persuaded the king to make Count of Ourem. Ines Affonso, the wife of Gonçalo Vaz de Azevedo, first Grand Marshal of Portugal, happened to hear a declaration of love made by the queen to her lover, and she informed Dom John “the Bastard,” Master of the Knights of Aviz. Some spy told the queen, and she determined at once to rid herself of the pair. She had a letter forged, purporting to be written by them to the king of Castile, full of treasonable passages, and on the strength of it, she obtained the king’s order for their arrest. When they were safely in prison, she tried to persuade her husband to sign an order for their execution without trial. King Ferdinand, who had a real affection for his half-brother, refused, and Donna Leonor thereupon forged his signature to an order for them to be beheaded at once. Fortunately for Portugal, the governor of the Castle of Evora, where they were imprisoned, Vasco Martins de Mello, refused to obey, and the future saviour of Portugal escaped.

The wonder is that the Portuguese people submitted so long as they did to this tyranny, and it shows how deeply they felt the debt due to their great monarchs, such as Affonso Henriques and Dom Diniz, that they made no attempt to overthrow their unworthy descendant. So strong was their attachment to the hereditary principle, that at a great Cortes held at Leiria in 1376, the queen’s only surviving child, the Donna Beatrice, was recognized as heiress to the throne. This declaration was of the greatest importance, for it governed the future rule of succession in the kingdom; and by declaring females able to succeed rejected the well-known Salic law, which prevailed in France and other countries. The queen steadily encouraged the king’s ambition to sit upon the throne of Castile, and when his hopes revived, on the death of Henry II., she persuaded him once more to send her lover, the Count of Ourem, as ambassador to England. Richard II. received him cordially, and Edmund, Earl of Cambridge, next brother to John of Gaunt, and better known by his subsequent title of Duke of York, agreed to bring military assistance to the aid of Ferdinand. In 1381, the Earl of Cambridge arrived accordingly with two thousand English men-at-arms, and, as had been suggested by the Count of Ourem, his eldest son, Edward, afterwards second Duke of York, was solemnly betrothed to the Donna Beatrice, the heiress to the throne of Portugal. The feeble Ferdinand, as usual, refused to keep faith, and terrified by the approach of a Castilian army, he deserted the English, who immediately began to ravage the country round their camp near Oporto, while he made peace with John I. of Castile at Salvaterra. By this treaty, which was signed on April 2, 1383, and in which the hand of Donna Leonor is clearly to be perceived, it was arranged that John I. should marry Donna Beatrice, who was but eleven years old, and that Leonor should be Regent of Portugal if Ferdinand died, until Beatrice’s eldest son came of age. At the wedding, which took place at once, Ferdinand was too ill to be present: but the queen and her lover were there in his stead, and behaved with such unseemly hilarity that many of the Portuguese nobility, headed by Nuno Alvares Pereira, who was to be known in Portuguese history as “The Holy Constable,” could not refrain from openly expressing their disgust. Six months afterwards, on October 22, 1383, King Ferdinand died, and Donna Leonor assumed the regency in the name of her little daughter, the Queen of Castile.

VIEW OF THE PALACE AT LISBON.
(From “Les Royaumes d’Espagne et Portugal.” La Haye, 1720.)

But she did not hold it long. The whole Portuguese people detested her, and their spirit of nationality was outraged by the contemplated union of their crown with that of Castile. Dom John “the Bastard,” the Master of the Order of Aviz shared both their personal hatred for the queen, who had tried to take his life, and their political desire for independence; and on December 6th, he headed an insurrection in Lisbon and slew the queen’s lover, Andeiro, Count of Ourem, with his own hands in the palace itself. The people everywhere applauded his action, and attacked the friends of the queen; in Lisbon the Archbishop Martinho and the Abbot of Guimaraens were killed upon the same day, and the example was followed in the provinces, where among other notable murders, the abbess of the Benedictine nuns was killed at Evora, and the Lord High Admiral, Lançarote Pessanha, at Beja. Leonor among whose faults want of courage could not be reckoned, fled to Santarem, and not only summoned her son-in-law, John of Castile to her help, but began to raise an army from among the vassals of her own adherents. At this news, Dom John felt a momentary movement of weakness, and spoke of retiring to England, but the people of Lisbon, through the mouth of the popular leader, the cooper, Affonso Annes, so eloquently begged him not to desert them in their peril, but to stay and be their ruler, that he consented on December 16th, to remain, and named two of his wisest adherents, João das Regras and Nuno Alvares Pereira, to the offices of chancellor and constable.

Dom John then took upon himself the title of Defender of the Realm; but he knew how little chance Portugal could have against Castile without some powerful ally, and he therefore sent first Thomas Daniel and Lourenço Martins, and then his Chancellor and the Master of the Knights of Santiago to beg for help from England. The longed-for aid seemed tardy, and Dom John proceeded to put Lisbon in a state of defence, and despatched the “Holy Constable” to raise an army in the northern provinces. In 1384, John of Castile slowly entered Portugal with a great army and joined Donna Leonor at Santarem. But the allies soon quarrelled as to the government in future of the country they both believed to be already conquered, and Donna Leonor recommended her adherents to join Dom John. Not satisfied with this, she planned to poison her son-in-law; but her intention was discovered in time, and the wicked queen was sent by John of Castile to the convent of Tordesillas, in his dominions, where she ended her days in 1386. This act of justice done, the king of Castile laid siege to Lisbon. The resistance was worthy of the cause, which was indeed that of the continued existence of Portugal as an independent country. The priests fought at the head of their parishioners; the archbishop of Braga behaved as a gallant knight; and Dom John showed his fitness to be the monarch of a warlike people. A terrible pestilence, which broke out in the besiegers’ camp, did more mischief than the bravery of the besieged, and John of Castile had to retire discomfited. But it availed little to have repulsed one Spanish army; the relative sizes of Portugal and Castile, made it obvious that the struggle would be a severe one; the independence of Portugal was at stake, and the Portuguese fought as men fight for their existence as a nation. The heroic Constable enforced the lesson of the successful defence of Lisbon by his defeat of the Castilians at Atoleiros, but it was felt to be necessary to take yet stronger measures, if the war was to end in a triumph.

The first of these measures was to legalize the position of Dom John, the gallant leader of the people. A great Cortes was summoned to meet at Coimbra, and in it João das Regras declared the throne of Portugal to be elective on April 6, 1385. This proposition was agreed to by acclamation, and after the Chancellor had produced a Papal bull, declaring the children of Dom Pedro by Ines de Castro to be illegitimate, the Cortes unanimously elected Dom John “the Bastard,” to be king of Portugal. This measure legalized the position of Master of the Knights of Aviz, who took the title of John I., and is known in Portuguese history as John “the Great”; and the people believed the measure to have the sanction of heaven when the news arrived that the Holy Constable had won a great victory over the Spaniards at Trancoso, in which four hundred Castilian knights were killed. The spirits of the Portuguese were further raised by the landing of five hundred of the famous English archers, under the command of three squires in the service of John of Gaunt named Northberry, Mowbray, and Hentzel; but this assistance was counterbalanced by the arrival of two thousand French knights, who had joined the king of Castile. The two armies met at Aljubarrota on August 14, 1385, and it was there that the independence of Portugal was secured, and the House of Aviz made good its title to the throne. The Holy Constable commanded the vanguard; Mem Rodrigues de Vasconcellos the right, and Antao Vasques de Almada the left; while Dom John rode from place to place and never failed to be in the post of danger. Ten pieces of ordnance were used, this being their first appearance in the military history of the peninsula; the English archers did yeoman service, and repeated the glories of Crécy and Poitiers, and after a hard-fought struggle the Spaniards fled in confusion. Then did John I. feel himself king indeed; and he erected on the spot where his victory had been won, the magnificent convent of Batalha, which recalls in its name the famous Battle Abbey erected on the field of Hastings. This victory was followed up by another at Valverde, and then by the news that John of Gaunt was on his way with a powerful English army. The Portuguese felt that they had anew achieved their independence.

TWO SIDES OF THE ROYAL CHAPEL OF THE MONASTERY OF BATALHA. (PRESENT STATE.)

On May 9, 1386, the Treaty of Windsor was signed by which the kingdoms of Portugal and England were declared to be united henceforth in the closest bonds of friendship and alliance; and it proved to be the corner-stone of the policy of the House of Aviz. On July 20, 1386, John of Gaunt reached Corunna with two thousand English lances and three thousand archers, accompanied by his wife Constance of Castile, and two of his daughters, Philippa and Catherine. He marched triumphantly through Gallicia; and at Oporto on February 2, 1387, the Anglo-Portuguese Alliance was sealed by the marriage of King John to Philippa, the daughter of John of Gaunt by his first wife, Blanche of Lancaster. This marriage was followed by another, that of Catherine, only child of John of Gaunt by Constance of Castile to Henry, Prince of the Asturias, and heir to the throne of Castile. These marriages settled the peace of the peninsula, for in concluding them, John of Gaunt abandoned his claims to Castile, and insisted as one of the conditions, on a truce between his two sons-in-law. This truce continued till 1411, when at last the title of John as King of Portugal was recognized, and peace between Castile and Portugal was solemnly declared.

King John “the Great” was now firmly seated on his throne; an effort of his half-brother Diniz, the younger son of Ines de Castro, to overthrow him in 1398, failed entirely, and foreign monarchs hastened to recognize his power. Through this hero, and the race of heroes who fought under him, the independence of Portugal was secured, and a new career opened before its people. The era of consolidation was over; the era of foreign discovery and of Asiatic conquests was to begin.

VI.

PORTUGAL DURING THE AGE OF EXPLORATION.

KING JOHN THE GREAT.
(From his recumbent statue over his tomb at Batalha.)

THE reigns of John I., surnamed “the Great,” and of his two successors, occupy nearly a century, during which Portugal was learning to become the greatest nation in Europe. It was the age of exploration and discovery, during which the acutest intellects and the most daring natures in Portugal were dreaming of a new route to India, and were endeavouring to discover it. It was an age of growth, abounding in statesmen, mariners, and chroniclers, who were to have their successors in the all too short but immortal period of Portuguese greatness, in such men as Alboquerque, Vasco da Gama, and Camoens. The history of these maritime explorations and discoveries, of the painful and slow progress down the western coast of Africa, and of the great schemes and efforts of Prince Henry “the Navigator,” will form the subject of a separate chapter; but it is first expedient to study the history of the Portuguese people and monarchy at home during this period, and to see how, from the reign of John I., a new spirit appeared alike among the kings, and the merchants, and the soldiers, which was to culminate in the glories of the heroic age.

King John, after the victory of Aljubarrota had firmly seated him on the throne, felt it necessary to give Portugal such an interval of peace after the great efforts of the Castilian wars, as King Diniz had given it after the cessation of the wars against the Moors. This peace was secured by a wise foreign policy, of which the key-notes were, a close alliance with England, and systematic non-interference with the affairs of Spain. He had seen the value of the assistance of England in the final throes of his struggle with Castile, and the English monarchs on their side felt the advantage of having such an ally as Portugal to act as a thorn in the side of Castile, should the Spaniards come to the help of the French. The statesmanlike idea of Henry II. of England when he supported the proposal of the Count of Flanders for the hand of the daughter of Affonso Henriques, that this marriage should cement an unwritten alliance of England, Flanders, and Portugal, against France, Scotland, and Castile, seems to have been in the minds of the English statesmen of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Just as Scotland afforded a convenient base of operations, whether military or political, for France against England, so did Portugal give a similar position for the English to act from against Castile, and the subsequent history of Portugal shows how generously and wisely England treated her southern ally. The people of the two nations gladly supported the political ideas of their monarchs and rulers. Each country could supply what the other wanted. From Portugal, the English merchants could obtain fruits and wines, which found a ready market, and the Londoners, not satisfied with supplying the home demand only, distributed these products of the south among the countries of the north, and notably in those lying round the Baltic Sea, Sweden, Denmark, Pomerania, and Lithuania. On the other hand, the Portuguese had no manufactures, and gladly took in exchange for the productions of their fertile soil, the cloth not only of the English looms, but of those of Flanders, in which the London merchants dealt.

This alliance was maintained in spite of dynastic changes and political revolutions in the two countries. In 1389 the name of the King of Portugal was introduced into the Treaty of Paris as an ally of the King of England; in 1398 Richard II. sent a body of English archers, under Edmund Arnold of Dartmouth, to assist in repelling the incursion made into Portugal by the son of Ines de Castro and some Spanish knights; and in 1400 John I. recognized his brother-in-law, Henry of Lancaster, as Henry IV. of England, and was created by him a Knight of the Garter, being the first foreign sovereign to receive that honour. In 1403 Henry IV. solemnly ratified the Treaty of Windsor, and in the following year the illegitimate daughter of John I., by Ines Pires, was promised in marriage to Thomas, Earl of Arundel, one of the leaders of the English nobility. This marriage was regarded as a further bond of alliance, and was celebrated in 1405 in England with the greatest splendour. Equally friendly relations were maintained with Henry V. and with the rulers of England during the minority of Henry VI.; Henry V. sent provisions and troops for the expedition to Ceuta in 1415, and in 1428 a strong force of 144 lances was sent to join the King of Portugal. This English alliance was the key-note of the policy of John I., and it was maintained without a breach from the arrival of John of Gaunt in 1386 until the death of the great Portuguese monarch in 1433.

The internal government of King John I. was hampered in one respect to such an extent as to vitiate the effect of his great administrative reforms. It will be remembered that he was elected to the crown by the Cortes, and followed to the field of Aljubarrota by all classes of the Portuguese people. Yet for some reason he would not trust in the people who loved him, but believing he owed his success to the nobles who had supported him, he began his reign by making extensive grants of lands and privileges to his principal supporters of noble birth. It would perhaps be too much to expect the political knowledge of a statesman in the nineteenth century from a king in the fourteenth, but it seems to posterity that King John greatly over-estimated the assistance of his nobles, and that he over-rewarded them by granting them nearly the whole of the old royal estates of the kings of Portugal. It may be believed that he feared the secession of his nobles to the Castilian party, and that he thought they could take their vassals with them, but whatever may have been the reason, he gave them such enormous grants as to seriously weaken the royal power. These grants however did not impoverish the treasury, which was filled more by the proceeds of the customs duties, a source of income, which his wise commercial policy increased, than by rents from landed estates. So wealthy did he become that he left his mark on the country in his great buildings; besides the magnificent convent of Batalha on the field of Aljubarrota, he constructed no less than four palaces at Cintra, Almeirim, Cezimbra, and Lisbon. The last-mentioned city was his favourite place of residence; under his fostering care it became the official capital of Portugal instead of Coimbra, and soon surpassed the wealth of Oporto as a commercial city. The citizens of Lisbon regarded him much as the citizens of London did Edward IV. a century later; they never forgot his gallant conduct in the great siege, and were at all times ready to obey him and to pay him a fair tithe of their wealth. In one respect especially did King John gratify the aspirations of the religious section of the people of Lisbon, by obtaining the sanction of the Pope to erect the bishopric of Lisbon into an archbishopric.

It is not to be wondered at that King John loved to live in Lisbon, and watch the daily passage up and down the Tagus of the ships, which were making his capital a great commercial centre, when it is remembered how slight was his actual power over the greater part of his kingdom. The other cities were indeed fairly well governed owing to their possession of ancient charters from kings, bishops, or lords, granting them a system of municipal self-government, but the country districts were ruled by the strictest feudal law and custom, and the king was powerless to interfere. Now was to be seen the harm done by the monarchs who had conquered the Alemtejo and the Algarves from the Mohammedans by the distribution of their conquests in estates among the military orders and private individuals. The result was the division of these provinces into enormous feudal counties and lordships, dangerously large to be the properties of subjects in such a small kingdom as Portugal. The condition of the Beira was a little better, and the two northern provinces of the Entre Minho e Douro and the Tras-os-Montes, were, as they are still, the homes of the sturdy Portuguese peasantry, who gave to the Portuguese armies and fleets their bravest and stoutest soldiers and sailors. Bitterly did John the Great repent the mistake he had made by his large grants to the Portuguese nobility, and his consequent inability to correct the most crying evils of the feudal system. He had, however, at the beginning of his reign, some wise and able counsellors, in the Holy Constable, in Lourenço, the brave Archbishop of Braga, and in his great chancellor, João das Regras. With the help of the latter he managed to get some valuable laws passed in the Cortes affecting criminal procedure and jurisdiction, by means of which he somewhat controlled the feudal methods of holding courts of justice without much offending the great nobility, but he dared go no further in this direction, and had to allow many abuses, inherent in the feudal system, to continue to exist. In every other respect his administration was extremely good; his cities grew in wealth; his navy increased in number of ships; his sailors became famous for their daring; and in minor points many reforms were made, such, for instance, as introducing the use of the Portuguese language into the law courts, and changing the era from that of Augustus to that of Christ, which made the date of the year consonant with that of the rest of Christendom.

In such labours passed the first thirty years after the battle of Aljubarrota, and Portugal and its great king became renowned throughout Europe. During this period, a new generation grew up, the sons of the men of Aljubarrota and Trancoso, and the young nobility burned to prove themselves worthy sons of their brave fathers. In their aspirations they were headed by the princes of Portugal. The union of the old royal family of Portugal as represented by King John, with the blood of the English Plantagenets in the person of his queen, Philippa of Lancaster, produced the five famous princes, whose names stand out conspicuously in the history of the fifteenth century. The three elder sons of John and Philippa, Dom Duarte or Edward, Dom Pedro, and Dom Henry, were in 1414 respectively 23, 22, and 20 years of age; they longed to win their knightly spurs, and to show themselves worthy cousins of Henry V. of England. The King of Portugal did not wish to check their ardour; he felt the need of occupying the energies of his youthful nobility; and as there were no enemies at home, he acquiesced in the desire of his sons to attack the old enemies of Portugal, the Moors, in Morocco. By such an expedition against the Mohammedans the young princes would show themselves crusaders, and would find adversaries worthy of their swords, without arousing the jealous watchfulness of the King of Castile. Ceuta was the city of Africa selected for attack, not only because it was the chief port of the Moors in the north-western corner of Africa and threatened the south of Spain, but also because it was the headquarters of the numerous corsairs and pirates, who preyed upon the already growing traffic of Portugal with the west coast of Africa, and at times made descents upon the Portuguese province of the Algarves. The expedition sailed from Lisbon in 1415; the three princes were followed by the flower of the Portuguese chivalry, and accompanied by their two boy brothers, Dom John, who was but fifteen, and Dom Ferdinand not yet thirteen; from her deathbed the Queen sent her blessing, and in the month of June the expedition safely disembarked on the African coast. The Moors fought bravely on their native soil, and it was not until 24th of August that the city of Ceuta was stormed, after a siege, in which the sons of John the Great showed themselves to be gallant soldiers and prudent leaders. This conquest was of importance in two ways; it was the first conquest made by the Portuguese outside the limits of their own country, and was therefore a proof of their energy and the expansion of their power; but, on the other hand, it pointed in a false direction, and was the first of a series of African expeditions, which were not profitable to the country, even when successful, and which terminated in the great disaster associated with the name of Dom Sebastian.

QUEEN PHILIPPA.
(From her recumbent statue over the tomb at Batalha.)

The conquest of Ceuta completed, the elder princes devoted their extraordinary powers of mind and body to pursuits worthy of the cousins of Henry V. of England. Dom Edward, so named after his great-grandfather, Edward III. of England, the eldest son, married Donna Leonora of Aragon, and helped his father in the duties of government. He proved an apt pupil of João das Regras, the chancellor, and, after devoting much time to legal studies, he drew up the first code of Portuguese law. Dom Pedro, the next brother, who was created by his father Duke of Coimbra after the storming of Ceuta, travelled all over Europe, enjoying in turn the hospitality of Henry V. of England, of the Emperor, and of the Pope, and astonishing those monarchs by his abilities. He proved his valour by fighting beside the Teutonic knights against the Lithuanians, in the extreme east of civilised Europe, and his literary taste by his enlightened patronage of men of letters in all parts of the continent. In 1428 he ended his travels, and settling at Lisbon, he married Donna Isabel, the daughter of the Count of Urgel, and assisted his father and elder brother in the duties of government, taking special interest in the progress of literature, and co-operating in all the various schemes for the development of Portugal. The third brother, Dom Henry, created by his father, Duke of Viseu, and appointed Master of the Order of Christ, and governor of the kingdom of the Algarves, has left his mark on the history of the world as Prince Henry “the Navigator.” This prince refused all the offers of the Pope, the Emperor, and of Henry V., to visit their courts, and established himself in 1418 at Sagre in order to devote himself and his wealth to the cause of discovering a continuous route by sea to India, which should bring the trade of Asia and its profits to the Portuguese. His efforts and the discoveries he superintended form the subject of a separate chapter, but it must be remembered that in all his efforts he was seconded by his father and elder brothers. The fourth brother, Dom John, Master of the Order of Santiago, married his niece Isabel, daughter of the Count of Barcellos, and became eventually third Constable of Portugal. The fifth brother, Dom Ferdinand, who earned the title of the “Constant Prince” in after years, was Master of the Order of S. Benedict of Aviz, as his father had been before his elevation to the throne; his piety was so well known, that he was requested to enter the Church, and promised a cardinal’s hat by the Pope, but he refused the honour, longing rather for the glory of a crusader than the influence of an ecclesiastic, and winning in the end a martyr’s crown. Their sister, Isabel, was as famous for her beauty, as her brothers for their valour, wisdom, and piety, and was married to Philip “the Good” of Burgundy, the founder of the Order of the Golden Fleece. To mar the unity of this illustrious and gifted family, there existed a half brother Affonso, the son of King John by Ines Pires, born before the marriage with Philippa of Lancaster, who was jealous of his legitimate brothers, and ultimately proved the evil genius of their destiny. This son was regarded with special favour by his father, who brought about his marriage with Donna Beatrice Pereira, daughter and heiress of the Holy Constable, and created him Count of Barcellos.

The latter years of King John “the Great’s” fortunate reign of nearly half a century were marked not only by the discoveries of Prince Henry “the Navigator,” but by the development of Portuguese into a literary language by many talented authors. Mention has been made of the poetry of the Portuguese troubadours, who sang in the reign of Diniz, and of the first Portuguese epic on the battle of the Salado, which foreshadowed the “Lusiads” of Camoens. But a literary language is formed not so much by its poetry as by its prose; the early poetry of Portugal differed but little from that of Gallicia, while its prose developed in an independent direction. The first Portuguese prose work of any length or importance was the famous romance of “Amadis de Gaul,” written by Vasco de Lobeira, who died in 1403. This romance gave rise to a host of imitations, and the taste for romances was further developed by the popularity of the “Prophecies of Merlin,” and the Arthurian tales, the knowledge of which came into Portugal with the English alliance. The king himself encouraged this literary revival; the “Book of the Chase,” one of the best specimens of early Portuguese prose was written for him under his superintendence, and among his sons, Dom Pedro wrote poems, and Dom Edward two excellent prose works, “Instructions in Horsemanship” and “The Faithful Councillor.” More important to notice are the works of the first great Portuguese chroniclers. Chronicles of early events in Portuguese history had been written in monasteries, and have a value of their own, but these works are little better than annals noted down year by year with no pretence to literary form. Next in order stands the anonymous “Chronica da Conquista do Algarves,” which represents the transition from the annalist to the chronicler, and in the reign of John I., under the special patronage of the monarch and his sons, the first great Portuguese chronicler, Fernan Lopes, who has been called the Froissart of Portugal, wrote his chronicles of the reigns of Pedro “the Severe” and Ferdinand “the Handsome,” and Matthew de Pisano, wrote his “Guerra de Ceuta,” a history of the famous expedition of 1415. These men were the forerunners of the great chroniclers of the fifteenth century, Azurara, Ruy de Pina, and Duarte Galvão.

After a reign, which ranks among the most glorious in Portuguese history, made famous by maritime discoveries and literary advancement, leaving behind him sons worthy and able to guide the people along the road of civilization to wealth and prosperity, John I., rightly surnamed “the Great,” died at his palace at Lisbon on August 14, 1433, having survived his wife Philippa of Lancaster nearly twenty years.

Contrary to the expectation of his subjects, the reign of King Edward was but short, and it is marked only by a signal disaster. His own great qualities, and the promise he had given of being both a good and a great king when assisting his father, combined to raise the highest hopes, which were destined to be cruelly shattered. On ascending the throne he believed himself strong enough to take a step, intended to check the perpetuation of power in the hands of the feudal nobility, which had often been discussed between his father, his brother Dom Pedro, João das Regras, and himself, and in 1434 he summoned a full Cortes at Evora. He there propounded the “Lei Mental” or the provision, which was assumed to have been in the mind of King John when he made his extensive grants of land to the nobility, namely, that they could only descend in the direct male line of the original grantee, and should revert to the Crown on failure of such heirs. The law was carried by the influence of the king’s brothers, in spite of the natural opposition of the nobility, who never forgave the supporters of the measure. In other matters Edward simply followed the example of his father. He continued the English alliance, ratified the treaty of Windsor, and was made a Knight of the Garter in his father’s room; he maintained an attitude of prudent neutrality towards Castile; he encouraged the literary movement, represented by Fernan Lopes, and took an intelligent interest in the schemes and plans of his brother, Dom Henry.

But, unfortunately, the king’s life was shortened and Dom Henry’s explorations checked for a time by the fatal expedition to Tangier in 1437. This expedition was the natural sequel of the expedition to Ceuta, and was undertaken in opposition to the advice of the Pope, and of Dom Pedro. It was entirely the result of the earnest solicitations of the king’s favourite brother, Dom Ferdinand. This pious young prince burned with crusading ardour; his one longing in life was to fight the infidels, and he could not appreciate the fact that Dom Henry was doing far greater work for the world in exploring the coast of Africa, than in killing Mohammedans. The ardour of Dom Ferdinand won the day, and King Edward collected a fleet and army in the Tagus, and sailed for the coast of Africa. The object of the attack was Tangier and it was most foolishly chosen. Ceuta was on the sea coast, and the Portuguese soldiers could use their fleet as a base of operations, and could retreat to it in case of need; whereas Tangier was three miles from the coast. As might have been foretold, when King Edward with his eight thousand Portuguese soldiers formed the siege of Tangier, the Moors at once cut off his communications with the fleet, and in three days the Portuguese army was reduced to extremities. It was only by Dom Ferdinand’s willing sacrifice of himself as a hostage, that the troops were allowed to return to their ships and find their way back to Lisbon. This disaster and the captivity of his favourite brother so preyed upon King Edward’s mind that he died in 1438. His death was happier than that of Dom Ferdinand, who, after a long and cruel imprisonment, borne with such heroic patience and exemplary piety, as to win for him the title of “the Constant Prince,” died at Fez in 1443.

The noble conduct of Dom Ferdinand, who preferred death in captivity to safety purchased by the surrender of Ceuta, the only alternative which the Moors would accept, has its place also in the great epic, in which all noble deeds of Portuguese heroes are commemorated. Speaking of King Edward, Camoens says:

“Captive he saw his brother, hight Fernand,
the Saint, aspiring high with purpose brave,
who as a hostage in the Sara’cen’s hand,
betrayed himself his ‘leaguer’d host to save.
He lived for purest faith to Fatherland
the life of noble Ladye sold a slave,
lest bought with price of Ceita’s potent town
to publick welfare be preferred his own.

Codrus, lest foemen conquer, freely chose
to yield his life and, conqu’ering self, to die;
Regulus, lest his hand in ought should lose,
lost for all time all hopes of liberty;
this, that Hispania might in peace repose,
chose lifelong thrall, eterne captivity;
Codrus nor Curtius with man’s awe for meed,
nor loyal Decii ever dared such deed.”[8]

The successor of King Edward, his eldest son Affonso V., afterwards called “the African,” was only six years old when he ascended the throne, and his reign commenced with a dispute as to the regency. By his will, Edward had left the regency to his wife, Leonora of Aragon, but this arrangement was not at all satisfactory to the people, and a great Cortes at Torres Novas set aside the will, and appointed Dom Pedro, Duke of Coimbra, to be “defender” of the realm with all the duties of government, the Count of Arrayolos, minister of justice, and Queen Leonora, guardian of her son, the young king, with a large allowance. This arrangement shows how great the powers of the Cortes had become, and a still more important testimony to their recognized influence appears in the motion by Dom Henry, that three members of the Cortes should be annually elected to reside at the seat of government during the months in which the Cortes was not in session. This arrangement was highly unsatisfactory to the queen, who had expected to be sole regent under the terms of King Edward’s will, and, assisted by the discontented nobility, headed by the Count of Barcellos and the Archbishop of Lisbon, she attacked Dom Pedro, and endeavoured by force to overthrow the arrangements made by the Cortes of Torres Novas. The struggle was but a short one; the people of Lisbon rose en masse to support the son of their favourite monarch, John I., in whom they perceived his father’s administrative ability and love for commerce, and the queen and archbishop were forced to go into exile. The result of this movement was to seat Dom Pedro firmly in power with the title of regent and the guardianship of the boy-king.

The regency of Dom Pedro, better known by his title of Duke of Coimbra, is marked by the same features as the reign of his brother Edward; in it appears the same consistent attempt to check the power of the feudal nobility and the same wise encouragement of commerce. His foreign policy followed the same lines, and he maintained the same neutrality with regard to Spain and the same close alliance with England. In 1439 the regent solemnly confirmed the Treaty of Windsor in the young king’s name, and was made a Knight of the Garter, and the same honour was conferred upon Dom Henry, Duke of Viseu, in 1444, and on Dom Alvaro Vaz de Almada, Lord High Admiral of Portugal and Count of Arronches, in 1445. Dom Pedro also encouraged the maritime explorations of Dom Henry and the literary revival, which were making the name of Portugal renowned throughout Europe, and his power seemed to be at its height, when, in 1447, his daughter Isabel was married to her cousin, the king, Affonso V.

But the great regent counted without the enmity of the feudal nobility, headed by his own half-brother, the Count of Barcellos, who was created by the young king Duke of Braganza. This nobleman had always been jealous of the legitimate sons of John I., and in spite of the kind treatment of Dom Pedro, he hated the regent. This hatred he instilled into the mind of Affonso V., who was rather restive under his uncle’s control, and he eventually persuaded the young king that his uncle and father-in-law had poisoned both his father, King Edward, and his mother, Donna Leonora. Affonso V. believed these libels, and ordered the great regent to leave the Court. Dom Pedro obeyed; but the vengeance of the Duke of Braganza was not yet satisfied, and he gladly led an army to arrest the Duke of Coimbra on his estates. Dom Pedro, deserted by all his old friends and sycophants, except the Lord High Admiral, yet determined to fight, and he defeated the Duke of Braganza at Penella. Affonso V. then declared his former guardian a traitor, and summoned the feudal nobility to his side. The nobles were only too happy to aid him, and in the hotly-contested battle of Alfarrobeira the friends of the regent were defeated, and Dom Pedro, Dom Jaymé, his only son, and the Lord High Admiral, were slain, on May 21, 1449.

Affonso V., at the beginning of his personal government, yielded to the influence of the Duke of Braganza and his sons, who humoured his desire for knightly fame and his dream of sitting on the throne of Castile, and who obtained vast grants of royal property for themselves. Among them they secured the lordships of the old royal city of Guimaraens, the birthplace of Affonso Henriques, and even of Oporto, the second city of the kingdom; but they never got possession of the latter, owing to the fierce resistance of the citizens. The young king’s main idea at this time was to win fame as a knight and a crusader, and unfortunately this whim led him towards the country which was to be the tomb of his dynasty. It was to raise funds for the expeditions which won him the title of “the African” that Affonso first issued the beautiful coins known as crusados, and with money raised by this means he paid the expenses of his three expeditions. In the first of these adventures, in 1458, he took Alcazar es Seghir, or Alcacer Seguier; in the second, in 1464, he failed; and in the third, in 1471, he took Anafe, Tangier, and Arzila. It was in these expeditions that he uselessly exhausted the strength of his people, but nevertheless the works of maritime exploration went on apace, though with less energy after the death of Dom Henry “the Navigator” in 1460.

From wasting the power of his kingdom in African wars Affonso V. turned to a still more fatal pursuit, the encouragement of his dream of sitting on the throne of Castile. The lessons of his grandfather’s reign were lost on him; he failed to understand that the two countries had developed on separate lines and could not coalesce, and did not see that in a contest Portugal, owing to her smaller population, must needs have the worst of it, unless the war were national and calculated to rouse the spirit of enthusiasm and not merely dynastic. His family was now at the height of its fame—his aunt Isabel was Duchess of Burgundy; his eldest sister had married the Emperor Frederick III.; his youngest sister had married Henry IV. of Castile; and his remaining sister, Catherine, had been sought in marriage by the son of the King of Aragon and by Edward IV. of England. His first wife, Isabel, the daughter of the great regent, Dom Pedro, had died in 1455, after giving birth to the prince who was to be John II., and it was not until after his third expedition to Africa that he contemplated a fresh marriage, which should give him a claim to the succession to the throne of Castile.

With this idea Affonso V. married his own niece, Joanna, elder daughter of Henry IV. of Castile (though but a girl of thirteen), in 1475, and he claimed the kingdom of Castile in her name. But the Castilians preferred the Infanta Isabella, who had married Ferdinand, King of Aragon, and they were as determined to prevent a Portuguese king from sitting upon their throne, as the century before the Portuguese had been against the union of their country with Castile. The Castilians, fighting for their independence, as utterly defeated the Portuguese at Toro in 1476 as the Portuguese had defeated them at Aljubarrota in 1385. Affonso hurried to France, to beg help from Louis XI.; but his supplication was unheeded, and in 1478 he found himself constrained to sign the Treaty of Alcantara, by which he agreed to send his newly-married bride to a convent. He remained inconsolable at this failure of his schemes, and alternately abdicated and returned to the throne, until his death in 1481.

The “Ré Cavelleiro,” or knightly king, had thus done his best to upset the results of the wise policy of his grandfather, John “the Great.” Fortunately he had not done much harm, and his son and successor, John II., proved himself able to do more than compensate for his father’s mistakes. But it must not be considered that Affonso V. was a worthless king of the type of Ferdinand “the Handsome”; he was rather a restless knight after the fashion of Count Henry of Burgundy. He had literary tastes as well; he wrote much and ably on various subjects, and showed a great knowledge of what a king ought to be—perhaps learnt from the “Cyropaedia” of Xenophon, which had been specially translated for his instruction by the orders of the Duke of Coimbra. He was a liberal patron of men of letters, and made Duarte Galvão “Chronista Mor do Reino,” or Chronicler-General of the kingdom; and he appointed Azurara, another chronicler, librarian and keeper of the archives at the Torre del Tombo. He collected a great library at Evora, and founded the Order of the Tower and Sword; but perhaps the truest sign of the greatness which existed somewhere in his character is to be found in his answer to the chronicler Acenheiro, who asked how he should write the chronicle of his reign, when he said simply, “Tell the truth.”

These, then, were the kings who reigned in Portugal during the age of discovery. It is now time to see the nature, extent, and value of these discoveries, which were paving the way for the heroic age of Portuguese history.

PORTUGUESE GOLD COINS.

(1) Crown piece of John V. (2) Crusado (400 reis) value = 2s.
(3) Crusado novo.
(4) Eight tostoêns piece (80 reis).
(5) Quartinho d’ouro (1,200 reis).
(6) Sixteen tostoêns, value = 8s. 10d.
(7) Half moidore piece.

(8) Half moidore of Maria. 1777.
(9) Moidore of John V. 1724.
(10) Gold piece of 77 tostoêns, value = £1 15s. 6d.
(11) Two-and-a-half moidore piece, value = £3 2s.
(12) Dobrão of John V., value = £3 11s.
(13) Five moidore piece, value = £6 5s.

TABLE I. The Descendants of John “the Great.”

VII.

THE PORTUGUESE EXPLORERS.

THE internal history of Portugal under the rule of John “the Great,” his son Edward, and his grandson Affonso V., has an interest of its own, yet it is not at home that the most important development of Portuguese energy is to be perceived. Great as were the services rendered to Portugal by King John, they mark no stages in the progress of Europe as the achievements of Dom Henry, his son, have done. Around the name of this prince, the discoveries of the Portuguese navigators may best be grouped, for he was the guiding spirit of these adventurers, and alike inspired and rewarded them.

Henry, Duke of Viseu, Grand Master of the Order of Christ, and governor of the Algarves, was the third son of John “the Great” and Philippa of Lancaster, and after winning great credit in the capture of Ceuta, he took up his residence at Sagre, near Cape St. Vincent, in 1418, and devoted himself to the task of maritime exploration. His father and his brothers assisted him, but they recognized his special fitness for the work, and therefore, though encouraging him as much as possible, they did not interfere with his projects, and made no attempts to contest his well-earned title of Prince Henry “the Navigator.”[9] The prince was too wise to neglect scientific knowledge, and he therefore summoned learned mathematicians and astronomers from all parts of Europe to his aid. Enjoying immense wealth, he established an observatory and a school of navigation at Sagre, where he employed the men of science in making charts and, above all, in improving the working of the compass. This was the theoretical side of his work; the practical was not less important. He collected together all the most daring captains and mariners he could find, and sent them forth year by year on voyages of discovery along the western coast of Africa. He never went on any of these expeditions in person, but he was acknowledged by all the men of science and sailors in his pay to be their master and presiding genius.

ST. SALVADOR IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.
(From Braun and Hohenberg’s Civitates orbis terrarum. 1574.)

The idea in Prince Henry’s mind was that it was possible to sail round Africa to India, and thus trade directly with the East, and he died after more than forty years of endeavour without having fulfilled his dreams. There were legends of old time, which he knew well, that the southern continent could be sailed round, legends probably founded on the tales of Carthaginian sailors, but no geographer of that period could assert that these legends were founded upon fact. If it were true, and ships could sail direct from Lisbon to India, it was easy to see what enormous profits must accrue to the people who found and followed this route. At that time the products of the East came by a long and dangerous journey to Venice, whence they were distributed over Europe. They had either to be conveyed by land all the way to the Levant, or else to be borne up the Red Sea and carried across Egypt. By either way the expenses and risk were enormous, and the prices of the commodities of the East were proportionately great. Could a direct sea route be discovered, it was obvious that these risks and expenses would be avoided, and that Lisbon would take the place of Venice as the distributor of the treasures of the East to Europe. Dom Henry understood this, and, urged by patriotism, as well as by an ardent zeal for the cause of exploration, he devoted his wealth and time to discovering this direct sea route. As has been said, he did not himself succeed in attaining this great end, but he did much towards it, and the navigators who were successful, Vasco da Gama and Pedro Alvares Cabral, were men imbued with his ideas and in a way his disciples. In speaking of the explorers of Prince Henry’s time, the word “ship” must not be taken to mean the comparatively well-built and well-appointed vessels of the end of the sixteenth century. Modern sailors would think but little of Drake’s famous ship the Pelican, yet it was far superior in size and equipments to the wretched sailing boats of the first explorers of the fifteenth century. The enterprise of Dom Henry did much to improve the ship-building of the Portuguese, and towards the end of his life their vessels could carry as many as sixty men, but at the beginning of his career his ships were little better than half-decked sailing boats, with a crew of at most thirty-six sailors.

A mere record of discoveries, a list of names of places along the inhospitable west coast of Africa, may be monotonous in itself; but when the scanty means of these early Portuguese mariners is considered, and the greatness of the goal at which they were aiming, a fresh interest arises in the study of the map of Africa. The first-fruits of Prince Henry’s exploring ardour were the discovery of the island of Porto Santo by Bartholomeu Perestrello, in 1419, and of the more important island of Madeira by João Gonçalves Zarco and Tristão Vaz, in 1420. These successes delighted Prince Henry and his father, and John “the Great” immediately granted the two islands to the Order of Christ, of which his son was Grand Master. Prince Henry at once rewarded his captains, and leased Porto Santo to Perestrello, and Madeira in equal parts to its two discoverers. The provinces of the larger island were named Funchal, from “funcho,” the Portuguese word for fennel which abounds there, and Machico, said to be derived from the Englishman, Robert Machin. Prince Henry’s first effort, before proceeding further with his explorations, was to colonize these two islands. With Porto Santo he was not successful, for the rabbits introduced by Perestrello ate up the whole produce of the island; and a similar fate seemed to await Madeira, where the indigenous vegetation was almost entirely destroyed by a great fire, which lasted seven years. However, he did not despair, and it was Dom Henry who had the sugar-cane and the vine, which are to this day the chief sources of its wealth, introduced into Madeira.

It is but fair to mention that many authors have held these great discoveries to be merely re-discoveries. Some people affirm that Madeira was really discovered by Emmanuel Pessanha, the first Lord High Admiral of Portugal, in 1351, during the reign of Affonso “the Brave,” and there seems to be more foundation for the story of Robert Machin, which is at all events of great antiquity. The story runs that Robert Machin, son of a merchant in Bristol, loved and was beloved by a lady of noble birth, whose relations refused to countenance him, and threw him into prison. About the year 1370, on his release, he found that his lady love had married a wealthy baron, but he continued his suit and she consented to elope with him. He took her on board a ship intending to go to France, but a gale came on and the ship, after being driven south for thirteen days, struck upon an island. They found the island uninhabited and very beautiful, and Machin and some of his companions took up their residence upon it, and built huts under the branches of a spreading tree. Here they lived very happily until a storm one day drove the ship from its moorings, which so grieved the lady that she died in despair at the thought of never seeing her native land again. She was buried beneath the tree, and Machin soon followed her to the grave, having first erected a cross with a brief inscription, narrating his adventures, and begging any Christians who might come to the island to erect a church over the place where her remains rested. After his death, those of his companions, who remained, determined to try to escape in the ship’s boat, but they were taken by a Moorish cruiser and sold for slaves. While in captivity in Morocco, one of the Englishmen told a Spanish fellow-captive, named Juan Morales, the whole history, and this Morales, being afterwards taken prisoner by João Gonçalves Zarco, related the narrative to his captor and to Prince Henry. Morales, according to this tale, was the pilot of Zarco and Tristão Vaz on their voyage of discovery, and the story goes on to say that the grave of the two English lovers was discovered, and that Machin’s dying desire was fulfilled, and a church erected over their remains. Whatever may be the truth of this legend, and whether Machin ever landed on Madeira or not, the fact remains that the first occupation of the island, and its being marked upon the chart, were due to the enterprise of Prince Henry.

The discovery of these islands formed no part of Prince Henry’s plan. His desire was to circumnavigate Africa; the expeditions of Perestrello, Zarco, and Tristão Vaz were all intended to sail south and double Cape Bojador, and it was certainly in an attempt to achieve this purpose that Perestrello was driven out to sea to the island of Porto Santo. Many years passed, during which Cape Bojador remained the great obstacle to the Portuguese mariners. Year after year Prince Henry despatched fleets of two or three ships at a time, which sometimes made important discoveries among the islands off the north-west coast of Africa, but they never doubled the great cape. Among these discoveries the most important were the Canary Islands and the Azores. With regard to the former group, the Portuguese were met by a prior claim on the part of Castile; and after a dispute, into the details of which it is not necessary to enter, John the Great, in pursuance of his consistent policy of maintaining peace with Spain, and at the request of Dom Henry, who did not wish to waste his strength in occupying islands, surrendered the Canary Islands to Castile. The Portuguese, however, successfully maintained their claim to the Azores, which still belong to them. This group was first touched at by Bartholomeu Perestrello, the discoverer of Porto Santo, in 1431; and in the following year Gonçalo Velho Cabral discovered the island of Santa Maria. To this captain was allotted the task of further exploring and occupying this cluster of islands; and in 1444 he discovered the island of St. Miguel or St. Michael, where he founded the beautiful little town which gives its name to the St. Michael oranges.

Prince Henry’s endeavours were crowned with partial success, though not in the reign of his father, for in 1434 Gil Eannes doubled Cape Bojador, and in 1436 Affonso Gonçalves Baldaya reached the Rio d’Ouro. The attention of “the Navigator” was, however, soon absorbed by the progress of political affairs at home, and he had for a time to abandon his schemes of exploration. He served with distinction in the unfortunate expedition to Tangier, and then played an important part in the events, which ended in confirming the power of his brother Dom Pedro, the Duke of Coimbra, as Regent of Portugal. This enlightened prince took the greatest interest in the African explorations, and he assisted Prince Henry with even greater ardour than King John or King Edward. These were the most successful years of Prince Henry’s career. In 1441 Antão Gonçalves went a hundred leagues further than the Rio d’Ouro, and in the same year Nuno Tristão, the greatest and most daring of all Prince Henry’s captains, reached the cape which closes on the south the sort of shoulder formed by North-west Africa, and named it the Cabo Branco or White Cape. He did more than this; he brought home several captives, including a native prince. The capture was hailed with enthusiasm, and from this time the slave trade on the coast of Africa really began.

It is strange that Prince Henry “the Navigator” should have been the founder of the African slave trade, but so it was, and the reasons are not hard to find. The provinces of the Alemtejo and the Algarves had never been thoroughly populated since their conquest, and the great lords and religious military orders, the owners of those districts, had never been able to bring them properly under cultivation. Slavery was not regarded with the modern sentiment of abhorrence; it was the natural fate of prisoners of war, and flourished greatly in the neighbouring country of Morocco. Prince Henry and the Duke of Coimbra felt the need of procuring labour to cultivate the southern provinces, and it seemed quite natural to them to carry off the unfortunate savages of the African coast. This idea greatly impressed the Portuguese nobles with Prince Henry’s sagacity; they did not understand his schemes about discovering a direct route to India, but they highly appreciated the introduction of cheap forced labour. The commencement of the slave trade greatly favoured the progress of the Portuguese navigators; they no longer came home empty-handed, and exploring became a profitable as well as an adventurous business. In 1444 Lançarote, with a fleet of eight ships, went upon a slave-taking expedition, and brought home two hundred captives, who were set to work on the domains of the Order of Christ in the Algarves, and in 1445 the same captain sailed with a fleet of fourteen ships from Lagos and brought home a still larger body of unfortunate slaves. From this time forth the tracks made by the explorers were followed closely by the slave-dealers. Large profits were made in the trade, which had its centre at Lagos, and by the labour of the captives the great estates of southern Portugal were speedily brought under cultivation. The employment of slave labour was to have serious consequences in the near future; but at this period, during the life of Dom Henry, it had not yet begun to drive the poorer class of the Portuguese people out of work in the fields, and into more precarious modes of earning a livelihood.

It is not necessary to do more than notice the commencement of the slave trade here; it is far more important to trace the progress of the explorers.[10] In 1445 Nuno Tristão sailed as far as the Senegal river, and in the same year, Diniz Dias, his most daring rival, discovered Guinea, and first saw the really black negroes. This advance, as a glance at the map will show, meant much; the Portuguese explorers had now thoroughly learnt how to find their way round the inhospitable shoulder of North-west Africa; Cape Bojador and Cabo Branco had no terrors for them, and their hopes of reaching India were excited by finding that the coast trended abruptly to the east. The country, too, was very different to that which they had toiled around so slowly; the fertile land of Guinea with its powerful negroes, its spices and ivory, and its prospect of gold, gave them encouragement, and on their return, the acute merchants of Lisbon were not long in opening up a trade with the newly-discovered country. Unfortunately the slave trade accompanied the ventures of the Lisbon merchants, and the white men, instead of making friends with the blacks, did not hesitate to seize them and to sell them into slavery. The Church made no effort to restrain this traffic; the blacks were heathen, and so it was to their advantage to be brought to a Christian land to work, and perhaps to be converted.

The next two years were marked by the greatest activity. In 1446 Diniz Diaz reached Cape Verde, which he called by that name from its green appearance; and in the same year, Nuno Tristam was killed in a chase after slaves, and Alvaro Fernandes, the nephew of João Gonçalves Zarco, who had discovered Madeira, starting from that island, went one hundred leagues further than Cape Verde, and left João Fernandes at his own request among the negroes. It is a strange commentary upon the death of Nuno Tristão, that João Fernandes was able to remain among the negroes for seven months in safety, learning their language and studying their customs. It shows that there was no deep-rooted antipathy between the whites and the blacks, and that the latter only attacked the Christians, when they showed themselves enemies, and tried to rob them of their liberty. João Fernandes was taken off in safety by Antam Gonçalves, in the year 1447, and testified to Prince Henry that the blacks, if heathen, were not monsters, but people of peaceful and affectionate dispositions.

This activity was followed by another pause. Dom Henry was deeply affected by the overthrow of his brother Dom Pedro; and his nephew, Affonso V., failed to give him the moral and material support he had formerly received. It is indeed a blot upon the reputation of “the Navigator” that he made no greater effort to assist the great regent, and that he was not by his side at Alfarrobeira. The next decade is marked only in the history of maritime exploration by the discoveries of Luigi Cadamosto, a Venetian, who had entered the service of Dom Henry, and who had become his right hand both as a cartographer and an explorer. On the voyages of Cadamosto there has been much controversy. Some writers, resting upon certain notes of his, assert that he discovered the Gambia as early as 1445, and the Cape Verde Islands in 1446; but modern inquirers believe that he greatly antedated his discoveries in order to enhance his own glory. It is now generally believed that in his famous voyage in 1455 and 1456 he managed to get past the Senegal, and discovered the Gambia, and that the Cape Verde Islands were discovered in 1460 by Diogo Gomes. The tale that Cadamosto went as far as the Rio Grande is quite discredited, and seems in itself, apart from the evidence, to be most improbable.

STATUE OF PRINCE HENRY.
(From Major’s “Prince Henry the Navigator.”)

The period of the discoveries made under the direction and inspiration of Prince Henry “the Navigator” was then at an end, for he died at Sagre on November 13, 1460. What he had done appears better from a study of the map then in any number of words. He had not discovered a direct sea route to India, but he had paved the way for it, and it was quite certain that, if it existed, the gallant captains trained by him would find the route in time. His services are beyond dispute, and though he left no successor to carry on the work, he had given it such an impulse, that it remained only for the sailors themselves to complete it. He was never married, but was succeeded as Duke of Viseu, Lord of Beja and Madeira, and Grand Master of the Order of Christ, by his nephew, Dom Ferdinand, the second son of King Edward, and brother of Affonso V., whom he had adopted. This prince had also become Grand Master of the Order of Santiago by his marriage with his first cousin, Donna Leonor, daughter of Dom John, the fourth son of John “the Great,” by whom he was father of Dom Manoel, or Emmanuel, who reigned under the title of Emmanuel “the Fortunate,” and was to reap the fruits of the discoveries of Vasco da Gama and Pedro Alvares Cabral.

The death of Prince Henry did much to check maritime exploration for exploration’s sake, and for the purpose of discovering the direct route to India; but the slave trade and the general trade with the Guinea Coast were growing into importance, and the results of the labours of the early Portuguese navigators were not forgotten. Affonso V. was more bent on his Moorish expeditions and his schemes upon the crown of Castile, than upon maritime discoveries; but, nevertheless, something of importance was done during his reign in strengthening the hold of the Portuguese upon the part of the African coast already known, and in making their topographical information more exact. What Affonso did was done rather to improve trade or protect it for the benefit of his own exchequer than for love of exploration. It was for these reasons that he built a fort on the island of Arguin, near Cabo Branco, which became the depôt for the trade with Guinea, and eventually he granted the monopoly of the trade with the African coast to Fernan Gomes for five hundred crusados a year. This enterprising merchant employed able captains, of whom the chief were João de Santarem, Pedro Escobar, and Lopo Gonçalves, who worked their way further along the coast; and in 1471, in which year Fernando Po discovered the islands of St. Thomas, Fernando Bom and Anno Bom, they crossed the equator, and explored as far as Cape St. Catherine.

TOMB OF PRINCE HENRY.
(From Major’s “Prince Henry the Navigator.”)

John II., the successor of Affonso V., set the seal upon Prince Henry’s labours. He it was who built the fort of Elmina, and took the title of Lord of Guinea; and it was in his reign that Diogo Cão or Cam discovered the Congo in 1484, and Bartholomeu Diaz reached Algoa Bay in 1486, and doubled the cape, which he called Cabo Tormentoso, or Stormy Cape, from the winds he met there, but which his sovereign, presaging from this fortunate voyage the future glory of his country, called the Cape of Good Hope. John II., like Prince Henry, was fated not to see the fulfilment of his dearest hopes, and it was not until the fifteenth century was within three years of its close that Vasco da Gama made his way from Lisbon to Calicut.

While, in political life and commercial prosperity, the people of Portugal had been at home becoming more civilized, more self-controlled, and more wealthy during the fifteenth century, its sailors had been growing more daring and enterprising. In the sixteenth century the Portuguese were to have their reward. Lisbon was to take the place of Venice as the depôt for all the products of the East; the trade of Persia, India, China, Japan, and the Spice Islands, was to fall into their hands; they were to produce great captains and writers, and were to become the wealthiest nation in Europe. But that same sixteenth century was to see the Portuguese power sink, and the independence, won by Affonso Henriques and maintained by John “the Great,” vanish away; it was to see Portugal, which had been the greatest nation of its time, decline in its fame, and become a mere province of Spain. Hand in hand with increased wealth came corruption and depopulation, and within a single century after the epoch-making voyage of Vasco da Gama, the Portuguese people, tamed by the Inquisition, were to show no sign of their former hardihood. This is the lesson that the Story of Portugal in the sixteenth century teaches, that the greatness of a nation depends not upon its wealth and commercial prosperity, but upon the thews and sinews and the stout hearts of its people.

VIII.

THE HEROIC AGE OF PORTUGAL.

JOHN II., surnamed “the Perfect,” the only son of Affonso V., succeeded his father as King of Portugal in 1481, and his short reign was marked by events of the utmost importance at home, as well as by the great discoveries of Diogo Cam and Bartholomeu Diaz. He had shown himself a gallant soldier in his father’s last African expedition, when he was knighted, and at the battle of Toro, and also a capable ruler, as regent, during the absence of Affonso V. in France, and during that king’s frequent periods of abdication. He saw the folly of his father in wasting his strength in African expeditions, and in fruitless wars with Castile, and he therefore recurred to the wise policy of his great-grandfather, John “the Great,” in avoiding all interference with Spanish affairs, and maintaining a close alliance with England. He also, as has already been said, adopted enthusiastically all the schemes of Prince Henry “the Navigator,” and laboured for the discovery of a route to India by sea. He possessed all the hereditary aptitude of the princes of the house of Aviz for literature, and fostered the spirit of the Renaissance in Portugal in the study of the classical languages, the advancement of science, and the encouragement of art. He was a broad-minded, tolerant man, with ideas far in advance of his age in many respects, and possessing at once an inflexible will and remarkable sweetness of disposition.

But John II. was more than all this; he was a politician and a statesman of the first rank, and openly professed himself a disciple of Machiavelli and a believer in the theory of absolute government. He imitated Louis XI. of France, just as one of his predecessors, Sancho II., had imitated Louis IX., and in his policy and in his manner of carrying it out, he showed himself an apt pupil of his wily master. The first great task he set himself, in imitation of that monarch, was to break the power of the feudal nobility of Portugal. In doing this he relied, and with justice, upon the assistance of the mass of the people, who had learned during the last reign to detest and fear the almost unlimited power of the nobles.

The origin of the enormous estates held by the Portuguese nobility has already been pointed out, and the attempt made by King Edward to check accumulations by the “Lei Mental” has also been mentioned; but this regulation had had but little effect, owing to the profuse prodigality of Affonso V. This monarch had granted away nearly the whole patrimony of the crown; and John II. said with justice that his father had left him “only the royal high roads of Portugal.” This liberality had kept Affonso poor in spite of the increasing wealth of his people and his extravagance had been such, that he had been formally rebuked by a Cortes, held at Guarda in 1465, and had been obliged to promise amendment. Under the influence of this headstrong monarch and his favourites the evils, inherent in the feudal system, had increased alarmingly; crimes in country districts were only punished by fines, and every means which rapacity could suggest to wring money out of an impoverished tenantry were resorted to, while the wealth of the great landlords had been increased by the improvement in the cultivation of their lands due to the large importation of slaves. John II. determined to crush the powerful and turbulent feudal nobility, and to draw back some of its wealth into the royal treasury, and for this purpose he summoned a great Cortes to meet at Evora in 1481, the year of his accession. In this Cortes he proposed that a “inquiracão geral” should be held into all titles to landed property, and that the royal corregidors should alone be empowered to dispense and execute criminal justice throughout the country. Both measures were agreed to, but the nobles determined to resist the examination into their titles, and the loss of the lucrative privilege of dispensing criminal justice, and they combined to oppose the king, under the leadership of the Duke of Braganza.

Ferdinand, Duke of Braganza, was the wealthiest and most powerful nobleman, not only in Portugal, but in the whole peninsula. He was the grandson of Affonso, Count of Barcellos, the illegitimate son of John “the Great,” who had been created Duke of Braganza by Affonso V., and he had inherited the vast possessions of his grandfather and of his grandmother, the daughter of the Holy Constable. These possessions had been increased by the lavishness of Affonso V., who had showered favours on the first and second Dukes of Braganza. Ferdinand possessed fifty cities, towns, and castles, and nearly one-third of the land of the kingdom; he was patron of one hundred and sixty canonries and religious benefices; he maintained a royal household, and bore the titles of Duke of Braganza and Guimaraens, Marquis of Villa Viçosa, Count of Barcellos, Ourem, Arrayolos and Neiva, and Lord of Montalegre, Monporto, and Penafiel. His brothers were nearly as powerful as himself. The eldest, João, was Marquis of Monte Mor, and Constable of the kingdom; the second, Affonso, was Count of Faro; and the youngest, Alvaro, held the important office of Chancellor. In the reign of Affonso V. this great nobleman had quarrelled fiercely with John II., then heir apparent, but he believed he had secured his safety by marrying a sister of the future queen, for both Prince John and himself married daughters of Ferdinand, Duke of Viseu and Beja, the brother of Affonso V., and inheritor of the wealth of Prince Henry “the Navigator.” The Duke of Braganza took the lead in opposing the king’s decrees passed in the Cortes of Evora, and John II. was glad of it, not only because he coveted the wealth and lands of the Braganza family, which dimmed the splendour of the Crown, and on account of their former quarrels in the late king’s lifetime, but also because he remembered that he was, through his mother, the grandson of the great regent, Pedro, Duke of Coimbra, who had been defeated and slain at Alfarrobeira by this very Duke of Braganza and his father. For all these reasons John II. decided to strike a sudden and decisive blow, which should at once re-establish the power of the Crown and paralyze the feudal nobility with terror, and he therefore had the Duke of Braganza arrested, and executed, after a very short trial, at Evora, on June 22, 1483.

The nobles, however, were not yet defeated, and they continued to intrigue against the king’s authority under the leadership of a yet nearer relation of his own, Diogo, Duke of Viseu and Beja, the eldest son of Dom Ferdinand, and grandson of King Edward, and the brother-in-law alike of the king and of the executed Duke of Braganza. But John II. was not dismayed: imitating Louis XI. of France, he determined not to spare his own relations, and on August 23, 1484, he stabbed the Duke of Viseu with his own hand in his palace at Setubal. This murder he followed up with decision: he had the Bishop of Evora, one of his father’s favourites, thrown down a well; and he executed, with or without trial, about eighty of the leading noblemen of the country. By these means John II. broke the power of the feudal nobility for ever, and as happened in France under Louis XI., and in England under Henry VII., the fall of the nobility was followed by the absolutism of the monarch. Now that the nobles had lost their power, and the Crown had become wealthy by the confiscation of their property, John II. needed the support of the people, as represented in the Cortes, no longer, and he became a despot, though a benevolent one. But the weight of this despotism was not yet felt, for John II. possessed all the political ability of his grandfathers. He tried to find means for encouraging his nobility, now that they were frightened out of treason, to enter into the career of maritime exploration, which had been opened by Prince Henry, while at home he won the love of his people by reorganizing the government of the kingdom, and proved so good an administrator that the Portuguese gave him the title of “the Perfect King.”

It has been said that in his foreign policy John II. followed in the course set before him by John the Great. With the great monarchs then ruling in Spain, Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, he consistently remained on friendly terms, and in 1490 his only legitimate son, Affonso, was married to Isabella, eldest daughter of these sovereigns. The death of this son in the following year, without leaving children, was a terrible blow to him, but he nevertheless maintained his friendship with Ferdinand and Isabella, and in 1494 concluded the Treaty of Tordesillas with them. By this treaty, which was confirmed by a Bull, issued by Pope Alexander VI., the limit of the future possessions of the Spaniards and Portuguese in the regions explored and discovered by their mariners was 370 leagues west of Cape Verde, and it was agreed that the Spaniards were to have full right to all lands discovered to the west of this line, and the Portuguese to all to the south and east. What a curious commentary this treaty forms on that of Cella Nova, concluded three hundred years before between Affonso Henriques of Portugal and Ferdinand of Leon, by which these two monarchs agreed to take the course of the Guadiana as the line to separate their future conquests from the Moors. Both nations had now developed; the energies of both, heightened by the long struggle with the Mohammedans, sought for fresh fields, and expanding far beyond the boundaries of Europe, were to prove themselves, in the one case in Mexico and Peru, and in the other in India and the countries of the East.

In the other cardinal point of the policy of John “the Great,” the maintenance of a close alliance with England, John II. carefully followed the example of the founder of the house of Aviz. Affonso V. had not neglected this important tradition, and had even promised his sister, Donna Catherine, to Edward IV., in 1461, a marriage only frustrated by the death of the princess in 1463; and the English monarch had solemnly ratified the Treaty of Windsor in 1471, and again after the battle of Barnet in 1472, and he had also included the name of the King of Portugal, as an ally of England, in his treaty with Louis XI. of France, in 1475. John II. drew the bonds of friendship still closer, and sent important embassies to the three kings of England, who ruled in quick succession in this country. In 1482 Edward IV. ratified the Treaty of Windsor in the presence of the ambassadors of John II., and recognized his new title of “Lord of Guinea,” and in 1484 Richard III. did the same. In 1485 the King of Portugal proposed in a Cortes held at Alçobaça, that his only sister Joanna should be given in marriage to Richard III., but the princess, who was famed for her piety and wished to become a nun, fortunately for herself, refused the alliance, as she afterwards did the hand of Charles VIII. of France. Henry VII. bore no enmity towards John II. on account of his friendship with Richard III., but, on the contrary, showed every disposition to assist him in his struggle with his nobility, and in 1488 went so far as to arrest the Count of Pennamacor, one of the insurgent Portuguese noblemen who had escaped to England, and to imprison him in the Tower. It was in this year also that the last treaty of commerce between England and Portugal, before the famous Methuen treaty in 1703, was concluded at Lisbon by Richard Nanfran and Thomas Savage, who had been sent for that purpose, and to invest John II. as a Knight of the Garter.

CHART OF GOA. (From the Sloane MS. 197, folio 248.)

But it was not only on account of his suppression of the power of the feudal nobility, and of his wise peace policy, that John “the Perfect” was beloved by his people, it was also because he showed himself a worthy successor of Prince Henry “the Navigator,” in promoting exploration, and devoted his best energies to discovering a direct route to India. The two famous voyages of Diogo Cam and Bartholomeu Diaz, which had resulted in the discovery of the Congo and of the Cape of Good Hope, have been mentioned, but it was rather in other directions that the originality of mind which distinguished John II. showed itself. He was the first European monarch who thought that if it might be possible to reach India by sea by sailing round the continent of Africa, it might also be possible to find a road to “Cathay” by sailing round the continent of Europe to the north-east. On this mission he despatched Martim Lopes, who sailed past the North Cape into regions hitherto unexplored, and discovered the great island to the north of Russia, which still bears the name he gave it of Nova Zembla. John II. also had ideas of striking out new routes to India by land, or at least of exploring the land routes in order to correct prevalent geographical mistakes. With these ideas he sent forth the two first European explorers of the interior of Africa, Pedro de Evora and Gonçalo Annes, who managed to get as far as Timbuctoo. Still more important were the missions which he sent overland to India, and in search of that mythical Christian potentate, Prester John. The two travellers he despatched were João Peres de Covilhão and Affonso de Payva. The former of these enterprising men made his way safely to India by following the regular trade route and accompanying the caravans. He visited both Goa and Calicut, and though he was refused a passage to the Cape, he managed to find his way back to Arabia, and eventually to Abyssinia, where he became the chief adviser and almost prime minister of the king, at whose capital he died. The other traveller, Affonso de Payva, went direct to Abyssinia, where the mythical Prester John was supposed to reign, and also died there.

VASCO DA GAMA. (From the Sloane MS. 197, folio 18.)

The energies of John II. were so wholly absorbed in these expeditions to the East, and he felt so certain that he was in the right direction in trying to reach India by eastern routes, that he made the great mistake in 1493 of dismissing Christopher Columbus from his court as a visionary. He listened to all the arguments of the great discoverer with patience, but he did not agree with his conclusions that it was possible to reach India by sailing westwards across the Atlantic, and he therefore lost the opportunity of immortalizing his name and reign by a greater discovery than that of Vasco da Gama, the discovery of the vast continent of America. In other departments his energies found full scope. He greatly improved the art of ship-building, and encouraged the immigration of skilled shipwrights from England and Denmark; he did much to promote the improvement of fire-arms, and established a cannon foundry and a corps of artillery, of which he made Diogo de Azambuja the first Inspector-General; and, above all, he patronized literature, and encouraged Ruy de Pina, the greatest of all the Portuguese chroniclers. His court abounded in great men, the founders of great families and the fathers of the coming generation of heroes, among whom may be noted, besides his navigators, Diogo Cam, Bartholomeu Diaz, and Lopo Infante, and his famous travellers just mentioned, his Lord High Admirals, Pedro de Alboquerque and Lopo Vaz de Azevedo; his Lord Stewards, Diogo Soares de Albergaria, Pedro de Noronha, and João de Menezes; his Master of the Horse, Affonso de Alboquerque; his Secretary-General Ruy Galvão; and his Chancellor, the acute lawyer and most strenuous supporter of the despotic power of the king, Ruy de Graa.

Yet the reign of John “the Perfect,” full as it was of great events, and great as is its importance in the history of Portugal, was but comparatively short. His happiness was clouded by the sad death of his only son, Dom Affonso, in 1491, the year after he had married the Infanta Isabella, eldest daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, who then ruled in Spain, and he felt with repugnance that his successor on the throne must be Manoel, or Emmanuel, Duke of Beja, the brother of the murdered Duke of Viseu, a man in whom he could see no fit qualities for carrying on his own great schemes and projects. To oust him John II. thought of legitimatizing his illegitimate son by Anna de Mendonça, Dom Jorge, or George, whom he had made Grand Master of the Orders of Santiago and Aviz, but the reflection that on his death the country he loved so well would then be torn by civil war restrained him, and he did not interfere with the law of succession. During the last days of his life the “Perfect King” was busily engaged in fitting out the fleet which, under Vasco da Gama, was to realize his most cherished dream, and he was still in the ripe strength of manhood when he died at Alvor, in the province of the Algarves, on October 25, 1495.

The quarter of a century during which the successor of John II., Emmanuel “the Fortunate,” reigned, is the great heroic period of Portuguese history, and during it the great deeds, which make the Story of Portugal an important part of the history of Europe and of the world, were done. Discoveries and daring feats of arms distinguished nearly every year of this truly fortunate reign, and the fame of the great Portuguese generals, captains, and travellers is rivalled only by that of its poets and men of letters. As the progress of the Portuguese in the East and West, and their great literary development, will be examined in three different chapters, it will here be possible only to narrate the events of Emmanuel’s reign in Portugal, and to show how, at the period of the greatest glory of the country, the age of its rapid decline was at hand. The causes of that decline were manifold, and are generally placed in the reign of Emmanuel’s successor, but the seed of each appeared in the reign of the “fortunate” monarch himself.

Emmanuel himself contributed but little to the blaze of glory which illustrates his reign. He despatched great fleets and armies to distant parts of the world, and received the wealth their discoveries and exertions brought into his treasury with equanimity; but he had only one fixed idea, the old wild dream which had brought disaster upon Ferdinand “the Handsome” and Affonso V., the longing to sit upon the throne of Spain and to unite the kingdoms of the peninsula under his sovereignty. To gain this end he proposed to marry the Infanta Isabella, the eldest daughter of King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castile, and widow of the unfortunate Affonso, the only son of John II., and in order to be recognized as heir to the kingdoms of Spain, he promised to expel the Jews and unbaptized Moors from Portugal.

No class had done more to promote the height of commercial prosperity to which Portugal had attained than the Portuguese Jews. In another volume of this Series[11] Mr. Lane-Poole says: “Wherever the arms of the Saracens penetrated, there we shall always find the Jews in close pursuit,” and in no part of the peninsula had they collected in greater numbers than in the great cities of Portugal, especially in Lisbon, Santarem, and Evora. These Jews belonged for the most part to the Sephardim, and were in every intellectual quality superior to the Ashkenazim, or German and Polish Jews; protected by the Moors, they had grown in wealth and power, and when they came under the rule of Affonso Henriques, that great monarch extended the same tolerance towards them. His successors followed his example, and under monarchs with commercial aspirations such as Diniz and John “the Great,” the Jews had been more than protected, they had been favoured. While persecuted in other countries, they had met with consistent protection in Portugal, and they acknowledged the generous treatment which they received by extending the commerce of their adopted country. The Portuguese Jews possessed a high reputation all over Europe for wealth, integrity, and commercial acuteness, and had business agencies and banks in every land, which contributed to the wealth of the country, which had been for centuries their home. Such was the wealthy and industrious class of citizens, which Emmanuel consented to banish from his dominions, partly to please the bigotry of Ferdinand and Isabella, whom he hoped to succeed, and partly in order to absorb, as the Portuguese crown eventually did, the whole of the coming trade with the East. These unfortunate families were obliged to leave the country, which had been their fatherland, and the cities, which had been their homes, from generation to generation, with but six months in which to prepare for banishment; they were obliged to dispose of their flourishing businesses at a loss, and to start anew in the world to find new occupations and new homes. It is hardly a matter for wonder, that many Jews preferred to be baptized and to become half-hearted Christians rather than expatriate themselves, but these “Novaes Christiãos” had, as will be seen, no reason to rejoice a few years later at their apostasy. With the Jews were banished also many unbaptized Mohammedans, the especial enemies of Ferdinand “the Catholic.” This class had become numerous since the taking of Granada in 1492, when many of them fled from Spain into Portugal, and had been kindly received by John II. It is worthy of notice that the Most Catholic monarchs, who persuaded Emmanuel to take such severe steps against Jews and Mohammedans, who were ready to earn an honest livelihood as free men, made no protest against the thousands of negro slaves, who were being yearly imported into Portugal, and left to their belief in superstitions far more degrading than the religions either of Jews or Moslems.

For this decree of banishment passed against law-abiding Portuguese citizens, Emmanuel had his reward, for he was married to the Infanta Isabella in 1497. But the curse of the Jews followed him, and he never sat upon the throne of Spain. Whilst the royal bride and bridegroom were passing through the cities of Castile in a state progress as heirs to the thrones of Spain, Queen Isabella fell ill, and died at Toledo on August 24, 1498. She left an infant son, Dom Miguel, at whose birth she had died, but he did not survive to realize the hopes of his father, and died in 1500. Even these two deaths did not put an end to Emmanuel’s schemes, and in the same year 1500, he married the Donna Maria of Castile, the sister of his deceased wife. This marriage was not so likely to promote his success as the first; for whereas the Infanta Isabella was the eldest daughter of Ferdinand and his queen, the Infanta Maria was but the third daughter, and the daughter between them, the Infanta Joanna, had a son who, as the legitimate heir of his grandparents, was to succeed to thrones of Spain and eventually become the Emperor Charles V. By his second wife, Emmanuel had no less than six sons, but what has been called the “curse of the Jews” pursued them, and his descendants soon failed in the direct line. Even to the last, the same wild fancy possessed him, and in 1518, the year after his second wife’s death, he married again, and this time also with a view of succeeding Charles V., for he married his own niece, the sister of the Emperor. She survived him, and afterwards married Francis I. of France.

From these restless longings after the neighbouring thrones, and the ignoble schemes of the Portuguese monarch, it is a relief to turn to the actions of the Portuguese heroes. Their deeds will be related separately, but after the barren intrigues of Emmanuel, it will be as well to mention chronologically the chief discoveries of his captains. In 1497, Vasco da Gama doubled the Cape of Good Hope and reached India by sea; in 1500 Pedro Alvares Cabral discovered Brazil, and Gaspar Corte-Real, Labrador; in 1501 João da Nova Castella discovered the islands of St. Helena and Ascension; and in that year and in 1503 Amerigo Vespucci first visited the Rio Plata and Paraguay; in 1506 Tristão da Cunha discovered the island which bears his name; and Ruy Pereira Coutinho explored Madagascar and the Mauritius; in 1507 Lourenço de Almeida touched at the Maldive Islands; in 1509 Diogo Lopes de Sequeira occupied Malacca and explored the island of Sumatra; in 1512 Francisco Serrão discovered the Moluccas; in 1513 Pedro de Mascarenhas first touched at the Île de Bourbon or Réunion; in 1516 Duarte Coelho worked his way up the coast of Cochin China and explored Siam; in 1517 Fernão Peres de Andrade established himself at Canton, and the same explorer made his way to Pekin in 1521; and in 1520 Magalhães (Magellan), a Portuguese sailor, though in the Spanish service, passed through the Straits which bear his name and led the way into the Pacific Ocean.

These exploits make up a list of achievements of which any country might be proud; the bare catalogue of them, without any epithets, justifies the description given of the reign of Emmanuel “the Fortunate” as the heroic age of Portuguese history. It has been shown that the king contributed little to this greatness, and the mistaken direction of his foreign policy has been noticed. It now remains to be seen how the seeds of rapid decline were sown. Emmanuel was far from being a bad man, though he does not show to advantage, when compared with such monarchs as John “the Great” and John “the Perfect;” he was a moral and pious man,—too pious as his expulsion of the Jews clearly demonstrates; he can hardly be blamed for his extravagance and taste for luxury, when the enormous wealth of the Portuguese Crown is considered; and he spent much of this wealth on art and architecture, as the construction of the magnificent palace of Belem, near Lisbon, testifies to this day. This superb building may have many faults to the eye of the architectural expert, but to the ordinary mind it seems almost the most superb structure in the world. With regard to internal administration, Emmanuel did not do much harm; the wheels of government had been put into such perfect order by John II. that the machine of administration worked well without interference. But John II. had made one great mistake, the fruits of which appeared in the reign of Emmanuel and his successor; he had changed the monarchy of Portugal from being patriotic and dependent on the good will of the people into an absolute monarchy, in which the king’s will was everything. The overthrow of the nobility and the wealth of the Crown had made the king independent of the support of his people, as represented in the Cortes. The nobility, deprived of their power at home, had thrown themselves with ardour into the career of Eastern discovery and conquest, and nearly all the great heroes of the period belonged to noble families. Emmanuel recognized the greatness of these men, and showered honours upon them; but in the next generation, the fatal result of despotism became evident, and the nobility, instead of thinking of their country, and looking to their fellow citizens’ approbation for their reward, looked rather to the king, and made loyalty to a man and not to their country their guiding principle. This attachment to the king was encouraged by the wealth of the Crown, which enabled the sovereign to bestow large pensions and pay enormous salaries, and the Portuguese nobility began to become a nobility of courtiers instead of a nobility of patriots. This extraordinary wealth of the Crown was due to its absorption of the trade with India, for the wealth of the East was conveyed to Lisbon on royal ships, and fetched thence by enterprising traders of other nations. It was then that the mistake of Emmanuel in banishing the Jews became more and more obvious, for Portugal only brought the products of Asia to Europe, but did not distribute them throughout Europe. It was in these respects that the seeds of decline were sown, in the loss of public spirit, and the absorption by the Crown of the whole wealth won by the valour of the people. Yet these steps towards decline were not at first visible to the eyes either of foreign nations or of the people themselves. The glory of Portugal was spread abroad, and the wealth of its monarch and his splendour became proverbial. The great literary movement, which in this reign is represented by Gil Vicente, Ayres Barbosa, Garcia de Resende, and Bernardim Ribeiro, will be discussed in another chapter, but it must be noted here in regard to Emmanuel, that, though he did banish the Jews, he was broad-minded enough to be a patron of literature and that he was in this respect the superior of the fanatical bigot who succeeded him.

Emmanuel, as he increased in wealth, bestowed great appanages on his sons, while his daughters were sought in marriage by the greatest princes in Christendom. His eldest son Dom John married Catherine of Austria, sister of Charles V. Of his other sons, three—Dom Luis, Dom Ferdinand, and Dom Edward—were created respectively dukes of Beja, Guarda, and Guimaraens, while the other two took holy orders and became cardinals. Of his two surviving daughters, the elder, Donna Isabel, married the Emperor Charles V., and the younger, Donna Beatrice, the divinity to whom the poet Bernardim Ribeiro addressed his songs, married Charles III., Duke of Savoy. With such a family of sons it did not seem likely that in a few short years the male line of the house of Aviz would become extinct, and it was with a feeling of pride in his wealth and with assured confidence in the perpetuation of his line that Emmanuel “the Fortunate” died in his beautiful palace at Belem, on December 12, 1521.

The reign of John III. is that in which the rapid decline of Portugal is most perceptible. All the germs of decay which had appeared in the reign of Emmanuel, developed during the reign of his son, by the end of which, though the sovereign of Portugal was the richest in Europe, not excepting the Emperor himself, the greatness of the country was obviously disappearing. The natural growth of this decline was assisted by the fanaticism of John III., who was a bigot of the most pronounced type, and who powerfully aided the extinction of the greatness of the country by his introduction of the Inquisition. Though personally a pious and estimable man, he was absolutely unable to take any steps to check the downfall of his country’s greatness, and considered the greatest fame of his reign would be due to the establishment of the Inquisition and the introduction of the Jesuits. The greatest credit that can be given to him is that he kept his country out of all European complications, a task made comparatively easy by his close alliance with the greatest monarch in Europe, the Emperor Charles V. This alliance was sealed by three marriages; for King John was married to the Infanta Catherine, the sister of Charles V., his only son Dom John was married to the Infanta Joanna, daughter of Charles V., and his only daughter, Donna Maria, was the first wife of Philip, prince of the Asturias, the eldest son of Charles V., and afterwards King Philip II. These marriages knitted the bonds of alliance closely between the reigning houses of Spain and Portugal, and a powerful Portuguese fleet under the king’s brother, Dom Luis, Duke of Beja, assisted in the Spanish expedition against Tunis in 1535. Yet fighting with the Moors seemed to have lost its charm for the Portuguese people, for during the next ten years, all the chief towns held by Portugal in northern Africa, Azamor, Cafim, Cabo do Sul, and even Arzila and Alcacer Seguier, the captures of Affonso “the African,” were abandoned, in order that the whole strength of the country might be concentrated on its Indian and Brazilian possessions.

This quiet abandonment of all the north African possessions, except Ceuta and Mazagon, affords a yet further proof of the change in the character of the Portuguese nobility and their sovereign. They no longer desired to fight against the old hereditary enemy of the Christian religion, as crusaders; John III. was no “Ré Cavalleiro” like Affonso V., but preferred stamping out heresy at home to fighting infidels abroad; and king and nobles alike agreed that it was better to expend their power in the wealthy Indies than in barren Africa. The nobles became more and more dependent on the Crown, and spent all their energies in intriguing for “moradias” or pensions from the Court, and for rich governments abroad. The absolutism of the king and the employment of crowds of sycophant courtiers spread corruption into every department of government, and the officials of all sorts, both in Portugal and India, hurried to make fortunes by every means, honest or otherwise, in their power. “Personal worship of the king,” in the words of an able Portuguese writer, “had eaten out patriotism,”[12] and though such a man as Dom João de Castro may be cited as a specimen of the great-hearted Portuguese nobleman of the finest type, most of the nobility sank into Court lackeys or greedy fortune hunters, and even the famous navigator, Fernão de Magalhães, deserted his country and entered the service of Spain, because the pension he coveted was not conferred upon him. The Asiatic trade, it must be insisted upon, was the monopoly of the Crown, and only indirectly profited the ordinary trading classes, and in the hot pursuit of wealth, agriculture was neglected.

There was, however, a more serious cause for the decline of the power of Portugal than the absolutism of the Crown, the want of patriotism of the nobility, or even than the corruption of the officials, and that was the rapid depopulation of the country. The Alemtejo and Algarves had never been thoroughly peopled, for the devastations caused by the Moorish wars could not be easily repaired; and, though the exertions of Diniz “the Labourer” had made the Beira the garden of the whole Iberian peninsula, the part of the kingdom to the south of the Tagus had remained either in the hands of the military religious orders or split up into large feudal estates. The great discoveries at the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth centuries largely checked the natural increase of population. Not only did the bulk of the young men gladly volunteer to man the fleets and serve in the armies in India and the East, but whole families emigrated to Madeira, and after 1530 to Brazil. The Portuguese are essentially an adventurous nation, fond of travelling and full of enterprise, and no difficulty was found in manning the great Indian fleets and recruiting the armies of Alboquerque and his successors. Of the thousands who flocked to Asia, but few ever returned. The incidents of perpetual warfare, and the noxious climate, killed off most, and of those who survived, many married native women and settled down in India. Even of the people who did remain in Portugal, few remained in their native homesteads engaged in agriculture; most crowded into Lisbon, where the necessities of the Eastern trade afforded work for all. The capital trebled its population in eighty years, in spite of its most unsanitary condition and the periodical pestilences which ravaged it. The king, the nobles, and the military orders were, however, quite undisturbed by this extensive emigration and rapid depopulation, for their large estates were much more cheaply cultivated by African slaves, who had been imported in such numbers that the Algarves was almost entirely populated by them, and in Lisbon itself they out-numbered the free men by the middle of the sixteenth century. In this respect the condition of Portugal resembled that of Italy at the time of the decline of the Roman Empire, as the wealth of Lisbon resembled that of Imperial Rome, while the utter corruption and oppression of the officials in the Indian settlements resembled only too closely the peculation and corruption of the Roman proconsuls and procurators.

While the Portuguese nation was exhibiting these signs of rapid decadence, another factor of decline was added by the religious zeal of John III., who, from the moment of his accession, had striven to introduce the Inquisition into Portugal. The Church of Rome was not likely to hinder his pious desire, but for several years the “novães Christiãos” or neo-Christians, as the half-hearted converts made from the Jews, on condition that they might remain in Portugal, were called, managed to ward off the blow. But the king’s earnest wish was gratified at last, and in 1536 the tribunal of the Holy Office was established in Portugal, with Diogo da Silva, Bishop of Ceuta, as first Grand Inquisitor, who was soon succeeded by the king’s brother, the Cardinal Dom Henry. The Inquisition quickly destroyed all that was left of the old Portuguese spirit, and so effectually stamped out the revival of Portuguese literature that, while, towards the close of the sixteenth century, the rest of Europe was advancing in civilization under the influence of the Renaissance, Portugal fell back, and her literature became dumb. The establishment of the Inquisition was followed in 1540 by the introduction of the Jesuits, who speedily obtained control of the national education, and carefully checked intellectual development. The king received his reward from the Pope for these services to Catholicism; he was permitted to unite the Grand Mastership of the wealthy orders of Christ, Santiago, and Aviz, with the Crown, and to found the new bishoprics of Leiria, Miranda, and Porto Alegre, in Portugal, and the archbishopric of Goa, in India.

It must not be thought that the reign of John III. seemed to his contemporaries the era of decline it certainly was; no king was richer, no people more loyal, and no man more honoured. His reign, like that of Emmanuel, is studded with great names and great events, and a casual observer could not observe the seeds of decay. Besides João de Castro, there lived then many great Indian heroes and warriors, such as Nuno da Cunha, Antonio de Silveira, João de Mascarenhas, and Luis de Athaide; it was during this reign that Francisco Coutinho, Count of Redondo, conquered Ceylon, and Fernão Mendes Pinto paid his famous visits to Japan, and the present Portuguese settlement of Macao was founded. Still greater are the literary glories of the reign of the supporter of the Inquisition, for in it Camoens wrote the “Lusiads,” Ferreira wrote his dramas, João de Barros his history, and Sà de Miranda his poems, all works which do not seem to mark a declining country. In art, and especially in architecture, the king showed no mean taste, and his palace at Thomar and the great convent at Belem show that he was in this respect a worthy successor of King Emmanuel, and that the Portuguese workmen had attained to no small degree of skill in decorative work.

Yet in spite of these glories, the heroic age of Portugal was over, and in little more than twenty years after John III.’s death, the country, which had so long maintained its independence, was absorbed by Spain. This was to be expected from the decline the causes of which have been analysed, but the final catastrophe was hastened by the death of the heir to the throne, Dom João, in 1554, which brought about on the death of John III., in 1557, the accession to the throne of a child of three years old, the ill-fated Dom Sebastian. Enough has been said of Portugal during the heroic age of the Portuguese nation; it is now time to study the deeds of the men, who made the age heroic by their valour and daring.

IX.

THE PORTUGUESE IN INDIA AND THE EASTERN SEAS.

THERE is no subject that calls more loudly for an historian than the history of the Portuguese in India during the sixteenth century. There are Portuguese authorities in plenty, for, with a vivid perception of the picturesque, many of the greatest writers of the golden age of Portuguese literature devoted themselves to this fascinating subject. João de Barros, the Portuguese Livy, and a contemporary of the great Indian viceroys, wrote a history of the first half century of Portuguese conquest in India in several volumes, full of interest and charm; Fernão Lopes de Castanheda, Diogo do Couto, and Manoel de Faria e Sousa, all worked in the same field, and the lives of the two greatest of the Portuguese viceroys have full light thrown upon them in the Commentaries of Affonso de Alboquerque,[13] published by his son, and the beautiful Life of Dom João de Castro by Jacinto Freire de Andrade, which is a model of a perfect biography. Nor have the leaders of the revival of the study of history neglected to treat this subject in a scientific manner; many valuable monographs and reprints of precious documents have seen the light within the last fifty years, and much material still remains undigested and unarranged in the archives at the Torre del Tombo. Yet this period, in spite of all the work which has been done upon it, still remains without an historian, fitted by a thorough knowledge, both of Indian history and of the state of civilization in India at the period in question, to draw out the salient and interesting points of the first direct contact between modern Europe and modern Asia, between the East and the West.

Yet it is work which well deserves to be done. Prescott, the great American historian, has shown the interest attaching to the first conflict between Spanish chivalry and the Aztecs of Mexico and the Incas of Peru; but when will an historian arise to tell worthily the story of the contact between the heroes of Portugal and the more civilized inhabitants of Hindustan? Apart from the fascination of this side of the subject, there remains the fact that for a century the intercourse between Asia and Europe remained in the hands of the Portuguese. The history of the Dutch and the English in the Eastern seas has its own peculiar interest, but they did not find their way in that direction until the nations of the East had been for a whole century in contact with Europeans, and until their attitude had been greatly modified by this contact. Besides, the Dutch and English both went to the East as traders, and not as conquerors, colonizers, and preachers as well. Far different was the intention of the Portuguese. Regardless of the small size and slender population of their fatherland, they dreamed of nothing less than conquering the mighty empires of the East, and imposing Christianity upon them, if need be, by the edge of their swords. Grandiose as this intention was, and full of inconsequence as the idea seems to modern eyes, which have seen with what difficulty England with its teeming population has managed to maintain its hold upon India, even while it has discouraged proselytism and protected native religions, there is something noble in the confidence of the Portuguese warriors in their God, and in their belief that through their means He would spread Christianity throughout the East. For the ambitions of the Portuguese were not confined to India; Portuguese adventurers actually established themselves in power in parts of Arabia, in Burma, and in the district of Chittagong at the head of the Bay of Bengal; Portuguese emissaries found their way to Pekin and Japan, closely followed by the missionaries of the Roman Church; and it was while on his way to convert the millions of China to Christianity that St. Francis Xavier, the Apostle of the Indies, gave up his life. And, lastly, it must be remembered at what odds the Portuguese fought and tried to proselytize in Asia: at many months’ voyage from their homes and base of operations; only able to reach their destinations after sailing in feeble craft round the hardly known, unexplored, and dangerous coast of Africa; deprived of the modern knowledge alike of tides and winds, and of the means to promote existence in tropical climates; they arrived amidst the hostile millions armed only with clumsy arquebuses and their swords; and yet with all these drawbacks they were victorious in many hard-fought fights against more powerful armies than their European successors in the East ever met. Of course there are many blots upon this noble history, tales of corruption and oppression, and of the preference of commercial transactions which made fortunes to the harder régime of honesty and uprightness; but for all that the history is one marked by achievements of valour and adventurous daring, unmatched elsewhere in the history of the world. No wonder that Portugal was exhausted by her efforts; the only wonder is that her sons ever did one tithe of these glorious deeds, or exerted themselves one-tenth as much as they did. This story of the Portuguese in India cannot be treated adequately in a single chapter. Only a résumé of the very briefest description can be given, but if it inspires any reader to go, for instance, to the history of De Barros, he will there find the record of many a deed which will justify these remarks and excite both his interest and his admiration.

It was in the July of 1497 that the fleet of four ships, destined to double the Cape of Good Hope and find its way direct to India, set sail from Lisbon. King Emmanuel, who in carrying out this project and despatching this squadron was only fulfilling the plan formed by John II., selected for the command Vasco da Gama, a gentleman of his household, and son of an experienced mariner, named Estevão da Gama, who had been the nominee of John II. for this post; and two able captains, Paul da Gama, the brother of Vasco, and Nicolas Coelho, volunteered to accompany him. The perils and dangers of this famous voyage have been told in immortal stanzas by Camoens; it is enough here to say that the Portuguese fleet safely rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and began to work its way up the south-eastern coast of Africa. The rulers of Mozambique and Mombassa showed no disposition to assist the Portuguese admiral in his endeavour to find a pilot to guide him across the Indian Ocean; on the contrary, they proved actively hostile, and the false pilot, whom the chief of Mozambique had given him, under the hostile influence, according to Camoens, of Bacchus, who was fearful lest his fame as Victor Indicus should be surpassed, deserted the fleet at Mombassa. However, Vasco da Gama pressed northwards, and at the little town of Melinda, to the north of Zanzibar, he found a friendly monarch, who gave him a skilful pilot. But the perils of the expedition were not yet over; it was the wrong time of the year for crossing the Indian Ocean, and it was only after encountering fearful storms that the Portuguese heroes cast anchor off the city of Calicut on May 20, 1498, after a voyage of nearly eleven months.

The India, which Vasco da Gama reached, was in a very different condition to the India of the Great Moghuls, which came into relations with the first Dutch and English adventurers. It contained no emperor, exercising almost universal sway, but many independent kingdoms. “An Afghán of the Lodí dynasty was then on the throne of Delhi, and another Afghán king was ruling over Bengal. Ahmadábád formed the seat of a Muhammadan dynasty in Gujarát. The five independent Muhammadan kingdoms of Ahmadnagar, Bijápur, Ellichpur, Golconda, and Bídar had partitioned out the Deccan. But the Hindu Rājā of Vijayanagar still ruled as paramount in the south, and was, perhaps, the most powerful monarch to be found at that time in India, not excepting the Lodí dynasty at Delhi.”[14] The ruler of the city at which Vasco da Gama first arrived was a Hindu Rājā, who bore the title of Zamorin, a word derived, according to some writers, from the tradition that the first limits of the settlement were decided by the distance the crowing of a cock could be heard from the summit of the Tali Temple. But though himself a Hindu, the most important subjects of the Zamorin were the fanatical Moplas, the descendants of some Arab and Mohammedan settlers on the Malabar coast. These men had greatly extended the dominions of the Zamorins of Calicut and were the wealthiest inhabitants of the seaboard, for they held the trade of the Malabar coast with Aden, and therefore with the Red Sea, Egypt, and Europe in their hands. It is not to be wondered at therefore, that, though the Hindu Zamorin received the Portuguese navigator with courtesy, the Moplas showed the bitterest opposition to him, and discouraged the idea of a direct trade with Europe, which would bring about their own ruin. This opposition prevented Vasco da Gama from carrying out his intention of leaving some settlers to form a trade establishment at Calicut, and after cruising about along the Malabar coast he commenced his voyage back to Europe.

The voyage home was no less perilous than the voyage out, and it was not until the 29th of August, 1499, that Vasco da Gama cast anchor in the port of Lisbon, bringing back with him but fifty-five out of the 148 companions who had started with him on his adventurous journey. The pious navigator at once went up to the church of Our Lady at Belem, where he had offered up prayers for help before his departure. His devotions completed, Vasco da Gama made his solemn entrance into Lisbon, where he was received with a burst of popular enthusiasm, equal to that which greeted Christopher Columbus on his return from discovering America. King Emmanuel took the title of “Lord of the Conquest, Navigation and Commerce of Ethiopia, Arabia, Persia, and India,” which was confirmed to him by a Bull of Pope Alexander VI. in 1502, and he erected the superb church of Belem, as a testimonial of gratitude to heaven. On Vasco da Gama the king conferred well-deserved honours; he was permitted to quarter the royal arms with his own, and was granted the office of Admiral of the Indian seas, with a large revenue to be levied on the Indian trade; he and his brothers were granted the right to use the prefix Dom or Lord, and a little later, when the importance of his voyage became more manifest, he was created Count da Vidigueira.

When the rejoicings were over, King Emmanuel determined to see what advantages could be gained from Dom Vasco da Gama’s discovery, and despatched Pedro Alvares Cabral with a fleet of thirteen ships carrying twelve hundred picked soldiers to establish “factories” on the Malabar coast, for the collection of the most valuable products of the East, which should be conveyed to Portugal in royal ships every year. And here it is necessary to again insist upon the fact, that the Portuguese trade with India was a royal monopoly. The Portuguese establishments in India were not, as was the case with regard to Holland, England, and France in later years, formed by companies of private merchants, who looked upon the Indian trade as a speculation, but were royal factories, managed by royal officers, and served by royal fleets. Private trade was impossible, and not even dreamed of, because it was considered necessary that these factories should be defended by bodies of troops and served by powerful fleets, which cost an amount of money no private firm could furnish. But these royal factories were intended not only to establish and guard trade, but also to spread Christianity, and for that purpose they included from the first not only soldiers, but missionary priests. Pedro Alvares Cabral was driven by stress of weather to the coast of Brazil, of which country he took possession in the name of his sovereign, and then proceeded to follow the course laid down by Vasco da Gama, and reached Calicut in safety. He immediately established a factory at that place, but the Moplas showed the same unfriendly disposition which they had before exhibited towards Vasco da Gama, and at once murdered all the colonists. Cabral then cannonaded Calicut, and proceeded to Cannanore and Cochin, at both of which places he was favourably received, for their Hindu Rājās were unwilling tributaries to the Zamorin of Calicut and his Moplas; and after purchasing great stores of pepper and other Indian commodities, the Portuguese admiral left establishments at these two places to open up trade, and returned home. In 1502, Vasco da Gama arrived for the second time on the Malabar coast with twenty ships, and after again cannonading Calicut, and destroying all the shipping in the port, he strengthened the factories at Cochin and Cannanore and returned. On his departure, Vincente Sodre, one of the officers he had left, deserted the factory and set up as a pirate in the Arabian seas, being the first of those Portuguese adventurers in the Eastern seas whose stories read like romances. In 1503, three separate Portuguese squadrons under the command respectively of Francisco de Alboquerque, Affonso de Alboquerque, and Antonio de Saldanha, reached India, and the first of these captains gave effective assistance to the Rājā of Cochin, who had been attacked by the Zamorin for his welcome of the Portuguese, and was being besieged in the island of Vypin. Francisco de Alboquerque was only just in time, and to guard against such extremities in the future, he built a strong fort, guarded with artillery, at Cochin, and when the three captains departed they left there a garrison of nine hundred men, under the command of Duarte Pacheco. This officer performed the first great feat of arms which illustrated the history of the Portuguese in India; with his small garrison, enfeebled by sickness, he not only drove back the great army which the Zamorin sent against Cochin, but utterly defeated five thousand of his best troops in open battle. This victory established the reputation of the Portuguese in India as soldiers; the factories now found no difficulty in purchasing all the goods they needed at a reasonable price; and what was more important, the fame of Pacheco spread abroad, and he was able to send envoys into the interior of India, who were everywhere favourably received, and generally returned laden with presents. Pacheco’s success inspired the Portuguese monarch with the idea that he could not only absorb the Indian trade, but could conquer India, and Emmanuel decided that a powerful imperial government should be established on the Malabar coast, instead of isolated factories.

ALBOQUERQUE. (From the Sloane MS. 197, folio 11.)

The first viceroy he selected was Dom Francisco de Almeida, a Portuguese nobleman of high rank, who had learned the art of war under Gonsalvo da Cordova, better known in Spanish history as the “Great Captain,” and had been a favourite of King John II. The fleet with which he set sail from Belem on March 25, 1505, consisted of sixteen ships and sixteen caravels, and carried fifteen hundred soldiers besides many officials for the new establishment. On his way to India, Dom Francisco de Almeida occupied Quiloa and Mombassa on the south-eastern coast of Africa, and erected forts, which should make them safe resting-places for the Portuguese fleets; and on his arrival at Cannanore on October 22nd he took the title of Viceroy of Cochin, Cannanore, and Quilon. The great Portuguese nobleman looked upon the state of affairs in India from a very different point of view to Cabral, Vasco da Gama, and Pacheco; he did not regard commerce as the sole purpose of the establishments of the Portuguese in the East, and instead of trying to open up trade as Pacheco had done, and only defending himself when attacked, the first viceroy adopted a vigorous policy of active interference with native states, proselytism, and offensive war. He established his seat of government at Cochin, and sent forth expeditions along the Malabar coast, which generally came to blows with the Mohammedan merchants, who saw with dismay that their commerce with Egypt by way of the Red Sea would soon disappear. His chief commander was his son, Dom Lourenço de Almeida, a boy in years, but a hero in the fight. On October 19, 1505, young Lourenço cannonaded and nearly destroyed Conlão, the modern Quilon; on March 18, 1506, he almost annihilated the fleet of the Zamorin of Calicut, consisting of eighty-four ships and one hundred and twenty prahs, with only eleven vessels, and received a check at Dabul, the modern Dábhol; in 1507, he discovered the Maldive Islands, and with Tristão da Cunha sacked the port of Ponáni, and in 1508 the young hero was killed at Chaul in a combat against an Egyptian fleet, which had been sent by the Mamluk Sultan to expel the Portuguese from India under the command of an admiral named Emir Hoseyn. But a more serious danger was impending; the wrath of the Mohammedan sovereigns, whose domains extended to the north-western coasts, and especially of the kings of Bijápur and Gujarāt, was aroused by these aggressions, and they collected powerful fleets and joined Emir Hoseyn. The Viceroy of India, nothing daunted, sailed northward to avenge his son’s death, with only nineteen ships, and after sacking Dábhol he entirely defeated the Mohammedan fleet of more than one hundred ships, on February 2, 1509, off the island of Diu. While the first Portuguese Viceroy was undertaking these operations, his appointed successor, Affonso de Alboquerque, with whom he had quarrelled, and the admiral Tristão da Cunha were exploring the Indian Ocean, and after stopping some time at the island of Socotra, they stormed the wealthy city of Ormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf. These explorations had the most important results, and Affonso de Alboquerque was glad, when the appointed time arrived for him at the close of 1509, to take over the government of India as second viceroy.

Affonso de Alboquerque was the greatest of all the Portuguese heroes who served in India, and he owes his fame not only to his feats of arms, numerous and glorious as they were, but to the wisdom and justice of his civil government, and to the fact that he was a great and a far-seeing statesman, as well as a brave warrior. Like Francisco de Almeida, he had been a favourite and an intimate friend of King John II., in whose reign he filled the Court office of Master of the Horse. He commenced his viceroyalty by making a fresh attack on Calicut, the headquarters of the Moplas. He succeeded in burning the palace of the Zamorin and wrecking the city, but the populace then arose in force and drove the Portuguese back to their ships, killing many of their leaders, including the Marshal of Portugal, Dom Fernando Coutinho. Alboquerque then proceeded to take a more important step; he soon perceived that Cochin was too far south to serve as the headquarters of either the trade or the political dominion of the Portuguese, and that it was necessary to occupy some more central spot on the Malabar coast for a capital. The place he selected was Goa, a port in the possession of the Mohammedan king of Bijápur. Thither he sailed with twenty ships and twelve hundred men; and one feat of arms, performed by Antonio de Noronha, at Panjim, at the mouth of the river Goa, where the present capital of the Portuguese possessions in India is situated, laid the city open to him. The citizens, who had been discouraged by the prophecies of a holy mendicant that they were about to be conquered by a foreign people from a distant land, surrendered at once; eight leading men gave Alboquerque the keys of the gates, and the Portuguese viceroy entered the city in triumph on February 17, 1510. But he did not hold it long, for on August 15th, Yūsuf Adil Shah, King of Bijápur, recaptured the city after fierce fighting. Alboquerque did not despair; he received reinforcements from Portugal, and on November 25th, he carried the city by storm, slaying over two thousand Mohammedans, and firmly established himself there.

But Alboquerque was not satisfied with conquering an appropriate capital for Portuguese India, he determined to make his country supreme throughout the Eastern seas. With this idea he undertook two famous expeditions to the east and to the west. The first Portuguese settlers upon the Malabar coast had been told by the native traders that spices and other produce of Asia could be obtained more cheaply further to the east, and these stories had been repeated to King Emmanuel, who determined to send an expedition to these “Spice Islands,” under the command of Diogo Lopes de Sequeira. This captain reached the Malabar coast in safety, and was favourably received by the Viceroy, Francisco de Almeida, who found an experienced pilot for him, and gave him sixty well-seasoned soldiers, under the command of Francisco Serrão, and Fernão de Magalhães, who, under the name of Magellan, was to leave his mark upon the map of the world. The pilot led the fleet skilfully, and on September 11, 1509, Diogo Lopes de Sequeira anchored off the city of Malacca, where the Malay chief permitted him to found a factory. On his return to India, he reported to Alboquerque on the wealth of Malacca and of the island of Sumatra, and that spices were both better and cheaper there than in India. The great viceroy at once determined to see these rich countries for himself, and, after some sharp fighting with the Malays, he established the Portuguese power in that quarter upon a firm basis, and returned to Goa. His expedition westwards was not so successful. During his former campaign, in which he had taken Ormuz, he had observed that the greater portion of the Asiatic trade, which still followed the old routes, went not by way of the Persian Gulf, but by way of the Red Sea, and that the great entrepôt was the city of Aden. In order to secure the entire monopoly of the Eastern trade for the new Portuguese route round the Cape of Good Hope, it was therefore necessary to occupy Aden. With this intention Alboquerque sailed westwards in 1513, and on Easter Eve he arrived before the city. On Easter Day he attacked it fiercely with a force of over two thousand soldiers; but he failed, and had to content himself with destroying the shipping in the port. He then explored the Red Sea, and returned to Goa for the last time.

It has been said that Alboquerque was a great statesman as well as a great warrior, and no better proof of this can be adduced than his treatment of the Hindu princes. He alone of Portuguese viceroys recognized the fact the Hindus did not take kindly to the rule of the Mohammedans, and that they would much sooner be ruled by Europeans, if they were only just and fair-minded. It was from Mohammedan powers that the Portuguese had met with such bitter opposition, from the Moplas of Calicut and the King of Bijápur, and if the successors of Alboquerque had but grasped this fact they would have found little difficulty in leading the Hindus against the votaries of Islam. They would then have waged against Mohammedans in India the same relentless war that their ancestors had waged in their own fatherland, and might have established a protectorate over the Hindus without much difficulty. The wide-minded tolerance which Alboquerque showed in his communications with the Hindu princes, he also showed in the details of administration. He maintained the village system, which he found existing in Goa at the time of his conquest, and avoided all appearance of fresh taxation with as much care as a modern English collector. The expedition to Aden was the last he ever undertook, and on December 16, 1515, this truly great man died at Goa, and was buried there by his own directions in the costume of a commander of the Order of Santiago. “In such veneration was his memory held, that the Hindus, and even the Mohammedans, were wont to repair to his tomb, and there utter their complaints, as if in the presence of his shade, and call upon God to deliver them from the tyranny of his successors.”[15] What better proof of the qualities which have won for him the title of Alboquerque “the Great” could be given than this!

J. C. Silva sculp. Olisip. in Typ. Reg. An. 1774.
Alboquerque. (After the Engraving by Silva.)

The tyranny of the successors of Alboquerque has been much exaggerated, and in recording the accusations against them it must be remembered that the Portuguese viceroys and governors were regarded at home as being placed in power for two reasons, the one to send home yearly large fleets laden with the commodities of Asia, purchased at such a low price as to afford the king a handsome profit for his treasury, and the other to propagate the Christian faith. Neither of these causes for the Portuguese dominion were likely to be regarded as satisfactory by the natives of India. The orders of the Directors of the English East India Company to Warren Hastings, to take care that they should have good dividends to declare in England, were not more imperative than the orders of King Emmanuel and King John III. to the Portuguese governors, that fleets heavily laden with Asiatic goods should be despatched to Lisbon without their demanding any money from home for their purchases. This of itself was enough to make the demands of the Portuguese viceroys upon the natives oppressive, and it must also be remembered that men do not leave their fatherland to live in an unhealthy climate for their own pleasure, and that the Portuguese official was as much tempted in the sixteenth century to “shake the pagoda tree” for his own benefit, and to exert his authority to that effect, as an English civil servant in the eighteenth century. Yet this search after gain was not wholly sordid, and many gallant deeds mark the period between the death of Affonso de Alboquerque, and the arrival of the greatest of his successors, Dom João de Castro.

The rule of Lopo Soares de Albergaria, from 1515 to 1518, was chiefly notable for his buildings at Goa, and for his success in opening up a trade with Ceylon by establishing a factory and building a fort at Colombo; and his successor, Diogo Lopes de Sequeira, the discoverer of Malacca, and fourth governor, did much to increase the development of this trade. The fifth governor, Duarte or Edward de Menezes, had to meet so many difficulties, and to put down so many insurrections at Ormuz, Malacca, and Ceylon, that he begged earnestly to be relieved; and in 1524 John III. determined to send out Vasco da Gama again, with the title and powers of Viceroy, which had not been conferred since the death of Alboquerque. But the great navigator was now an old man, and never reached Goa to take up his office. He did, however, reach the Indian coast, which he had first seen a quarter of a century before, and died at Cochin, on Christmas Day, 1524. His body was buried in the principal chapel of the Franciscan convent at Cochin, but it did not long remain there; for in 1538 it was removed to Portugal, and finally interred at Belem. Henrique de Menezes, who succeeded Vasco da Gama as governor, managed to put down most of the insurrections, and after a short interval of the rule of Lopo Vaz de Sampaio, Nuno da Cunha, the son of the great navigator, Tristão da Cunha, succeeded to the governorship in 1526. His government was marked by more important events than any since that of Alboquerque, for he extended the influence of Portugal along both the Malabar and Coromandel coasts, and established settlements at Diu, off the coast of Kathiawār on the western, and at Hūgli, at the mouth of the Ganges, on the eastern coast of India. The Portuguese had, ever since the days of Dom Francisco de Almeida, desired to obtain possession of the island of Diu, which could be easily fortified, and would form a good headquarters for their trade and political influence on the north-western coast of India. But all their efforts had been in vain until the year 1535, when Bahādar Shah, the Mohammedan king of Gujarāt, permitted them to build a fortress on the island, and garrison it with their own troops. This he did because he was being closely pressed by Humāyūn, the Moghul emperor, and father of Bābar. But the Mohammedan monarch soon regretted that he had given the Portuguese such an important foothold in his dominions, and it was after a visit he had paid to Nuno da Cunha there that he was killed in a scuffle while disembarking from a Portuguese ship. His successor, Mohammed III. of Gujarāt, regarded the murder of his uncle as a proof of treachery on the part of the Portuguese, and at once besieged Diu by sea and land. But the fortress was nobly defended; the Portuguese women vied with the men in gallantry, and after being reduced to the greatest extremities, the commandant, Antonio de Silveira, beat off the assailants. The other important event of Nuno da Cunha’s rule was the establishment of a Portuguese factory at Hūgli, at the mouth of the Ganges, in the dominions of the King of Bengal, which for the first time tapped the trade of that most wealthy province. These great services during his long rule of twelve years did not protect Nuno da Cunha from malicious accusations being brought against him at Lisbon; exaggerated accounts of his cruelty and of the corruption of his government were reported against him, and in 1538 he was superseded by a viceroy, Dom Garcia de Noronha. Nuno da Cunha died on his way back to Portugal, and the absence of his strong hand was soon felt in India. Garcia de Noronha, a former officer of Alboquerque, died almost immediately after his arrival, and his successors, as governors, Estevão da Gama and Martim Affonso de Sousa distinguished their governments by an expedition to the Red Sea, during which Da Gama was defeated by the Turks at Suez, and by the defeat of De Sousa at Tebelicavi. These checks greatly affected the profits of the Indian trade, and John III. determined to make a fresh departure by despatching to India Dom João de Castro, a hero of the old Portuguese type, and the intimate friend of his uncle, Dom Luis, Duke of Beja.

In summing up thus briefly the history of the Portuguese in India, weight has been laid only upon its political and commercial aspect. It was for purely commercial reasons that Prince Henry “the Navigator” had striven to find a direct sea route to India, and Vasco da Gama’s success had at first been looked upon merely as opening up the Indian trade; the idea of dominion had not then occurred to the minds of the Portuguese, and it was not until it became obvious that the commercial stations or factories would have to be guarded and defended, that troops were despatched as well as factors. The successful defence of Duarte Pacheco against the army of the Zamorin of Calicut, showed how easy it would be for the Portuguese to do more than just defend their factories, if attacked, and Francisco de Almeida commenced a war of offence by attacking native potentates, who refused to allow factories to be established in their dominions. Affonso de Alboquerque originated the idea of playing off the Hindu princes against the aggressive Mohammedans, but none of his successors followed out his policy in this respect. It must not, however, be thought that the Portuguese had any idea of establishing such an empire in India as the English have built up during the last century. Their great system was to occupy, by force if necessary, all important centres of trade along the coasts, and there to erect powerful cities and fortresses, whither the native merchants could bring down their commodities to be purchased and placed on board Portuguese ships for passage to Lisbon. They made no attempt to force their way into the interior, and only sent envoys to native princes to secure protection for the native traders coming to their ports. They occupied, indeed, small rural districts around their most important stations, such as Goa and Diu, which they ruled, according to the fashion adopted by Alboquerque in Goa, by regarding the village communities as units, and regulating taxation accordingly. If these facts are grasped, the tales of Portuguese tyranny and oppression fall to the ground, for the only natives they could oppress were the merchants, who brought goods down to the ports, and the inhabitants who chose to dwell within the Portuguese borders. The merchants and traders did indeed suffer, because they had to sell their merchandise by a scale which cut their profits down much more than they relished, and the inhabitants of the cities were ruled as inferiors, who were bound to be subject to the Europeans in every respect. The Portuguese judges naturally favoured their own people, and thus in many instances treated the natives unjustly, but it may be pointed out that no merchant could be forced to come down to the ports, and that no native could be compelled to dwell in the Portuguese cities against his will. These considerations, joined to a recollection of the inevitable accusations always brought by a subject population against a race of foreign rulers, tend to prove that the accusations of tyranny and oppression brought against the Portuguese have been greatly exaggerated, and it is quite certain that the Hindus were quite as badly, if not worse, treated by their Mohammedan conquerors.

In one respect alone they had a right to complain, and that was, that the Portuguese, not satisfied with extending their commercial transactions, attempted also to overthrow the native religions, just as the Mohammedans did. For the Portuguese conquerors were not only traders, but ardent Christians, firmly convinced of the truth of their religion, and determined to spread it. The squadron commanded by Pedro Alvares Cabral, which had been despatched to India directly after the return of Vasco da Gama, had carried some Franciscan friars, who were left at Cochin, in 1500, to preach their religion. They were speedily followed by other missionaries, chiefly Dominican and Franciscan friars, who increased in number, after the capital of the Portuguese sovereignty was removed to Goa. Great convents arose there, and the missionaries began their labours by preaching in the neighbouring districts, which were divided into parishes after the European fashion, and regarded as ecclesiastical units. The fame of the Goa missionaries was greatly increased by the discovery or pretended discovery of the bones of St. Thomas the Apostle at the spot, which had long attracted the common worship of Mohammedans, Hindus, and native Christians, near Madras, where he was reported to have been martyred. These bones were brought to Goa in 1522, during the government of Duarte de Menezes, and buried with great pomp in the sacred shrine in the Church of St. Thomas at Goa, where they remain to this day. These first Portuguese missionaries were delighted to find native Christians in India when they arrived, and to find them a powerful military caste. They did not at first inquire too minutely into the doctrines and ceremonies of these Christians, who belonged to the Nestorian Church, and far from persecuting them with especial fervour, as was the case later, they regarded the very existence of these Christians as a proof of the vitality of their own faith. After the discovery of the bones of St. Thomas missionaries flocked in increased numbers to India, not only from Portugal, but from Rome itself; and in 1539 Goa was made the seat of a Roman Catholic bishopric, and João de Alboquerque was consecrated its first bishop. But the greatest impulse given to the cause of the propagation of the Christian faith was the arrival in India of St. Francis Xavier in 1542, during the government of Martim Affonso de Sousa. This great preacher and great man was not long in making a deep impression upon the natives of India, and the news of the converts he had made without the limits of the Portuguese settlements, attracted a crowd of followers. The Society of the Jesuits, of which he was one of the founders, paid especial attention to this field of mission work, and the progress of Christianity became more and more rapid. This was the golden age of proselytising effort; the Hindus listened with patience to the Christian missionaries, and did not yet begin to persecute them, and the Inquisition which was to bear so heavily upon the native Church of Nestorian Christians, did not inaugurate its forcible methods of conversion until the year 1560.

DOM JOÃO DE CASTRO.
(After the copy given by the MS. of Pedro Barrato de Rezende of the original portrait in the Palace of the Viceroys at Goa.)

The name of St. Francis Xavier suggests that of his illustrious friend, Dom João de Castro, who rivalled upon the battlefield the glories of Francisco de Almeida, Affonso de Alboquerque, and Nuno da Cunha, but who was distinguished above them all for the noble purity of his life. De Castro was the intimate friend of the king’s uncle, Dom Luis, Duke of Beja, with whom he had been educated, and had won his spurs and the admiration of the Emperor Charles V., by his conduct in the expedition to Tunis. He had served with distinction under Garcia de Noronha and Estevão da Gama in the Indian seas, and on his return home had been employed in the difficult task of evacuating the various Portuguese stations in Morocco, which it had been decided to abandon. He was renowned for the purity and even austerity of his character, and it was for this reason that he was appointed, in 1545, viceroy of India. The situation there was a difficult one, for the Sultan of Turkey had, it is said, at the request of the Venetians, who were disgusted at losing their profitable trade with the East, sent a powerful fleet down the Red Sea to exterminate the Portuguese in India. When João de Castro arrived at Goa, he heard that Diu was being again besieged by Mohammed III. of Gujarāt. The news was true, and in spite of the gallant defence of Dom João de Mascarenhas, the besieged were driven to extremities. The viceroy at once proceeded thither, and not only relieved the fortress, but defeated the King of Gujarāt in a pitched battle beneath the walls. This victory, the greatest won by the Portuguese in India, exalted the fame of the general, which was further enhanced by his annihilation of the great Turkish fleet. After these victories João de Castro turned to matters of internal reform, and, by a policy which recalls that of Lord Cornwallis in Bengal in later history, he fixed the salaries of the various civil officials and tried to put an end to the system of corruption and peculation by which they had robbed the royal treasury and the natives alike. He looked with especial disfavour upon the loose and immoral life led by the Portuguese at Goa, and sternly discouraged their luxury, which, as he declared, could only be paid for by robbing the king of his dues. Unfortunately João de Castro, though he was to inaugurate reforms, did not live long enough to see them carried out, for he died in 1548, in the third year of his viceroyalty, in the arms of his friend, St. Francis Xavier, and it is recorded to the glory of this knight of the olden type, that, in spite of his opportunities, he died poor, and bequeathed to his son only his sword, “ornamented,” in the words of his biographer, “with a few stones of no great value, but with a glory beyond price.”

The immediate successors of Dom João de Castro, Garcia de Sá, Jorge Cabral, Affonso de Noronha, and Pedro de Mascarenhas, found no great perils to meet, since the victory of Diu had terrified the Mohammedans for a time, and none of them left any important traces upon the history of the Portuguese in India. The government of Dom Constantino de Braganza, a scion of the most noble house in Portugal next to royalty, marked a return to the system of Dom João de Castro, whom he imitated not only in his internal reforms, but in his gallantry in the field. He it was who took and occupied Daman, which, with Goa and Diu, remains to this day a possession of Portugal. He was still in office when the death of John III. left the crown of Portugal to a minor, and the greatness of his country, and even its independence, was on the point of disappearing.

But the Portuguese power in Asia must not be regarded as being confined to India, though Goa remained its headquarters, and the centre from which the homeward-bound fleets sailed. It will be remembered that Affonso de Alboquerque made expeditions both to the east and west; and his successors, during the century of the Portuguese monopoly of the Asiatic trade, maintained and extended their commercial operations in both directions. But before touching on these extensions attention must be called to the care with which the greatest Portuguese governors kept up the establishments on the south-eastern coast of Africa. Mozambique, which still belongs to Portugal, Mombassa, and Melinda, were all fortified with the utmost science of the time, for the homeward-and outward-bound fleets always paused at one or other or at all of these places before facing or after meeting the perils of the Indian Ocean, in order to refit and take in provisions. The dangers of the passage round the Cape of Good Hope were also sufficiently serious to need rest or preparation, for to mention but two disasters, Francisco de Almeida, the first Viceroy of India was wrecked in Saldanha Bay, and died there on his way back from his command; and a few years after occurred the wreck, imprisonment among the savages, and death of Dom Manoel de Sousa and his wife, which Camoens has immortalized in touching words.[16] More important than these African settlements was the city of Ormuz, at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, which became the headquarters of the Persian trade with Europe by means of the Portuguese fleets. It has been seen that Aden was too strong for Alboquerque to capture; one of his successors, Affonso de Noronha, was more successful in 1551, but he only held the key of the Red Sea for a single year, after which it was recaptured by the Turks.

Far more valuable was the settlement of Malacca, which was placed upon a secure footing by Alboquerque. It became the centre of a great trade with Java, Sumatra, and the Spice Islands, and from it Fernão de Magalhães and Francisco Serrão prosecuted their discoveries among the Moluccas and the Celebes. The history of this settlement is full of interest; it was repeatedly attacked by the Achinese and other natives, and some of its sieges are as famous as those of Diu, though not conducted against such civilized opponents. But Malacca was not only the headquarters of the Spice Islands trade, but the port from which explorations were directed northwards. It was from Malacca that Duarte Coelho started to explore the coasts of Cochin China, and made his adventurous journey into Siam, and from Malacca also Fernão Peres de Andrade started to open up trade with the mighty and populous empire of China. There can be little doubt, according to a most distinguished Portuguese historian,[17] that the embassy, which King Emmanuel despatched in 1517 to the emperor of China, was caused by a knowledge of Marco Polo’s travels, and by the interest inspired by his account of the far empire of Cathay. At any rate it was as an ambassador from one monarch to another, and not as a conqueror that Fernão Peres de Andrade was sent to China with letters and presents. And the very fact of this embassy suggests a doubt whether the Portuguese would have ever acted as they did in India had there been a monarch there of such power as the emperor of China was reported to possess, or would have been contented to be traders only. De Andrade safely reached Canton by way of Malacca in 1518, but in spite of his letters and presents he was long detained there and not allowed to proceed to Pekin until 1521. When the Chinese thoroughly understood that the Portuguese came only to trade and not to conquer, they permitted the new-comers to establish a factory, first at Lium-po; and in 1549 at Chin Chee; and, finally, in 1557, in the year of the death of John III., at the request of the Chinese Government, the Portuguese withdrew their other factories and established themselves in the island of Macao, at the mouth of the Canton river. Here they carried on a prosperous trade, and in 1583 they received leave to dispense justice within their island, and in 1587 were recognized as independent there.

The first communication of the Portuguese with Japan is still more curious, and is connected with the history of one of those adventurous travellers who boldly traversed the most distant lands of Asia, long before Englishmen or Dutchmen had ventured to assail the Portuguese monopoly. Fernão Mendes Pinto has for generations been regarded as a typical liar, an accusation generally believed in England from the famous line of Congreve in “Love for Love:” (act ii. scene v.) “Mendes Pinto was but a type of thee, thou liar of the first magnitude.”

But modern inquiry has shown that though he doubtless exaggerated, and drew strange inferences, his curious “Peregrinação” or Travels, which was first published in 1614, and was translated during the seventeenth century into English, French, and Spanish, contains essentially a true account of his adventures. His career is typical of that of many another Portuguese adventurer in the East. He first went to Asia in 1537, and during his wanderings was five times shipwrecked, thirteen times taken captive, and seventeen times sold as a slave. On his way out he was taken prisoner between Socotra and the Persian Gulf, and sold as a slave at Mocha, where he remained until ransomed by the Portuguese governor of Ormuz. After many daring adventures, which savour of piracy, he was engaged in 1542 in a strange expedition to Calempin, near Pekin, which he had organized to plunder the tombs of seventeen Chinese emperors there. On his way back from this sacrilegious attempt he was wrecked off the Chinese coast, and set to work in repairing the Great Wall of China. While there he was made a prisoner by the Tartars during one of their invasions, and after being present at a Tartar siege of Pekin was carried away into Tartary. After various adventures he managed to get back to China, and he then paid his first visit to Japan. His account of the wealth of the Japanese islands excited the minds of the Portuguese officials on the Chinese coast, and a fleet of nine ships was placed under his command at Ning-po, with orders to open up a trade with Japan. Ill luck again pursued him; eight of his ships foundered, and the one upon which he himself sailed, was wrecked on the Loo-Choo Islands. Undiscouraged by all his reverses, he continued to represent the wealth of Japan to his superiors in China and at Malacca, and in 1548 he established a factory in the neighbourhood of Yokohama. Here he did good service, and besides opening up a trade in Japanese goods, he made a large fortune for himself. With this fortune he was on his way back to Portugal in 1553, when the ecclesiastics at Goa worked upon his religious sentiments, which, as in other Portuguese adventurers, must have been very deep, though they do not seem to have influenced him in his dealings with Asiatics, and persuaded him to devote nearly all his wealth to the establishment of a seminary at Goa for the education of missionaries to Japan.

The career of Mendes Pinto illustrates the extraordinary energy and indomitable courage of the Portuguese in Asia, and it is a subject for wonder how one little country, one of the very smallest of the European states, could produce not only great governors and conquerors, like Francisco de Almeida, Affonso de Alboquerque, Nuno da Cunha, and João de Castro, and their lieutenants; and military heroes like Duarte Pacheco, Antonio de Silveira, and João de Mascarenhas, and their soldiers; but also daring adventurers like Duarte Coelho, who boldly penetrated into the interior of Siam, and Mendes Pinto. These men, from the highest to the lowest, seem to have had unbounded confidence in themselves, and, as will be seen later, two Portuguese adventurers, with hardly any support, Sebastião Gonzales and Philip de Brito, established themselves as practically independent princes in Arakan. It has been shown that this extraordinary energy and enterprise exhausted the kingdom of Portugal. Of the thousands who left their homes in Europe, but an infinitesimal portion ever returned. Not one of the early governors of Portuguese India died in Portugal until the time of Dom Constantino de Braganza; they either died in India, like Alboquerque, Vasco da Gama, and Noronha, or on their way home, like Almeida and Nuno da Cunha. The drain upon the energies of the people was immense, and the wonder is not that Portugal was soon exhausted, but that it ever put forth such vitality at all. The greatness of the Portuguese in India was due to the courage and heroism of the Portuguese people, and these qualities they owed to a succession of great kings, who had trained the people to freedom, self-reliance, and constancy; were it not for great kings like John “the Great” and John “the Perfect,” and great princes like Pedro, Duke of Coimbra, and Prince Henry “the Navigator,” the Portuguese nation would never have done what it did, and the Story of Portugal teaches the useful lesson that a people, trained to lofty thoughts and a high conception of duty, will be sure to find scope for its energies, and exhibit the result of its training in noble deeds.

X.

THE PORTUGUESE IN BRAZIL.

THE history of the Portuguese in South America differs greatly from the story of the growth of their power in Asia; in America they found no wealthy cities and civilized peoples, only poor natives, and it was no wonder that their chief efforts in the sixteenth century were devoted to the development of the lucrative Eastern trade and to Asiatic exploration. Had any one told King Emmanuel that the country which Pedro Alvares Cabral discovered by a mere chance on his way to Asia, would prove of more enduring value to Portugal than the settlements in India, that monarch would not have believed him. Yet such has been the case. Whereas at the present time the Portuguese possessions in Asia have dwindled down to the settlements of Goa, Daman, and Diu in India, and the island of Macao, which are of very little value to the mother country, the great republic of Brazil has expanded into an independent state containing fourteen millions of inhabitants, or more than three times the population of Portugal.[18] It is true that the governments of Portugal and her flourishing daughter across the Atlantic are separated, and that they are politically independent of each other, yet Brazil still continues in close alliance with Portugal, and receives from the mother country the crowds of sturdy immigrants, who are steadily expanding the resources of the greatest country in South America. Brazilians are as proud of the great deeds of their European ancestors as the Portuguese themselves, and even surpass the inhabitants of the mother country in their admiration for Camoens, and the assiduous study of his works. The story of the settlement and gradual colonization of Brazil cannot rival in romantic interest that of the Portuguese exploits in Asia, but it is nevertheless instructive to study the slow growth of the colony which has now become a mighty empire.

It was upon April 24, 1500, that Pedro Alvares Cabral, the admiral commanding the fleet which King Emmanuel had ordered to India, on receiving the news of the successful voyage of Vasco da Gama, caught sight of an unknown country towards the west He had stood out to sea after passing the Cape Verde Islands, or, according to some authorities, had been driven out to sea by a storm and had not expected to see land at all, so that the discovery, which proved of the greatest value to Portugal, was the result of chance, and not of deliberate exploration. He was unable to land at first on account of the surf, and it was not until he reached 15° north latitude, that he was able to find a harbour, to which he gave the name of Porto Seguro or Safe Port. He landed and took possession of the new country in the name of the King of Portugal, and after erecting a cross gave it the name of Santa Cruz, which remained its official name for many years, before the popular name of Brazil, which was given to it from the quantity of brazil-trees it contained, was adopted. Cabral found the country to be fertile and well watered, and inhabited by a mild and inoffensive people, who allowed him to explore a little, and to take on board fruit and water. He at once perceived the value of his discovery, and sent off one of his ships to Lisbon with information of it, and with one of the inhabitants on board to be taught the Portuguese language. He also left two of his own men in the country to learn the language of the natives and to explore, and then proceeded on his way to India.

King Emmanuel sent various expeditions to explore this new country, notably two under Amerigo Vespucci in 1501 and 1503, and the greater part of the coast line down to the River Plate was visited and mapped out by this industrious explorer. But neither Vespucci, nor the first colonists despatched from Portugal, reported the existence of more than a fertile country, and the Portuguese people being at that time in the full excitement of their first conquests in Asia, and the rich trade to be opened up there, paid but little attention to the new possession across the Atlantic. It was soon discovered that there were no wealthy cities or powerful dynasties among the inhabitants of Brazil, such as Cortez met with in Mexico, and Pizarro in Peru, and there seemed to be little prospect of a lucrative trade. So little was known, indeed, of the natural wealth of Brazil, that Spain, though by the Bull of Alexander VI. it had a right to all discoveries in that quarter of the globe, consented to give up to Portugal undisputed possession of the whole coast line of Brazil from the River Maranham to the River Plate.

Of the aboriginal inhabitants of this vast country, curious accounts were written by the first Portuguese explorers. They were reported to be partly nomadic, and to live chiefly on fish and fruit, and on the game which they killed in their forests with bows and arrows. They wore little or no clothes, and generally painted their bodies, and some tribes used to smear themselves with gum, and stick beautiful feathers all over them, which made them look at a distance more like great birds than human beings. They grew no corn, but made cakes of cassava root, and used to drink either the pressed juice of fruit or an intoxicating liquor made from honey. They understood how to spin and weave, and build huts; they were great smokers of tobacco, and had some knowledge of the usefulness of the medicinal herbs and drugs which abound in Brazil. Their country, though fertile, seemed destitute of everything of value to Europeans, and it was at first thought that the discovery of Cabral would in no way contribute to the wealth or prosperity of the Portuguese people.

So firmly was this believed, and so absorbed were the king, nobles, and people of Portugal in their Asiatic explorations and conquests, that for many years no attempt was made to form settlements in South America, and no effort to explore the interior of the continent. Two royal ships only for a long time were despatched to Brazil every year to take out and land there condemned convicts and women of bad character, and to bring back parrots and different varieties of wood, notably the brazil wood which gave the new country its popular name. A few families of settlers, partly from Madeira and partly from northern Portugal, also went out on their own account, and established themselves in various chosen spots, where they introduced agriculture and tried in vain to make the natives work for them as slaves. No attempt was made by the Portuguese monarch to superintend these infant settlements, or to decree any form of government for the stray colonists and convicts, who did what seemed good in their own eyes, and in many instances treated the natives with the utmost severity. While soldiers, governors, and officials were despatched in numbers to Asia, there was no thought taken of America; and as one instance of the manner in which Brazil was treated, it may be mentioned that the importation of ginger from that country was prohibited in order not to infringe the Indian monopoly.

This neglect suddenly ceased about the year 1530, when the rumour spread throughout Portugal that Brazil abounded in gold, silver, and precious stones. The natives had made no attempt to work mines, for they attached no value to these commodities, but the knowledge that the precious metals abounded in Peru caused people to believe that they also existed in other parts of the South American continent. The discovery of gold in small quantities, and the rumours of an El Dorado in the interior, soon attracted crowds of adventurers from all parts of Europe; many families from Portugal were then encouraged to emigrate in order to counterbalance these adventurers, and the settlement of the new country was thus commenced in earnest. King John III. was as much excited by the news of the discovery of gold as his courtiers and people, and he sent over to Brazil in 1531 the first royal governor, Martim Affonso de Sousa, with instructions to assert the royal power over the rapidly increasing population of colonists and adventurers, and to arrange for the future government of the country. Martim Affonso de Sousa, who was afterwards Governor-General of Portuguese India, was a wise and prudent statesman; though unsupported by any soldiers he made a sort of royal progress through Brazil, and he strongly advised the king to let the country develop by itself without interference from home. For government, he advised that the form of administration which had sprung up in the various settled districts should be confirmed and not interfered with. This form of government was simply the combination of all the inhabitants of each settlement into a sort of little state, which elected an officer called captain, who exercised a sort of patriarchal authority, and superintended measures of defence against either natives or other colonies of settlers. These captains held no royal commission, and imposed no taxes; every man was able to do pretty much what he liked in his own house, and each settlement was ruled not by law, but by the general sentiment of the community. These captains had no authority but what they derived from the willing obedience of the settlers, and every captain exercised more or less authority according to his personal character. Martim Affonso de Sousa saw the advantages of such a system for a new colony, and he advised the king not to send out royal officials from home whose authority would probably be ignored, but to confirm these captains in their authority, and that the settlements already made should be recognized as “captainships.” This was accordingly done; the king was only too glad not to have to despatch soldiers to America as he wanted all he could raise for Asia, and he sanctioned the measures taken by his representative. But he further subdivided the country into three vast “chief captainships,” which he granted to João de Barros, the Portuguese Livy and historian of the Portuguese in Asia, Ayres da Cunha, and Fernão Alvares de Andrade, with instructions to search for gold mines and to exercise a general supervision over the government of the country.

The colonists, who flocked to Brazil from Portugal at this time, were of a very different type to the Portuguese who were sent to Asia. The latter were chiefly soldiers, sailors, and officials, despatched to India and the settlements in the East in royal fleets as servants of the Crown, who, while acknowledging themselves servants of the king, yet went to the East with the idea of making their own fortunes, and eventually returning home to Portugal, while the Brazilian colonists went out at their own expense with their wives and families, and made their homes in their adopted country. These men were invaluable to a new country; they went out with no intention of ever returning home, and with the power and will to labour with their hands. Throughout the sixteenth century a steady succession of Portuguese emigrants made their way to Brazil, either on account of the favourable report of its climate and resources, which they received from their friends or relations already settled there, or in order to escape the misfortunes impending on their own country, and more especially the heavy hand of the Inquisition. Mention has been made of the vast importation of slaves into Portugal; this employment of negro labour threw a number of agricultural labourers out of work, who did not care to enlist as soldiers for the East, and could not make a livelihood in cities, and from this class many of the first colonists to Brazil came. Some weight, too, must be attached to the adventurous nature of the Portuguese people; and this side of their character, which showed itself in individuals in the East, made men who loved a family life better than fighting find their way to the western continent. The colonization of Brazil was essentially popular; it was not initiated by king, priests, or nobles; and illustrates the extreme self-reliance and daring which made Portugal so great at this period. The one blot upon the careers of these early settlers was their treatment of the natives. Accustomed to the existence of slavery at home, they tried to make the natives work for them, and this attempt brought about a bitter hatred between the aboriginal races and the immigrants, which showed itself in murder and massacre. The steady tide of emigration to Brazil did not at this time contribute to the wealth of the mother country; on the contrary, it must be noted as one of the chief causes of that depopulation of Portugal, which has been spoken of as the germ of the decadence of the Portuguese power.

It has been said that some of the emigrants from Portugal to Brazil were moved by a fear of the Inquisition, and hoped to escape from it by going to the New World. Especially was this the case with numbers of the “novaes Christiãos,” or half-converted Jews. This class comprised many families of wealth and influence, who, when they saw the rapid approach of persecution, removed en masse to Brazil. In the new country they thought themselves free, and were joined by many of their unconverted brethren, who had been expelled by King Emmanuel. As usual, even if not wealthy, these people were able to raise money, and they brought into the new colony, what it most needed, capital. Many of the greatest families in Brazil trace their descent from these laborious and hard-working colonists, who, as in every other place, gave an impulse to trade and industrial development unfelt before. It was owing to their perspicacity that the sugar-cane, the greatest source of Brazilian wealth, was introduced into the colony from Madeira in the year 1548, and they started the direct slave trade with the Guinea Coast, recognizing both the impossibility of reducing the aboriginal races into a state of servitude, and the advantages of negro labour. From all these causes, Brazil was growing a wealthy colony by the middle of the sixteenth century, possessing many well-populated and well-cultivated districts upon the sea coast, surrounding the various ports and harbours, where prosperous towns had sprung up, of which may be noted at this time Pernambuco, Tamacara, Ilheos, Porto Seguro, and St. Vincent.

The prosperity of Brazil attracted the attention of John III., and he at last decided to establish a viceroyalty there, instead of leaving the colonists to govern themselves, and for the first governor-general he selected a nobleman of talent and experience, Dom Thomas de Sousa. At the same time the king revoked his decree forming the three “chief captainships,” and granted his representative full powers to arrange for a new system of administration. In 1549 Dom Thomas de Sousa arrived in Brazil with a fleet of six ships of war, many officials for the new government, a strong force of soldiers, and the first contingent of Jesuits, who were despatched with the especial purpose of converting the natives. Fortunately for Brazil, Thomas de Sousa was a great statesman; he made no attempt to enforce his powers unduly; he carefully avoided interfering with the subordinate captainships, and left the system of local government established in each without modification; he made no attempt to levy taxes or to interfere with the liberties of the people, and even avoided quartering his soldiers in any of the existing towns. He perceived that the weak point of the existing administration was that the captainships were too independent of each other, scattered as they were down the coast like little states, and he therefore determined to found a capital, and to establish a central government, which, without interfering with local liberties, should become a court of appeal, and regulating power over them. The place he selected for his capital was at the head of All Saints Bay, better known as the Bay of Bahia, where he erected the city of San Salvador. This town he made the headquarters of his troops, and the seat of the central government, and the Jesuit fathers also made it their point of departure. The most important question that Thomas de Sousa had to face was the treatment of the aboriginal tribes. The attempts of the Portuguese settlers to reduce them to slavery had been met with stubborn resistance, and a chronic war raged along all the landward boundaries of the captainships. The natives did not often attack the settlements of the Europeans, but they resisted any advance towards the interior, and small parties of Portuguese attempting to settle in the interior were often massacred. Dom Thomas de Sousa determined to check this continuous guerilla warfare by both warlike and peaceful measures. He sent his troops, and led them himself, against tribes which had committed any particular act of atrocity, and punished them severely, and at the same time he gave all the help in his power to the measures of the Jesuits for civilizing them.

The history of the Jesuits in Brazil is far more glorious if less interesting than that of the Jesuits in India. In America they had not to contend with the trained and subtle intellects of the Hindus, who were able and ready to meet them in the most abstruse philosophical arguments, but with simple-minded savages willing to be taught. The success of the famous Society was unbounded; the teachings of Christianity did far more to quiet the aboriginal inhabitants than the swords of De Sousa’s soldiers, and in a comparatively short space of time, either Jesuits, or native emissaries trained and taught by them, had penetrated many miles into the interior of the continent. The rapid conversion and civilization of the native tribes produced many fortunate results: the great domain of Portugal in South America was saved much of the terrible warfare with savages, which marks the history of the English settlers in North America; but, on the other hand, peace between the two races brought about intermarriage, and produced a class of mestizos, or half-breeds, which now includes about a quarter of the population. This conversion to the Christian religion was not hastened or in any way assisted by the terrible power of the Inquisition. That institution, which did so much to weaken the influence of Christianity in India, by its auto-da-fés and its persecution of the Nestorian Christians was never allowed to take root in Brazil, and the atrocities of Goa were not imitated at San Salvador or Rio de Janeiro. Many reasons have been given for the non-establishment of the Inquisition, but the chief credit is undoubtedly due to Dom Thomas de Sousa, who was well aware of the services rendered to Brazil by the “novaes Christiãos” and other persons, whose orthodoxy could be impeached, and who urged at the Court of Lisbon, that it would be impossible to establish such a hated institution as the Inquisition against the will of the people of the captainships without the assistance of a powerful army, and as the king wanted all his soldiers for India, he gave up the idea of setting up an offshoot of the Holy Office in America.

PROCESSION OF AN AUTO DA FÉ.

(From “Les Royaumes d’Espagne et Portugal.” La Haye, 1720.)

The establishment of the Jesuits in Brazil, the foundation of a central authority to superintend but not harass the captainships, and the pursuance of a steady and uniform policy towards the natives, are the points which mark the government of Dom Thomas de Sousa. That of his successor, Duarte da Costa, was less important than his predecessor’s. He followed De Sousa’s example, and the prosperity of Brazil became so obvious that emigration from unhappy and declining Portugal continued to such an extent that the Europeans in the colony doubled in number during his administration. One point of his administration deserves notice, namely, that he superseded the old earthen fortifications round the principal towns by walls, and erected forts to guard the most important harbours, mounted with artillery. These precautions show that there was fear of foreign aggression; other European nations heard of the wealth and fertility of Brazil, and coveted its possession, and a systematic attempt to oust or conquer the Portuguese was made in the next century by the Dutch. During the sixteenth century, however, only one nation, the French, attempted to make a settlement in Brazil, and their effort deserves a brief notice.

France, it is well known, was torn by religious wars during the sixteenth century, and it was one of the Huguenot leaders, Nicolas Durant, Sieur de Villegagnon and Vice-Admiral of Brittany, who first conceived the idea of expatriating himself and founding a colony with his co-religionists in the fertile country of Brazil. The Admiral de Coligny warmly supported this scheme, and obtained leave from Henry II. to put it into execution. Three large vessels were accordingly chartered, and a number of intending colonists set sail from Havre for Brazil in May, 1555, under the command of Villegagnon. They reached South America in November, and, without even attempting to obtain the consent of either of the King of Portugal or of the authorities of the captainship in which they landed, deliberately settled in an eligible spot, and for protection alike against the natives and the Portuguese, they built Fort Coligny. Villegagnon immediately reported his success to the admiral, who sent on his letter to Calvin at Geneva. Calvin expressed his satisfaction at the notion of a Protestant colony in that quarter of the New World, and with his approbation a Genevese named Dupont, and two ministers, Richer and Chartier, collected together three hundred more French Huguenots and joined the original settlers in 1557 at Fort Coligny. Violent religious quarrels soon broke out between Villegagnon and Richer, and the newly-arrived colonists first removed to the banks of the Rio de Janeiro, and then returned to France, where they vehemently reviled Villegagnon. He returned to France to meet their accusations, and the Portuguese, under their governor, Emmanuel de Sá, took advantage of his withdrawal to demolish Fort Coligny and expel the French settlers. Thus ended the first attempt of the French to settle in Brazil.

The Portuguese possession of Brazil was to be far more dangerously disputed by the Dutch in the following century, and the only reason why they did not lose their American, as they did their Asiatic dominion is to be found in the method by which the colony had been settled. What was best in old Portugal, not necessarily what was bravest, but what was best and most industrious had gone to Brazil; the colonists there had been most wisely and prudently governed; they had been allowed to develop free from all restrictions by the wise policy of prudent governors; and the result of this free development was that the Brazilians remained Portuguese at heart. They repulsed the attempts of the Dutch, and even, when able to stand alone, they preferred to cling to the mother country. Therefore it was that when in the eighteenth century the Portuguese possessions in Asia were only a drain on the exchequer of the kingdom, Brazil became the main source of the wealth of the Portuguese Crown. Little did Cabral, or King Emmanuel, think that Brazil would be a far more valuable possession to Portugal than Cochin, or Goa, or Malacca, and that it was so was due to the manner in which it was settled; for colonies, whose prosperity rests on stout hearts and industrious hands, are of a lasting value to their mother country, while possessions, won and held by force of arms, are only of fictitious advantage and of transient value to the conquering race.

XI.

THE LAST KINGS OF THE HOUSE OF AVIZ—DOM SEBASTIAN AND THE CARDINAL HENRY.

THE germs of the rapid decline of Portugal have been already noticed in discussing the reigns of Emmanuel and John III.; the country, exhausted by its efforts to conquer Asia and colonize Brazil, and deprived of liberty of thought by the deadly influence of the Inquisition, was fast losing its old vitality; and what Portuguese were left in Portugal were either enervated by luxury in the upper classes and slaves to the Court, or in the lower beggars upon the charity of the King and the Church. The Portuguese of the upper classes, who preserved the old Portuguese spirit of daring were in Asia; the sturdiest peasantry of the lower classes had found their way to Madeira or Brazil. Cultivated mainly by slaves, subject to an absolutist and bigoted court, and chiefly inhabited by slaves, priests, and beggars, it was no wonder that keen observers, like the Dutchman Cleynaerts, perceived that beneath its appearance of seeming prosperity, the Portuguese kingdom was rotten to the core. Lisbon was indeed the centre of the trade of the East; it was from the Tagus that the ships from the rest of Europe came to fetch the muslins of Bengal, the brocades of Gujarāt, the “calicos” of Calicut, the spices of the “Spice Islands,” the pepper of the Malabar coast, and the teas and silks of China. Lisbon was the commercial capital of the world; the King of Portugal was the richest sovereign in Europe. But in spite of wealth and luxury and universal consideration Portugal was a decaying power, and a single shock was sufficient to strike the country from its place, as the leading nation of Europe, the nation of heroes, and leave it defenceless against foreign foes.

This shock was supplied by the African expedition of Dom Sebastian and its disastrous result, and Portugal was then an easy prey to the ambition of Philip II. of Spain. The reign of Dom Sebastian has therefore a pathetic interest to posterity: the romantic character of the young king; his gallantry, and his death on the field of battle; and the sudden end of the house of Aviz, which had seemed so powerful, have contributed to make this reign one of the best known to students of general history in the whole annals of Portugal. To contemporaries this sudden collapse of the kingdom, which a few years before had seemed so great, appeared nothing short of marvellous, and political philosophers were never weary of dwelling on this extinction and finding reasons for it. Rabid Protestants argued that it was all due to the Inquisition; humanitarians agreed that it was a punishment for the high-handed conduct of the Portuguese “conquistadores” in the East; shortsighted historians attributed it entirely to the defeat of Dom Sebastian in Africa. But more careful inquiry has shown that the seeds of decline had long been planted, and that the fall of Portugal from her high estate was due to the exhaustion of her vital energies and to the rapid depopulation of her territory in Europe. No country can continue to exist and be a power, which sends forth all its best energies to foreign lands and foreign continents, and becomes exhausted at home; it might as well be expected that a man should be vigorous when his heart is hopelessly diseased.

Portugal was thus already rapidly decaying, when an infant of three years old became its monarch. Three times before in its history minors had succeeded to the throne, but in each case wise regents had governed the country, and the minorities had been marked by advance not retrogression. The first King of Portugal, Affonso Henriques, was but three years old, when he succeeded to his country; but the wisdom of his mother, Donna Theresa, during his minority paved the way for his subsequent success. Sancho II. was but a boy when he became king; but the great Bishop of Lisbon, by his self-abnegation, made his minority a triumph. Affonso V. had also been a child sovereign; but his uncle, the great Duke of Coimbra, ruled so wisely, that the king’s coming of age proved to be a disaster, not an advantage, to the country. But there were no such regents for the minority of Dom Sebastian: his grandmother was Spanish to the core, and loved Spain more than Portugal; his heir-presumptive was his great-uncle Dom Henry, Cardinal and Grand Inquisitor of the kingdom.

LISBON IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY. (From Braun and Hohenberg’s Civitates orbis terrarum, 1574.)

The youthful king had none to help him. His father Dom João, the only son of John III., had died fifteen days before the birth of his only child, and his mother, Donna Joanna, the daughter of the Emperor Charles V., had immediately retired to Spain, leaving the child to the care of his grandparents. On the death of John III. in 1557, his queen, Donna Catherine, the sister of Charles V., assumed the regency in the name of her grandson. From the very first, the Portuguese people, from the highest to the lowest, disapproved of her rule; she was so aggressively Spanish in speech, bearing, and appearance, and had so persistently refused to identify herself with her adopted country, in spite of her long residence there, that every one believed her to be plotting to secure the eventual succession of her favourite nephew, Philip II. of Spain, to the crown of Portugal. Her bigotry and encouragement of the Inquisition did not tend to make her popular, and national prejudice declared itself strongly against her. Yet she was not a bad ruler; she maintained the old servants of John III., and the machinery of administration though in many places clogged by corruption, went on smoothly, and she even managed to despatch a sufficiently powerful army to relieve Mazagon, when it was besieged by the Moors. Yet throughout her five years’ tenure of power the queen-regent found herself hampered by the intrigues of the Cardinal Henry, who, as heir to the throne, thought he ought to be in her place, and at last she decided to give up the struggle, and in 1562 she retired to Spain.

The Cardinal Henry then satisfied his ambition and became regent of the kingdom, of which he was to be for a short time the unfortunate monarch, and during his rule the government of the country fell entirely into the hands of two brothers, who had made themselves very conspicuous in the intrigues which had led to the retirement of Queen Catherine. Of these brothers, the elder, Luis Gonçalves da Camara, was an able Jesuit, who had been appointed confessor and tutor to the young king, while the younger, Martim, was prime minister, and carried on the work of administration during the regency of the Cardinal Henry. The two brothers were both men of considerable ability, and, though they made no attempt to initiate reforms or to check the decay of Portugal, they managed to conceal her rottenness as much as possible from the eyes of Europe. In 1568 Dom Sebastian was declared of age by the Camaras, though only in his fifteenth year, and from that time they excluded their former master, the Cardinal, from even a semblance of power. This behaviour did not ensure their continuance in office, for as soon as the young king began to take an active interest in affairs, he dismissed the brothers, and placed the chief power in the hands of an upright nobleman, Dom Pedro de Alçaçova Carneiro.

The character of Dom Sebastian was one of the most important factors in bringing about the final overthrow of Portugal, and therefore deserves some examination, the more especially as the nature of the Portuguese monarchy was now entirely absolutist, owing to the wealth brought into the private treasury of the king by the Asiatic trade, and his consequent independence of the Cortes. The young king was rather German than Portuguese in appearance, with his blue eyes and fair hair and his face disfigured by the Hapsburg lip, and in his nature there was much of the Teuton dreaminess and love of the marvellous, which impelled him to take part in rash undertakings.[19] He was fond of solitude, and of building up castles in the air, in which he always appeared as a Christian hero exterminating the Mohammedans. For with his German dreaminess he united a truly Spanish fanaticism. His tutor, Luis Gonçalves da Camara, made him a bigot, and his governor, Dom Aleixo or Alexis de Menezes, taught him to look upon warlike enterprise as the chief aim of a monarch’s career, and the double teaching had inspired him with crusading ardour. He was not likely to be satisfied like his grandfather, John III., with showing his zeal for Christianity by rigorous orthodoxy and systematic persecution at home, but longed rather to unite war with religion, and to spread Christianity, like St. Louis of France, by his sword. To fanaticism and warlike ambition he added an obstinacy and imperiousness of character, which made him a tyrant. While training himself from boyhood for war, he determined to train his people also by issuing a sumptuary edict that none of his subjects might have more than two dishes, and those of the simplest character, for their meals, forgetting that no decree could alter the daily life of his people. Lastly, with these characteristics he united a spirit of profoundest melancholy, which is evident in his portraits and in all his actions, a melancholy which seemed to presage his early and tragic death, and is indicated by the motto he selected for himself:

“Un bel morir tutta la vita honora.”

Such a monarch was not the man to check the decadence of Portugal; only a practical man, who should try to husband the resources of the nation, could have attempted such a task, and even he would have had difficulties to face which might well seem insurmountable. But practical measures of reform, such as a systematic attempt to regulate the expenditure of the kingdom, and an effort to check the corruption which had grown up in all departments of the state, demanded an amount of serious and prolonged labour which the dreamy king was little inclined to bestow; he thought he had done enough in issuing his sumptuary edict, and paid no further attention to the evils which were sapping the strength of his kingdom. For one measure, however, he deserves much credit. Though paying no attention to the slaves in Portugal, and regarding negroes as a race made for slavery, he yet under the influence of the Jesuits issued a decree of the greatest importance for the colony of Brazil, by which it was ordered that for the future none of the aboriginal Brazilians should be publicly sold or sent as slaves to work in the plantations, except prisoners taken in a just war. Even in the higher domain of foreign politics as opposed to internal administration, he made no attempt to watch over the interests of Portugal. His early marriage was a matter of supreme importance to the kingdom, for the only male heir of the house of Aviz was his great-uncle, the Cardinal, and the deaths of Dom Sebastian and Dom Henry without direct heirs would inevitably be followed by a civil war arising from the disputed succession. This consideration weighed but little with the romantic monarch, who after making a half-hearted attempt in 1570 to secure the hand of the beautiful Princess Margaret, sister of Charles IX. of France, the famous “Reine Margot,” by the mediation of Dom Luis de Torres, abandoned the idea of marriage, and devoted himself to his schemes of fighting the Mohammedans.

The times were singularly unfit for a war against the infidels. Crusading ardour had long been extinct, and though Pope Pius II. (Æneas Sylvius Piccolomini) had in the preceding century tried to form a coalition against the Turks, and in 1571 Don John of Austria had broken their naval power at Lepanto, the ardour of the Pope and the navy of the prince were directed against the Turks, not because they were unbelievers, but because they were a conquering race and threatened Western Europe. The expeditions of the Emperor Charles V. against Tunis in 1535, and Algiers in 1541, were dictated rather by naval and commercial than by religious considerations, and John III. had acted with the thorough sanction of the Church, whose most humble devotee he was, in abandoning the smaller towns held by Portugal in Morocco. Yet Dom Sebastian persisted; he would be crusader rather than politician, and he was determined to fight the Mohammedans. His first idea was to go in person to India and place himself at the head of the Portuguese forces there; but the minister, Pedro de Alçaçova Carneiro, pointed out the difficulty of finding a regent to govern during his absence, and his former tutor, Aleixo de Menezes, turned his thoughts to Africa. He was fired by the fame of his ancestor, Affonso V. “the African,” and determined to waste what strength still remained to the exhausted Portuguese nation in useless expeditions to the barren regions of north-west Africa, where no possible advantage could be obtained of the slightest value to Portugal. Filled with the notion of recapturing the useless places which his grandfather had evacuated, such as Alcacer Seguier, Azamor, Arzila, and Cafim, King Sebastian in his twentieth year, in 1574, suddenly made up his mind to sail across to Africa. The expedition partook rather of the nature of a reconnaissance than of a serious campaign. The king spoke only of a visit to Tangier, and started off suddenly with his guards and courtiers from a hunting excursion, ordering the Duke of Aveiro to follow with a force of four hundred cavalry and one thousand two hundred infantry. With these troops Dom Sebastian made a few raids, and exhibited his personal courage by uselessly exposing his person, and he returned more bent than ever on a great war in Africa, which was to end in the Portuguese conquest of Morocco, and the acquisition of everlasting fame for its leader as a brave “soldier of the Cross.”

Before entering on the history of this expedition, which was to end so disastrously, and strike a last and final blow at the declining power of Portugal, it would be as well to see how the Portuguese dominion in Asia had been faring during the regencies of Queen Catherine and the Cardinal Henry, and during the earlier part of Sebastian’s own tenure of power. Dom Constantino de Braganza, the friend of the poet Camoens, had succeeded Francisco Barreto, the enemy of the poet, in 1558, the year after the death of John III., and had distinguished his viceroyalty by the capture of Daman. He was a truly great governor, although he permitted the Inquisition to be established at Goa, and his high rank gave him an ascendency not possessed by previous viceroys. His conduct was so blameless and his power so wisely exercised that the queen-regent begged him to accept the viceroyalty for life. He refused, and at the end of his three years of office resigned and was succeeded by Dom Francisco Coutinho, Count of Redondo, a nobleman of high character, who died in office, and was succeeded first by João de Mendonça, and then by Dom Antonio de Noronha, who took the important city of Mangalore by assault. During his viceroyalty in 1565 occurred the battle of Talikot, in which the powerful Hindu kingdom of Vijayanagar, which embraced the greater part of Southern India was overthrown by the Mohammedan kings of Ahmadābād, Bīdar, and Bijápur, and the way prepared for the extension of the Mohammedan power over Southern India. The next viceroy, Dom Luis de Athaide, was specially selected by King Sebastian himself in 1568, and he certainly justified the choice of the boy-king and his advisers. The Mohammedan kings of the Deccan were full of delight at their great victory of Talikot, and Alī Adìl Shah, king of Bijápur, believed he could expel the Portuguese from his dominions. With this intention he collected a vast army of one hundred thousand men, recruited from various adventurers of the Mohammedan religion, and laid siege to Goa in 1570. The city was being ravaged by a pestilence, but nevertheless the defence was a gallant one—the last great feat of arms of the Portuguese in India. The siege lasted ten months, and ended in the discomfiture of the besiegers and their final defeat in a pitched battle beneath the walls of Goa, when a victory was won, second only to that of Dom João de Castro at Diu, twenty-five years before. On his return to Portugal, Dom Luis de Athaide was received with the greatest favour by King Sebastian, who created him Count of Atouguia, and also by the people of Lisbon, who gave him the greatest reception vouchsafed to any Indian governor on his return for many generations. King Sebastian then made an important alteration in the government of his Asiatic possessions. Hitherto all the petty governors from the Cape of Good Hope to Japan had been subject to the Governor-General or the Viceroy at Goa, an extent of command which caused many serious inconveniences. In 1571 this vast extent of land and sea was divided into three separate governorships. The new viceroy, Dom Antonio de Noronha, was to be supreme from Cape Guardafui to Ceylon with his capital at Goa, while Francisco Barreto was to govern the south-east coast of Africa with his headquarters at Mozambique, and Antonio Moniz Barreto was to rule from Pegu to China with his capital at Malacca. Antonio Moniz Barreto succeeded as viceroy in 1573, and Dom Diogo de Menezes in 1576; and in 1578, the very year in which King Sebastian met his fate, his faithful servant, Dom Luis de Athaide, became viceroy for the second time, and it is said that the defeat of his sovereign broke the heart of the defender of Goa and caused his untimely death.

The expedition which was to meet with such a disastrous termination had long been contemplated by Sebastian, but its despatch was hastened by the state of affairs in Morocco itself, which seemed to the king most propitious for the success of his enterprise. The empire of Morocco had been divided between two brother Sherīfs, as the rulers of that country were termed, in the early part of the sixteenth century. The younger of the brothers, Maulā[20] Mohammed, beheaded his senior, Maulā Ahmed, and was in his turn assassinated in 1556. The successor to the throne, Maulā Abdallah, murdered two of his brothers and was succeeded by his illegitimate son, Maulā Ahmed ibn Abdallah, the “Muly Hamet” of old English writers. At this, the brother of the late Maulā Abdallah, Abd-el-Melik, commonly known as Muley Moloch, fled to Constantinople and, with the help of the Turks, ousted his nephew, Maulā Ahmed. The defeated usurper then decided to make an application for Christian help, and when refused asylum by Philip II., of Spain, he appealed to Dom Sebastian. This was the opportunity the young king had longed for, and when Maulā Ahmed promised to hold the crown of Morocco as a vassal of the King of Portugal, Sebastian enthusiastically welcomed him and promised him assistance. The wiser statesmen of Portugal pointed out that the strength of Portugal in men and arms was in Asia, and that it was impossible to attempt such an enterprise as the invasion of Morocco without foreign help. Sebastian therefore sent embassies asking for help from the Pope, and from his uncle, Philip II. of Spain. Pope Gregory XIII. sent him an arrow of S. Sebastian and nothing else, but the arrangements with Philip II. were more important. The minister Pedro de Alçaçova Carneiro was sent in person to the King of Spain to ask for troops and ships, in recognition of which Dom Sebastian would marry a Spanish infanta. Philip opposed the project strongly, but eventually promised five thousand men and fifty galleys to assist in an attack on Larache (El Araish), an offer which he afterwards withdrew, when the Duke of Alva assured him that at least fifteen thousand veteran soldiers would be necessary. In December, 1576, Sebastian had an interview in person with his uncle, when Philip II. again opposed his nephew’s mad idea, and he is reported to have said when his efforts proved in vain, “If he win, we shall have a good son-in-law; if he lose, a good kingdom.”

VIEW UP THE DOURO TOWARDS OPORTO. (After a drawing by J. Gibbs of Bath.)

Dom Sebastian then decided to have all the glory of conquering Morocco for himself, and his hopes reached their height when Maulā Ahmed managed to buy over the Kaid of Arzila and handed over that place, one of those surrendered by John III., to the Portuguese monarch. Maulā Abd-el-Melik, who was in bad health, tried to dissuade his rash opponent from attacking him, and in a letter pointed out that he was the rightful Sherīf of Morocco. He even went further, and offered to the young king a district of ten miles round each of the Portuguese towns—Tangier, Ceuta, Mazagon and Arzila—if he would give up supporting the usurper. Never might the hackneyed line of Horace be quoted with more justice than in regard to the rash young Christian monarch:

“Quem Deus vult perdere, prius dementat.”

No amount of opposition could check the king’s ardour; he believed himself already surpassing in glory both John “the Great” and Affonso “the African,” and proceeded to raise money in every possible way. The treasury was nearly empty owing to peculation and bad management, and it was filled by imposing new taxes, by further harrying the converted Jews, and by partial bankruptcy. As the country was nearly drained of men the king had to hire mercenaries belonging to different nations, who were not properly equipped, and he never seemed to realize the difference between an expedition to take a sea-side town and the invasion of a powerful empire. If Affonso V. had met with difficulty in taking Tangier, how could Sebastian hope to penetrate to Fez, seventy miles up the country? Dom Sebastian trusted too much to the promised help of Maulā Ahmed; he believed other cities would yield as quickly as Arzila; and he had been thoroughly convinced by the expelled usurper that his uncle Maulā Abd-el-Melik was not only hated in Morocco, but enfeebled by illness; and that his offers of peace were dictated by fear.

The preparations made for the campaign were ridiculous in the extreme; all the most experienced generals and most tried Portuguese soldiers were in India, and the Portuguese troops who were enlisted consisted of a few old veterans whose time had expired in Asia, and of youthful raw recruits. These latter were not in the least disciplined, and were officered by young courtiers, who may have been brave, and were certainly inexperienced. The king himself intended to take the command in person, and instead of making plans for the conduct of the campaign and looking after his troops, he spent his time in borrowing the sword of King Affonso Henriques from the convent of Santa Cruz at Coimbra, and in having a banner worked in which the arms of Portugal were for the first time surmounted by an imperial crown. This banner was solemnly blessed by the archbishop in the cathedral of Lisbon on the 14th of June, and the king then considered that all was ready.

On the 24th of June, 1578, King Sebastian set sail with a fleet of fifty ships of war and about nine hundred transports under the command of the Admiral of Portugal, Dom Diogo de Sousa, carrying fifteen thousand infantry, two thousand four hundred cavalry, and thirty-six guns. Of this army only about ten thousand were Portuguese, the rest consisting of Spanish and German volunteers and mercenaries, and of nine hundred Italians, under the command of a gallant Englishman, Sir Thomas Stukeley. This well-known English Catholic, who had been created Marquis of Leinster by the Pope, had been stopped with his soldiers by Sebastian while on his way to raise an insurrection in Ireland against Elizabeth. In spite of the desperate hurry in which he had been to start, Sebastian made no attempt to hasten his passage and try the effects of a surprise. He first stopped at Lagos in the Algarves, then at Cadiz, where he was sumptuously entertained by the Duke of Medina Sidonia, and did not reach Tangier until July 6th. He was there met by his Mohammedan ally, Maulā Ahmed, who handed over his son as a hostage, but who only brought eight hundred Moors instead of the army which he had promised. Sebastian at first amused himself with hunting, while his opponent was concentrating his forces, and then repulsed a few Moors in a skirmish, which he magnified into a victory. From Tangier he suddenly carried his army to Arzila, where he encamped beneath the walls and wasted time. At last he determined to hold a council of war to decide in what way the army should attack Larache; Maulā Ahmed wisely suggested by sea, so as to have the advantage of a convenient means of retreat to the ships, but Sebastian answered the Moorish prince so rudely that he left the council, and the king decided to march by land. Even at this last moment Maulā Abd-el-Melik offered to cede Larache to Sebastian if he would cease his military operations, but the rash young king returned no answer whatever, and the Sherīf of Morocco, finding all his efforts for peace repulsed, determined to crush the invader.

On the 29th of July the march inland, away from the cool breezes off the sea, was commenced under the burning sky of an African summer; the soldiers were soon maddened by hunger, thirst, and heat, and by the incessant attacks of the Moorish skirmishers; and the army was dispirited before a battle took place. These miseries continued for five days, until August 3rd, when the Portuguese had some success in a skirmish, and Dom Sebastian took up what he considered a strong position near the little town of Alcacer Quibir, or more correctly El-Kasr el-Kebīr. The position was from a military point of view utterly indefensible, for both flanks were exposed, and Maulā Abd-el-Melik, who was now face to face with the Christians with an army of forty thousand cavalry and fifteen thousand infantry saw that the Portuguese king was lost. At daybreak on the 4th of August, 1578, the battle commenced with some brilliant charges on the part of the Portuguese, but in a short time the wings of the Moorish army, which were entirely composed of cavalry, overlapped the small Christian army, and for four hours the army of Dom Sebastian was compelled to defend itself. The result of the continued charges of the Moorish cavalry could not be doubtful, and at the end of the four hours’ fighting nearly the whole of the Christian army was cut to pieces. The Moorish monarch, Maulā Abd-el-Melik, had been in the agonies of death when the battle commenced, and died in his litter from the exertion of trying to mount his horse at the first charge of the Christians, placing his finger on his lip as a sign that his death should be kept secret for a time. His rival, Maulā Ahmed, was drowned in crossing the Wed or Wady M’Hassan, and his brother, Ahmed ibn Mohammed, was declared king by the soldiers at the conclusion of the battle. The slaughter was terrible; more than nine thousand Christians were killed, and all the rest, except about fifty, were taken prisoners. Sir Thomas Stukeley, after gallantly defending himself, was killed, with many of the chief Portuguese nobles and prelates, including Dom Jaymé, brother of the sixth Duke of Braganza, the Duke of Aveiro, who had commanded the cavalry, and the bishops of Coimbra and Oporto, while among the prisoners were the Duke of Barcellos and Dom Duarte de Menezes, Quarter-Master-General of the army.

Dom Sebastian throughout the battle behaved himself as a gallant knight, though he had not been a prudent general, and when the fortunes of the day went against him he determined to lose his life also. Many accounts are given of his death. One tradition says that he was taken prisoner by some Moors, who stripped him of his arms, and began to quarrel about him, and that a Mohammedan general rode in amongst them, and shouting out, “What, you dogs, when God has given you so glorious a victory, would you cut each other’s throats about a prisoner,” immediately struck the King of Portugal down in ignorance of his rank. Another story is that the king met Dom Luis de Brito with the consecrated banner wrapped around him, and said, “Hold it fast, let us die upon it;” and that when, after fierce fighting, Brito was taken prisoner with the banner, he saw the king riding away unpursued. Dom Luis de Lima also asserted that he saw the king making his way towards the river unhurt. According to the most trustworthy account, Christovão de Tavora, the king’s equerry, showed a flag of truce, and offered to surrender with the fifty horsemen, who still remained about the king, when Sebastian suddenly dashed on the Moorish cavalry, who, irritated at this breach of faith, instantly slew him, as well as the brave equerry, who followed his master. Anyhow, it is certain that the new Sherīf Ahmed ibn Mohammed sent out Sebastião de Resende, a gentleman of the bedchamber, to discover the corpse of the king, and that a naked body was brought in covered with wounds, which the Portuguese prisoners at once recognized as that of the ill-fated Dom Sebastian. The body was temporarily buried in the palace at Alcacer Quibir, and removed in the following September to Ceuta, at the request of Cardinal Henry. It was eventually taken to Portugal in 1582, by the orders of Philip II., and buried with great pomp in the church of St. Jerome at Belem.

It is important to lay stress on this subject, because for many years the lower classes of the Portuguese people refused to believe that their sovereign was dead, a belief encouraged by the stratagem of a wounded noble on the evening of the fatal battle to gain admission into the city of Tangier by asserting that he was the king. It was this belief which led to the acceptance of the successive false Dom Sebastians, who played a part in the ensuing half century, and it had a still further influence upon the whole future of the Portuguese people. That the “Principe Encuberto” or Hidden Prince would appear again became a religion, and the sect of the Sebastianistas became a powerful body of fanatics. Their belief was fostered by the princes of the House of Braganza as patriotic, and whenever Portugal has been subject to a great strain, the Sebastianistas have always come to the front. Even at the present day they are not extinct, and Sir Richard Burton asserts that he has met with them in the interior of Brazil. It was this firm belief that gave point to the remark of Lord Tyrawley, in the English House of Lords in 1763: “What can one possibly do with a nation, one half of which expect the Messiah, and the other half their king, Dom Sebastian, who has been dead two hundred years?”

The news of the terrible disaster of Alcacer Quibir was brought to Lisbon by the Admiral Dom Diogo de Sousa, and occasioned the most passionate lamentation. There was not a noble family which had not lost more than one of its representatives, not a patriot who failed to see that ruin was staring his country in the face. Deprived of soldiers, resources, and reputation at one fell blow, the Portuguese nation seemed stunned at the extent of its calamity. Even in India the same alarm was felt, and it is said that the brave Viceroy, Dom Luis de Athaide, died of a broken heart at the news. The Cardinal Henry was solemnly crowned king, but he was a feeble old man of sixty-six, who had to be fed like a baby, and he was quite incapable of facing the situation. He utterly refused to acknowledge any successor, or to express any opinion on the subject, and when he died on January 31, 1580, the Cortes which had been summoned to decide this important question was still sitting at Lisbon. With him ended for a time the separate existence of the Portuguese nation, and it is significant and interesting to observe that Camoens, the great national poet of Portugal, the poet who had immortalized its heroic epoch, died in a hospital of semi-starvation a few months before or after the Cardinal-king. It was well he did not live longer, for Portugal was to enter on the period of its “Sixty-Years’ Captivity,” and her proud sons, who had the patriotism of a Camoens in their hearts, would not have been able to bear the burden of subjection to a foreign king.

XII.

PORTUGUESE LITERATURE—CAMOENS.

IT has always been the case in the history of a nation which can boast of a golden age, that the epoch of its greatest glory is that in which its literature chiefly flourished. The energies of a nation at its zenith cannot be bounded by the vastest schemes of conquest, but develop in other directions as well. It was so with Portugal. The age which witnessed the careers of its famous captains and conquerors was also the age of its greatest poets and prose writers. The establishment of the Inquisition soon checked the progress of Portuguese literature, but before its fatal power had time to thoroughly stifle free thought, and before the disaster of Alcacer Quibir, and the annexation of the country by Philip II. of Spain, Portugal had been able to produce many great writers, and one of the most supremely-gifted poets the world has ever seen, Luis de Camoens.

The affection which the first princes of the house of Aviz had felt for literature, and especially for purely national literature, has been alluded to, and the natural result is to be seen in the works of the early poets, and of the eloquent chroniclers of the fifteenth century. The honour given by these princes to literary endeavour heightened its importance in the eyes of the people, and raised the whole standard of education. The Portuguese were therefore prepared to take advantage of the stores of knowledge revealed by the revival of classical learning, and to profit greatly by it. Ayres Barbosa, a native of Aveiro, was the first to introduce the study of ancient Greek into the peninsula; he had listened to the lectures of Politian and his contemporaries at Florence, and after teaching “the humanities” at the University of Salamanca for about twenty years from 1495, he returned to Portugal as tutor to the younger sons of King Emmanuel. His most distinguished Portuguese pupil was, however, Andrea de Resende, the antiquary, who was one of the professors at the University of Coimbra, during the epoch of its greatest reputation, and is well known as the friend and correspondent of Erasmus.

This university,[21] at which the most famous authors and statesmen of Portugal received their education, deserves some slight notice here. A university was founded by King Diniz at Lisbon in 1300, but the turbulence of the students, and their perpetual quarrels with the citizens, caused him to remove it to Coimbra, about the year 1308. During the fourteenth century the habitat of the Portuguese university was moved from Coimbra to Lisbon in 1338, from Lisbon to Coimbra in 1354, and from Coimbra back to Lisbon in 1377. John “the Great” paid great attention to the university, as he did to every valuable institution in the kingdom; and in 1400 he entirely remodelled it, establishing a staff of fourteen regius professors, four of whom were to teach grammar, three Roman law, three canon law, two logic, one medicine, and one theology. On this footing the Portuguese university remained until 1537, when John III., perceiving that the busy pursuits of a noisy capital were hardly suited to quiet study and the acquisition of learning, removed it finally to the beautiful city of Coimbra, and once more changed its constitution. In 1547 the king summoned Andrea Govea back to his native land, and requested him to bring with him other men of learning. Andrea Govea and his brothers were famous as scholars throughout Europe, even in the days which could boast of Scaliger; they were all natives of Beja, and had been educated at Paris; Martial Govea, the eldest, wrote one of the earliest Latin grammars, published at Paris in 1534; Antonio Govea argued the cause of Aristotle against Ramus, edited Virgil and Terence, and was held to be the most formidable rival of Cujas as an exponent of Roman law; while Andrea had been principal of the College of St. Barbe, rector of the University of Paris, and afterwards principal of the College of Guienne at Bordeaux, and was termed by Montaigne, “le plus grand principal de France.”[22] Andrea Govea brought with him to Coimbra, as requested, many of his friends and colleagues, including George Buchanan, the greatest scholar Scotland has ever produced, Patrick Buchanan, his elder brother, Arnoldus Fabricius and Elias Vinetus, learned Frenchmen, and his own countrymen, Diogo de Tieve, João da Costa, and Antonio Mendes. This brilliant band did not, however, long remain united, for Andrea Govea died in 1548, and his death was followed by the persecution of George Buchanan by the Inquisition. The illustrious scholar was accused of eating flesh in Lent, and of writing a poem against the Franciscans, and after being imprisoned in a convent he was only too glad to escape from the inhospitable country. Though the death of Govea, and the persecution of Buchanan, deprived the remodelled university of its most famous teachers, there yet remained a sufficient number with such coadjutors as Jeronymo Osorio, Bishop of Silves, Andrea de Resende, and Pedro Nunes, the mathematician, to make this the golden age of the University of Coimbra; and the instruction they imparted profoundly impressed the minds of their most promising young Portuguese pupils, such as Ferreira and Camoens.

The result of the introduction of a knowledge of the masterpieces of classical literature was bound to have a great effect upon the development of Portuguese poetry and prose, but before noticing the result of that influence in the works of the “classicists,” headed by Sá de Miranda and Ferreira, and in the epic of Camoens, it is necessary to devote a little space to the life and works of the greatest Portuguese dramatist, Gil Vicente. The versatility of the Portuguese people during the heroic period is in no way better illustrated than by the fact that in their country appeared the first modern dramatist, nearly a century before Shakespeare or Calderon. The date of Gil Vicente’s birth is unknown, but it is said that he came of a good family, and he is first found attached to the Court of Emmanuel as a dramatic author. He began by writing “autos” or religious pieces, resembling in their nature the miracle plays common all over Europe at the time, and the first, which attracted King Emmanuel’s attention, was written to celebrate the birth of his eldest son, afterwards John III. Most of them are Christmas pieces, and the dramatist took advantage of the story of the shepherds watching their flocks by night, to introduce the elements of what may be called pastoral comedy. Far more important are his comedies and farces, which latter won for him the title of the Portuguese Plautus. Neither the plots nor the language of these productions are very refined, but they are full of dramatic vigour, and represent the life of the lower classes in Lisbon, with a vividness which strikingly recalls the works of his Roman prototype. Gil Vicente died at Evora in 1557, the same year as his patron, John III., who, in his younger days, did not disdain to act in his favourite’s dramas, and he has had no successor as a comic writer worthy to be named beside him, which proves once again, how thoroughly with the extinction of the national greatness, the originality of the Portuguese people in every direction disappeared.

Side by side with Gil Vicente must be mentioned Bernardim Ribeiro, the founder of the most national school of Portuguese poetry, that of the romantic-pastoral type. Though he showed the influence of the revival of classical learning in his style, he did not show it in his ideas, and the shepherds who converse in his eclogues, are as thoroughly Portuguese as those who appear in Gil Vicente’s Christmas “autos.” Ribeiro, like Gil Vicente, was a favourite at the Court of King Emmanuel, where he held the office of “Gentleman of the Chamber,” and it is said that the lady for whom he cherished a hopeless affection was the Donna Beatrice, daughter of the king. A modern writer on Portuguese literature, speaking of Ribeiro and his works, says: “The rivers and mountains of his native land are the natural framework of a poet’s fancy, and the revival of classical learning showed him in the Eclogues of Virgil a model, which he was not slow to imitate. His Eclogues, written in ‘redondilhas’ (octosyllabic nine or ten-lined stanzas), are the earliest in modern Europe, and while replete with the charms and conceits of versification of the troubadours, show a truly poetic love of nature.”[23] Ribeiro was the first true Portuguese poet, as Gil Vicente was the first Portuguese dramatist. While coming under the influence of the classical writers of Greece and Rome, he was not a slavish imitator of their master-pieces, and as the founder of the school of pastoral poetry, he holds an honourable place in the Portuguese literature of the heroic age.

Ribeiro exhibits in his poetry the influence of the revival of classical learning to a slight degree; after his time that influence increased, and his successors, who bridged over the chasm between Ribeiro and Camoens, were thorough classicists, who imitated the Greek and Roman poets, not only in form, but in spirit. The chief poets of this classicist group were Sá de Miranda and Ferreira. Francisco Sá de Miranda was born at Coimbra, the Portuguese Oxford, in 1495, of a noble family, and he became professor of jurisprudence in his native town. On the death of his parents, he resigned his professorship, and travelled in Italy, where he studied the works not only of the great classical authors, but of the new school of Italian poets. He returned to his native country with a great reputation, and received an appointment at the Court of John III. He proved an accomplished courtier, but a quarrel with a Portuguese nobleman forced him to abandon his office, and he retired to his country seat at Tapada, near Ponte de Lima, where he died in 1558, while Camoens was still fighting in India. It was in Italy and not in Coimbra, that he learnt to study the great classical poets, and reverencing their works with the almost superstitious admiration of the Italians of the Renaissance, he dared not treat their ideas with the freedom of either Ribeiro or Camoens. Sá de Miranda devoted himself to the task of polishing the Portuguese language, and in doing this, he did more harm than good, for he introduced many Latin and Spanish forms of expression, which were not needed, and which helped to hinder the natural development of the national literature. He openly expressed his opinion that Spanish was a more dignified language than Portuguese, and many of his best poems are written in the former tongue, and are considered by authorities on Spanish literature to be excellent specimens of sixteenth-century work. Sá de Miranda’s poems comprise imitations of many poets. He wrote eclogues in the style of Theocritus, epistles on the lines of those of Horace, plays based on Terence, and sonnets of which the form was borrowed from the Italian writers of the Renaissance. All are good and interesting in their way, but all are imitations, and the very best imitations of foreign styles can hardly rank a poet among the glories of his country’s literature. Sá de Miranda’s right to be included in any work on Portuguese literature is not due to the poems he wrote, or to his questionable improvements in his native language, but to the fact that he familiarized the people with the classic forms of poetry, of which a greater than he was to take advantage. Yet Sá de Miranda held a very high place in the estimation of his contemporaries, and the writers of the next century did not hesitate to rank him above Camoens, as being more “correct,” a criticism, which irresistibly recalls Voltaire’s avowed preference of Pope over Shakespeare.

Antonio Ferreira, the second leader of the Portuguese classicist school, was like Sá de Miranda, a slavish adherent to classical forms, but he was at the same time a genuine patriot and a lover of his country, and a student of its past history. He, like Sá de Miranda, was of a noble family, and he was born at Lisbon in 1528. He was sent to the University of Coimbra, and studied there in the days of its greatness. His favourite teacher was Diogo de Tieve, the friend of George Buchanan, and professor of classical literature, from whom he obtained a knowledge of the classics, not inferior to that possessed by Sá de Miranda. Even in his youth, Ferreira determined to devote his poetical talent to works in his own language, and he refused to write Latin or Spanish verses. He formed round him at Coimbra, a school of young poets, of whom the chief were Andrade Caminha, Jeronymo Corte-Real, and Diogo Bernardes; and in 1557 he published his first volume of poems. This book established his fame, and on coming to Lisbon, he was appointed a judge of the Court of Appeal, and a gentleman of the Royal Household. He continued to write and publish until his death from the plague in 1569, the year before Camoens returned from India. Ferreira, like Sá de Miranda, was an imitator of the great classical poets, but he differed from his predecessor, in that he combined with this predilection, an appreciation of the national greatness. He wrote sonnets after the manner of Petrarch, elegies after Ariosto, eclogues after Virgil, and odes and epistles after Horace; but his greatest work was a drama founded on the model of the ancient Greek tragedies. He selected for his subject the touching story of Ines de Castro, and the characters in his play are Ines and her nurse, Dom Pedro and his secretary, King Affonso and his three counsellors, a messenger, and a chorus of women of Coimbra. Ferreira’s tragedy, though more fit for the study than the stage, remains to this day the finest drama in the Portuguese language, and stands almost as far as above other dramatic attempts of subsequent ages, as Camoens’s great epic towers above all imitations.

The history of the development of the revival of learning, as illustrated by the classicist school of Sá de Miranda and Ferreira, is of great importance to the right understanding of the course of Portuguese literature, but to the world at large its chief interest lies in its share in forming the taste of the one man, whom Portugal has contributed to the small roll of supreme poets, Camoens. His name is more famous than that of any other Portuguese, whether king or captain; his great epic has been translated into every civilized European language, and is a greater subject of pride to his countrymen than their conquests in the East; and no “Story of Portugal” could be complete which did not give some account of the poet who has given immortal fame to the heroic deeds of the great age of Portugal.

LUIS DE CAMOENS.
(From the Portrait in “Portugal Illustrated,” 1829.)

Luis de Camoes, commonly called in English Camoens, was the son of a captain in the Portuguese navy, who had more than once experienced the perils of the voyage to India, and he was born at Lisbon in either 1524 or 1525. His family was noble, but by no means among the first rank of the Portuguese nobility in wealth or importance. He was educated at the University of Coimbra, before it had been revivified by the energy and learning of Govea and his friends, and there acquired a profound knowledge of the Latin poets, and of the symbolism and the legends of the Greek and Latin mythology. He seems to have left the university, which he ever dearly loved, before the arrival of Diogo de Tieve, and the foundation of what may be called the national-classicist school of poetry by Ferreira, and went to Lisbon to obtain employment. His poetical powers soon became manifest, and he had become somewhat of a favourite, when he fell in love with a great lady of the Court, said to be the Donna Catherine de Athaide, lady of honour to the queen. The lady’s friends were indignant at the poet’s suit, and at their request he was exiled to the little town of Ceuta, on the coast of Morocco, where he lost his right eye in a skirmish with the Moors. Wearied of this life he volunteered for India, the goal of every gallant Portuguese gentleman, and after serving a term in prison for a street brawl in Lisbon, he set sail for the East in 1553. In Asia, Camoens remained for more than sixteen years, and it was there that he gathered the local knowledge which gives truth and charm to many passages of his immortal poem. In 1554 he served in the Red Sea and at the capture of Muscat under Dom Fernando de Menezes, and soon after his return to Goa he was ordered to take up a lucrative appointment at Macao, in 1556. Here he remained for two years, and the chief glory of the little island off Canton is the cave where he is supposed to have worked on his epic, and which is still known as the “Grotto of Camoens.” From Macao he was recalled in 1558, when in spite of his poverty he was thrown into gaol at Goa for peculation, and he was not released until the arrival of an old court acquaintance, Dom Constantino de Braganza, as Viceroy of India. With this prince, he served at the capture of Daman, and he distinguished himself in various engagements under the next governor-general, the Count of Redondo. In 1568 Camoens determined to return to Portugal with his great poem for his only fortune, but on his way, disaster again overtook him, and in 1569 he was thrown into an African prison for debt, by Pedro Barreto, Governor of Mozambique. From this cruel confinement, he was released by some old friends on their way from India, who paid the debt, and in 1570 he once more found himself in Lisbon. His reception in his native land was not encouraging; he was not received at Court; he had made no money in India, and had only shown a peculiar faculty for getting into debt and making enemies; and he now devoted himself to the final recension of his “Lusiads.” The first edition of the great poem was published in 1572, but the fame it at once acquired did little good to the author, who was only granted a pension of £3 8s. 0d. a year, equivalent perhaps to £20 in modern money. The later years of Camoens were utterly miserable; poor and neglected, the arch-poet of Portugal had to subsist upon what his Javan slave could beg for him at night in the streets of Lisbon. He lived long enough to hear of the disaster of Alcacer Quibir, and of the death of Dom Sebastian, but he was spared the pain of seeing the Spaniards ruling over the fatherland whose glories he had sung, for he died in a common hospital at Lisbon in June, 1579, or June, 1580.

These are the chief incidents in the life of one of the world’s greatest poets, and they tell their own tragic story without need of a commentary. It serves no good purpose to speculate why Camoens was ever in debt and making enemies, or why he was neglected and left to die in poverty; other poets and men of letters have shared the same lot. It remains rather to examine the causes which make his epic take rank among the works which the unanimous opinion of posterity has decreed to be immortal. Of his sonnets, eclogues, and smaller poems, beautiful as many of them are, there is no need to speak, for it is on his “Lusiads” that the fame of Camoens must ever rest. The subject of the epic is Vasco da Gama’s first voyage to India and his return, an achievement of such surpassing difficulty, and of such importance alike to Portugal and to Europe, that Camoens perceived its fitness for poetical treatment. But the poem is not confined to the narration of the perils of the voyage only: it abounds in long episodes, in one of which Vasco da Gama relates the history of the Portuguese people to the king of Melinda, while in another a nymph gives a prophetic history to the great admiral of the achievements of his country-men in the land he had just visited. Sir Robert Walpole is said to have declared that he derived his knowledge of English history from Shakespeare’s historical plays, and it might be affirmed in the same sense that many, if not most, educated people have learned what they know of Portuguese history from the “Lusiads.” Such a knowledge is not to be despised. For, if the poet makes the mistakes of his era, and, for instance, identifies the modern Portuguese with the ancient Lusitanians, he manages in a few stanzas apiece to sum up with dramatic genius all the famous tales of Portuguese history, such as the voluntary surrender of Egas Moniz, the pathetic story of Ines de Castro, and the glories of the victory of Aljubarrota. This power of historical description is of itself enough to make Camoens the national poet of Portugal; every old Portuguese family finds its name enshrined in some of its glowing passages, and the whole Portuguese people feel identified with the actors in the great deeds it describes. But Camoens is not only a national poet; he is a hero telling of an heroic deed done by an heroic people, and this secures for him the interest of readers of all nations, who can appreciate true heroism. Vasco da Gama was a Portuguese sailor, but the results of his enterprise and success were to the advantage of all Europe, and the poet who sings of him deserved to be heard by Europe. If, then, the subject was fitted for epic poetry, the style of Camoens was equal to it. He rises far above the purely classicist school in Portuguese literature; he uses the names of the Roman gods, and narrates their councils and their intervention in mundane affairs with the verisimilitude of Virgil, yet he never falls into a base or servile imitation of the great Latin poet, but preserves throughout the cast of thought of a Portuguese “conquistador.” To criticize the “Lusiads” further is without the purpose of this book, but in conclusion it must be pointed out that the great poem remains the strongest bond of union between the modern Portuguese people, whether in Portugal itself, or in Brazil, Goa, Macao, and Mozambique. It is impossible to meet an educated Portuguese, who does not know his Camoens; he is more to them than Dante to the Italians, Goethe to the Germans, or Shakespeare to the English; he sings of their nation’s glory, and in maintaining his fame, each one of them is interested. Never was this more manifest than in the Camoens Celebration of 1880, when Portuguese-speaking people of all climes, and of all varieties of political and religious opinion, gathered together in Lisbon to do honour to the memory of their great poet, whose glory they felt to be a connecting link between them all.

JOÃO DE BARROS.
(From a Print in the British Museum.)

It was not only in the domain of poetry that the boundless energies of the Portuguese of the heroic age distinguished themselves; in prose composition, also, they stood high above their contemporaries of other nations. History, as might be expected, was their chief study, and João de Barros, the Portuguese Livy, was the writer who bridged over the gap between the old chroniclers, of whom Damião de Goes was the last, and the regular historians. This young nobleman, who was born in 1496, was distinguished at the Portuguese Court by his ardent study of the Latin historical writers, and especially of Livy, and was commissioned by King Emmanuel to draw up an account of the discoveries and conquests of the Portuguese in the East. John III. continued the royal patronage to João de Barros, who received many lucrative appointments, such as Captain-general of Brazil and treasurer of the Indian department at Lisbon. The latter post gave him the opportunity to collect valuable information on his subject, and he made good use of it. His “Asia” is written in exact imitation of the style of Livy; it is divided into decads and abounds in speeches which might have been, but certainly never were, delivered, and in curious theories, entirely without foundation. Nevertheless, João de Barros possesses the greatest quality of an historian, for he took pains in trying to ascertain the truth, and when he believed he had found it, he told his story simply and directly. He combines the naïve simplicity of the early chroniclers with the art of making a story interesting, and he deserves a niche in the history of Portuguese literature as the first writer of modern Portuguese prose. In fiction the “Amadis de Gaul” type of romance was followed by imitations of the “Palmeirim de Inghilterra;” both are alike tedious and absurd, and thoroughly deserve the hearty mockery of Cervantes, who laughed them and their school out of existence. Far more interesting, if also somewhat tedious, are the pastoral novels, which were originated by the poet Bernardim Ribeiro, and written with most success by Rodrigues Lobo, for they are truly national, and exhibit the love of nature, which is inherent in the Portuguese character.

Nor was more serious literary work neglected by the universally cultured Portuguese of the heroic age. Mention has been made of the great scholars, who made the University of Coimbra renowned, and who encouraged the study of the classics. Theological inquiry was also much favoured, and Francisco Ferrario, one of the divines at the Council of Trent, and Jeronymo de Azambuja, a learned Hebrew scholar, who wrote a commentary on the Bible, both held a high place in the estimation of their contemporaries. Among grammarians, the name of Manuel Alvares, a Jesuit, is honourably remembered, while scientific research was represented by the mathematician, Pedro Nunes, who was reckoned one of the wonders of his age. Lastly, Andrea de Resende, the greatest Portuguese antiquary, must be again noticed, for his “De Antiquitatibus Lusitaniæ” is a work of exceptional value, and contains a transcription of many Roman inscriptions, since destroyed.

Enough has been said to indicate how great and varied was the literary activity of the Portuguese during their golden age, and it is worthy of notice, that their literature was most abundant in great works at the very time in which their energies were most strained by their Asiatic conquests. It is matter for wonder, that one small nation could do so much, and in the “Lusiads” the key-note of their success is to be found. The Portuguese race, trained under great kings and great captains, believed itself to be invincible, and from that very belief it remained invincible for a time. When the illusion was shattered, the superabundant energy which it had fostered vanished completely. When once a nation has been conquered, and its belief in its invincibility is gone, its power withers away. The greatness of a nation depends upon the opinion its people have of themselves as individuals and members of the body politic; as long as they believe in themselves they can do anything; when their faith in their invincibility disappears, their position among nations speedily declines.

XIII.

THE SIXTY YEARS’ CAPTIVITY.

THE death of the Cardinal-King Henry brought the people of Portugal face to face with the problem which all had been discussing ever since the melancholy fate of Dom Sebastian. There were seven candidates for the throne, but only five of them need be seriously considered, for the claims of Pope Gregory XIII., as heir-general to a cardinal, and of Catherine de’ Medici, through the first marriage of Affonso III. to the Countess of Boulogne in the thirteenth century, need no further notice. The relationship of the other five claimants to Emmanuel “the Fortunate” can be best perceived from the table on the opposite page. From this table it clearly appears that the true heiress to the throne was Catherine, Duchess of Braganza, and failing her heirs, the Duke of Parma; and that the claims of Philip II. of Spain and of the Duke of Savoy were only legally valid in case of the extinction of the descendants of Dom Duarte or Edward, Duke of Guimaraens. The University of Coimbra, after due consideration, declared in favour of the Duchess of Braganza, but Philip II. of Spain cared little for this opinion; he had long hoped to sit upon the throne of Portugal, and to rule over the whole Iberian peninsula, and he wished still more to add the profits of the Portuguese trade with Asia to his own American revenues, and thus fill his exchequer with the sinews of war for his struggle against the Protestants of the north of Europe. Philip II. therefore set to work to win over the majority of the Cortes which had been convened at Lisbon, to settle the succession to the throne. Money and lavish promises assisted the eloquence of the two chief supporters of the King of Spain, Christovão de Moura and Antonio Pinheiro, Bishop of Leiria; and when the death of the cardinal-king was announced in January, 1580, the Cortes was quite ready to recognize Philip as king, although the people, or rather that small section of the people who were Portuguese patriots, felt and expressed all the traditional hatred against the union of the thrones of Spain and Portugal.

TABLE II. The Descendants of Emmanuel.

The death of King Henry hurried on matters, and Philip, in order to establish himself peacefully on the throne, entered into negotiations with the Duke of Braganza. The King of Spain solemnly promised the duke that he should have Brazil in full sovereignty with the title of king, and that a marriage should be arranged between his daughter and the Prince of the Asturias, heir to the conjoined thrones; and the duke, who hated war and loved peace, accepted these terms, in spite of his wife’s opposition. But, to the surprise of Philip, another competitor for the crown, to whom he had paid no attention—Dom Antonio, the Prior of Crato—declared himself king at Santarem, and, entering Lisbon without opposition, struck money and began to raise soldiers. This Dom Antonio was the son of Dom Luis, Duke of Beja, the second son of Emmanuel “the Fortunate,” by Violante de Gomes, surnamed “the Pelican,” one of the most beautiful women of her time. Dom Antonio alleged that his father was secretly married to his mother, and reminded the people, in a proclamation, that, even if the marriage were not legal, one of the greatest of all the kings of Portugal, the victor of Aljubarrota, was a bastard also. But the Portugal of the close of the sixteenth century, enervated by wealth and luxury, oppressed by the Inquisition, and with its free population reduced in numbers, possessed none of the energy of the Portugal of the fourteenth century, and felt no inclination to fight against the King of Spain, the son of the great Emperor Charles V., and the uncle and friend of their lamented monarch, Dom Sebastian. The brave, but hot-headed and noisy Prior of Crato could not be compared in warlike prowess or statesmanlike qualities to John of Aviz, and he had no “Holy Constable” to support him; and the Cortes of 1580, unlike that which in 1385 had listened to the manly words of João das Regras, and declared John “the Great” king of Portugal, listened to the promises of Christovão de Moura, and rejected the Prior of Crato. Dom Antonio raised a few soldiers, but the Duke of Alva who entered Portugal at the head of twenty thousand men, defeated them without difficulty at Alcantara on August 26th, when the pretender fled to France, and Philip II. was proclaimed king.

PHILIP II.

In 1581 Philip II. of Spain and I. of Portugal, as he now styled himself, solemnly entered Lisbon, and in the presence of a great Cortes held at Thomar he swore on April 15, 1581, that he and his successors would observe the following conditions, which had been settled by his agents. He swore that he would maintain the privileges and liberties of the Portuguese people; that the Cortes should be frequently summoned to meet in Portugal; that the viceroy or chief governor should always be a native, unless the king should give that charge to one of the royal family; that the royal household should be kept up on the same scale as hitherto; that all offices, civil, military, and judicial, and all dignities in the Church, and in the orders of knighthood, within the kingdom, should be conferred upon Portuguese subjects alone; that the commerce of Africa, Persia, and India should be reserved to them, and carried on only in their vessels; that he would make no royal grant of any city, town, or royal jurisdiction to any but Portuguese; that forfeited or lapsed estates should never be absorbed in the royal domain, but be regranted to some relative of the last possessor or to some other Portuguese subject; that the king should reside as much as possible in Portugal, and that, when he did come, he should not take the houses of private individuals for his officers, but observe the custom of Portugal; that there should be always resident at the royal court an ecclesiastic, a chancellor, a treasurer, and two masters of requests, of Portuguese birth and nationality, to manage all business relating to their country; that the revenue of Portugal should be kept distinct from that of Spain, and spent in the kingdom; that all matters of justice should be finally settled there; that Portuguese noblemen should be admitted to offices in the households of the King and Queen of Spain; that all customs duties at the land frontiers should be abolished; and that King Philip should at once grant three hundred thousand crowns out of his royal treasury to redeem prisoners, repair cities, and relieve the miseries which the plague had brought upon the Portuguese people. All these conditions Philip II. solemnly swore to observe, and he was in consequence recognized as King of Portugal, not only in Portugal itself, but in Brazil and the Indian settlements, where Fernão Telles had succeeded the viceroy, Dom Luis de Athaide, as governor-general.

The other candidates for the crown of Portugal were obliged to acquiesce in Philip’s success; the Duke of Braganza, though greatly disappointed at only receiving the office of Constable of Portugal and the Order of the Golden Fleece instead of the sovereignty of Brazil, was too apathetic to resist, and, in face of his apathy, the Dukes of Parma and Savoy were forced to surrender their claims, which were obviously inferior to those of the Duchess of Braganza. Only the Prior of Crato persisted in his attempts to win the throne from Philip by relying on the old dislike of the Portuguese people for the Spaniards. He was cordially received in France by Catherine de’ Medici, who, though Italian by birth, was true to the French policy of trying to weaken Spain; and through her influence a strong French fleet of sixty ships of war, with many troops on board, was sent, under the command of Philip Strozzi, to the Azores, which had recognized Dom Antonio in 1580 as king of Portugal, and had refused to acknowledge Philip. But the ill-luck of the Prior of Crato followed him; the French fleet was defeated at Terceira by the Spanish admiral, Don Alvaro de Bacam on July 26, 1582; Strozzi was killed, and Dom Antonio escaped with difficulty to England. There Elizabeth received him cordially, and in 1589, the year after the defeat of the Great Armada, she sent a strong fleet, under Sir Francis Drake and Sir John Norris, to help him win back his “kingdom.” This attempt also proved a failure; Maulā Ahmed ibn Mohammed of Morocco was prevented from advancing to the prior the loan of two hundred thousand crowns, which he had promised on receiving Dom Antonio’s son, Dom Christovão, as a hostage, by Philip’s timely surrender of Arzila; Drake and Norris quarrelled, and the English retired without effecting anything of importance. The unfortunate prior, finding that Elizabeth would do nothing more for him, once more went to France, where he died in great poverty and distress on August 26, 1595. He was buried in the Church of St. Germain l’Auxerrois at Paris, where the inscription on his tomb styles him “King of Portugal”; and he left several children behind him, who were not recognized as legitimate, owing to the fact that their father had taken a vow of chastity on becoming a Knight of Malta.

The attempts of the Prior of Crato did not affect the equanimity of Philip II.; he satisfied himself, when he entered his new kingdom, by making fifty-two exceptions to the general amnesty, which he had declared, including Dom Antonio himself and his chief adviser, the Bishop of Guarda. He returned to Spain shortly afterwards, leaving his nephew, the Cardinal-Archduke Albert as viceroy at Lisbon, with a strong guard of Spanish soldiers. The most interesting occurrences of the cardinal’s administration were the risings of the two first “false Dom Sebastians.” It has been said that the lower classes of the Portuguese people refused to believe that the young king was dead, and it was not long before impostors arose, who tried to make profit out of this credulity. The history of these impostors[24] is as curious in its way as those of the “False Smerdis,” the “False Demetrius,” and the pseudo-Louis XVII.s, and proves how strong a hold the memory of Dom Sebastian, in spite of his being a rash and foolhardy tyrant, had taken upon the minds of the Portuguese people. The first two of these impostors, who were mockingly called the “King of Pennamacor” and the “King of Ericeira” from the headquarters of their operations, were Portuguese of low birth, whose risings were easily put down. The original inventor of the idea was the son of a tiler of Alçobaça, named Sebastião Gonzales, who, after leading a profligate life, had retired to a hermitage near Pennamacor. From this retirement he emerged in July, 1584, and declared that he was King Sebastian; that he had escaped after the battle of Alcacer Quibir, and had since been praying in the hermitage, but that the miseries of his people had reached his ears, and he had determined to come forth to remedy them. He was accompanied by two men, who styled themselves Dom Christovão de Tavora and the Bishop of Guarda, and began to collect money in Pennamacor and the neighbourhood. The trio were speedily arrested and marched through the streets of Lisbon to show that they were impostors; and the false Sebastian was then sent to the galleys for life, and the pretended Bishop of Guarda was hanged. In the following year, one Mattheus Alvares, son of a mason at Ericeira, declared himself to be the lamented Dom Sebastian, to whom he bore a considerable personal resemblance, and solemnly promised to marry the daughter of Pedro Affonso, a rich farmer, whom he created Count of Torres Novas. His future father-in-law advanced the impostor a large sum of money, and he had raised a small corps of eight hundred fanatical followers, when the cardinal-archduke thought it necessary to send royal troops against him. The poor enthusiasts were defeated with much loss, and both the pretender and Pedro Affonso were hanged and quartered in Lisbon.

This severe punishment effectually checked the appearance of any fresh impostors in Portugal itself, and the populace, though firmly convinced that Dom Sebastian would one day appear again, were not to be deceived by any more pretenders.

But these stories had spread far beyond the limits of Portugal, and two more attempts to personate the deceased monarch were made in Spain and Italy. The first of these impostors was a handsome young man named Gabriel Espinosa, who bore a striking resemblance to the King of Portugal, and who was given out as Dom Sebastian by a Portuguese Jesuit, named Madujal, who introduced him to Donna Anna, a natural daughter of Don John of Austria, and induced her to believe in him. The whole scheme partook rather of the nature of a personal intrigue than of a political plot. Donna Anna, who was very wealthy, showered favours on the young man and his sponsor, and even advocated his claims to Philip II. The deception was, however, too obviously absurd to gain many supporters, and Espinosa and his clerical adviser were both executed in 1594. Far more curious is the story of Marco Tullio, a poor Calabrian peasant, who could not speak a word of Portuguese, but who nevertheless asserted that he was Dom Sebastian in 1603, twenty-five years after the disaster of Alcacer Quibir. His story was most carefully worked out, and his imposture ranks among the most extraordinary on record. He asserted that he was the king, and had saved his life and liberty by remaining on the battle-field among the dead bodies; that he had made his way into Portugal, and had given notice of his existence to the Cardinal-King Henry, who had sought his life; that he then returned to Africa, because he was unwilling to disturb the peace of the kingdom by a civil war, and travelled about in the garb of a penitent; that he next became a hermit in Sicily, and was on his way to Rome to declare himself to the Pope, when he was robbed by his servants, and obliged to find his way to Venice. When he told this elaborate tale at Venice, he got a few Portuguese residents there to believe in him, and was soon arrested in that city at the demand of the Spanish ambassador as an impostor and a criminal. He was several times examined, but stuck to his story so cleverly, and with such obstinacy, that the authorities, who were not sorry to embarrass the Spanish Government, refused to punish him as an impostor. The story of his claim spread so widely abroad, that the enemies of Spain became anxious to prove it true, and to set him up as a thorn in the side of Philip III. The Prince of Orange went so far as to send Dom Christovão, son of the Prior of Crato, to request the Venetian authorities to make further inquiries; but those prudent governors only held a solemn public examination, when the Calabrian told his tale again, and then expelled him from their dominions without expressing any opinion as to its truth. From Venice he went to Padua in the disguise of a monk, and thence to Florence, where the Grand Duke of Tuscany had him arrested and given up to the Spanish Viceroy at Naples. He was imprisoned in the Castle del Ovo, publicly exposed, and sent to the galleys; and as he made adherents even there, he was transferred to San Lucar, and eventually executed. The singular boldness of this imposture, and the tenacity with which the ignorant Calabrian stuck to his story, in spite of its evident falsity, make it memorable in the history of pretenders.

The “Sixty Years’ Captivity,” as the domination of Spain over Portugal from 1580 to 1640 is called, was a time of unexampled disaster for the country in every quarter, and the Portuguese, with their independence, seemed to have lost all their old courage and heroism. Under the administration of the Cardinal-Archduke Albert great efforts were made to send a powerful contingent to the fleet known as “The Great Armada,” and the destruction of this fleet by the English in 1588 ruined the naval power of Portugal. So low did the country fall, that it could not even defend its own ports, and in 1595 the English, under Sir Francis Drake, sacked the important city of Faro in the Algarves. As a portion of the Spanish dominions, Portugal had to suffer defeat from all the enemies of Spain. The foremost of these enemies were England and Holland, and the Dutch were the first nation to break down the Portuguese monopoly of the lucrative trade with Asia. This they did with the more ease, since, with the true commercial spirit, they not only imported merchandise from the East to Holland, but also distributed it through Dutch merchants to every country in Europe; whereas the Portuguese in the days of their commercial prosperity were satisfied with bringing over the commodities to Lisbon, and letting foreign nations come and fetch them. The incursion of the Dutch merchants into Asia was caused by the action of Philip II. in closing the port of Lisbon to them in 1594; and in 1595 Cornelius Houtman, a Dutchman, who had been employed by the Portuguese as a pilot in the Indian seas, and had afterwards been imprisoned by the Inquisition, led a Dutch fleet round the Cape of Good Hope for the first time.

But before studying the rapid manner in which, first, the Dutch, and then the English and other foreign nations, contended for a share in the Asiatic trade, and eventually destroyed the Portuguese power in the East, it is necessary to draw attention to the fact that this destruction did not commence until the beginning of the seventeenth century, and the reign of Philip III. The ruin of Portugal was indeed due to the policy of Philip II., whose enemies Holland and England consummated it; but it was hardly commenced in his reign, which ended in 1598. Indeed, during that period, when the power of Portugal was on the very point of extinction, its Asiatic trade, and more especially its Indian trade, was at its height.[25] Philip II. faithfully observed the promises he had made to the Cortes of Thomar in this respect. All the viceroys he appointed were Portuguese, and he made no attempt to intrude Spaniards into either official appointments or into the conduct of the Asiatic commerce. The Portuguese viceroys of his reign, Dom Francisco Mascarenhas, Dom Duarte de Menezes, Dom Manoel de Sousa Coutinho, Dom Mathias de Alboquerque, and Dom Francisco da Gama, were all able and enterprizing rulers, who increased the prestige of the Portuguese power throughout the East by many deeds of daring, and especially by the conquest of the King of Kandy in Ceylon. The yearly fleets increased in number; the peoples of the East had got accustomed to regard the Portuguese as invincible; and the wheels of administration, from long practice, ran smoothly. Especially active were the missionaries, principally Jesuits, in Asia, and their progress was forwarded rather than checked by the accession of Philip II. to the throne of Portugal. The bishopric of Goa was raised to an archbishopric in 1577, and suffragan bishops were appointed wherever the influence of the Portuguese spread, and it is curious to note that an important mission headed by Dom Luis de Sequeira, consecrated Bishop of Japan, and Father Alexandra de Valignano, was despatched to Japan to 1598 and had much success.[26] But though the authorities of the Roman Catholic Church in Asia paid much attention to preaching the gospel among the distant peoples of the East, in India they were chiefly occupied in persecuting the Nestorian Christians on the Malabar coast with the help of the Inquisition. These Nestorian Christians were especially obnoxious to the orthodox Catholics, who got the Portuguese to prevent the arrival of any consecrated Nestorian bishop in India by blockading the coast, and who solemnly condemned the doctrines of the Nestorians in the famous synod of Diamper (Udayampura) held by Archbishop Alexis de Menezes in 1599. The history of the work of the Jesuits in India at this time is peculiarly interesting; the keynote to their policy is contained in the following words: “The Christian religion cannot be regarded as naturalized in a country, until it is in a position to propagate its own priesthood;”[27] and it must be remembered that the credit of their activity must not be attributed to Portuguese priests alone, for Jesuits of all nations cooperated in the work of evangelization, and among them should be noted Thomas Stephens, an Englishman and rector of the Jesuit college at Salsette. In preaching, teaching, and writing these early Jesuit missionaries were equally able, and it is recorded that the first book printed in India was printed by the Jesuits at Cochin in 1570. In opposition to this activity must be noted the terrible severity of the Inquisition at Goa, which stained the labours of these early missionaries with blood.

FIGURES OF MEN AT AN AUTO DA FÉ.
(From “Les Royaumes d’Espagne,” &c. La Haye, 1720.)

The last twenty years of the sixteenth century, comprised in the reign of Philip II., from 1580 to 1598, mark the height of the wealth and power of the Portuguese in the East, but their fall into nothingness there during the reigns of Philip III. and Philip IV. was as rapid as their success had been astounding. The first great blows were struck by the Dutch merchants, whose ships were sent out at their own expense, and in no way protected by the State. In 1597 two years after Houtman had led a Dutch fleet round the Cape, the Dutch established a factory in Java. In 1601 they defeated the Portuguese governor of Malacca, and took that city; in 1607 they conquered the Portuguese settlements in the Moluccas and Sumatra; and in 1618 they founded Batavia, which became the capital of the trade of the Spice Islands, and soon not only took the place of Malacca, but rivalled Goa. Not satisfied with the trade of the further East, they attacked that of China also, and in 1635 occupied the island of Formosa. At a later date they even ousted the Portuguese from their chief settlements in India and Ceylon, always excepting Goa, which, according to Catholic belief, has ever been preserved to the Portuguese by the holy bones of St. Francis Xavier. Meanwhile, just as the Dutch broke the power of the Portuguese in the Spice Islands and China, a new power had arisen to attack their Indian monopoly. The ancient allies of the Portuguese, the English, now made no distinction between them and their bitter enemies, the Spaniards, and during the last forty years of the “Sixty Years’ Captivity,” they laid the foundation of their empire in India. During the reign of Elizabeth, the English had sacked Pernambuco in 1594, destroyed Fort Arguin on the African coast in 1595, and ravaged the Azores in 1597; during that of James I. they attacked the Indian trade of Portugal. As was the case with the Dutch, the assault upon the Portuguese monopoly was the work of private traders, not of the State. This is not the place to trace the slow growth of the English power in India, but it is enough to say that the English ships went to Asia with no idea of conquest, and solely with the desire to trade. This the Portuguese desired to hinder, and in trying to prevent the English from taking on board cargoes at Surat in 1615, the Portuguese were defeated by Captain Best, and thus lost their reputation for invincibility on the north-west coast of India. The English, instead of showing a bold front, made efforts to live in harmony with the Indian kings, and especially with the Great Mogul, and were rewarded by being looked upon with favour instead of with suspicion, and being allowed to set up many commercial agencies. As traders, the English merchants had no wish to go to war and maintained no armies to defend their agencies, and the only offensive operation they undertook against the Portuguese was in 1622, when they assisted the Persians to capture Ormuz. These rapid onslaughts completely overthrew the Portuguese power in Asia. The Dutch quickly absorbed all the trade of the further East, and of the Spice Islands in particular; the English gained a good hold upon that with Persia and North-western India; and in 1629 the Portuguese commerce with Bengal was almost destroyed by the capture of their headquarters, Hūglī, by Shah Jehān who killed one thousand Portuguese, and carried over four thousand, including women and children, into captivity. Even smaller European nations attacked their monopoly, and in 1616 the Danes established themselves at Serampore and Tranquebar. Against all these blows, Portugal made little resistance; Golden Goa was shorn of its pre-eminence; and the Portuguese fleets when homeward bound were preyed upon by the Dutch and English cruisers.

It was not only in the East that disasters fell in quick succession upon the Portuguese, but efforts were made also by the Dutch to dispossess them of their great empire in South America. The history of the Dutch in Brazil is as remarkable as their history in Asia, and considering the small size of Holland, the same feeling of astonishment, which strikes the student, when he reads of the exploits of the Portuguese in the sixteenth century, affects him, when he examines the enterprises of the Dutch in the seventeenth. It was in 1624, when success was assured in Asia, that a Dutch West India Company was founded to drive the Portuguese out of South America. The new company at once sent a fleet under Admiral Willikens to attack Brazil, and this admiral met with little opposition in the capture of San Salvador, the capital of Portuguese South America. The Portuguese governor-general, Dom Diogo de Mendonça, abandoned the city, but the Archbishop, Dom Miguel de Teixeira, took his place, and calling on his clergy to take up arms, he defended the city for a few days, and then retired to a neighbouring port. Admiral Willikens plundered the city, and returned with a vast booty, to the delight of his employers, and left only a small garrison behind, which was soon driven back in all its forays, and eventually closely blockaded by the gallant old archbishop, who took the title of Captain-general of Brazil. In April, 1626, strong reinforcements arrived under Dom Emmanuel de Menezes, and the city of San Salvador once more fell into the hands of the Portuguese. It is not necessary to trace the exact history of every Dutch expedition to Brazil; it is enough to say that from 1626 to 1637, plunder was brought home every year and distributed to the shareholders of the company, while no real attempt at establishing trade or at colonization was made. This policy naturally caused the Dutch to be loathed by the Portuguese settlers as robbers and pirates, and kept them in a state of perpetual disquietude. In 1637, a great ruler, Count Maurice of Nassau, was sent out by the Dutch West India Company as Governor-general of their possessions in South America, which extended roughly over the four Captainships of Pernambuco, Tamaraca, Paraiba, and Rio Grande. This great general and statesman attempted to entirely destroy the Portuguese power in South America, and to establish a Dutch dominion there. His warlike expeditions were successful, excepting an attack on San Salvador, and he also managed to establish a general system of administration over the seven northern captainships with his capital at Mauriceburgh opposite the strongly fortified island of the Recife. It was Maurice of Nassau, who gave up the system of plundering the Portuguese, and substituted that of taxing them, and his power was at its height, when the news of the revolution of 1640, and of the overthrow of the Spanish domination, arrived in Brazil and revived the spirits of the Portuguese colonists.

To compensate for all these losses, the destruction of the monopoly of the Asiatic trade, the loss of Ormuz and Malacca, and the reduction of the greater part of Brazil, what advantages had Portugal received? The promises made by Philip II. to the Cortes of Thomar were mostly broken by his successors. The Duke of Lerma and the Count-Duke of Olivares, the all-powerful ministers of Philip III. and Philip IV. tried to see how far and how entirely they could prove to the Portuguese people that they were subject to Spain, and not a free nation. The Cortes, instead of being summoned frequently, was only summoned once during the reign of Philip III., in 1619, in order to recognize his son as heir to the throne; and was never summoned at all during the reign of Philip IV. Spaniards filled every office in the kingdom, and more especially in the garrison towns; Spanish ecclesiastics were consecrated to Portuguese bishoprics; and the Portuguese council at the Court of Madrid was reduced to a single secretary. Taxation was heavy, and the revenue from it was not spent in the country, and the promise that no Portuguese land should be granted to other than Portuguese subjects was often broken, conspicuously in the case of the Duke of Lerma, who secured a grant of the royal domains of Beja and Serpa. But Lerma and Olivares forgot that the Portuguese were a separate race, with a great and noble history; they would not be trampled on for ever, and to the surprise of Spain, the little country rose in rebellion in 1640 and put an end to the “Sixty Years’ Captivity.”

XIV.

THE REVOLUTION OF 1640.

THE Portuguese people groaned under the powerlessness and poverty which fell to their lot during the Sixty Years’ Captivity. None of the advantages which had been so eloquently prophesied by Christovão de Moura as the inevitable result of a union with Spain had been experienced. Instead of being protected by great Spanish armies, the colonies and trade of Portugal had been left an open prey to the enemies of Spain; it was on account of her union with Spain that the Dutch and English attacked the Portuguese possessions in both East and West; and in return for all she lost, Portugal did not even have the satisfaction of retaining the independence of its local government, but was administered for the benefit of Spaniards alone. The proverbial Castilian haughtiness was especially aggravating to the nobles and people of Portugal; there was no attempt made to unite the two peoples; they kept apart like oil and water, and the traditional hatred of the Spaniard grew to be more intense than ever. The loss of material prosperity and the insolent demeanour of the Spanish officials affected all classes, high and low, and incited them to rebel, and to these causes must be added the influence of the Portuguese writers. The great Camoens had not lived to see the Spaniards supreme in his beloved country, but he had successors during the Sixty Years’ Captivity, who sang in the same lofty strain of the great deeds of the Portuguese warriors during the heroic period. Such poems as the “Primeiro Cerco de Dio” (“The First Siege of Diu”), by Francisco de Andrade; the “Segundo Cerco de Dio,” by Jeronymo Corte-Real; the “Affonso Africano,” by Vasco Mousinho de Quebedo; and the “Malacca Conquistada,” by Francisco de Sá de Menezes, were all calculated to stir the hearts of the Portuguese of the seventeenth century, and to make them desire to be worthy of their great forefathers. Nor were the prose writers less eloquent than the poets in telling of the great deeds of the past; the “Decadas” of Diogo do Couto, and the “Asia,” “Europa,” “Africa,” and “America Portugueza,” of Manoel de Faria e Sousa, continued the work of João de Barros in making the Portuguese proud of their past exploits, while the historians, Bernardo de Brito and Antonio Brandão, in their “Monarchia Lusitana,” told the story of the centuries of independence before Portugal became a province of Spain.

A universal feeling of discontent had arisen during the reigns of Philip III. and Philip IV., but the final impulse from passive discontent to active rebellion was supplied by the energy of certain Portuguese noblemen, who relied for success on the weakness of Spain and on help from France. The Spain of Philip IV. was indeed very different to the Spain of Charles V. and Philip II.; its days of greatness were over; Holland was practically independent; and Catalonia was in revolt. On the other hand, France had passed through the terrible civil wars of the sixteenth century, and was being moulded into a mighty kingdom by the hand of Richelieu. One of the keynotes of Richelieu’s policy was to harass Spain; and for this reason the great cardinal encouraged the revolt of the Catalans in 1639, and had long fomented the feeling of discontent in Portugal. As early as 1636, one of Richelieu’s secret agents is found writing to his master, “All Portugal cries aloud, ‘When will the King of France deliver us from the Pharaoh of Spain’?”[28] and in 1638 the cardinal sent one of his most trusted agents, the Chevalier de Saint-Pé, to report upon the disposition of the Portuguese people. Richelieu soon grasped the situation of affairs, and resolved to encourage an open rebellion in Portugal, in order to secure an independent ally in the Iberian Peninsula, which should be such a thorn in the side of Spain as Scotland had in former days been in the side of England. The discontent of the people was shown in many overt acts; in 1634 the people of Lisbon refused to pay their taxes; in 1637 a serious riot broke out at Evora, which remained in a state of insurrection for many months; and attacks upon Spanish soldiers and officials constantly took place all over the country.

TABLE III. The Dukes of Braganza.

But the discontented people of Portugal wanted some one to rally round; the nobility wanted a leader. This leader and representative was found in John, eighth Duke of Braganza, the legitimate heir to the throne. This great nobleman was the head of the most noble family in Portugal, and the direct lineal descendant of the bastard son of John “the Great,” who had married the daughter of the Holy Constable, and he was further the grandson of Donna Catherine, the rightful heiress to the Cardinal-King, Dom Henry. Philip II. had purchased the acquiescence of the husband of Donna Catherine in his usurpation by securing to him the vast possessions of the Braganza family in Portugal, but he had not fulfilled his promise of the grant of Brazil in full sovereignty, to the great disgust of the heiress to the throne of Portugal. She had inspired her hatred for Spain and her love for Portugal into her son, Dom Theodosio, seventh duke, but her grandson, Dom John, was an indolent and timid nobleman, who preferred an easy life to a crown. Dom John had succeeded to the duchy and estates in 1630, at the age of twenty-six, and he had married Donna Luisa de Guzman, daughter of the Duke of Medina Sidonia, in 1633. This marriage had been hailed with delight by Olivares, as it seemed to bind the Braganza family closer to Spain, and he persuaded Philip IV. to grant Dom John as a wedding-gift the duchy and lordship of Guimaraens, which had been the property of Dom Edward, youngest son of Emmanuel “the Fortunate,” the prince through whom the Duke of Braganza traced his claim to the throne. But this marriage did not cement the friendship of the House of Braganza with Spain. On the contrary, the duchess seemed to surrender her Spanish nationality; she made a point of speaking Portuguese, and became more patriotic than the Portuguese themselves; she never forgot that her husband was by rights a king, and was encouraged to use all her great abilities to scheme for the throne of Portugal by the recollection of a prophecy made to her in her childhood that she should be a queen. Dom John himself did not share her opinions; he was no warrior, but loved hunting, music, and the arts, and his lovely hunting-seat at Villa Viçosa, far more than he did politics or even his country. But his easy nature made him subservient to the will of his duchess, and she, through the duke’s agent, João Pinto Ribeiro, Professor of Civil Law at Coimbra, let the nobility of Portugal know that the Duke of Braganza would put himself at their head, if they would but strike a blow for the freedom of their country.

Portugal was at the period, when the Duchess of Braganza involved her husband in her ambitious schemes, under the nominal rule of Margaret of Savoy, Duchess of Mantua; and the Court of this princess was, contrary to the promises made by Philip II. to the Cortes of Thomar, entirely filled with foreigners. Her Lord High Steward or Mordomo-Mor was the Marquis de la Puebla, a Spaniard, and her Estribeiro-Mor, or Master of the Horse, was the Marquis de Bainetti, an Italian, while among more important posts, two Spaniards, Don Didace de Cardenas and Don Fernando de Castro, were respectively general commanding the Portuguese cavalry, and controller of the Portuguese navy. The most important native of the country admitted to her council was Dom Sebastião de Mattos de Noronha, Archbishop of Braga, Primate of the kingdom, and a wealthy nobleman, but the chief administrative power was confided to Miguel de Vasconcellos de Brito, Secretary of State. This man was hated by his fellow-countrymen with the intensity of hatred only felt for a renegade. He had won the favour of Olivares, the Spanish Minister, by his skill in squeezing money out of Portugal, and his energy and activity made him indispensable to the Duchess of Mantua. But if he was hated by all classes of the Portuguese people, he was more especially obnoxious to the Portuguese nobility owing to his policy of excluding them from all posts of honour and emolument, and his personal insolence towards them.

This was the state of the government and the general position of affairs in Portugal when João Pinto Ribeiro, acting with the full sanction of the Duchess, and the half-hearted assent of the Duke, of Braganza, began to form a conspiracy among the leading noblemen to bring about a revolution and expel the Spaniards. If he could only combine the nobles to take the lead and strike the first blow, he knew well that the people would warmly support them. The first step was to make the future king acquainted with his friends, and for this purpose great hunting parties were organized at Villa Viçosa, to which the most patriotic Portuguese noblemen were invited in turn. This behaviour, and the attitude of the young duchess, began to inspire Olivares with a vague alarm, and he began to regret the policy which had allowed the rightful heir to the throne of Portugal to retain his vast estates in the quarter where his influence was most to be feared. He first offered the government of the Milanese, an office generally held by a prince of the blood, to the Duke of Braganza, and, when the appointment was declined on the score of ignorance of Italian politics, the astute Spanish statesman began to feel still more uneasy. But it was necessary to disguise his apprehensions, for he knew that it was impossible to arrest the Duke of Braganza on his estates without causing serious disturbances, and he therefore directed the duke to make a tour of Portugal in his capacity of Constable to inspect the condition of the defences. This tour gave the duke an opportunity to make the acquaintance of the greater part of the people, while he avoided falling into the various traps set for him. Then Olivares delivered his last stroke of policy; he ordered out the whole ban and arrière-ban of Portugal to serve under the king in person in putting down the Catalan rebellion, and directed the Duke of Braganza to proceed immediately to Madrid. The duke delayed his departure for a time, and João Pinto Ribeiro informed the noblemen who had been forming a conspiracy in Lisbon that they must strike at once or it would be too late.

The names of these noblemen are worthy of record, not only because of the daring and successful revolution they initiated, but because they show how patriotic the Portuguese nobility were as a body, since most of the famous families of the early history of Portugal and of the heroic period are represented among them. The leaders of the famous forty who planned the revolution were Miguel de Almeida, a venerable nobleman, at whose house the first meeting of the conspirators was held; Pedro de Mendonça Furtado, Hereditary Grand Chamberlain or Camereiro-Mor; Antonio and Luis de Almada; Jorge de Mello, Hereditary Grand Huntsman; Antonio de Mello de Menezes, his brother; Estevão, and Luis da Cunha; Rodrigo and Emmanuel de Sá; Pedro Mascarenhas, Carlos de Noronha, Gaston de Coutinho and Antonio de Saldanha. The Archbishop of Lisbon, Rodrigo da Cunha, the most popular ecclesiastical dignitary of the realm, if not actually a conspirator, certainly had some knowledge of what was going on through his relatives, the Almadas and Da Cunhas. The conspirators met regularly and skilfully planned their rising, and in all their deliberations João Pinto Ribeiro, though not a nobleman himself, and rather looked down on by the forty, showed himself the boldest and most sagacious leader of them all. There was no idea of establishing a republic, in imitation of the Netherlands, as Vertot absurdly states, for the keystone of their plan was to make a show of legality, and to assert that they were merely placing the rightful king upon the throne. Their preparations were fully made, when João Pinto Ribeiro brought the news that the blow must be struck at once, or else that the Duke of Braganza must proceed to Madrid.

The 1st of December, 1640, was the day appointed for the revolution and on the morning of that day the conspirators assembled by different streets in front of the palace. There had been no treachery, and consequently the viceregal court was quite unprepared for resistance. The signal was given by a pistol shot from Ribeiro, and each conspirator went to his appointed place to accomplish his appointed task. Dom Miguel de Almeida overpowered the German guards of the palace without any difficulty, and Dom Jorge de Mello and Dom Estevão da Cunha were equally successful with the Spanish guards. The third party, under the leadership of Ribeiro, forced their way into the palace, and moved towards the apartments of the hated Secretary of State, Miguel de Vasconcellos. On their way they met Francisco de Soares de Albergaria, the “Corregidor Civil,” or civil judge, who, in answer to their cries of “Long live the Duke of Braganza!” shouted “Long live the King of Spain and Portugal!” and was then immediately shot. They next came across Antonio Correa, the secretary’s chief clerk, whose insolence had almost rivalled his master’s, and Antonio de Menezes struck him down with his poniard and severely wounded him. At last they reached the apartments of the secretary, whom they discovered hidden in a cupboard under a mass of papers. The trembling wretch was dragged from his concealment, and shot by Dom Rodrigo de Sá. All parties now rushed to the part of the palace inhabited by the Duchess of Mantua, whom they found with the Archbishop of Braga. The princess was no coward, and boldly faced the conspirators, but she was informed by Dom Carlos de Noronha that she was a prisoner, and the life of the Archbishop of Braga, who attempted to cut his way through his opponents, was with difficulty saved by Dom Miguel de Almeida.

PORTUGUESE GENTLEMEN.
(From “Les Royaumes d’Espagne,” &c. La Haye, 1720.)

These successes in the palace were followed by equal successes in the city of Lisbon. The populace of all classes detested the Spanish domination; they rose in a body, armed themselves as best they could, and arrested every Spaniard they could find from the Marquis de la Puebla to the naval officers on shore from the Spanish vessels lying in the Tagus. Dom Antonio de Saldanha, as previously arranged, entered the Relacão, or High Court of Justice, and informed the judges of the revolution, and the president, Gonçalo de Sousa, immediately began to pronounce his decrees in the name of King John IV., instead of King Philip III. Dom Gaston de Coutinho set free all the political prisoners, and some young men rowed off to the three Spanish galleons in the port, and easily obtained possession of them, since most of their officers had already been arrested on shore. There remained only the citadel, or castle, of St. George, garrisoned by a strong Spanish force under Don Luiz de Campo. This important post was obtained by a stratagem of Dom Antonio de Almada, who forced the Duchess of Mantua to sign an order for its surrender by a threat to assassinate all the Spanish prisoners already taken, and the order was willingly obeyed by the timorous governor. The conspirators then assembled in the palace, and amidst the shouts of the populace, the Archbishop of Lisbon was proclaimed Lieutenant-General of the kingdom, with Dom Miguel de Almeida, Dom Pedro de Mendonça Furtado, and Dom Antonio de Almada as councillors of state. The new government sent off expresses in all directions to announce the news of the successful revolution, and obtained peaceable possession of all the chief fortresses and strong places round Lisbon, of Belem, Bugio, S. Antonio, Almada, and Cascaes, with the exception only of S. Julian, at the mouth of the Tagus.

The Duke and Duchess of Braganza were all this time waiting with feverish impatience at Villa Viçosa for news of the great undertaking, and on the following day, Sunday, December 2nd, Dom Jorge de Mello arrived, after travelling all night, and hailed the Duke and Duchess as King and Queen of Portugal. The neighbouring country was devoted to the duke and his family and joyfully received the news of his accession, and Affonso de Mello took possession of Elvas, the strongest city in Portugal, in the name of John IV., without any bloodshed. On December 3rd the new sovereign entered Lisbon amidst general rejoicings, and on December 15th he was solemnly crowned in the Cathedral of Lisbon. Never was a sudden revolution more successful. From Oporto to Faro the people everywhere rose in rebellion; the Spanish arms were torn down; the Spanish garrisons were expelled, and John IV. was hailed with acclamation. A Cortes was summoned to meet at Lisbon for the first time since 1619, and on January 19, 1641, John IV. was declared King of Portugal, as the rightful heir of Emmanuel “the Fortunate,” and the whole Cortes swore to obey him, and recognized his eldest son, Dom Theodosio, as heir to the throne. The new sovereign determined to meet his loyal people half way, so he declared that his patrimonial estates were sufficient to meet the expenses of his royal household, and that the revenues of the Crown lands should for the future be spent on national needs. He bestowed important posts and orders on the leading conspirators, and bribed Don Fernando de la Cueva to surrender the fortress of S. Julian, the only place which resisted his authority. The last person to be informed of this sudden and successful revolution was the former king, Philip IV. of Spain and III. of Portugal. His courtiers all feared to tell him the news, and when it became necessary to break it to him, the Count-Duke Olivares accomplished the feat with his usual adroitness. “Sire,” he said to the king with a pleased countenance, “I have to congratulate you on a most fortunate event. Your Majesty has just obtained a powerful duchy, and some magnificent estates.” “By what means,” answered the astonished monarch. “The Duke of Braganza,” said Olivares, “has madly allowed himself to be seduced by the populace, who have proclaimed him King of Portugal. His vast estates are therefore forfeited, and become the property of your Majesty, who, by the annihilation of this family, will in future reign securely and peaceably over that kingdom.”

Olivares had every reason to speak with confidence, for there could be no doubt that Portugal, weakened by her long subjection, could do little or nothing to resist the power of Spain, if it could be fully employed. But, fortunately for the independence of Portugal, Spain was distracted by the Catalan rebellion and foreign war, and was unable to exert her strength for the time being. Both the new king and his advisers felt, however, that it would not be wise to count too much or too long upon this fortunate circumstance, and he sent ambassadors all over Europe to inform the foreign sovereigns of the revolution, and to beg for their help and alliance. The old Chancellor Oxenstiern, who governed Sweden after the death of her warrior monarch, Gustavus Adolphus, during the minority of Queen Christina, promptly recognized the accession of the new dynasty, and welcomed it as another breach in the power of Spain. Charles I. of England, after some delay, also recognized John IV., but he was too much occupied by his quarrels with the Parliament to pay much attention to foreign politics. The Dutch received the news of the revolution with joy, and compared it to their own successful rebellion against Spain, and they at once concluded a treaty with Portugal, and promised to send assistance. But it was to France that John IV. looked with most confidence for help; he remembered the secret emissaries of Richelieu and their lavish promises; and on January 22, 1641, three days after his coronation, he sent two of his most accomplished courtiers, Francisco de Mello and Antonio Coelho de Carvalho, on a special mission to Paris. They were received with much cordiality by the great cardinal, who understood how thoroughly Spain must be crippled by the Catalan and Portuguese rebellions, and, to their surprise, also by the Queen of France, Anne of Austria, the sister of Philip IV. De Mello ventured to hint his surprise at this hearty reception, when the queen made a famous reply: “True it is, that I am the sister of his Catholic Majesty, but am I not also the mother of the Dauphin?” Their negotiations ended in the conclusion of an offensive and defensive treaty between France and Portugal, signed on June 1, 1641, by which the King of France promised to make no peace with Spain until the independence of Portugal was fully recognized. These embassies and treaties ended in the arrival of a strong French fleet, under the command of the Chevalier de Brézé, in the Tagus, on August 7, 1641, followed by a Dutch fleet, under Admiral Gylfels, on September 10th.

At this very time, before the first king of the House of Braganza had been a year upon the throne, a serious conspiracy was in progress, which had for its aim the re-establishment of the power of Spain. This conspiracy was almost entirely the work of one man, Dom Sebastião de Mattos de Noronha, Archbishop of Braga, and Primate of Portugal. This prelate had not been in any way interfered with by the new government, but he felt that he had lost the power which he had enjoyed during the viceroyalty of the Duchess of Mantua, and he had never forgiven the danger in which his life had been placed on the day of the outbreak of the revolution in Lisbon. He first engaged the Marquis of Villa Real, and his son, the Duke of Caminha, to join him. Their family boasted of royal blood, and ranked next to that of the Duke of Aveiro in the kingdom of Portugal, and they felt indignant that no important posts had been conferred upon them for their acquiescence in the revolution. The marquis was won over by a promise that he should be the Viceroy of Portugal, if the conspiracy succeeded, and his son threw himself so heartily into the project that the whole plot is generally known as the “Caminha conspiracy.” The other chief laymen engaged were the Count of Armamar, the nephew of the primate, the Count of Ballerais, Lourenço Peres de Carvalho, keeper of the treasury, who feared to lose the lucrative post which he had held so long under the Spanish domination, and Antonio Correa, the confidential clerk of the murdered Vasconcellos, who had been severely wounded in the outbreak of December 1st. A far more important ally than any of these noblemen and officials, was the Grand Inquisitor of Portugal, Dom Sebastião de Tello, Bishop of Leiria, who was persuaded to promise the “novães Christiãos,” or half-converted Jews, a cessation of all persecution if they would join in overthrowing John IV. They, on their part, were ready to assist because the new monarch had absolutely refused to make any concessions to them for fear of offending the Pope. The arrangements were soon made; it was settled that the “novães Christiãos” were to set fire to the palace on August 5th; that the king was to be stabbed in the confusion which would ensue; and that the Duchess of Mantua should be released from her convent, and again placed in power. The Count-Duke Olivares gladly acquiesced in all the schemes of the treacherous archbishop, and despatches giving all the details of the plot were entrusted to a converted Jew named Baese, to send to Madrid. These despatches fell into the hands of Marquis of Ayamonte, a Spanish nobleman, and a relation of the new Queen of Portugal, who was acting as intermediary between John IV. and his brother-in-law, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, and the marquis promptly sent them to Lisbon. Forewarned was forearmed, and on August 5th, the day fixed for the rising, all the leaders of the conspiracy were arrested. Baese confessed, when put to the torture, and on August 29th all the noblemen concerned, including the Marquis of Villa Real and the Duke of Caminha, were publicly executed at Lisbon, while the Primate and the Grand Inquisitor were condemned to imprisonment for life.

This severe punishment did not check the ardour of the friends of Spain, who were chiefly officials and discontented nobles, and numbered few adherents among the people, and in 1643 a new plot was discovered, headed by Francisco de Lucena, Secretary of State, who was promptly executed. In spite of these difficulties, the government managed to get together an army; it was neither well-disciplined nor well-equipped, but popular enthusiasm took the place of experience, and on May 26, 1642, the Portuguese under the command of Mathias de Alboquerque, defeated a Spanish army under the Baron de Molingen at Montijo. This victory, which was loudly compared to that of Aljubarrota, was, in truth, of no great importance from a military point of view, but it invigorated the spirit of the Portuguese people, and encouraged them to persist in fighting for their independence. From every quarter of the globe news arrived that the old Portuguese possessions had declared for John IV. Mozambique, Goa and the possessions in India, Malacca, and Macao, all threw off the domination of Spain, and prepared to send money and men to Lisbon; while Brazil, the most valuable possession of the Portuguese crown, since the Dutch had taken possession of the Asiatic trade, began a gallant struggle for the House of Braganza, a struggle which brought about a war with the Dutch in Europe, and lost the Portuguese the assistance which had been promised them in 1641 by the arrival of the fleet under Gylfels.

The story of the great dominion acquired for the Dutch in South America by Count Maurice of Nassau has been told; and the wealth received by the Dutch West India Company from his efforts was only inferior to that of the Dutch East India Company. The Count had managed matters on a large scale; he had built or strengthened forty-five fortresses; he commanded a regular army of three thousand men and a fleet of ninety ships; and he sent over to Holland no less than twenty-five thousand chests of sugar a year. But in spite of his success he recognized that this dominion depended on the sword; the Dutch were not good colonists, for they never thought of making their homes in Brazil, but always of returning some day to Holland; and all the European settlers and planters in the five captainships held by the Dutch were of Portuguese descent. Further, the native Brazilians were on more friendly terms with the Portuguese than the Dutch owing to the labours of the Jesuits among them. Count Maurice of Nassau saw therefore that it was impossible to oust the Portuguese and replace them by Dutch settlers, so he established a dominion, resembling that of the English in India, which rested for its keystone upon the military possession of the country and the maintenance of strong garrisons in the various fortresses. It need hardly be said that the Portuguese of all the various captainships freely communicated with each other, and so wise and prudent was the administration of Count Maurice that the Portuguese settlers in his captainships were envied by those who remained under the power of Spain.

But this attitude of mind changed, when the news arrived of the successful revolution of December, 1640. Dom Antonio Telles da Silva, the Portuguese Governor-General at once proclaimed King John IV. at San Salvador, and the Portuguese in the Dutch captainships felt an immediate desire to join their brethren. Matters of European policy however prevented them from striking a blow at once; John IV. could not afford to make enemies of the Dutch, and one of the terms of his alliance with them was that matters should remain exactly as they were in Brazil for ten years. However the Portuguese colonists had not to wait ten years owing to the ungrateful behaviour of the Dutch themselves. The Dutch West India Company could not appreciate the political ideas of Maurice of Nassau; these traders wanted large profits and not a great empire; they were disgusted at the amounts spent on the fortresses and the army, and in 1644 they recalled the great man whose ideas were too grand for them to fathom. Immediately on his departure, matters went from bad to worse in the Dutch captainships. His successors, a committee of merchants, neglected the fortresses, and aroused the hatred of the Portuguese sugar planters by their exactions, and though they sent home an unparalleled amount of sugar and money for one year, it was the only year they remained in office; for in 1645 the whole of the Portuguese colonists in the Dutch captainships burst into insurrection. It was in vain for the Dutch authorities to complain to Dom Antonio Telles da Silva; he answered that it was not his fault if the Portuguese revolted; they did not do so under his orders or directions; and the Portuguese ambassador at the Hague made the same assertion in the name of the king. Seldom has an insurrection been so rapidly successful; Antonio Moniz Barreto and Antonio Teixeira de Mello speedily reduced the province of Maranham, and João Fernandes Vieira, a self-made man and originally a butcher’s boy, occupied the whole of the province of Pernambuco, and drove the Dutch into their capital. The neglected fortresses were easily taken, and soon the Dutch held no place, but the Recife. It was in vain for Holland to declare war against Portugal, and to send great armaments to Brazil; the national movement was too strong to be resisted; the Dutch won some naval victories but could gain no fresh foothold in the country, and in 1655 the island of the Recife was abandoned after a ten years’ siege, and a King of Portugal once more reigned over the whole of Brazil.

Great as was the triumph of the revolt in Brazil, it at first filled the heart of the King of Portugal with alarm, for it deprived him of an ally in Europe on whose valuable assistance he had firmly relied. Everywhere he looked in vain for help. Sweden could do nothing; England was torn by civil war; and in France his ally, Cardinal Richelieu, had been succeeded as supreme minister by Cardinal Mazarin. John IV. instinctively felt that he could not depend upon Mazarin, who would certainly throw him over, if a peace should be made between France and Spain, and in his despair he made an offer to resign his throne to a French prince, who should bring ample assistance from France. The nature of this offer is best told in a letter from Mazarin to the Duke of Longueville, dated October 4, 1647. “The King of Portugal,” wrote the Cardinal, “after having maturely considered the state of affairs, is disposed to resign his crown and retire to the Azores, and to offer his kingdom to any one whom the Queen of France shall select, believing himself strong enough to have such a person recognized as king and obeyed by all the people of Portugal. He only desires that the person selected should be a prince who may expect powerful help from France, and that he shall have the means to make such an alliance with his eldest son, as may eventually secure the succession of the kingdom to the latter. He proposes M. the Duke of Orleans and Mademoiselle, or M. the Prince, or you and your daughter.”[29] This strange offer of abdication came to nothing, and it may well be doubted if John IV. would have had the power to introduce a foreign prince in this way; and if he had succeeded, Mazarin would have abandoned Portugal with equal certainty even if a French prince had been on its throne. Though this scheme failed, John IV. still hankered after help from France; he offered his daughter, Donna Catherine de Braganza with a large dowry both to the Duke of Beaufort and to the young Louis XIV., and he also promised large sums of money to the avaricious cardinal for his own use. Years passed on, occupied with these various schemes and entreaties for assistance, and it was not until John IV. threatened to make peace at any price with Philip IV. that Mazarin’s trusted agent, the Chevalier de Jant, signed an offensive and defensive alliance with Portugal on September 7, 1655.[30]

JOHN IV.

(From a Print of the Period.)

This behaviour of France did not seriously concern Portugal so long as the war between France and Spain continued to occupy the chief strength of the Spanish armies; but on all sides, John IV. saw that he was regarded abroad as a temporary monarch, ruling only until Spain had an opportunity to crush him. From England he could get no help; Cromwell showed his contempt for him and for the received principles of international law, by ordering the trial and execution of Dom Pantaleone de Sá, a lad of nineteen, and the brother of the Portuguese ambassador Rodrigo de Sá, for murder and riot in London;[31] and his refusal to surrender Prince Rupert and Prince Maurice in 1650 to Admiral Blake, caused that gallant admiral to capture his ships and pillage his colonies. On the other hand, the people of Portugal stood staunchly by their legitimate monarch. Brazil recognized his authority and sent him what help she could; the Indian and Chinese possessions contributed what they could in money, and his great admiral Dom Salvador Correa de Sá e Benevides defeated several Spanish fleets, and conquered Angola and the former Portuguese possessions on the African coast.

In the midst of these perplexities, expecting daily to hear of the conclusion of a peace between France and Spain, which should leave the latter power free to crush him, King John IV., the first king of the House of Braganza, died on November 6, 1656. His eldest son Dom Theodosio, whom he had created Prince of Brazil, had predeceased him in 1653, and his heir was a boy of thirteen, weakly both in body and in intellect. John IV. was not a great man; he is no more to be compared with John “the Great” than the victory of Montijo is to that of Aljubarrota; but his name and accession mark a great event. Hesitating and undecided by nature, all his strength came from his queen; but for her, he would never have been king of Portugal. But the revolution which placed this mediocre man upon the throne is both interesting and important; it shows how impossible it is for a nation which has once been great to acquiesce in the loss of its independence. The heroic age of Portugal was indeed past, but the victory of Montijo and the insurrection in Brazil show that the people had recovered from the inertness and sloth which had permitted Philip II. to establish the power of Spain over them. The struggle with Spain was not concluded; the hardest part of the contest was to come, yet the people, if not their chosen monarch, never dreamed of failure. New and national institutions arose under the direction of João Pinto Ribeiro to take the place of the effete institutions of the Sixty Years’ Captivity; councils of war and the colonies were organized at Lisbon; ships were built and armies raised; new tribunals such as the “Junta do Commercio” were erected. Nor were men of letters backward in encouraging the revival of independence; Francisco de Sá de Menezes the poet, Antonio Vieira the preacher, and Jacinto Freire de Andrade, the biographer of Dom João de Castro, all showed the spirit of patriotism, and it is not unworthy of notice that the first Portuguese newspaper, the Gazeta de Lisboa was established in 1641. The whole course of the Revolution of 1640 shows that the people of Portugal in the seventeenth century were not unworthy of their ancestors, and that they had learnt much, because they had suffered much, during the “Sixty Years’ Captivity.”

XV.

THE ENGLISH ALLIANCE.

THE death of John IV., and the accession of the boy Affonso VI., proved to be anything but a disaster to the House of Braganza. The queen became sole regent, and this energetic and able woman, who had always been the courageous supporter of her weak husband, determined to prosecute the war against Spain with redoubled vigour. She, too, hankered after a close alliance with France, and distrusted the promises of Mazarin; but she felt that it was no good to wait for allies until Spain was at liberty to attack her, and now ordered the Portuguese army to take the field. Hitherto, since the battle of Montijo, the war had languished, and had been confined to skirmishes on the frontier, but the queen-regent determined to renounce this policy and to invade Spain. Her enterprize was not crowned with success, and the siege of Badajoz which she attempted resulted in failure and defeat. It was obvious that the Portuguese army, though full of gallant and loyal soldiers, was quite undisciplined and unfit for any serious operation of war. This being the case, the queen got her ambassador at Paris, the Count of Soure, to engage Frederick, Count Schomberg, the most famous military adventurer of his time, to enter her service, and to bring with him eighty officers and four hundred non-commissioned officers, to organize and discipline the Portuguese army. Schomberg, whose strange fate it was to serve under nearly every leading monarch in Europe, and to die an English duke at the battle of the Boyne, gladly accepted the queen’s offer. Like the Count of Lippe-Buckeburg and Marshal Beresford in later days, he found that the Portuguese made excellent soldiers, brave and amenable to discipline, and the result of his labours appeared in the great victory won by Dom Antonio Luis de Menezes, Count of Cantanhede, over the Spaniards under Don Luiz de Haro, at Elvas, on January 14, 1659.

CATHERINE OF BRAGANZA.
(From an Engraving by Faithorne.)

This victory, though it revived the courage of the Portuguese, who had been much depressed by their repulse at Badajoz, in one way injured the cause of Portugal, for it so incensed Don Luiz de Haro that, during the famous conferences on the Island of Pheasants with Mazarin, which led to the signature of the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659, he would not listen to any intercession on behalf of the Portuguese, and insisted on the insertion of a secret article in the treaty, that France would promise to abandon them entirely. Neither Mazarin nor Louis XIV. intended to observe this secret article and to give up the advantage of having such a useful ally in the peninsula to use against Spain, and they accordingly looked about for some means to evade it. Mazarin again sent the trusty Chevalier de Jant to explain to the queen-regent that the seeming desertion of Portugal was rather nominal than real, and that the little kingdom would not be left to bear the whole brunt of the war with Spain. The means was found in 1660 by proposing that Charles II., the newly restored King of England, should marry the Donna Catherine de Braganza. This notion was acceptable to all parties. Mazarin and Louis XIV. would thus assist Portugal without breaking their promise to Spain; Charles II. would get some ready money, and would repay the debt of gratitude he owed for the shelter afforded to Prince Rupert and Prince Maurice. The Earl of Clarendon saw the advantage of the alliance in establishing the influence of England in the peninsula and in India; and the queen-regent was promised the help of a powerful army of English veterans, trained in the Great Civil War, whom Clarendon was anxious to get out of the country, and also the aid of England in making peace with the Dutch. Thus all parties were satisfied, except the King of Spain, who protested vehemently, and his Catholic Majesty offered to give a dowry to any Protestant princess whom Charles II. might select, if only he would give up this Portuguese alliance. These protests were in vain. The strong wills of Louis XIV., Lord Clarendon, and the queen-regent of Portugal were all set upon the marriage, and Francisco de Mello, Count da Ponte, was sent to London, and Sir Richard Fanshaw, the translator of the “Lusiads,” was sent to Lisbon to arrange the preliminaries. These were soon settled, and on May 18, 1661, the marriage was announced to the English Parliament. Catherine de Braganza was to bring as her dowry the town of Tangier in Morocco, the island of Bombay, and the town of Galle in Ceylon, as well as £800,000 in money; while on his side Charles II. promised to force the Dutch to make peace with Portugal, and in consideration of a further sum of £30,000 a year to send an army of not less than three thousand veterans to aid in the war with Spain. These liberal terms were approved in Parliament in spite of the religion of the Portuguese princess; and in April, 1662, the Earl of Sandwich arrived in the Tagus with twenty English ships to take the bride to England. The marriage took place on May 31, 1662, and it was thus, upon the suggestion of the King of France, that the first step was made towards the revival of the old alliance between England and Portugal, which had existed under the kings of the House of Aviz, an alliance which was, in the indignant language of later French writers, to make Portugal a province of England.

Before the English soldiers arrived and the final struggle with Spain commenced, a Court revolution took place in Lisbon. The king, Affonso VI., was now nearly nineteen, and he had grown up a debauched and vicious youth. A stroke of paralysis had disordered his intellect, and his mother, absorbed in the cares of government, had left him too much to servants. He was entirely under the influence of his valet, a young man named Conti, and his chief delight was to range the streets of Lisbon at the head of a troop of mulattoes and negro slaves, and to play pranks of which the English “Mohocks” of the eighteenth century would have been ashamed. The queen-regent, in disgust, banished Conti to Brazil, and two accomplished courtiers, Sebastião Cesar de Menezes, Count of Atouguia, and Luis de Sousa e Vasconcellos, Count of Castel Melhor, persuaded the angry young king to declare himself of age on June 21, 1662, and to take the government into his own hands. The queen retired into a convent, and all power fell into the hands of the two conspirators.

Fortunately for Portugal the two counts were energetic and able statesmen, and they pursued in every point the policy of the queen. Castel Melhor formed the English veterans, who had arrived under the command of Murrough O’Brien, first Earl of Inchiquin, some French and German volunteers and mercenaries, and the newly organized Portuguese levies, into a powerful army, of which Schomberg was the real, though not the ostensible, commander-in-chief. With this army a series of victories were won, which caused Affonso VI. to be surnamed Affonso “the Victorious,” though his own successes, such as they were, were confined to the streets of Lisbon. On June 8, 1663, the Count of Villa Flor, with Schomberg by his side, utterly defeated Don John of Austria, an illegitimate son of Philip IV., at Ameixial, and afterwards retook Evora; on July 7, 1664, Pedro Jacques de Magalhães defeated the Duke of Ossuna at Ciudad Rodrigo; on June 17, 1665, the Marquis of Marialva and Schomberg destroyed a Spanish army under the Marquis of Carracena, at the battle of Montes Claros; and Christovão de Brito Pereira followed up this victory with another at Villa Viçosa.

These repeated successes utterly broke the power of Spain in the peninsula, and peace was only a matter of time, when Castel Melhor decided to increase both his own power and that of Portugal by marrying the king, who was a mere tool in his hands, to a French princess. Such an alliance was highly approved by Louis XIV., who believed it would bring Portugal under his influence, and the bride selected was Marie Françoise Louise Elisabeth, Mademoiselle d’Aumâle, daughter of Charles Amadeus, Duke of Nemours, and Elisabeth de Vendôme, and grand-daughter of Henry IV. of France. She was brought to Portugal by her relative, the Cardinal d’Estrées, and the marriage was celebrated at Lisbon with the greatest pomp in 1666. But instead of increasing his power, the great minister, Castel Melhor, found that this union brought about his ruin. The handsome and accomplished young queen could not but loathe her worthless and degraded husband, and she speedily fell in love with his younger brother, Dom Pedro, the Duke of Beja. Her passion was returned, and after fourteen months of an unhappy married life, the queen suddenly left the palace for a convent, and applied for a divorce on the ground of non-consummation to the chapter of the cathedral church of Lisbon. Her action was followed by a Court revolution, and Dom Pedro shut King Affonso up in a portion of the palace, and assumed the regency on November 23, 1667. Every one rejoiced at the overthrow of the vicious king. The measures of Dom Pedro were universally approved by the people of Lisbon, and on January 1, 1668, he was recognized as regent by the Cortes. The great minister, Castel Melhor, was not prosecuted, and was allowed to retire to Paris, and the young prince, who was not yet twenty, took the government of Portugal into his own hands.

The regent immediately hurried on the negotiations for a peace with Spain, which had been commenced under the directions of Castel Melhor, by the Earl of Sandwich and Sir Richard Southwell, the English ambassadors at Madrid and Lisbon, and on February 13, 1668, the long war, which had lasted for twenty-seven years—ever since the small band of conspirators in Lisbon had proclaimed King John IV.—was formally concluded. By the Treaty of Lisbon, Spain solemnly recognized the independence of Portugal, and gave its sovereign the title of “Your Majesty,” which had never been acknowledged even to Emmanuel and John III., and in return Portugal ceded Ceuta, in Morocco, to the King of Spain. This diplomatic success was followed on March 24th by the grant of a divorce to the queen, who, on April 2nd, with the dispensation and blessing of the Pope, married the regent Dom Pedro. The wretched Affonso was sent to the Azores, and a new era of peace and prosperity commenced for Portugal. The regent was fully convinced of the necessity of peace and economy, in order to restore the prosperity of the kingdom after its long struggle with Spain. He reduced the army, and dismissed all the foreign soldiers, and he set to work to make improvements in every department of administration. The treasury was empty, and the country was miserably poor. Agriculture had been neglected during the long war; the Dutch and English had seized upon the Asiatic trade; the Indian possessions were worth little or nothing; and the only source of revenue, except taxation, was the wealth of Brazil. Yet Dom Pedro had the wisdom and self-restraint not to increase the taxes, or press too heavily upon the sugar and tobacco planters of his great dominion in South America, and he preferred to reduce the expenses of his household to the lowest possible amount. In all his endeavours he was assisted by his wife, and it was no wonder that the Portuguese people loved and reverenced their prudent rulers.

The only event of importance during the regency was the plot of Dom Pedro Francisco de Mendonça and Dom Antonio de Cavida to restore Affonso VI. to the throne, in 1674. It was fortunately discovered in time; the ringleaders were executed, and Affonso VI. was removed from the Azores, where he had been trying to make a party, and established at Cintra, where he died in 1683. The regent then ascended the throne as Pedro II. and added the title of “king” to the power he had enjoyed for fifteen years; but in the same year he lost his wife, for whose sake he had overthrown his brother. His reign was marked by the same characteristics as his regency; and his strict economy and maintenance of peace gave an opportunity for the exhausted country to recover. He was an excellent administrator, not only from inclination, but from a desire to be independent of the Cortes, which he summoned as seldom as possible, and never after the arrival of the first consignment of gold from Brazil. In his foreign policy he made a point of remaining on good terms with both France and England, and he refused to interfere in the internal affairs of Spain. His friendship with England was kept up through his sister, Catherine, who, by his instructions, kept herself aloof from ministerial quarrels, and remained quietly in her adopted country after her husband’s death, all through the stormy reign of James II. and the Revolution of 1688, and who did not return to Portugal until 1692. With France he was more wary, for he feared the ambition of Louis XIV., and was apprehensive of the danger to Portugal which the accession of a Bourbon prince to the throne of Spain might cause.

PEDRO II.
(From a Print in the British Museum.)

The vacancy, which would be caused by the death of Charles II. of Spain, and the general scramble which seemed likely to take place for his dominions, were of more importance to King Pedro II. of Portugal, than to William III. of England, or Louis XIV. of France. He felt that he was utterly unable to cope with any of the great powers, and he commenced saving money for the general war which was certain soon to break out. In 1687, at the request of his minister and most intimate friend, the Duke of Cadaval, he consented to marry again, in order to have an heir to the throne. He selected for his second wife Maria Sophia of Neuburg, daughter of the Elector Palatine, greatly to the chagrin of Louis XIV., who hoped he would have chosen a French princess; and by her he had four sons. When the death of Charles II. became an event daily to be expected, he proclaimed his intention of remaining neutral, and refused, in consonance with the traditions of the House of Aviz, to be himself a candidate for the Spanish throne. Nevertheless, he increased his navy, placed his army on a war footing and repaired his fortresses, and in 1699, he had the pleasure of receiving the first important consignment of gold from Brazil, amounting to a ton and a half, which proved to him that he had a new source of revenue more productive than any taxes he could impose at home.

At last, on November 1, 1700, Charles II. of Spain died, and Louis XIV. in accepting the throne for his grandson, made his famous declaration, “There are now no longer any Pyrenees.” King Pedro carried his complaisance so far as to acknowledge Philip V., as king of Spain, and he even sheltered a French fleet under the Count de Chastenau in the Tagus, against the assaults of the English admiral, Sir George Rooke. But he soon saw that, as he feared, it was impossible for him to remain neutral, and the insolence of Cardinal Porto Carrero, who spoke of him to King Philip as “the rebel duke of Braganza,” and the information that there was a secret treaty, which promised French help for the subjugation of Portugal, made Pedro II. decide to enter into a yet closer alliance with England. This was exactly what the great Whig ministry wanted, and, in 1703, the Right Honourable John Methuen was sent to Lisbon with full powers to negotiate a political and commercial treaty with Portugal.

On December 27, 1703, the famous Methuen treaty was signed, by which Portuguese wines might be imported into England at a lower duty than those from France and Germany, in return for a similar concession to English manufactured goods. The immediate result of this treaty was that King Pedro acknowledged the Archduke Charles, the English candidate, as King of Spain, and that he gave the English a base of operations in the peninsula. The ulterior result was that Englishmen in the eighteenth century drank port wine instead of claret and hock, while the Portuguese imported everything they wanted beyond the bare necessaries of life from England. This was an advantage to both nations, for Portugal is eminently an agricultural country with neither the teeming population nor the materials necessary for manufactures, while England obtained a friendly province from which to import the wine and produce of a southern soil, and a market for the sale of the products of her manufactories. The close connection thus formed went deeper than mere commerce; it established a friendly relationship between the two peoples, which was of infinite advantage to the smaller nation. At Lisbon a regular English “factory” was established, and at Oporto a large colony of English wine merchants and shippers carried on business operations, which doubled the prosperity of the beautiful city on the Douro. The steady influx of English capital increased the wealth of Portugal, and the vineyards of the Entre-Minho-e-Douro became proverbial for their prosperous and industrious peasantry; while, on the other hand, the importation of English goods gave means of comfort and luxury to the Portuguese people which distinguished them in the eyes of all travellers of the last century from the Spaniards and Italians. To this day the beautiful porcelain from the famous English works at Worcester and Derby, Chelsea and Bow, is to be found in Portuguese cottages; and the English people have not lost their taste for port and St. Michael’s oranges.

OPORTO. PRESENT STATE.
(After a Photograph.)

From a political point of view, the Methuen treaty assured the very existence of Portugal; in all times of danger it could now count upon the support of the great power whose interest it was to have an ally from whose country it could act against Spain. On March 7, 1704, the Archduke Charles arrived at Lisbon with a powerful English fleet under Sir George Rooke, conveying ten thousand English troops under the command of Henri de Ruvigny, Lord Galway. On April 30, Philip V. declared war against Portugal, and the English advanced with a subsidiary Portuguese army under the Count das Galveras and Diniz de Mello e Castro. The campaign was successful; the allies took Salvaterra and Valença, and Sir George Rooke surprised the important fortress of Gibraltar. In the following year but little was done on the Portuguese frontier, because the Archduke Charles had sailed round to Barcelona, and King Pedro, who felt himself to be dying, gave up all active interest in affairs, and made over the regency to his sister Catherine, Queen-dowager of England. Had he been conscious he might have heard of the great successes and reverses of the campaign of 1706. Lord Galway and Dom João de Sousa, Marquis das Minas, advanced into Spain, and after taking Alcantara, Coria, Truxillo, Placencia, Ciudad Rodrigo, and Avila in rapid succession, occupied Madrid on July 2, 1706. But they did not remain there long; the Spaniards rose in arms for Philip V., and in August, 1706, the allied army fell back as quickly as it had advanced. Dom Pedro, however, remained unconscious of these stirring events; he gradually sank, and died at Alcantara on December 9, 1706, leaving a reputation of having been one of the best of the kings of Portugal. The great interest of his reign is to be found in the gradual formation of the English alliance, which is the clue to the Portuguese history of the next century. It was commenced by the marriage of Catherine de Braganza to Charles II., strengthened by the action of Lord Sandwich and Sir Richard Southwell in making peace with Spain, and finally cemented by the Methuen treaty, and it is curious to note that the first link in this chain was forged by Louis XIV. and Mazarin in recommending the marriage of Charles II.

It is important to observe the position of Portugal in Asia and South America during the half-century which succeeded the “Sixty Years’ Captivity,” and to see how the despised discovery of Pedro Alvares Cabral was to more than take the place of the vaunted Asiatic connection commenced by the voyage of Vasco da Gama. The heavy blows struck by the Dutch and English against the Portuguese monopoly of the Eastern trade before the successful revolution in 1640, have already been noticed, and the ruin of the Portuguese in Asia was consummated by the Dutch during the long naval war which succeeded the attack upon their settlements in Brazil. The China trade had not attained very important dimensions, so the Dutch left the Portuguese undisturbed at Macao, but they destroyed their settlements in the island of Formosa, and the English absorbed what trade there was by their factory at Canton. It was the spice trade and the command of the Spice Islands, which the Dutch chiefly coveted, and of which they obtained a monopoly, which they practically retain to this day. After the foundation of Batavia, all the efforts of the Dutch were directed against Malacca, which, though in a decayed state, was yet mistress of no inconsiderable trade; twice they stirred up the Achinese to attempt the conquest of Alboquerque’s famous settlement, but the Portuguese beat off the natives, and it was not until 1640 that the Dutch destroyed the rival of Batavia. The Portuguese made no further effort to share the spice trade, and after the massacre of the English at Amboyna in 1624, the more dangerous rivalry of the merchants of that nation was also withdrawn. In India, the Dutch made a point of securing the pepper trade only, and left the English to absorb that of the products of Northern India, of the muslins of Dacca and the brocades of Ahmadabad and Surat. The Portuguese repulsed the Dutch from Goa in 1639, but these determined traders were not to be beaten; in 1662, in spite of the peace which had been concluded by the intervention of England, they took Cochin, the principal Portuguese station in Southern India, and by 1664 were masters of all the chief pepper ports on the Malabar coast. They were equally successful in Ceylon, where they captured Jafnapatam, the last important Portuguese port, in 1658; and in 1669, they expelled the Portuguese from the Coromandel coast likewise, and took S. Thomé and Macassar. In Northern India the English were the most formidable rivals of the Portuguese. After the capture of Hūglī by the orders of Shah Jehān, the Portuguese dropped all communication with Bengal, and the trade of that important province fell into the hands of the English. On the other side of India, the English were equally successful. Their victory off Surat had broken the prestige of Portugal, and the trade with Gujarāt, Kathiawār, and Sind was chiefly in their possession. So weak indeed had the Portuguese become, that Diu, the city immortalized by the brave deeds of Antonio de Silveira and João de Castro, was plundered by a band of Arabs in 1670; and Goa itself, “Golden Goa,” was only saved from the Marāthas of Sambajì, the son of Sivajì, by the timely aid of a Mogul army. On the other hand, the Portuguese Jesuits won a reputation almost as great as that of the Portuguese heroes; though the Inquisition still continued its horrid work at Goa, there were nobler missionaries than the inquisitors, and the name of João de Brito, who preached with unexampled success until his cruel martyrdom in Madura in 1693, deserves to be ranked with that of St. Francis Xavier himself. In Africa, the chief Portuguese ports were re-conquered by Salvador Correa de Sá e Benevides in 1648, but they were only of little value, since they had been maintained chiefly as stations on the road to India, and not for purposes of African trade. The Dutch made their resting-place at the Cape of Good Hope, which is the reason why Mozambique was left to the Portuguese; and they also took possession of the rich island which had been first sighted by Lourenço de Almeida, to which they gave the name of Mauritius, after Prince Maurice of Nassau. On the western coast the Portuguese retained Angola, the Cape Verde Islands, and their other possessions; but they lost St. Helena to the Dutch, who held it until it was captured by the English captain, Anthony Munden, in 1673, when it was made into a station of the English East India Company. With their possessions in Morocco, the Portuguese parted with the more willingness, since they were only a source of expense; and the cession of Ceuta to the Spaniards and of Tangier to the English was generally approved. Of Bombay the other territorial cession made to England on the marriage of Catherine de Braganza, little need be said, for though destined to become the capital of western India, it proved at first of so little value, that in 1668 Charles II. granted it to the East India Company for ten pounds a year.

SPECIMENS OF PORTUGUESE SILVER AND COPPER COINS.

SILVER COINS. | COPPER COINS.

(1) A vintêm, 20 reis = about a penny.
(2) Half a tostaõ, 50 reis = nearly threepence.
(3) Three vintens = about threepence halfpenny.
(4) Tostaō, 100 reis = rather more than sixpence.
(5) Six vintens = about sevenpence.
(6) Twelve vintens, 240 reis = about one shilling and twopence.
(7) Crusado novo, 24 vintens = about two shillings and fourpence.

(1) One-and-a-half-reis piece (Peter II., 1700) = less than half a farthing.
(2) Three-reis piece (Maria and Peter III., 1797) = less than a farthing.
(3) Five-reis piece (Maria Regina, 1799) = about a farthing.
(4) Ten-reis piece (Maria I., 1799) = a little more than a halfpenny.

Very different from this tale of decay is the history of the Portuguese in Brazil during the same period, and the comparison shows clearly of how much greater value is a colony than a dominion conquered and held by the sword. The loyalty of the Portuguese colonists was shown by their expulsion of the Dutch with hardly any assistance from the home government, and the bonds of kinship enabled the Portuguese to maintain their power in South America without the establishment and maintenance of powerful armies. Indeed, one of the most valuable lessons taught by the history of the daughter country, is that the less interference the mother country makes in the affairs of its colony, the better it will be for both countries. The material prosperity of Brazil in the seventeenth century was due to the fact that during that period the colony was essentially agricultural, and that there was therefore time for a large and industrious population to collect, before gold was discovered in large quantities. The production of tobacco and sugar was the staple employment of the inhabitants, and the rapid development of these resources caused the growth of a large fleet, not only to carry these commodities to Europe, but to import the thousands of negro slaves, who worked in the plantations. And it is here well to remark that at this time the Portuguese settlers made no attempt to enslave the native Brazilians, who were protected by the Jesuits and by edicts of the king, but considered it perfectly just and right to make use of negro slaves. This wise behaviour and the conduct of the Jesuits, who laboured assiduously among the natives, placed them on friendly terms with their conquerors, who soon began to intermarry with them. Owing to this friendly relationship the interior of the continent was gradually opened up, and at last gold was discovered in large quantities. It was fortunate for the Portuguese that it had not been discovered before, for otherwise they would certainly have lost their colony during the “Sixty Years’ Captivity,” but at this time they were too strongly planted to be expelled, and had besides the potent protection of the English navy. The first discovery of gold on a large scale took place in 1699, and the arrival of the first cargo at an opportune juncture gave King Pedro the means he required for setting his army on foot. It must be remembered that at this time there were no Californian or Australian gold fields, and that the discovery of gold in Brazil was of more importance than it would be now. King Pedro prepared to work this source of wealth in a prudent manner; he did not attempt to make the gold fields a royal monopoly, which the independent inhabitants of the captainships would not have allowed, but demanded one-fifth of the total registered yearly export. This left enough profit for the gold searchers, and as the yearly revenue of the crown of Portugal from this source was at least £300,000, it may be imagined that the kings of Portugal were well able to maintain a splendid court at Lisbon in spite of the loss of the Asiatic trade. No story is more interesting than this growth of Brazil into the most valuable possession of Portugal; the land, which was at first inhabited by convicts, surpassed in wealth the dominion won by the noblest sons of the country.

XVI.

PORTUGAL IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. THE MARQUIS OF POMBAL.

THE eighteenth century exhibits fewer features of interest than any other throughout the whole history of Portugal. The country remained in a political sense a mere province of England, and was bound by the Methuen treaty to take a part in all the wars in which England was engaged, and the importance of this arrangement became more and more evident, when France and Spain were united by the close connection brought about by the “Pacte de Famille.” The commercial relation was the cause of more intimacy between the people of the two nationalities than the political alliance, for it brought, as has been said, English merchants and English capital into Portugal. But notwithstanding this double bond of union the two allies remained entirely separate. The Portuguese remained a race of bigoted Catholics, and the English made no efforts to convert them. This difference of religion prevented any close alliance between the reigning houses of the two countries, such as had been brought about by the marriage of Charles II. to Catherine of Braganza, for any marriage with a Catholic princess would have been rejected by the statesmen and the people of England. While therefore existing as an independent nation under the protection of England, Portugal maintained its own national characteristics, and remained in other respects more like Spain than any other country. The little state was no longer in the vanguard of the march of European civilization; it felt that its great days were past, and was content to remain in stagnant quiet. For this reason, if for no other, the story of Portugal loses its interest in the eighteenth century, for it was illustrated by no great feat of arms, no national revolution or advance of national progress, and it was at this time that in every point of view, literary as well as political, it fell behind the other European nations. It was inevitable that it should be so; a nation which depended on another for its political independence, was not likely to produce heroes. It is strange that the influence of English example did not give rise to a movement for political freedom and representative institutions, but it was not so; the monarchy remained absolutist and was prevented from needing the support of the people by the wealth it derived from the gold and the diamond mines of Brazil, and the Cortes was not once summoned throughout the century. Yet this absolutism was not an unmixed evil, for it produced a great minister, the Portuguese Richelieu, in the Marquis of Pombal.

The reign of John V., the eldest son of Pedro II., who at once assumed the royal power from the regent Catherine, was, though it commenced in war, remarkable for the long continuance of peace. The War of the Spanish Succession was still raging in the peninsula, and the first campaign after the accession of the new monarch was marked by the great defeat inflicted on the English and Portuguese by the French and Spaniards at Almanza, on April 15, 1707, a battle in which it chanced that the English were commanded by a Frenchman, Henri de Ruvigny, Lord Galway, and the French by an Englishman James Fitz-James, Duke of Berwick. Nevertheless John V., who was a young man of seventeen, in spite of this disaster, kept true to the English alliance and the Methuen treaty, and left the management of affairs in the hands of his father’s minister and friend João de Mascarenhas, Duke of Cadaval. This able statesman bound the king more surely to the Anglo-Austrian alliance by marrying him to the Archduchess Marianna, daughter of the late Emperor Leopold I., who was escorted to Lisbon by a powerful English fleet under Admiral Sir George Byng, in 1708. The war continued, however, to go steadily against the allies, for the Spaniards had rallied enthusiastically around their Bourbon king, Philip V.; and on May 7, 1709, a Portuguese army under the Marquis of Fronteira was defeated on the banks of the Caia, by the Spaniards under the Marquis de Bay. Far more serious was the capture of Rio de Janeiro, by the French admiral, Duguay-Trouin, on September 23, 1711, which cut off all supplies from Brazil for more than a year. The war languished all over Europe after the accession of the Archduke Charles as Emperor, and on February 6, 1715, nearly two years after the treaty of Utrecht, peace was signed between Spain and Portugal, at Madrid, by the Secretary of State, Diogo de Mendonça, Count of Corte-Real.

As soon as John V. began to mark out a policy for himself, after the death of the Duke of Cadaval, he showed his distaste for war. He refused to join in the war against Cardinal Alberoni, the famous minister of Spain, and avoided as far as possible any combination which might lead to the rupture of peace. The only expedition he sent out was a fleet, which he equipped at the Pope’s bidding to join the Venetians in their struggle against the Turks, and which, under the command of Lopo Furtado de Mendonça, Count of Rio Grande, defeated the Mohammedans off Cape Matapan in 1717. The main effort of King John’s foreign policy was to combine a firm adherence to the Methuen treaty with friendly relations with Spain, by which he hoped to avoid war. For this purpose he always kept on the best of terms with the English ambassadors at Lisbon, notably with Lord Tyrawley; and in 1729 he closely allied himself with the new dynasty in Spain. His daughter, Donna Maria Josepha de Braganza, was married to Don Ferdinand, eldest son of Philip V., who succeeded to the throne of Spain as Ferdinand VI.; while the Spanish infanta, Donna Marianna Victoria de Bourbon, was married to the heir-apparent of Portugal, Dom Joseph. With the papacy John V. remained on the best of terms; he lent enormous sums of money to successive popes out of the wealth of Brazil, and in return received rewards, which were of no real value, but which were such as he highly esteemed. Lisbon was divided into two dioceses; the Archbishopric of Lisbon was erected into a patriarchate; the patriarch was allowed to officiate in vestments resembling those of the Pope, and his canons in imitation of those of the cardinals; and, finally, in the last year of his reign, the title of “Fidelissimus,” or “Most Faithful,” was conferred upon the kings of Portugal, to correspond with those of “Most Christian” and “Most Catholic,” attributed to the kings of France and Spain respectively.

These are the only points of interest, which mark John V.’s long reign of forty-four years, and as the last thirty-five of these years were years of peace, it may well be said, happy is the reign which has but little history. But it must not be thought that he therefore left no impression upon his country. On the contrary, he did much to imprint his name on its history. He showed a tendency, like so many other princes of the eighteenth century, to imitate Louis XIV. He spent much money in building, and among his most famous efforts in this direction are the patriarchal church at Lisbon, the superb convent at Mafra, and the great aqueduct which still supplies Lisbon with water. He was a munificent patron of literature and the arts, and founded the Academy of History at Lisbon in 1720. He loved music and the theatre, and spent great sums in importing singers and dancers from Italy and actors from France. He took an intelligent interest in the administration of his kingdom, and for the better despatch of business formed three secretaryships of state for the home, foreign and war, and colonial and naval, departments instead of one, and he took a particular pride in his navy, and founded the naval arsenal of Lisbon. One other fact also may be recorded to his credit, that in 1725 he obtained a Bull from Pope Benedict XIII., allowing all prisoners of the Inquisition to employ counsel to defend them, and ordering that all sentences of the Holy Office should be communicated to and confirmed by the king in council. This excellent monarch had a paralytic stroke in 1742, and for the last eight years of his reign, until his death in 1750, the kingdom was governed by the queen, and the Cardinal da Cunha, Patriarch of Lisbon.

The reign of King Joseph, which lasted from 1750 to 1777, is made famous by the administration of the Marquis of Pombal, the greatest minister who ever ruled Portugal, and one of the greatest of eighteenth-century statesmen. The king, though a man of real ability himself, interfered but little in politics, and left the management of affairs entirely in the hands of the minister, whose greatness he was the first to perceive. The relationship between the monarch and his subject resembles that between Louis XIII. and Richelieu, and does honour to both parties. In everything—in his great internal administrative reforms, in his financial schemes, in the reorganization of the army, in the abolition of slavery, and in the struggle with the Jesuits, which ended in the suppression of that famous order—King Joseph supported his minister. Pombal broke the power of the nobility, and made the king more absolute than ever, and he exalted the royal prerogative, while using it for his measures of reform; while, in return, the king maintained the minister in power, in spite of the vehement protests and wily intrigues of the Roman Catholic clergy, and the opposition of his wife.

Sebastião José de Carvalho e Mello, better known by his later title of the Marquis of Pombal, was a man of more than fifty years of age when his patron succeeded to the throne, and he himself entered office. His father, Emmanuel de Carvalho, was a country gentleman of moderate wealth, but by his mother, Theresa de Mendonça, he was related to some of the noblest families of Portugal, to the Almeidas, the Mellos and the Mendonças. He was born at Soure, on May 13, 1699, and after receiving his education at the University of Coimbra, he entered the army as a private. He found neither pleasure nor profit in a military career in time of peace, and after leaving the service, he led the life of a man about town in Lisbon. His handsome face, great bodily strength, and proficiency in athletic exercises, made him popular in all circles of society in the capital, in spite of his comparative poverty, and he especially distinguished himself, if distinction it may be called, among the “Mohocks,” who infested the streets of Lisbon. There seemed no prospect of his ever making any mark in life, when in 1733 he made himself the talk of the town by his elopement with, or rather his abduction of, a lady of the highest rank, Donna Theresa de Noronha, niece of the Count of Arcos. His wife’s family were at first most indignant, but at last they relented, and in 1739 the bravo of the streets of Lisbon was, by their influence, appointed ambassador to the Court of England. It is some consolation for men of advanced years to remember that the greatest of Portuguese ministers was forty years of age before he ever received official employment. In London Sebastião de Carvalho turned over a new leaf, and devoted himself to the serious study of politics, and he carefully investigated the English system of government and the causes of England’s commercial prosperity. From London he was removed to the Court of Vienna in 1745, and he there married, on the death of his first wife, a daughter of Count Daun, the famous Austrian general. On this occasion King John V. was pleased out of compliment to the victor of Kolin, to grant Sebastião de Carvalho letters of nobility, which entitled him to the prefix Dom; and in 1750 the ambassador was recalled to Portugal and appointed Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. While he was on his way home John V. died, and when Carvalho reached Lisbon King Joseph had already ascended the throne.

THE MARQUIS OF POMBAL.
(From a Print in the British Museum.)

At first the new Secretary of State held no higher rank than his colleagues, but his abilities soon became evident to the king, and his conduct at the time of the great earthquake of Lisbon gave him unbounded ascendency over the mind of the monarch. This terrible catastrophe took place on November 1, 1755. The population of the city was collected in the churches listening to the solemn services of All Saints Day, when the first shock of earthquake was felt; it was followed at intervals by three others, which laid half the city in ruins. Most of the unfortunate people, who managed to escape from the falling houses and churches, rushed to the quays. But the disturbance affected the sea also; an immense tidal wave swept the quays, and washed off thousands of the fugitives, while the ships in the river were driven on shore. No element of horror was missing, for fires broke out in all parts of the wrecked city, and the scum of the populace rushed hither and thither, murdering and robbing those whom the calamities of nature had spared. At this fearful juncture the king and Carvalho showed the greatest courage and a most unshaken firmness of demeanour. To the demands of the monarch as to what was to be done, the minister answered laconically, “Bury the dead and feed the living,” and for eight days and nights he lived in his carriage, driving from place to place, whithersoever his presence was needed, and repressing disorder. The news of the disaster spread all over Europe; at least thirty thousand people, according to some accounts one hundred thousand people, lost their lives, and foreign nations were not backward in assisting the remnant of the people of Lisbon. In England the pity felt was keener than anywhere else, owing to the close relationship between the two nations, and large sums of money and great quantities of provisions were promptly despatched from London to Portugal. The catastrophe made an extraordinary impression on the minds of all contemporaries; in London over twenty accounts were published within the year, apart from notices in magazines, and Voltaire in his “Candide” gave a full and, on the whole, very accurate description of it.

Carvalho’s energy at this time established his reputation with the king, and he felt able to commence his campaigns against the nobility and the Jesuits. In order that he might have his time free for matters of such importance he was made Prime Minister in 1756, with power over all departments of administration, and his friend, Luis da Cunha, was appointed Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in his place. Of his long series of administrative reforms, and his efforts to improve the condition of the country, which were spread over his government of twenty-seven years, it will be better to speak as a whole; but a special description must here be given of his campaign against the Jesuits, which brought about the suppression of that famous order. It is not necessary to speculate on the various motives, which induced Carvalho to attack the Jesuits, but the principal cause lay in the fact that they were wealthy and powerful, and therefore a dangerous force in an absolutist monarchy. It must be remembered that the Jesuits of the eighteenth century formed a very different class of men to their predecessors. They were no longer intrepid missionary pioneers, but a corporation of wealthy traders, who made use of their spiritual position to further the cause of their commerce. They had done a great work in America by opening up the interior of Brazil and converting the natives, and their administration of Paraguay, one of the most interesting achievements in the whole history of Christianity, was without doubt a blessing to the people. But by the middle of the eighteenth century they had gone too far. It was one thing to convert the natives of Brazil, and another to absorb much of the wealth of that country, in doing which they prejudiced not only the Crown, but the Portuguese people, whom they kept from settling in the territory under their rule. Whether it was a sufficient reason for Carvalho to attack the order because it was wealthy and powerful, and had departed from its primitive simplicity, is a question for every one to decide for themselves, but that this was the reason, and that the various excuses alleged by the admirers of the great minister are without foundation, is an undoubted fact. On September 19, 1757, the first important blow was struck, when the king’s Jesuit confessor was dismissed, and all Jesuits were forbidden to come to Court. Carvalho, in the name of the King of Portugal, also formally denounced the order at Rome, and Benedict XIV., the then Pope, appointed the Cardinal de Saldanha, a friend of the minister, Visitor and Reformer of the Society of Jesus. The cardinal did not take long in making up his mind, and May 15, 1758, he forbade the Jesuits to engage in trade.

An attempt upon the king’s life, which shortly followed this measure, gave the minister the opportunity he wanted for urging the suppression of the famous society. The history of the Tavora plot, which culminated in this attempt is one of the most mysterious affairs in the whole history of Portugal, and from the many contradictory accounts which have been published, it is almost impossible to arrive at the exact truth. But it is certain that the Jesuits and the nobles had no reason to love the king and his minister, and it is hardly to be wondered at that their opposition resulted in violent measures. The great nobles had been systematically deprived of all political power since the accession of King Joseph, for Carvalho, like Richelieu, distrusted them, and preferred to employ men of his own rank in life or of bourgeois descent in public business in preference to noblemen and their relations. The three leaders of the plot were the Duke of Aveiro, a descendant of John II., and one of the greatest noblemen in Portugal, the Marquis of Tavora, who had filled with credit the post of Governor-general of India, and the Count of Atouguia, a descendant of the gallant Dom Luis de Athaide, the defender of Goa; but the heart and soul of the conspiracy was the Marchioness of Tavora, a beautiful and ambitious woman, who was bitterly offended because her husband had not been made a duke. The confessor of this lady was a Jesuit named Gabriel Malagrida, who is by some authors treated as a half-insane fanatic, and by others as a dangerous intriguer, incensed by the attacks of Carvalho upon his order. Whether Malagrida was innocent or guilty, whether he was mad or sane, whether the Tavoras were incited by religious or political motives, or merely by a desire for private revenge, whether all these noblemen, and especially the Duke of Aveiro, were not merely accused in order to allow Carvalho to strike a blow at the nobility, whether, finally, all those who were punished were victims of the minister or really guilty, are questions which cannot be determined here. The evidence on all sides is most contradictory, and all that is certain is that the king was fired at and wounded on the night of September 3, 1758; and that in the following January, the three noblemen who have been mentioned, the Marchioness of Tavora, Malagrida with seven other Jesuits, and many other individuals of all ranks of life, were arrested as implicated in the attempt to murder. The laymen had but a short trial, and, together with the marchioness, were publicly executed ten days after their arrest.

King Joseph certainly believed that the real culprits had been seized, and in his gratitude he created Carvalho, Count of Oeyras, and encouraged him to pursue his campaign against the Jesuits. On January 19, 1759, the estates belonging to the society were sequestrated; and on September 3rd, all its members were expelled from Portugal, and directions were sent to the viceroys of India and Brazil to expel them likewise. The news of this bold stroke was received with admiration everywhere, except at Rome, and it became noised abroad that a great minister was ruling in Portugal. The elder Pitt, who was anxious that Portugal should join in the Seven Years’ War, publicly acknowledged the ability of the Count of Oeyras, and at his demand apologized for the infraction of the law of nations, which had been committed by the English Admiral Boscawen’s attack upon the French squadron under La Clue, in the Portuguese harbour of Lagos.

The Count of Oeyras had no desire to take part in the general war raging in Europe, and refused to accede to Pitt’s wishes, until the King of Spain, according to the arrangement of the “Pacte de Famille,” attacked Portugal, as being a declared enemy of the Franco-Spanish alliance owing to the Methuen treaty with England. The Spaniards under the Marquis of Sarria invaded the northern provinces of Portugal in 1762, and captured in rapid succession the towns of Miranda, Braganza, and Almeida. Then the Count of Oeyras appealed to the English statesman, and not in vain. English soldiers and munitions of war were at once despatched to Lisbon, and, at the special request of the minister, a general in English pay, the Count of Lippe-Buckeburg, with some English officers and sergeants, were sent to reorganize the Portuguese army as Schomberg had done in the century before. The Count of Lippe, assisted by the energy of the Portuguese minister, quickly formed the Portuguese troops into a disciplined army, and on the arrival of Brigadier-General John Burgoyne, a gallant cavalry officer, who had distinguished himself at Belle-isle, but who is better known in English history from his surrender at Saratoga, to take command of the English troops, the allied army advanced. They were uniformly successful; the Spaniards lost all their former advantages; they were defeated at Valencia de Alcantara, where the English took three standards and a Spanish general; and on October 5th Burgoyne stormed the entrenched camp of Villa Velha, and ended the campaign. The Spaniards were now quite ready to give in, and on February 10, 1763, peace was signed between Portugal and Spain. The Count of Oeyras had learnt a lesson from the contrast between the two campaigns, and when Burgoyne and his English soldiers returned to England, the Count of Lippe-Buckeburg was requested to remain, and he not only reorganized the Portuguese army, but put all the Portuguese fortresses on the Spanish frontier, and especially Elvas, in thorough repair, according to the received ideas of fortification.

On the conclusion of this short war, the Count of Oeyras once more turned his attention to the Jesuits, and in 1764 the Jesuit priest Malagrida was burnt alive, not as a traitor, but as a heretic and impostor, on account of some crazy tractates he had written. The man was regarded as a martyr, and all communication between Portugal and the Holy See was broken off for two years, while the Portuguese minister exerted all his influence with the Courts of France and Spain to procure the entire suppression of the society, which he hated. The king supported him consistently, and after another attempt upon his life in 1769, which the minister as usual attributed to the Jesuits, King Joseph created his faithful servant Marquis of Pombal, by which title he is best known to fame. The prime ministers of France and Spain cordially acquiesced in the hatred of the Jesuits, for both the Duc de Choiseul and the Count d’Aranda had something of Pombal’s spirit in them, and imitated his policy; in both countries the society, which on its foundation had done so much for Catholicism and Christianity, was proscribed, and the worthy members treated with as much rigour as the unworthy; and finally in 1773 Pope Clement XIV. solemnly abolished the Society of Jesus. King Joseph did not long survive this triumph of his minister, for he died on February 24, 1777, and the Marquis of Pombal, then an old man of seventy-seven, was at once dismissed from office.

BULL FIGHT.
(From “Les Royaumes d’Espagne,” &c. La Haye, 1720.)

To analyse the internal reforms and general measures of improvement introduced into Portugal by Pombal is almost impossible in a single paragraph, so far-reaching were his endeavours, so unlimited his energy. He has often been compared with Richelieu, chiefly, it seems, because of his rigorous suppression of the Tavora plot; but the men whom he really resembled were the benevolent despots and their ministers who abounded in Europe before the outbreak of the French Revolution. He firmly believed that the greatest happiness of a people depended upon the maintenance of an absolutist monarchy, which could do more good than representative institutions, and his struggle with the Jesuits was mainly due to the fact that they were so wealthy and independent, especially in Brazil, as to hamper the power of the Crown. The class of statesmen and politicians to which he belonged included such monarchs as Frederick the Great of Prussia, the Emperor Joseph II., Leopold, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Charles III. of Spain, and such great reforming ministers as Aranda in Spain and Tannucci in Naples; and like them he believed that real good could only be done by an absolute monarch, who had the interests of his people at heart. The greatest evidence Pombal gave of this royal concern for the people was in the famous decree of May 25, 1773, by which slavery was abolished in Portugal, or rather by which grandsons of slaves, and all children of slaves born after that date, were declared free, and which at the same time abolished all distinctions between “old” and “new” Christians, by which latter term the descendants of the converted Jews and Mohammedans were still called, and made all Portuguese subjects alike eligible for civil, military, and ecclesiastical offices. In Brazil, however, he made no attempt to put down slavery, believing, like all his contemporaries, that negroes were made on purpose to be slaves; but even there he repeated and enforced the edicts against making slaves of the natives of the country. In matters of internal administration he advocated and maintained efficiency and economy, and at one blow in 1761 he swept away more than three-quarters of the petty offices which hampered the administration of justice. The law courts were made accessible, and lawsuits cheap; and in 1769 he robbed the Inquisition of its power by making it an open and public court, subject to the rules which regulated other courts. In matters of police he showed the same vigour, and by stern repression prevented the machinery of the law from being used to further private revenge. He recognized the importance of education, and reorganized the University of Coimbra in 1772 by abolishing the teaching of the dark ages which still continued there and introducing the modern element; and though he expelled the great teaching order of the Church, he maintained the educational establishments of the Jesuits, and turned their college at Lisbon into a school for the training of the young nobility. Of the reforms in the army, which he carried out with the help of the Count of Lippe-Buckeburg mention has already been made, and he was equally energetic with regard to the navy, over which department he placed the most energetic of his subordinates, Martinho de Mello e Castro. Nor was the great minister careless of more material affairs; he showed a taste for architecture and building; under his superintendence the part of Lisbon which had been ruined by the earthquake rose from its ashes in redoubled beauty, adorned with fine streets, squares, and buildings, generally designed by the famous Portuguese architect Joaquim Machado de Castro. He did not neglect to encourage agriculture and viniculture, which must ever be the source of livelihood of the greater number of the Portuguese people, and he introduced the silkworm into the northern provinces, and made special regulations for the management and encouragement of the bold fishermen of the Beira and the Algarves. In his attempt to introduce manufactures the Marquis of Pombal was not so successful; the Portuguese are not a manufacturing people, and the system of protection which he enforced only roused the opposition of English merchants, who protested against it as a breach of the Methuen treaty, and made manufactured articles dearer than they had been during the first half of the century. Yet some of the native industries which he established or protected were not unworthy of his care, and the glass-works of Leiria, the lace of Vianna, and the potteries of Aveiro enjoyed a great and deserved reputation. In commercial matters he showed the result of the lessons he had learnt during his official residence in London, for he founded the Royal Bank of Portugal in 1751, and established the Oporto Wine Company, against which infraction of their monopoly the English wine merchants loudly inveighed. He encouraged trade with Brazil by granting concessions to the gold seekers and planters of that great colony; and the importation of gold, sugar, and tobacco brought back to Lisbon some of the prosperity of the sixteenth century. In Asia he was clear-sighted enough to perceive that any attempt to contend for a share of the Indian or the spice trade was bound to be of no avail; but he was the first of Portuguese statesmen to perceive the value of the little settlement of Macao in the Canton river. Most of the Chinese trade, which had been yearly growing in value, was in the hands of the factory of the English East India Company at Canton, but the jealousy of the Chinese Government was such that the Company had no assured position there. But Macao was a free port; most of the factors and writers of the East India Company resided there, and Pombal, seeing that the tea trade passed through Portuguese territory, greatly encouraged it, and took care that it should pay due toll to the Portuguese authorities and contribute to the wealth of the Portuguese Crown. Nor was the great minister insensible to literature and the fine arts. He founded the “Arcadia de Lisboa” in 1757, for the propagation of the teachings of the school of the French encyclopædists; and it was under his influence and protection that Diogo Barbosa Machado compiled his “Bibliotheca Lusitana” and Damião Antonio de Lemos wrote his “Historia de Portugal,” a work which stands midway between the naïve annals of Bernardo de Brito and Antonio Brandão, and the modern scientific histories of Alexandra Herculano and Rebello da Silva. Of music he was particularly fond; he persuaded the king to build the opera house at Lisbon, and to invite the famous singer Caffarelli, the confidant of the King of Spain, to sing there, and to him was dedicated the best Portuguese opera, the “Alessandre nell’ Indie” of David Peres.

Such were some of the reforms, schemes, improvements, and tastes of the great minister; they made him the friend of his sovereign and the adored of the people; but, on the other hand, his persecution of the Jesuits and his rigorous treatment of the leading noblemen, whom he had often imprisoned without trial, made him many personal enemies, and when his patron died he knew that his own fall was at hand. King Joseph had died without male issue, and was succeeded on the throne by his eldest daughter, Donna Maria Francisca, who had married in 1760 her own uncle Dom Pedro, a younger brother of King Joseph. By this arrangement it was hoped that all disputes as to the accession would be avoided; the husband and wife were crowned together, and coins were struck in the joint names of Maria I. and Pedro III. Both the king and the queen were feeble and weak-minded, and the reins of government fell into the hands of the widow of King Joseph, Donna Marianna Victoria, a fanatical Catholic who had always resented the influence of Pombal and opposed his policy. By her advice the great minister was at once dismissed from office and ordered to send in his accounts, while his enemies were released from prison. Their names will show how powerful was the enmity he had to expect, for among them were Dom Miguel de Annunciacão, Bishop of Coimbra; Dom João Amberto de Noronha, Count of San Lourenço; Dom João de Almeida Portugal, Marquis of Alorna, a former Viceroy of India, and brother of the Marquis of Tavora; Dom Martinho de Mascarenhas, son of the executed Duke of Aveiro; Dom José, illegitimate brother of the late king and Grand Inquisitor of Portugal; Antonio de Andrade Freire, the Chancellor; Dom Frederico de Sousa Holstein; and Dom João de Braganza, Duke of Lafoẽs. These men at once surrounded the new sovereigns and gave utterance to complaints against Pombal; the proceedings in the case of the Tavora plot were reversed, and the prosecution of the late minister pressed on with bitter hostility. Yet his enemies hardly dared to condemn such a benefactor to his country to any severe penalty, and after being driven about from pillar to post for four years, the old man, now more than eighty years of age, was condemned to be banished twenty leagues from Court. Had his relentless persecutor, the widow of King Joseph, been alive, his punishment would doubtless have been more severe, and, as it was, the queen dared not pass such a light sentence until after her mother’s death. The old minister did not long survive his disgrace, and died at Pombal on May 8, 1782, at the age of eighty-three. To the credit of Pedro and Maria let it be admitted at once that in consideration of his father’s long and eminent services the young Marquis of Pombal was fully confirmed in all the honours and estates which had been conferred upon the minister by King Joseph.

It need hardly be said that the fall of Pombal left many aspirants to his high place. The three Secretaries of State, Martinho de Mello e Castro, Thomas Xavier de Lima Brito, Viscount of Villa Nova de Cerveira, afterwards Marquis of Ponte de Lima, and Ayres de Sá e Mello; the Intendant of the Treasury, Pedro José de Noronha, Marquis of Angeja; and the Intendant of Police, Diogo Ignacio de Pina Manique, had all been trained in official work by Pombal, and were all eager to succeed their master in power. None of them, however, were successful, for the great nobles who had been recalled to Court were determined to have no such supreme ruler again over them, while they were too jealous of each other and too inexperienced in affairs to take office themselves. Matters went on therefore at the commencement of the new reign much as they had done under the management of Pombal; his spirit remained amongst the ministers, and in such measures as the commercial treaty with Russia, the lighting of Lisbon by oil lamps, and the abolition of imprisonment for debt, the impulse he had given to all reforms is clearly to be seen. The “Arcadia de Lisboa” was indeed allowed to disappear, but in its place the Duke of Lafoẽs established the “Academia Real das Sciencias” in 1779, which did even better work for literature by its publication of the works of the early Portuguese chroniclers. In carrying out these measures the king and queen had little share; Pedro III. was a silly and vicious man, and Maria Francisca was a woman of weak intellect, completely subservient to her confessor, Ignacio de San Caetano who found her greatest happiness in raising vast sums of money and sending them to the Latin convent at Jerusalem. The only important event in which they took a part was their conference with the Court of Spain at Badajoz in 1785, when an arrangement was come to about the disputed frontier in South America; and when Dom John, the second son of Pedro and Maria, was betrothed to Donna Carlotta Joaquina, grand-daughter of Charles III. of Spain. In the following year Pedro III. died, and his death, followed as it speedily was by those of her confessor and of her elder son, Dom José, who had married his aunt, Donna Maria Benedictina, completely upset the small amount of intellect possessed by Maria Francisca. It was observed in 1788 that she was quite unfit to transact any business; and in 1792, when the progress of the French Revolution was setting all Europe in a blaze, Dom John found it necessary to take the management of affairs into his hands, though he was not declared regent until 1799.

To turn from the history of Portugal in the eighteenth century to the history of the Portuguese possessions in India is a melancholy task; for these possessions instead of being a source of pride were a source of expense and anxiety to the home government, and they were maintained rather from a recollection of ancient greatness and as a base for mission work than for any actual advantage derived from them. In 1739 Bassein, the “Capital of the North” as it was called, a city which had been second only to Goa in commercial and political importance, was captured by Chimnājī Apā, a Marātha general, after a three months’ siege, and with it fell Thana and all the possessions of the Portuguese on the north-west coast except Daman and Diu. In 1741 the Marāthas and the Bhonslās of Sawantwārī over-ran the country round Goa and threatened the city, but in the moment of difficulty, the Marquis of Louriçal arrived with twelve thousand men, and first defeated the Marāthas at Bardez, and then made Khem Sawant, the ruler of Sawantwārī, tributary. His successes were followed by those of the Marquis of Castello Novo, who captured Alorna, Tiracol, Neutim, Rarim, and Satari; and the Marquis of Tavora, who took Sadashivgarh.

But the Portuguese Government had no desire to make fresh conquests which it would need fresh supplies of money from home to defend, and the Count of Ega was ordered to surrender most of the conquered towns to their former owners. Meanwhile commerce had entirely deserted the Portuguese possessions, which were given over to the Church; and Captain Hamilton in his travels, after speaking of the poverty of the Portuguese inhabitants, says that he counted no fewer than eighty churches and convents in Goa, and that there were no less than thirty thousand priests in the city and territory. Revenue there was none, and the two thousand European soldiers who defended the ancient capital of Alboquerque had to be paid out of the Portuguese treasury. The last blow was given to what little commerce still remained by Pombal’s suppression of the Jesuits, and in 1759 “Golden Goa,” which had become unhealthy and ruinous, was left to priests and monks, and the seat of government was removed to Panjim. Pombal, with his practical insight, saw that nothing was to be made out of the Portuguese possessions in India, and spent all his efforts in Asia in promoting the prosperity of Macao; and in 1794, when Portugal was in difficulties in Europe, the Viceroy of Goa asked for the protection of English troops, and Goa was garrisoned by the English East India Company throughout the continuance of the great war with France.

Very different was the history of Brazil during this century: while India was a source of expense, Brazil was the great source of wealth to the Portuguese treasury, and was to be the refuge of the royal family when it became impossible for it to remain longer in Lisbon. Throughout the century there was a steady influx of immigrants to Brazil from Portugal, and the population of the great colony rapidly increased in numbers. Most of these immigrants settled down as sugar or tobacco planters, and the labour upon the plantations was completely in the hands of the negro slaves, who were imported in vast numbers. The trade in slaves was kept entirely in the hands of Portuguese merchants, in spite of the efforts of the English slavers, and was not only looked upon as a lucrative calling, but as the chief employment for the Portuguese sailors. It was this trade alone which made it worth while for the Portuguese Government to keep up its establishments on the coast of Guinea, and Pombal encouraged it as the only means of supplying Brazil with labourers. The slaves in Brazil were not treated unkindly; their masters were bound to feed them; and were not only allowed, but were obliged to sell them their liberty, on the offer of a certain fixed sum of money. These freed slaves and the mulattoes, who were very numerous, often accumulated considerable wealth, and were treated as citizens in every respect, except that they could not hold any civil or municipal office. They were even enrolled as soldiers, but the mulatto regiments were kept distinct from the European, and officered from among the wealthy members of their own class. The native Brazilians were treated even more favourably, and by the great decree of 1755 they were not only forbidden to sell themselves as slaves, but were made citizens in every respect, and allowed to receive their education at the University of Coimbra. The importance of the discovery of gold in the interior has been mentioned, and the revenue to the Portuguese Crown from the king’s fifth, in spite of much fraud, was estimated at £300,000 a year. The opening up of the interior led, about the year 1750, to the conquest of the Paulist Republic. This curious little state had been formed round the city of St. Paul about the commencement of the eighteenth century by fugitives from Brazil and from the more oppressive Spanish Governments of Chile and Peru. The town was originally founded far up in the heart of the virgin forests beyond the jurisdiction of the Portuguese and Spanish officials, where the inhabitants led a wild, romantic life, tempered only by lynch law. But by degrees the march of civilization brought them in contact with the Portuguese Government, and the discovery of diamonds in the vicinity led to the suppression of the little republic. This discovery of diamonds further increased the wealth of the Portuguese Crown, and in addition to the royal right to every diamond above twenty carats weight, the king was estimated to make an income of £100,000 a year by a contract entered into with a syndicate of English diamond buyers. Nor were other precious stones lacking, for rubies, emeralds, and topazes were all discovered in such large quantities in the latter half of the eighteenth century as to seriously lower their price. The great colony was ruled most wisely; only a few of the superior officers were sent from Portugal, and most offices were filled from among the settlers themselves. It was not even found necessary to send troops from Portugal, for a regular army of sixteen thousand men, and a militia of over twenty thousand were easily raised and paid in the country itself. The only troubles which beset the colony were caused by the indefiniteness of its boundaries, and Portugal found it necessary to yield much territory, which has since developed into wealthy and prosperous republics to the encroachments of Spain. Its importance was recognized by the title of Prince of Brazil granted to the eldest son of the King of Portugal since the days of John IV., and it became a safe refuge for the exiled royal family when events in Europe made it necessary for it to fly from Lisbon.

In literature the Portuguese writers of the eighteenth century followed and imitated the French authors of the reigns of Louis XIV. and Louis XV. instead of striving to develop the characteristics of their own nation. The “Academia Real de Lisboa,” the “Academia Real de Portugal,” the “Arcadia de Lisboa,” and the “Academia Real das Sciencias,” which succeeded each other at short intervals, were all attempts to imitate the French Academy and its offshoots, and though they did good work in encouraging research and rewarding literary endeavour, they failed, as such institutions generally do fail, to produce great writers and thinkers. At the beginning of the eighteenth century, before the academies exercised their influence, the only literary productions in Portugal were lyric poems of no great merit, which were much admired by the members of numerous little literary clubs resembling the Italian arcadias, and which were chiefly imitations of the forms of verse most in vogue in France and Italy. But during the rule of Pombal a more healthy spirit appeared; the works of the French encyclopædists and their contemporaries were studied instead of tricks of versification, and a new departure was made alike in poetry and prose. The new poets did not confine themselves to lyrics; they attempted epics, dramas, and eclogues, all more or less based upon an imitation of the French, but yet possessing a more truly national ring than the lyrics of their predecessors. All these poets were not lovers of Pombal; the great minister was too heedless of hurting their susceptibilities and too sparing of his pensions for that; and the best known among them, Antonio Diniz da Cruz e Silva, who was termed the Portuguese Boileau, vehemently attacked the great man after his fall. The influence exerted by this poet on the progress of Portuguese literature was, however, slight compared to that of his successors, Francisco Manoel de Nascimento and Manoel Maria Barbosa du Bocage, whose followers under the names of the “Filintists” and “Elmanists” preached freedom from the rigour of the French canons of criticism, and adherence to national forms. Epic poetry was not neglected, though none of its writers can compare with the great Camoens, whose “Lusiads” were several times reprinted with notes during this century. The fame of the great Portuguese epic was indeed spread abroad throughout Europe; it was translated into French by Duperron de Castera and by the French critic La Harpe; into Dutch by L. S. Pieterzoon; and into English by Mickle who, as a translator of their master-poet, was cordially received at the Portuguese Court in 1780. Nor was the drama forgotten; the Portuguese stage was held by tragedies after the French classical model, the subjects of which were generally borrowed from the annals of the country, of which the titles of the three tragedies of Du Bocage, “Viriato,” “Affonso Henriques,” and “Vasco da Gama,” may be cited as a proof. In prose, the most valuable work was done in history, and the editions of the old Portuguese chroniclers, Ruy de Pina, Azurara, Fernão Lopes, and Acenheiro, edited for the “Academia Real das Sciencias,” by José Correa de Serra still remain the standard editions. Nor was science neglected in the country of Pedro Nunes; Bartholomeu de Gusmão is asserted to have discovered ballooning in 1709, years before the Montgolfiers commenced their experiments; and the botanists Felix de Avellar Brotero and Antonio Correa da Silva, to mention but one department of scientific activity, were well known throughout Europe, and were members of most of the scientific societies of the time. In the arts mention has already been made of David Peres, the musical composer, and of Joaquim Machado de Castro, the architect; the latter was in addition the best sculptor of his country, and Domingos Antonio de Sequeira, as a painter, will compare favourably with most of the contemporary artists in Europe.

But though the influence of France is to be perceived in every department of literature until the revival of national poetry by Nascimento and Du Bocage, the Portuguese people remained, owing to the Methuen treaty, on much more intimate terms with the English. The royal family might hanker after matrimonial alliances with Spain, a great minister, like Pombal, might resent the absorption of Portuguese trade by England; but, for all that, the people felt how close were their bonds with the English nation. Mention has been made of the influx of English capital, of the wine merchants of Oporto, and the English factory at Lisbon, and also of the power exercised by the English ambassadors. But there was a closer bond than that; Portugal became the sanitarium for England; it was to Portugal that the seekers after a milder climate resorted as they would now do to the Riviera, and it was to Lisbon that the great English novelist, Henry Fielding, to mention but one of many invalids, was sent; it was in Lisbon that he died, and he is buried in the cemetery of the English factory there. These were the bonds that bound the two peoples together, and the Portuguese people were justified in counting upon the armed help of England in the terrible struggle which they were now to pass through.

XVII.

THE ERA OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION—THE PENINSULAR WAR.

WHEN Dom John took the government of Portugal into his hands in 1792, popular attention was concentrated throughout Europe on the progress of the French Revolution. The interest excited in Portugal was as great as it was everywhere else, for the ideas, which were at the bottom of the most important movement of modern times, had been eagerly received in the literary circles of Lisbon. It is absurd to suppose that there was any great democratic party in the country, for as long as the administration was well carried on, and taxes were not oppressive, the mass of the people were absolutely indifferent as to the nature of the government. It was different with regard to the more educated classes, who had been brought up in the doctrines of the encyclopædists, and who had read Rousseau and Diderot, Voltaire and Montesquieu. These men were sceptical about the advantages of a benevolent despotism; they had studied the history of their own nation, and knew that in former days, before the discovery of gold in Brazil, the Cortes had been frequently summoned, and they desired that it should meet regularly, and that the Portuguese people should once more take a part in legislation by means of its old representative assembly. Some of them went further, and inspired by the example of the great American Revolution, dreamed of a republic, while others adopted all the fantastic political and social ideas of Rousseau. But these men were mere theorists; they were to be found only among a small circle of educated noblemen and bourgeois in Lisbon and Oporto; and their fancies were quite unknown to the mass of the population. These were the men who hailed with joy the capture of the Bastille, and the proceedings of the Constituent Assembly, and who openly expressed their sympathy with the new order of things in France.

A PORTUGUESE MERCHANT, WITH HIS WIFE AND MAID-SERVANT.
(From Murphy’s “Travels in Portugal”, 1795.)

The government failed to understand that these sympathizers would not be able to follow the example of the French revolutionary leaders, so long as the general population of Portugal was contented and happy, and like all the absolutist monarchs of Europe, Dom John heard with the utmost horror of the events passing in Paris, and feared that they would be imitated in Lisbon. In his terror of the spread of “French principles,” he began to persecute their admirers although they had never dreamed of acting or conspiring, and he thus made martyrs of the holders of the new opinions, which were only propagated the more rapidly by his tyrannical behaviour. In his crusade against the sympathizers with the French Revolution, Dom John found his chief ally in Diogo Ignacio de Pina Manique, the Intendant of Police, who believed that by his vigour he should obtain the ascendency formerly held by Pombal, and who proceeded therefore to work upon his master’s fears. His first measure was to issue an edict against aliens, under which he expelled two Frenchmen, Pierre Noel and Pierre Louis Fontaine, and kept a strict and irritating surveillance over Edward Church, the United States Consul, and Jacome Ratton, a merchant of Lisbon, whom he declared to be the fomenters of discontent and the leaders of a conspiracy. Against Portuguese subjects, Pina Manique acted with still more severity; Francisco Coelho da Silva, the father of Portuguese liberalism, was thrown into prison; other men of letters were suspected and often prosecuted, including the poets, Nascimento and Du Bocage, the botanist Avellar Brotero, and the historian Correa da Serra; many noblemen of liberal principles were watched by spies, and the Duke of Lafoẽs, the great patron of literature, was expelled from Court, because he was a friend of Broussonet, the French chemist. The men whom the Intendant of Police most abhorred were the Freemasons whom he hated, because their society was secret, and by his attempt to suppress all their lodges he made them actively democratic, and the chief promoters of “French principles.” It was no wonder that this conduct excited attention in France, and when in January, 1793, three months after the proclamation of the French Republic, the Girondin deputy, Kersaint, inveighed against England in the Convention, he abused Portugal also, and spoke of that country as a province of England.

Dom John, not satisfied with thus combating “French principles” at home, believed it to be a holy duty to join in the general war against France, and he therefore rejected the advice of the English ministry to remain neutral, and sent his Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Luis Pinto de Sousa Coutinho, to Madrid to beg leave to send an army to join in the invasion of France. It need hardly be said that the Spanish minister, the Count of Florida Blanca, was only too glad to accept assistance, and a treaty of alliance between the two countries was signed at Aranjuez on March 25, 1793. It was vain for the French revolutionary leaders to protest that they had not injured Portugal and to ask for neutrality; the French Ambassador, M. d’Arbaud, was ordered to leave Lisbon; a corps of five thousand men under General João Forbes-Skelater was sent to join the Spanish army in the invasion of Roussillon; and a squadron of eight ships of war under the Marquis of Niza joined the English fleet in the Mediterranean. The Portuguese contingent served gallantly in the Eastern Pyrenees from November, 1793, to 1795, and shared alike in the success of General Ricardos, and the defeats of General La Union and General Urrutia, but nevertheless the Spanish Court under the influence of the handsome but worthless guardsman, Godoy, did not hesitate to desert its ally, and made a separate treaty with the French Republic at Basle in July, 1795. Dom John began to believe that the war against the French Republic could not be holy, since the Most Catholic king had made a treaty with France, and he promptly sent Dom Diogo de Noronha to Paris to sue for peace. But the Committee of Public Safety had no idea of making terms with him; the treaties signed at Basle had been part of a deliberate policy, which was to convert Prussia and Spain into allies of the Republic, and to unite all three against Austria, England, and Portugal, which was regarded as a province of England, and the Portuguese ambassador was dismissed immediately. After the Convention ceased its long session and the Directory was appointed, Dom John made another effort for peace, and sent Antonio de Araujo de Azevedo, the head of what may be called the French party at the Court of Lisbon, to Paris. He met with no better reception than his predecessor, and when after the treaty of San Ildefonso, by which Spain declared war against England in 1796, came the news of a secret convention between the French ambassador at Madrid, General Pérignon, and Godoy, Prince of the Peace, by which Portugal was to be divided between those two powers, and Spanish troops were being massed upon the Portuguese frontier, the English party in the Portuguese ministry gained the upper hand, and urgent supplications were sent to England for help.

Pitt and Grenville were only too glad to comply; for they regarded Portugal as affording an important base of operations in the peninsula. The House of Commons voted Portugal a subsidy of £200,000; a force of six thousand men was despatched under the command of Major-General the Honourable Sir Charles Stuart, which deterred the Spaniards from attempting an invasion, and the Prince of Waldeck, like the Count of Lippe-Buckeburg in former days, was sent to re-organize the Portuguese army. This policy caused the French Directors to hesitate, and they signed a treaty of peace with the Portuguese ambassador Antonio de Araujo de Azevedo; but to their wrath and surprise, Dom John refused to ratify the treaty, on which the Directors imprisoned the Portuguese ambassador in the Temple. In the ardour of his alliance with England, the prince for a year or two threw himself into the hands of the English party at his Court, and on the death of Martinho de Mello e Castro, he appointed Rodrigo de Sousa Coutinho, the leader of that party, to the Secretaryship of State for the Marine and Colonies. Yet the English party could not win the day entirely. The prince wavered; at his request Sir Charles Stuart and the English army were withdrawn; and he made another attempt to make peace with France through the mediation of Spain. This was the situation of affairs when Dom John formally declared himself Regent in 1799, as it became obvious that the Queen Maria Francisca would never recover the use of her faculties; and in the same year General Napoleon Bonaparte made his coup d’état of the 18th Brumaire, and became ruler of France with the title of First Consul.

The accession of Napoleon to power was of no advantage to Portugal; from the very first he showed his hatred of the little country; no amount of submission could win his friendship; he persisted in regarding Portugal, as the Convention, the Committee of Public Safety, and the Directory had done, as a province of England; and he thoroughly understood what an important base of operations it afforded to the English armies. Hardly was Napoleon firmly seated in office, when he despatched his brother Lucien Bonaparte to Madrid in the year 1800 with directions to negotiate with Portugal. He was to insist on the abandonment of the English alliance, on the opening of Portuguese ports to France and the closing of them to England, on the grant of special commercial advantages to French merchants, on the extension of French Guiana to the Amazon, on the cession of a part of Portugal to Spain until the recovery from the English of Trinidad and Minorca, and on the payment of a large sum of money, and he was authorized to offer Spain the assistance of French troops if these hard terms were rejected. The Prince Regent did reject them and declared war against Spain on February 10, 1801, and twenty-two thousand French veterans at once entered the peninsula under the command of Bonaparte’s brother-in-law, General Leclerc. The campaign was a very short one; the French soldiers never came into action, but in the month of May the Spaniards took Olivença, Juromenha, and Campo Mayor, laid siege to Elvas, and defeated the Portuguese in two engagements at Arronches and Flor da Rosa. The Portuguese sued for peace, and on June 6, 1801, a treaty was signed at Badajoz, by which Olivença and the surrounding district was ceded to Spain, followed by another at Paris, by which French Guiana was extended to the Amazon. Napoleon was very dissatisfied with the peace of Badajoz, for he aimed at nothing short of the extinction of the independence of Portugal, and it was many months before he consented to ratify the treaties. Meanwhile an English force under Colonel Henry Clinton had occupied Madeira, and a force of the English East India Company’s troops garrisoned Goa. The pride of the people of Portugal was deeply wounded by the loss of Olivença, which had been an integral part of Portugal ever since the days of Affonso Henriques, and they lost no opportunity of showing their contempt for the Prince Regent and his advisers. Their wrath was kindled against the French, and from this time forth, the mass of the people who did not care for politics, but who did understand the meaning of national disgrace, was ready to dare anything against the nation which had brought about the disintegration of the fatherland.

The Treaty of Amiens gave Europe a moment’s breathing space; the English evacuated Madeira, and the Prince Regent determined on a policy of absolute neutrality. But Napoleon was not to be moved; he had determined on the destruction of Portugal, and it was with the full expectation that he would irritate the Portuguese into declaring war, that he sent General Lannes, one of the most courageous, but one of the roughest and least educated of his generals, as ambassador to Lisbon. Lannes acted in accordance with the expectations of his chief; he insulted the Portuguese Court; he failed to observe the most ordinary customs of diplomatic courtesy; and he finally demanded the instant dismissal of all the ministers who belonged to the English party, and especially of Pina Manique, the Intendant of Police, because he had in former days prosecuted the admirers of the French Revolution. The Prince Regent obeyed, both from fear of France and dislike of the high-handed naval policy of England; and Antonio de Araujo de Azevedo, the head of the French party, became Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, with the Count of Villa Verde, and the Viscount of Anadia as his colleagues, and Lucas de Scabra da Silva succeeded Pina Manique. Even this humble and prompt submission did not satisfy Napoleon, and in 1804 he replaced General Lannes by General Junot whom he ordered to insist upon Portugal’s declaring war against England. For a time, however, he thought it wise to postpone his designs against the country, which he regarded as the most vulnerable province of England, while he was engaged in his great campaigns in Germany, and he even signed a treaty of neutrality with the Portuguese Government. The English were not inclined to submit to this, and in 1806, Admiral the Earl of St. Vincent, General the Earl of Rosslyn, and General Simcoe were sent to Lisbon to remind the Prince Regent of the ancient alliance between the two countries, and to promise ample assistance if Portugal would declare war against France. Dom John declined, and on the advice of his ministers, treated the English ambassadors with something like contempt.

At length, in 1807, having defeated the armies of Austria, Prussia, and Russia, Napoleon again turned his thoughts to his projects for the annihilation of Portugal, which had become more than ever a thorn in his side, since it refused to co-operate in his Continental System for the commercial ruin of England. He resolved at first to act with Spain and Godoy, as Pérignon and Lucien Bonaparte had done, and on the 29th of October, 1807, he signed the Treaty of Fontainebleau, by which it was agreed that Portugal should be conquered by the combined armies of France and Spain, and that the northern provinces of the country should be given to the King of Etruria, in exchange for his Italian kingdom, which Napoleon desired to annex, while the southern districts were to be formed into an independent kingdom for Godoy, Prince of the Peace, and the central provinces were to be held by France. The signature of this treaty was followed by immediate action. Junot moved rapidly across Spain with a French army, and in conjunction with a Spanish force, under General Caraffa, invaded Portugal along the line of the Tagus, while General Taranco and General Solano, with two other Spanish armies occupied the Entre Minho e Douro and the Alemtejo. With amazing rapidity Junot accomplished his march, and the Portuguese people hardly realized that war was imminent, until on the 29th of November, Colonel Le Cor rushed into Lisbon with the news that French soldiers were in possession of Abrantes. This alarming intelligence completely unnerved the Prince Regent, who listened to the strongly-worded advice of Sir Sidney Smith, the commander of an English squadron in the Tagus, to abandon his capital for Brazil, and to leave the English to defend Portugal. Dom John believed this the best course to pursue, and after naming a Council of Regency, he went on board an English ship with his wife, Donna Carlotta Joaquina, his two sons, Dom Pedro and Dom Miguel, his six daughters, and his unhappy mother, Queen Maria Francisca, whose disordered brain seemed to understand what was going on, and whose resistance to the efforts to remove her was painful to observe. The English ships had hardly left their moorings in the Tagus, when Junot at the head of two thousand wearied French soldiers, who had survived the fearful fatigue of his rapid march, entered Lisbon on the 30th of November, 1807.

MARSHAL JUNOT, DUKE OF ABRANTES.
(From a Print of the period.)

Nothing shows more certainly the great advance of what were called “French principles”—that is to say, of democratic ideas—in Portugal during the last few years, than the cordial reception which Junot received. At Santarem he was welcomed by a deputation of the Freemasons of Portugal, who had been made by persecution, as in other continental countries, a secret society for the propagation of democratic ideas; the army made no attempt to resist; neither villages nor towns rose in insurrection; and the Council of Regency, which consisted of the Marquis of Abrantes, the Marquis of Olhão, General Francisco da Cunha e Menezes, General Francisco Xavier de Noronha, Principal Castro, and Pedro de Mello Breyner, President of the Treasury, instantly submitted. The people of Lisbon had been disgusted with the wavering and unpatriotic policy of the Prince Regent; they complained with reason that he had wasted time in diplomacy instead of preparing for defence; they contrasted his yielding to Spain at the Treaty of Badajoz with the gallant conduct of John I., and the successful wars of John IV.; and they looked upon his departure for Brazil as a base desertion of his country. For all these reasons they welcomed the French, and the democratic leaders hoped that the Emperor Napoleon would annex their country, and grant it representative institutions. Junot at first acted with the greatest prudence; he certainly raised two millions of francs in Lisbon by requisition, and seized all the money in the royal treasury, but at the same time he gratified the Portuguese people by refusing to give the Spaniards any of the plunder, and he encouraged them in the belief that the Emperor would not destroy their independence. His next step was to disband the whole Portuguese army, and to quarter French troops in all the more important cities and fortresses. Not satisfied with this, Junot then raised a powerful Portuguese force, consisting of two divisions of infantry, two regiments of çaçadores or light infantry, and three regiments of cavalry, which he despatched to France under the command of Lieutenant-General Dom Pedro de Almada, Marquis of Alorna, and Major-General Gomes Freire de Andrade. This force which was known as the Portuguese Legion, contained all the most disciplined officers and soldiers of the nation, and did gallant service under Napoleon throughout the French campaigns in Spain, Germany, and Russia, and the remnant of it served under his standards at Waterloo. Thus freed from the presence of the most dangerous element of resistance, Junot began to show his own disposition. He now made no effort to conciliate the Portuguese democrats, and laughed at their idea of a Portuguese constitution; he hoisted the tricolour flag on the Citadel of St. George; he divided the country into military governments under his generals; and finally on the 1st of February, 1807, he issued a proclamation “that the House of Braganza had ceased to reign.”

After issuing this proclamation the French took entire possession of Portugal; the alcaides were dismissed, and the French generals ruled with absolute authority as military governors. A new regency was formed, which included several Frenchmen, notably Junot himself as president, General Herman, M. Lhuillier, and Viennot de Vaublanc as Secretary-General; and a new ministry was constituted of friends to the French alliance, consisting of Pedro de Mello Breyner at the Home Office, Azevedo at the Treasury, the Count of Sampaio at the War Office, and Principal Castro at the Ministry of Justice. Junot then began to intrigue for the throne of Portugal; he knew well that Napoleon had no intention of carrying out the terms of the treaty of Fontainebleau; and he did not see why, after his successful campaign, he should not receive this great reward. He posed as a patron of letters, and was elected President of the “Academia Real das Sciencias” in the place of the Duke of Lafoẽs; he changed his attitude towards and made extravagant promises to the radical party; and in the hope of succeeding the Braganzas, he reduced Napoleon’s requisition of forty millions of francs to twenty millions, on his own authority. The chief agent, through whom he negotiated, was a lawyer, named José de Scabra, who got up a deputation to visit Napoleon, headed by the Grand Inquisitor, the Bishop of Leiria, to ask for the nomination of Junot as King of Portugal. These efforts of Junot’s were, however, of no avail. The tyranny of his generals, and their treatment of the Portuguese as a conquered people; the atrocities which the French soldiers committed, and their deliberate insults to the dearest sentiments of a proud nation, far outweighed the effect of Junot’s policy. General Thomières, for instance, plundered the great abbey of Alçobaça, and destroyed the corpses of the early kings of Portugal; and General Loison trampled on the people, and put down a little riot at Mafra with most frightful cruelty. There were exceptions to this behaviour of course. General Travot and General Charlot made themselves popular by their just administration; but, as a rule, the conduct of the French generals was rapacious in the extreme. At this moment, when the Portuguese people were quivering with indignation, came the news of the rebellion in Spain, and of the victory of Baylen. The Spanish general, Bellesta, who commanded at Oporto in succession to General Taranco, seized the French governor, General Quesnel, and handed him over to a Portuguese junta, and then marched away into Gallicia. It was on the 18th of June, when the French had held Portugal for about nine months, that this great event occurred. Antonio José de Castro, Bishop of Oporto, was declared president of the “junta” of that city. The example was followed from Braga to Faro; everywhere the French officers were murdered or expelled, and independent “juntas” were formed. At this juncture the Portuguese people felt that they could not resist France by their own strength; and the Bishop of Oporto appealed to the old ally of Portugal, England, for assistance.

PORTUGUESE PEASANTS.
(From Kinsey’s “Portugal Illustrated,” 1829.)

The English Government willingly listened to this appeal; they had long wished for a base on the Continent from which to act against Napoleon by land, and, in the words of Canning, “the arm of Great Britain became the lever, and Portugal the fulcrum, to wrench from its basis the power that had subdued the rest of Europe.” In the previous year, a force under Colonel Beresford had occupied Madeira, but up to this time, no attempt had been made to dislodge the French from Portugal itself. On the receipt of this appeal from Oporto however, a small army, which had been collected at Cork under the command of Lieutenant-General the Honourable Sir Arthur Wellesley, for an expedition to South America, was ordered instead to proceed to Portugal; reinforcements were collected at Ramsgate and Harwich, and a division under Major-General Brent Spencer was ordered to sail from Gibraltar to join him. A Lusitanian Legion was also formed out of the Portuguese who happened to be in England, and despatched to Portugal under the command of Colonel Sir Robert Wilson and Colonel Mayne. It was indeed time that help should arrive; all the best troops and most skilled officers had been sent out of Portugal in the Portuguese Legion to join the Grand Army of France, and the undisciplined peasants and apprentices hastily collected by the “juntas” were easily defeated in many places by the French veterans. Sir Arthur Wellesley landed at the mouth of the Mondego River, and advanced southwards upon Lisbon. He first defeated Laborde’s division at Roliça on the 17th of August, 1808; and, after receiving reinforcements, he routed Junot himself at Vimeiro on the 21st of August. These victories were followed by the Convention of Cintra by which Junot agreed to evacuate Portugal and surrender all the fortresses in his possession, on condition that his troops and their plunder should be transported safe to France. This convention, however disappointing from a military point of view to the English authorities, was eminently satisfactory to the Portuguese people, who saw themselves delivered from the French, as speedily as they had been conquered by them.

The former Council of Regency, nominated by the Prince Regent before his departure, was re-established at Lisbon, and at once began to quarrel with the “junta” of Oporto, but both bodies perceived how dependent they were on the English Government, and the Regency sent Domingos Antonio de Sousa Coutinho to London to ask that an English ambassador with full powers should be accredited to Lisbon, and that Sir Arthur Wellesley might be appointed to reorganize their army. In compliance with these requests the Right Honourable J. C. Villiers was sent as ambassador to Lisbon, and, as Sir Arthur Wellesley could not be spared, Major-General Beresford, who had learnt the Portuguese language, when governor of Madeira, was sent to command and discipline the Portuguese troops. Meanwhile, Portugal was again exposed to the attacks of the French; when Sir John Moore advanced to Salamanca, he had left very few English troops behind, and Napoleon ordered three French armies to invade the country by different routes. Of these armies only one actually entered Portugal, that from the north under the command of Marshal Soult. Parties of the Lusitanian Legion, under Sir Robert Wilson and Baron Eben, made a spirited resistance, and even the unorganized Portuguese levies, under General Antonio de Silveira, showed courage, if not discipline; but their efforts were in vain, and Soult occupied Oporto. Fortunately for the Portuguese, Soult, like Junot, was led away by the idea of becoming King of Portugal, and did not advance on Lisbon, while Lapisse and Victor did not support him by entering the Beira and the Alemtejo, as they had been ordered to do, and this delay gave time for Sir Arthur Wellesley to reach the Tagus with a powerful English army. On the 12th of May, 1809, he drove Soult out of Oporto, and into Gallicia; and after this success he invaded Spain, and defeated Joseph Bonaparte and Marshal Victor at the battle of Talavera.

From these successes of the English general, it is necessary to turn to the condition of the Portuguese regency. After the departure of the Prince Regent, all the able men of the English party and the trained administrators had left Portugal for Brazil; the leaders of the radical party were either in disgrace, or had fled to France, and none were left to compose the regency save a set of intriguers, whose chief idea was to get as much money from England as possible, and convey it into their own pockets. The Portuguese people acted very differently; they were indignant at the outrageous conduct of the French soldiery, and were ready to sacrifice their lives for the national cause. This enthusiasm was reported to the English Government, which determined to take ten thousand Portuguese soldiers into English pay, and to send out a number of English regimental officers to discipline and command them. No better man than Beresford could have been selected as commander-in-chief of the Portuguese army. He proved himself in after-years, and especially at the battle of Albuera, to be but a poor general; but as an organizer his firmness, which almost amounted to severity, made him at once obeyed and feared. His chief assistants in this work were the English officers who had been sent to him, and a small body of Portuguese officers whom patriotism had forced into exile in preference to serving in the French Portuguese Legion, and at the head of these two classes were his Quartermaster-General, Major-General Benjamin D’Urban, an Englishman, and his Adjutant-General, Colonel Manoel de Brito Mousinho, a Portuguese. So hard did Beresford work during the winter of 1809, while Lord Wellington, as Sir Arthur Wellesley had been created, was in Spain, that in the spring of 1810, certain Portuguese regiments were brigaded with the English, and showed themselves worthy of the honour. They fought side by side with the English soldiers at the battle of Busaco, and the behaviour of the 8th Portuguese Infantry is one of the most disputed points in the history of that battle, every historian of the war stating that it behaved well, but all differing as to the time it came into action, and the effect of its bayonet charge.

A FEMALE PEASANT FROM THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF CALDAS DA RAINHA.
(From Kinsey’s “Portugal Illustrated,” 1829.)

While Beresford was doing this good work, and the flower of the Portuguese youth was rushing to arms in the regular army, or in the militia reserve, the regency at Lisbon was going from bad to worse. The Prince Regent at Rio de Janeiro had no control over it, and it was divided into parties, which quarrelled over the disposition of the English subsidies as if they were legitimate spoil. There is no need to study the intrigues of these parties, but it is worth notice, that Dom Pedro de Sousa Holstein, better known in after-years as the Duke of Palmella, was despatched to the Spanish junta to claim the Regency of Spain for Donna Carlotta Joaquina the Queen of Portugal, when Portugal could not even defend its own territory. Neither Wellington nor Beresford could work with this factious regency, and the English cabinet had to insist that the English ambassador at Lisbon, Sir Charles Stuart, the son of General the Honourable Sir Charles Stuart, should receive a seat upon the council. His great ability and tact soon made him the master of his colleagues, and a certain portion of the money, sent by England to pay the Portuguese troops, did at last find its way to its proper destination. The Regency, even when thus strengthened, failed to become popular; it was hotly criticized and abused; and the murmuring radical party in Lisbon, which hankered after peace with France, was only suppressed by the deportation of eighteen leading journalists to the Azores in September, 1810.

It is little wonder that some opposition to the war existed in 1810, for in that year the most formidable invasion of French troops took place. This was the famous invasion of Masséna. The Portuguese nation showed all the valour of a people, fighting for its very existence as a nation, and when Lord Wellington, on being obliged to retire into the lines of Torres Vedras, commanded the peasants to abandon their homes and leave nothing for the French to subsist upon, they obeyed him with touching fidelity. While Wellington was entrenched within his lines, Beresford established his headquarters at Lisbon, and continued the work of reorganization with the help of a fresh contingent of English regimental officers, which reached him at this time. He proceeded rapidly, but in regular order, and having organized and disciplined the Portuguese regiments in the winter of 1809, he made them into independent Portuguese brigades in the winter of 1810. In all he formed a powerful Portuguese army of twelve infantry brigades, partly commanded by English brigadiers, such as Ashworth, Pack, Bradford, and Archibald Campbell, partly by native officers, such as Le Cor, Fonseca, Palmeirim, and Bernadim Ribeiros, four cavalry brigades, under Povoa and Barbacena, Madden and Hawker, and an artillery park of forty-eight guns under Colonel Alexander Dickson. While Beresford was engaged at Lisbon in organizing the Portuguese army, the Portuguese militia was doing good work in the northern provinces, where the chief command was held by Major-General Manoel Pinto Bacellar. Brigades of militia under such dashing commanders as Antonio de Silveira, John Miller, Nicholas Trant, and John Wilson, harassed Masséna’s lines of communication with Spain; and while he was before the lines of Torres Vedras and at Santarem, he had to keep three divisions employed in keeping open his line of retreat and escorting his convoys. In the field, the Portuguese militia was always defeated, but Masséna could never feel safe from their attacks, and to mention but one brilliant exploit, Trant’s capture of Coimbra seriously inconvenienced him at a critical moment.

Finally in the March of 1811, Masséna had to retire, and the Portuguese then reaped their reward in having their frontiers freed from the invader for the rest of the Peninsular War. Englishmen of modern times are too apt to look upon the victories of the Peninsular War, as the results of English valour alone. Wellington knew better; he knew what he owed to the Portuguese troops, and recognized their services in his despatches; and contemporaries always spoke of the victorious soldiers, as the allied, or the Anglo-Portuguese army. Throughout the great campaigns of 1812, 1813, and 1814, the Portuguese troops, shared the labours and the glories of Wellington’s army; and to mention but a single exploit, the attacks of Pack’s and Bradford’s Portuguese brigades on the Arapiles in the battle of Salamanca roused the warm admiration of the English soldiers and officers though they were not crowned with success. During the winter of 1812, while the allied army was in winter quarters after the retreat from Burgos, Beresford put the finishing touch to his work by the formation of independent Portuguese divisions. The çaçadores or light infantry were however too valuable to be separated from the English light infantry regiments, and continued to form part of the famous Light Division until the close of the war. The Portuguese divisions were like the brigades divided between English and Portuguese generals, among whom the most conspicuous were Sir John Hamilton, and Sir Archibald Campbell, the future conqueror of Burma, Carlos Frederic Le Cor and Agostino Luis da Fonseca. During the movements which followed the victory of Vittoria, the Portuguese showed their courage and discipline, and not only Wellington, but all the historians of the war, draw attention to their good conduct alike in the field and in quarters, as compared with the licentiousness and want of discipline of the Spanish armies. Meanwhile, matters went on well at home; the Regency, under the control of Sir Charles Stuart, was unable to embezzle the English subsidies; he took care that the troops were well paid, clothed, and fed; the Portuguese people rejoiced at the achievements of their soldiers against France, and profited by the large influx of English money into Portugal. When the war was over and the news of the abdication of Napoleon, and of the battle of Toulouse arrived, the returning troops were enthusiastically received, and all promised brightly for the future. The English Government were not unmindful of the services rendered by the Portuguese, and when Wellington’s generals were raised to the peerage, Marshal Beresford, the organizer of the Portuguese army, was created Lord Beresford, and Sir Charles Stuart, the ambassador at Lisbon, Lord Stuart de Rothesay.

But these rejoicings were soon followed by bitter lamentations, for the English plenipotentiaries at the Congress of Vienna headed by Lord Castlereagh, basely deserted their gallant allies. The Portuguese envoys at this famous meeting for the re-settlement of Europe were Pedro de Sousa Holstein, Count of Palmella, afterwards Duke of Palmella, Antonio de Saldanha da Gama, afterwards Count of Porto Santo, and Jeronymo Lobo da Silveira, afterwards Count of Oriolla. These diplomatists urged that Spain should be forced to restore Olivença, which Portugal had been obliged to cede at the Treaty of Badajoz in 1801, a claim which was perfectly fair and just; but Talleyrand opposed this act of justice, and Castlereagh unjustifiably abandoned the faithful ally of England, an act at once ungrateful and impolitic. A feeling that England was ungrateful was the prevailing idea among the Portuguese, when the news arrived from Rio de Janeiro that the mad Queen Maria Francisca had died on March 20, 1816, and that the Prince Regent had been proclaimed king as John VI.

XVIII.

MODERN PORTUGAL.

CIVIL WARS AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF PARLIAMENTARY GOVERNMENT.

THE history of Portugal, after the conclusion of the Peninsular War, affords a melancholy example of the evil effects of all prolonged wars. The people, without great monarchs or great ministers, was divided into many parties, which quarrelled and fought; numerous civil wars distressed the country; commerce and agriculture were neglected; local rivalry and class jealousy were allowed to grow to serious proportions; the government of the country and the administration of justice went from bad to worse; and, as usual, misery and poverty followed in the train of political discontent. It is neither interesting nor instructive to study the details of the civil wars of the first half of the nineteenth century. Throughout the whole story of Portugal, the most prominent feature is the singular tenacity with which the little country maintained its independence and its individuality, and it is painful to observe that this patriotic feeling almost entirely disappeared for a time. It was during this period that Portugal fell to the rank of a third-rate state, for it now ceased to be an important factor in European politics, either from its wealth and its colonies, or as the trusted ally of England. This was largely due to a change in the attitude of England, where the old historical friendship for Portugal, which had been maintained since the Middle Ages and had been of advantage to both parties, was abandoned, to the lasting regret of every one who values the existence of sentiment and of historical continuity in politics. Nevertheless, in spite of its loss of importance, some account must be given of Portugal during this distressing epoch; for, if it is interesting to study the history of a nation in prosperity, it is also instructive to see how it fell to its lowest depths.

John VI. had greatly enjoyed the peace and comfort of his residence in Brazil as Prince Regent, and he had become more attached to Brazil than to Portugal, when he was proclaimed King of Portugal, Brazil, and the Algarves in 1816. The people of the mother country resented this heartily; they looked upon him as a deserter; and feared that he would favour the interests of the colony unduly. They were also alarmed at the growing spirit of independence in Brazil; they knew that the chief wealth of Portugal during the eighteenth century had been derived from its great colony, and they were well aware that any separation would be most prejudicial to their prosperity. The affection of the new king for Brazil appeared in the very first year of his reign, for instead of insisting on the restitution of Olivença, he preferred to attack the former possessions of Spain in South America, and ordered to Brazil a corps of 4,500 veterans of the Peninsular War under the command of Lieutenant-General Le Cor. A pretext for war was found in the republican movement of Artigas; the local militia could make no stand against the Portuguese soldiers; on the 20th of January, 1817, Le Cor took Monte Video, and he soon occupied all the country up to the left bank of the River Plate. The victorious general was created Baron of Laguna, and continued to occupy the Banda Oriental until 1825, when the inhabitants rose in rebellion, and after much warfare they founded the Republic of Uruguay, and became independent alike of Brazil and the Argentine Republic.

John VI. gave colour to the accusation of the Portuguese that he intended to desert them for the Brazilians, and invert the position of the two nations, by his obstinate refusal to leave Rio de Janeiro. The English Cabinet persistently urged him to return to Europe, but he remained deaf to all remonstrances, and paid little or no attention to the state of affairs in Portugal. He met with no help, but only with opposition from his queen, Donna Carlotta Joaquina, who was always intriguing against him, and who had, as early as 1805, promised a liberal constitution to certain Portuguese radical leaders, in order to build up a position distinct from her husband. Nor had she intrigued only in Portugal, for in 1812 it was discovered that she had formed a scheme to become independent Queen of Brazil. All these plots were intended for the eventual advantage of her younger son, Dom Miguel, an arrogant youth, who was commonly believed to be illegitimate. Nor was John VI. more happy in his relations with his elder son, Dom Pedro, who was a fanatical admirer of the system of parliamentary government. Dom Pedro was further Grand Master of the Freemasons of Brazil, and an open supporter of the Brazilian party, which hoped for a liberal constitution and complete separation from Portugal. This prince was a man of real ability, high character, and enlightened opinions, and his importance in the family was increased by his marriage, through the negotiations of Dom Pedro de Menezes Coutinho, Marquis of Marialva, and Prince Metternich, with the Archduchess Maria Josepha, daughter of the Emperor Francis I. of Austria.

In Portugal, the government of the Regency had grown intensely unpopular, for Lord Stuart de Rothesay and Marshal Beresford ruled most despotically. The people which had endured the authority of the English during the terrible war for existence, and the very soldiers who had served so gallantly under English officers on the field of battle, soon grew weary of foreign rule in time of peace, and raised the cry of “Portugal for the Portuguese.” The ministers, who had reluctantly paid the large sums needed for the expenses of the army, even when aided by subsidies from England, now that those subsidies were withdrawn, insisted on great reductions, and practically paid nothing at all. Democratic ideas spread swiftly; the people claimed a share in the government, and expressed aloud their hatred for the king, the Regency, and the English, and a spirit of discontent arose in every part of the kingdom. The first outbreak took place in 1818, when General Gomes Freire de Andrade, who had commanded the Portuguese Legion in the Russian and other campaigns in Napoleon’s army, and who was an ardent lover of France, planned a “pronunciamento,” but the plot was discovered and suppressed with stringent severity by the Regency, which ordered the execution of the general and of ten of his partisans. This rigorous punishment only enraged the radical party, and when Beresford went to Brazil in 1820 in order to get money from the king to pay the arrears due to the army, advantage was taken of his absence by the people of Oporto to raise the standard of revolt under the leadership of Colonel Antonio de Silveira, Brito da Fonseca, and other officers belonging to the garrison. The Regency in Lisbon, deprived of the presence of Beresford, gave way before a similar rising in the capital, headed by the Counts of Resende, Penafiel, and Sampaio, and the revolutionary juntas formed in the two great cities agreed to act in harmony. The English officers were driven from the country; Beresford was not allowed to land when he returned from Rio de Janeiro; a fresh regency was proclaimed; and a constituent assembly was summoned to draw up a constitution for Portugal.

This assembly, of which the majority consisted of men of the most democratic opinions, at once abolished all relics of feudalism, and, to the disgust of the ecclesiastics, suppressed the Inquisition in Portugal, in spite of its studied moderation in recent years, on account of its former misdeeds. The deputies then proceeded to draw up a most impracticable constitution for the future government of the country, which showed that they had studied the glowing speeches of the orators of the French Revolution, and had not profited by the knowledge of their mistakes. By this constitution, which was known in later history as the “Constitution of 1822,” protection of person and property was guaranteed; and liberty of the press, equality before the law, the admissibility of all citizens to all offices, the abolition of privileges and the sovereignty of the nation were proclaimed. One freely elected chamber was to be summoned yearly to make laws and superintend the government of the country, and the king was granted only a suspensive veto over its measures. On hearing of this revolution, Prussia, Austria, and Russia withdrew their ambassadors from Lisbon, and England insisted that John VI. should at once proceed to Portugal. The king accordingly left Rio de Janeiro and returned to Lisbon, where he solemnly swore to observe the new constitution, and to rule for the future as a constitutional monarch. The queen and Dom Miguel were not so complaisant; they refused to recognize the constitution, and were at once forced to leave Lisbon. On the departure of John VI., Brazil declared itself independent, and Dom Pedro, who was elected emperor, granted that country a liberal parliamentary constitution. The Portuguese troops and royal vessels made a slight attempt to preserve the royal authority in South America, but the latter were speedily defeated by Lord Cochrane, who entered the Brazilian service, and the separation of the great colony from its mother-country became an acknowledged fact.

The loss of Brazil and the conversion of the government of Portugal into a limited monarchy, enraged the nobility, and still more the clergy, who looked with horror on the radical reforms of the constituent assembly, and when the French invaded Spain in 1823 to suppress the rebellion in that country, General Francisco de Silveira, Count of Amarante, raised a “pronunciamento” in the Tras-os-Montes against the Constitution of 1822. John VI. had imbibed some of his elder son’s ideas, and was in favour of modifying the absolute character of the Portuguese monarchy, but he never concealed his opinion that the radical party had gone too far in its extreme reforms. He therefore took advantage of the “pronunciamento” in the north to declare the Constitution of 1822 abrogated, and appointed the Count of Palmella prime minister, with instructions to form a “junta,” and to draw up a moderate and well-balanced parliamentary constitution on the English model. But the absolutist party, headed by the queen and Dom Miguel, who had been appointed commander-in-chief of the army, would not tolerate any form of constitutional monarchy; they raised an insurrection in Lisbon against John VI.; the king’s greatest friend, the liberal-minded Marquis of Loulé, was assassinated; Palmella and his colleagues were imprisoned; and the king himself was shut up in his palace and eventually fled for refuge on board an English man-of-war in the Tagus. The united action of the foreign ambassadors and ministers accredited to Portugal, led by Sir William A’Court, afterwards Lord Heytesbury, the representative of England, secured the restoration of the king’s authority; the insurrection was suppressed; Dom Miguel was banished; Palmella was re-appointed prime minister; and at the close of 1824, the king returned to Brazil to spend his last days in peace. On reaching Rio de Janeiro, he recognized Dom Pedro as Emperor of Brazil, and on the 6th of March, 1826, John VI. died in the country of his choice. By his will, John VI. left the regency of Portugal to his daughter Isabel Maria, to the disgust of Dom Miguel, who had fully expected in spite of his conduct that Portugal would be in some manner bequeathed to him, and that Dom Pedro would be satisfied with the government of Brazil.

The next twenty-five years are the saddest in the whole history of Portugal. The establishment of the system of parliamentary government, which now exists, was a long and difficult task; it is almost impossible to follow the rapid sequence of events, and quite impossible to understand the varying motives of different statesmen and generals. The keynote of the whole series of disturbances is to be found in the pernicious influence of the army. Beresford’s creation was a grand fighting machine, but armies, and more particularly generals, after a long period of active service, are almost certain to become dangerous in times of peace. In the case of Portugal, the army was disproportionately large for the size and revenue of the country; there was no foreign or colonial war to occupy its energies, and the soldiers would not return to the plough nor the officers retire into private life.

The English Cabinet at this juncture determined to maintain peace and order, and in 1826, a division of five thousand men was sent under the command of Lieutenant-General Sir William Clinton to garrison the chief towns. The accession of Pedro IV. to the throne was hailed with joy in Portugal, though looked on with suspicion in Brazil. He justified his reputation by drawing up a charter, containing the bases for a moderate parliamentary government of the English type, which he sent over to Portugal, by the English diplomatist, Lord Stuart de Rothesay. Then to please his Brazilian subjects, he abdicated the throne of Portugal in favour of his daughter, Donna Maria da Gloria, a child of seven years old, on condition that on attaining a suitable age she should marry her uncle, Dom Miguel, who was to swear to observe the new constitution. The Charter of 1826 was thankfully received by the moderate parliamentary party; Clinton’s division was withdrawn; Palmella remained prime minister; and in the following year, 1827, Dom Pedro destroyed the effect of his wise measures by appointing Dom Miguel to be regent of Portugal in the name of the little queen.

Dom Miguel was an ambitious prince, who believed that he ought to be king of Portugal; he was extremely popular with the old nobility, the clergy, and the army, with all who disliked liberal ideas, and with the beggars and the poor who were under the influence of the mendicant orders. He was declared Regent in July, 1827, and in May, 1828, he summoned a Cortes of the ancient type, such as had not met since 1697, which under the presidency of the Bishop of Viseu offered him the throne of Portugal. He accepted, and immediately exiled all the leaders of the parliamentary, or, as it is usually called, the Chartist, party, headed by Palmella, Saldanha, Villa Flor, and Sampaio. They naturally fled to England, where the young queen was stopping on her way to be educated at the court of Vienna, and found popular opinion strongly in their favour. But the Duke of Wellington and his Tory Cabinet refused to countenance or assist them. The duke urged on the marriage of the queen with her uncle, and persisted in confusing the moderate and the radical parties, and in believing that Palmella was a democrat. The little queen was herself kindly received by George IV., but the behaviour of the Duke of Wellington was so obnoxious to her guardians, Amelia of Bavaria, Empress of Brazil and second wife of Dom Pedro, and Felisberto Caldeira Brant Pontes, Marquis of Barbacena, that they took her to France in 1829. She was there granted the Château of Meudon for a residence, and was educated by her stepmother, and two accomplished ladies, Eugenia Telles da Gama, Countess of Palmella, and Leonor da Camara, Marchioness of Ponte Delgada, while civil war was raging in Portugal in her name.

Meanwhile the reign of Dom Miguel had become a Reign of Terror; arrests and executions were frequent; thousands were deported to Africa, and in 1830 it was estimated that forty thousand persons were in prison for political offences. He ruled in absolute contempt of all law, and at different times English, French, and American fleets entered the Tagus to demand reparation for damage done to commerce, or for the illegal arrest of foreigners. The result of this conduct was that the country was hopelessly ruined, and the chartist and radical parties, who respectively advocated the Charter of 1826 and the Constitution of 1822, agreed to sink their differences, and to oppose the bigoted tyrant. The island of Terceira in the Azores had never recognized Dom Miguel, and it was there in 1829 that Palmella, Villa Flor, José Antonio Guerreiro and Quevedo Pizarro declared themselves a council of regency for Queen Maria da Gloria. On the 11th of August, 1830, they defeated a fleet sent against them by Dom Miguel in Praia Bay, and at this news all the chartists who could escape from Portugal, and the numerous Portuguese exiles in England and France, hastened to the Azores. Dom Pedro, who had devoted his life to the cause of parliamentary government, resigned his crown in 1831 to his infant son, and left Brazil to head the movement for his daughter’s cause. He first went to London, where he met with a good reception from the Liberal Cabinet of Lord Grey, and he there negotiated a large loan in his daughter’s name. He then hastened to the Azores with as many men as he could raise, most of whom were English soldiers, tired of peace, or adventurers of other nations, and on his arrival he appointed the Count of Villa Flor, commander-in-chief of the army, and Captain Sartorius, of the English navy, admiral of the fleet, of Queen Maria da Gloria.

In July, 1832, the ex-emperor with an army of 7,500 men arrived at Oporto, where he was enthusiastically welcomed, and Dom Miguel then laid siege to the city. European opinion was divided between the two parties; partisans of freedom and of constitutional government called the Miguelites “slaves of a tyrant,” while lovers of absolutism, alluding to the loans raised by the ex-emperor, used to speak of the “stock-jobbing Pedroites.” The siege was long and protracted; Dom Miguel finding himself invariably repulsed in his assaults, turned it into a blockade, and want within the walls and cholera among the besiegers decimated the armies. On both sides the commanders quarrelled among themselves, and the only event worthy of mention is the defeat of the Miguelite fleet by Sartorius on the 11th of October, 1832. In 1833 more vigorous action marked the career of the Pedroites. Major-General João Carlos Saldanha de Oliveira e Daun, an old officer of Beresford, and a friend and former colleague of Palmella, took the command of the army in Oporto, and defeated the Miguelites under the Count of San Lourenço, on the 4th of March, and under General das Antas, on the 24th of March, 1833. Captain Charles Napier, of the English navy, succeeded Sartorius as admiral of the Pedroite fleet, and conveyed a force of one thousand five hundred men from Oporto to the Algarves, under the Count of Villa Flor, now created Duke of Terceira, and then practically destroyed the Miguelite fleet off Cape Saint Vincent on the 5th of July, 1833. The Duke of Terceira was equally successful on land; he was warmly welcomed by the people of the Algarves and the Alemtejo; his army was increased by volunteers as he advanced; he utterly defeated the Miguelites under General Telles Jordão at Covada Piedade, and triumphantly entered Lisbon on the 24th of July. Dom Pedro immediately sailed round to the capital, and summoned his daughter from France, and on her arrival he again proclaimed the Charter of 1826. The Miguelites, under the French Marshal, Bourmont, then attacked Lisbon, but were easily beaten off. The year 1834 was one of unbroken success for the Chartists. England and France recognized Maria da Gloria as Queen of Portugal, and the ministry of Queen Isabella of Spain, knowing Dom Miguel to be a Carlist, sent two Spanish armies under Generals Rodil and Serrano to the help of Dom Pedro. Saldanha took Leiria and defeated the disheartened Miguelites at Torres Novas and Almoster; Captain Napier having destroyed the usurper’s fleet, took to the land, and reduced the Beira, capturing Caminha, Vianna, Ponte de Lima and Valença; General Sá de Bandeira conquered the Alemtejo; and the Duke of Terceira overran the Tras-os-Montes, and won a victory at Asseiceira. Finally the combined Spanish and Portuguese armies surrounded the remnant of the Miguelites at Evora Monte, and on the 26th of May, 1834, Dom Miguel surrendered. By the Convention of Evora Monte, Dom Miguel abandoned his claim to the throne of Portugal, and in consideration of a pension of £15,000 a year promised never again to set foot in the kingdom.

Dom Pedro declared the young queen of age, and summoned a full Cortes to meet at Lisbon. He appointed a strong ministry with the Duke of Palmella as president, and the Duke of Terceira at the War Office, and an attempt was made to rearrange the finances and settle the kingdom. The Cortes declared Dom Miguel and his heirs for ever ineligible to succeed to the throne and forbade them to return to Portugal under pain of death, and struck a fatal blow at the influence of the Miguelites by abolishing all the orders of the friars, who had hitherto kept alive his party in the provinces. Dom Pedro, who had throughout the struggle been the heart and soul of his daughter’s party, had thus the pleasure of seeing the country at peace, and a regular parliamentary system in operation, but he did not long survive, for on the 24th of September, 1834, he died at Queluz near Lisbon, of an illness brought on by his great labours and fatigues, leaving a name, which deserves all honour from Portuguese and Brazilians alike.

Queen Maria da Gloria was only fifteen, when she thus lost the advantage of her father’s wise counsel and steady help, yet it might have been expected that her reign would be calm and prosperous. But neither the queen, the nobility, nor the people, understood the principles of parliamentary government, and the army, accustomed to fight and unable to do anything else, was a constant source of danger. Members of different parties could not or would not believe that all true Portuguese alike loved Portugal; the party in power proscribed and exiled its opponents, while the party in opposition invariably appealed to arms, instead of seeking to enforce its opinions by legitimate parliamentary means. In addition, the unfortunate country was ravaged by numerous brigands, generally disbanded soldiers, who called themselves Miguelites, and who invariably escaped into Spain, when attacked in force. Each successive government refused to recognize or to pay interest upon the loans raised by its predecessor, and the financial credit of Portugal soon fell to a very low ebb in the money markets of Europe. It is unprofitable and almost impossible to examine here the tendencies of the chief statesmen of the time, for new governments quickly succeeded each other, and it will be sufficient to notice only the most important “pronunciamentos” and appeals to arms. The whole reign was one of violent party struggles, for they hardly deserve to be called civil wars, so little did they involve, which present a striking contrast to the peaceable constitutional government that at present prevails.

In her earlier years, Queen Maria da Gloria was chiefly under the influence of her stepmother, Amelia of Bavaria, and in January, 1835, she married the Queen Dowager’s brother, Augustus Charles Eugène Napoleon, Duke of Leuchtenberg, second son of Eugène de Beauharnais by Princess Augusta of Bavaria, to the great chagrin of Louis Philippe of France, who had proposed his son, the Duke of Nemours. This prince died after two months’ residence in Portugal, but it was so necessary to have an heir to the throne, that the queen was pressed to marry again at once. She complied, and in January, 1836, she married Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, nephew of Leopold, King of the Belgians, and it was his nomination to the high office of commander-in-chief, which brought about the first appeal to arms. In September, 1836, Fernando Soares da Caldeira headed a “pronunciamento” in Lisbon for the re-establishment of the Constitution of 1822, which was entirely successful, and resulted in the drawing up of a new constitution. This “pronunciamento” was followed by various other “pronunciamentos” and good deal of fighting, but eventually the new Constitution of 1838, which was really that of 1822 slightly modified, was generally adopted. It worked until 1842, when one of the radical ministers, Antonio Bermudo da Costa Cabral, suddenly declared for the Charter of 1826 at Oporto. The Duke of Terceira at once headed a “pronunciamento” in Lisbon in favour of the Charter, and came into office with Costa Cabral as home secretary, and virtual prime minister. Costa Cabral, who was in 1845 created Count of Thomar, made himself very acceptable to the queen, and by interpreting the Charter in the most royalist sense, even attempted to check the liberty of the press. It was now the turn of the Septembrists to have recourse to arms, and after an attempt to place Saldanha in office, the opposition broke out into open insurrection under the Viscount Sá de Bandeira, the Count of Bomfim and the Count das Antas. This new insurrection was followed by what is known as the war of Maria da Fonte or “Patuleia,” which is even more pitiable than its predecessors. Foreign powers eventually intervened, and on the 29th of June, 1847, the Convention of Granada was signed, by which a general amnesty was declared, and Saldanha was maintained in power. In 1849 the Count of Thomar once more came into office, and in 1851 he was again expelled by Saldanha at the head of his troops. This was the last “pronunciamento” worthy of notice; in 1852 the Charter was revised to suit all parties; direct voting, one of the chief claims of the radicals, was allowed, and the era of civil war came to an end. Maria da Gloria did not long survive this peaceful settlement, for she died on the 15th of November, 1853, and her husband the King-Consort, Ferdinand II., assumed the regency until his eldest son Pedro V. should come of age.

The era of peaceful parliamentary government, which succeeded the stormy reign of Maria II., has been one of material prosperity for Portugal; agriculture and commerce revived, and a great literary and historical revival took place, marked by the names of João Baptista de Almeida-Garrett, Antonio Feliciano de Castilho, and José da Silva Mendes Leal, the poets, and of Alexandra Herculano de Carvalho e Araujo, the Viscount de Santarem, and Luis Augusto Rebello da Silva, the historians. Men were not wanting in the first half of the nineteenth century to advocate the formation of an Iberian republic or kingdom, comprising the whole of the peninsula, but the revival of national pride in recalling the glorious past of Portuguese history, which has been the work of these great poets and historians, has breathed afresh the spirit of patriotism into a people which had been wearied out by perpetual “pronunciamentos” and absurd civil wars.

The only political event of any importance during the reign of Pedro V., who came of age and assumed the government in 1855, and who in 1857 married the Princess Stephanie of Hohenzollern, was the affair of the Charles et Georges. This French ship was engaged in what was undoubtedly the slave trade, though slightly disguised, off the coast of Africa in 1858, when it was seized by the Portuguese authorities of Mozambique, and, in accordance with the laws and treaties against the slave trade, the captain, Roussel, was condemned to two years’ imprisonment. The Emperor Napoleon III., glad to have a chance of posing before the French people, and counting on his close alliance with England to prevent the intervention of the ancient ally of Portugal, instantly sent a large fleet to the Tagus under Admiral Lavaud, and demanded compensation, which, as England gave no hint of assistance, Portugal was obliged to pay. The whole country, and especially the city of Lisbon, was during this reign, on account of the neglect of all sanitary precautions, ravaged by cholera and yellow fever, and it was in the midst of one of these outbreaks, on the 11th of November, 1861, that Pedro V., who had refused to leave his pestilence-stricken capital, died of cholera, and was followed to the grave by two of his younger brothers, Dom Ferdinand and Dom John.

At the time of Pedro’s death, his next brother and heir, Dom Luis, was travelling on the continent, and his father, Ferdinand II., who long survived Queen Maria da Gloria, and morganatically married Elise Hensler, a dancer, assumed the regency until his return, soon after which King Luis married Maria Pia, younger daughter of Victor Emmanuel, king of Italy. The new monarch followed his brother’s policy, and allowed his ministers to fight out their battles in the chambers without any interference from himself. During his reign, the old combatants of the stormy reign of Maria da Gloria, Palmella, Terceira, Sá de Bandeira, Thomar, and Saldanha, all died off, and with them their peculiar method of enforcing their political views. Their successors in the leadership of political parties, the Duke of Loulé and the Marquis of Avila, Antonio Manoel Fontes Pereira de Mello and Antonio José Braamcamp, were men of greater administrative ability, who did not go to war when they were defeated in Parliament, and they therefore do not contribute any striking pages to the national history, though they have done much for the prosperity of the country. The last “pronunciamento,” or rather attempt at a “pronunciamento,” of the last survivor of Maria da Gloria’s turbulent statesmen, the Duke of Saldanha, in 1870, only proved how entirely the time for such movements had passed away. He conceived the idea that the Duke of Loulé was too great a favourite at court, and so he one day came to the palace and after recalling to the king’s mind a few historical examples, such as the fatal intimacy of Charles X. of France with the Due de Polignac, he threatened an appeal to arms unless the Duke of Loulé was at once dismissed. King Luis, perceiving that the old man was in earnest and not wishing to have the peace of the country disturbed, humoured his fancy, and after keeping Saldanha himself in office for four months, despatched him as ambassador to London, where the old warrior died in 1876. With this trifling exception, the reign of King Luis was prosperous and peaceful, and the news of his death on October 9, 1889, was received with general regret.

Luis I. was succeeded on the throne by his elder son, Dom Carlos, or Charles I., a young man of twenty-six, who married in 1886, the Princess Marie Amélie de Bourbon, the eldest daughter of the Comte de Paris. His accession was immediately followed by the revolution of the 15th of November, 1889, in Brazil, by which his great uncle, Pedro II., Emperor of Brazil, was dethroned and a republican government established in that country. This news created a profound impression in Portugal; the republican party, which has for some years been growing in strength in the cities of Lisbon and Oporto hailed it with delight, and the democratic journals urged that the example of Brazil should be followed. The young king’s difficulties have been further increased by the disputes which have arisen with regard to Africa, and there is no concealing the fact that Charles I. will have to show the greatest political wisdom, if he is to weather the storms now besetting the position of Portugal, and to save the Portuguese monarchy.

Many allusions have been made to the possessions of Portugal in Africa. It has been seen that certain places both on the east and west coasts of Africa, such as Angola and Mozambique, were originally occupied and fortified as resting-places for the Portuguese fleets on the way to and from India, and that when they were re-taken after the Revolution of 1640, they were occupied only because they had formerly belonged to Portugal and not because of their intrinsic value. Of recent years, however, the value of these settlements has increased owing to the opening up of Africa to commerce. This is thoroughly understood by the more intelligent of modern Portuguese statesmen, and courageous Portuguese travellers, such as Serpa Pinto, Roberto Ivens, and Brito Capello, have taken their part in obtaining a more correct knowledge of the geography of Africa. But the opening up of Africa has attracted settlers and explorers of other nations to the “Dark Continent,” who, if they have not denied the rights of Portugal, have certainly infringed them. The original Portuguese settlements were merely ports at which ships might rest and refit; and the points at issue now concern the amount of the territory adjoining those settlements or of the “hinterland” behind them towards the interior, which rightly belongs to Portugal. This question of boundaries is in the nature of things a difficult one to settle, and it is much to be regretted that the disputes which have arisen have chiefly been with England, the ancient ally of Portugal. The high spirit of the Portuguese people has been wounded by the tone of part of the English press, and their knowledge of their own present weakness and of their past greatness has made them the more sensitive. Some of their agents in Africa have possibly acted in an arbitrary and high-handed manner, and Englishmen have not been slow to resent such treatment. Yet it is to be sincerely hoped that these differences between the two ancient allies may be peacefully settled, and it may be that some knowledge of how close the friendship of the two nations was for many centuries may make the English people feel more tolerantly inclined towards the claims of the Portuguese to consideration and respect.

Within recent years the internal prosperity of Portugal has increased; railways and telegraphs have been constructed; sanitary improvements have been introduced; and a good system of national primary and secondary education has been established, owing mainly to the efforts of the poet, Antonio Feliciano de Castilho. Its financial condition, however, may well give rise to the deepest apprehension; the amount of its national debt is nearly as heavy in proportion to its population as that of England, and the repudiation of loans during the reign of Maria II. has made it difficult to raise money in the more wealthy countries of Europe. Even more serious danger to the prosperity of Portugal is threatened by the continued emigration to Brazil, to which country a large number of the sturdy peasants flock every year, chiefly from the northern provinces of the Tras-os-Montes and the Entre-Minho-e-Douro. This continuous stream of emigration, though prejudicial to Portugal, has been of the greatest service to Brazil, and Greater Portugal, as the mother country and her colony in South America may be termed, though politically divided, is more prosperous than ever.

Even more striking than the advance of material prosperity has been the great literary revival, which has marked the era of peaceful parliamentary government. King Luis was an enlightened patron of letters, and translated some of the plays of Shakespeare into Portuguese in a manner which showed him to be well versed in the capabilities of his own language. In the country of Camoens there has been no lack of poets, though none of the modern writers would dare to class themselves with him. Foremost among these poets are Almeida-Garrett and Castilho, who alike sang the ancient glories of Portugal, but among their followers are many whose inspiration is hardly inferior to their own. Such men as José da Silva Mendes Leal, Luis Augusto Palmeirim, and João Soares de Passos, have written poems worthy to rank with the classics of Portuguese literature, and their muse has generally been fostered by a knowledge of ancient writers and of old national lyrical forms. Even more important than the poets are the historians of modern Portugal, for they are the men who have made the Portuguese so proud of their nationality that they still cling closely to their independence and oppose the advocates of “Iberianism.” The founder of the new school of scientific historians was Alexandra Herculano de Carvalho e Araujo, who, after imitating Sir Walter Scott in his historical novels, showed that he had been influenced by Niebuhr and Ranke in his famous history of Portugal, of which the first volume was published in 1848. He it was who first grasped the fact that history can only be rightly studied and correctly written after a careful and critical investigation of documents, and he manifested both energy and discernment in clearing away the cobweb of legend which had been spun about the early days of the nation. Herculano inspired his spirit into the new generation, and he has had many painstaking and able followers, among whom the ablest are Luis Augusto Rebello da Silva, Simião José da Luz Soriano, and José Maria Latino Coelho. In general literature, the modern Portuguese are equally distinguished, though their greatest strength lies in poetry and history, and it is worthy of notice, that literary fame is a sure passport to rapid advancement in political life. The high opinion held of literary endeavour is an evidence of the persistency of the national spirit, and as such may be welcomed as the brightest augury for the future development of the Portuguese nation.

Few countries of Europe will repay attentive study better than Portugal; no nation, except Spain, passed through such a trial as the reign of Maria da Gloria, and in no country have the advantages of representative institutions been better realized; socialism possesses there a reforming, not a revolutionary, force; knowledge of the history of their nation, inspired by great writers, has made the modern Portuguese ambitious to revive the glories of the past, and has united men of all shades of opinion in a common patriotism. The Camoens celebration of 1880 showed that the Brazilians are still proud of their mother country, and that the Portuguese race on both sides of the Atlantic was ready to develop new energy and perseverance, and to prove its descent from the men who under Affonso Henriques conquered the Moors; who under John I. and John IV. rejected the rule of the Spaniards; who under Affonso de Alboquerque and João de Castro made their names famous from Arabia to Japan; and who, by the labours of Prince Henry “the Navigator” and the voyage of Vasco da Gama, initiated a new era in the history of the world.

INDEX.

A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, Y, Z

A
Abd-el-Melik, 248, 250, 253, 254
Abrantes, 57, 104, 392
Abrantes, Marquis of, 393
Abu Abdallah, Governor of Alcacer do Sal, 72, 73
Abu-l-Hasan, defeated at the Salado, 1340, 92
Abyssinia, visits of Portuguese travellers to, 167
“Academia Real das Sciencias,” 372, 396
Academy of History, 353
A’Court, Sir William; see Heytesbury, Lord
Aden, 200, 214
Affonso Henriques, 24, 31, 34, 35, 37-58, 98
Affonso II., 70-74, 98
Affonso III., 79, 80-83, 89, 98
Affonso IV., 86, 91-99
Affonso V., 130-35, 138, 159, 160
Affonso VI., 324, 326-34
Affonso, son of Affonso III., 85, 86
Affonso, only son of John II., 163, 170
Affonso, João, bastard son of Diniz, 91
Affonso, Pedro, bastard son of Count Henry, 31
Affonso, Pedro, bastard son of Diniz, Count of Barcellos, 91
Africa, 144-56, 195, 213, 247, 343, 346, 428, 429
Agriculture, 87, 181, 368
Ahmed, Maulā, 248, 249, 253-55
Alans, the, conquer Lusitania, 10
Alarcos, battle of, 63
Albergaria, Diogo Soares de, 169
Albergaria, Francisco Soares de, 309
Albergaria, Lopo Soares de, 203
Albert, Cardinal, 286, 290
Alboquerque, Affonso de, 169, 185, 193, 197-201
Alboquerque, Francisco de, 193
Alboquerque, João de, 209
Alboquerque, Mathias de, 291
Alboquerque, Mathias de, 317
Alboquerque, Pedro de, 169
Alboquerque, Sancho, Count of, 101
Alcacer do Sal, 54, 62, 66, 72
Alcacer-Quibir, battle of (1578), 254
Alcanede granted to Knights of Calatrava, 66
Alcantara, battle of (1580), 283
Alçobaça, monastery of, 54, 69, 98, 99, 397
Alçobaça, Cortes of, 164, 165
Alemquer, 53, 104
Alemtejo, the, 55, 57, 66, 87, 181, 421
Alexander III., Pope, 57
Alexander VI., Pope, 163, 191
Alfarrobeira, battle of (1449), 133
Alfonso VI., 17, 18, 23
Alfonso VII., 30, 35, 37-39, 54
Alfonso VIII., 63, 71
Alfonso IX., 63, 64, 71
Alfonso X., 81
Alfonso XI., 92
Algarves, the, 43, 62, 76, 78, 80, 81, 181, 182
Alho, Affonso Martins, 94
Ali, Almoravide Caliph, 28
Ali Adil Shah, King of Bijápur, 247
Aljubarrota, battle of, 111, 113
Aljustrel, taken by Knights of Santiago, 76
Almada, 53, 62, 66, 104, 312
Almada, Alvaro Vaz de, see Arronches, Count of
Almada, Antonio de, 308, 311
Almanza, battle of (1707), 351
Almeida taken by the Spaniards (1760), 363
Almeida, Francisco de, 195-97, 214
Almeida, Lourenço de, 175, 196
Almeida, Miguel de, 308, 309, 311
Almeida-Garrett, João Baptista, 425, 431
Almohades, the, 44, 55, 57, 62;
see Ya’kūb, Yūsuf
Almoravides, the, 17, 41
Almoster, battle of (1834), 421
Alorna, João de Almeida Portugal, Marquis of, 371, 374
Alorna, Pedro, Marquis of, 395
Alva, Duke of, 249, 281, 283
Alvares, Manoel, 276
Alvares, Mattheus, 287
Alvitiz, Pedro, 72
“Amadis of Gaul” romance, 126
Amarante, Francisco da Silveira, Count of, 415
Ameixial, battle of (1663), 331
Amelia of Bavaria, 418, 423
Anadia, Viscount of, 391
Andeiro, João Fernandes, see Ourem, Count of
Andrade, Gomes Freire de, 395, 413
Andrade, Jacinto Freire de, 325
Andrew of London, 52
Andrew of Oxford, 93
Angeja, Marquis of, 372
Angola, 324, 346
Anne of Austria, 314, 315
Annes, Affonso, 109
Annes, Estevão, 80
Annes, Gonçalo, 167
Annes, Martim, 75
Annes, Pedro, 73, 75
Annunciacão, Miguel de, 371
Antas, General das, 420, 424
Antonio, Prior of Crato, 281, 283-86
Aranjuez, Treaty of (1793), 386
Arcadia de Lisboa, 369, 372
Arguin, fort at, 154, 295
Armamar, Count of, 316
Arnold of Aerschot, 52
Arnold, Edmund, 118
Arrayolos, Count of, 130
Arronches, battle of (1801), 389
Arronches, Antonio Vaz de Almada, Count of, 132, 133
Arundel, Richard, Earl of, 93
Arundel, Thomas, Earl of, 118
Arzila, 133, 179, 249, 253, 285
Ashworth, Sir C., 405
Asseiceira, battle of (1834), 421
Asturians, the, 5
Ataulphus, Visigothic king, 11
Athaide, Catherina de, 270
Athaide, Luis de, Viceroy of India, 246-48, 257
Atoleiros, battle of (1384), 110
Augustus, Duke of Leuchtenberg, 423
Ayamonte, 78, 80
Ayamonte, Marquis of, 316, 317
Aymeric of Cahors, 89
Azambuja, Diogo de, 169
Azambuja, Jeronymo de, 276
Azamor in Morocco, 179
Azevedo, Antonio de Araujo de, 387, 388, 391, 396
Azores, the, 147, 285, 295, 419
Azurara, chronicler, 135, 379

B
Badajoz, 56, 326, 375, 389
Bahādar Shah, King of Gujarāt, 204, 205
Bainetti, Marquis de, 305
Baldaya, Affonso Gonçalves, 147
Ballerais, Count of, 316
Bank of Portugal, 368
Bar, Count of, 62
Barbacena, Felisberto Caldeira Brant Pontes, Marquis of, 405, 418
Barbosa du Bocage, Manoel Maria, 379, 385
Barbosa Machado, Diogo, see Machado
Barcellos, João Affonso Telles de Menezes, Count of, 104
Barcellos, Duke of, 255
Bardez, Marāthas defeated at, 374
Barreto, Antonio Moniz, 320
Barreto, Antonio Moniz, 247, 248
Barreto, Francisco, 246, 247, 271
Barros, João de, 185, 226, 274-76
Batalha, Convent, 113, 119
Batavia, 294, 342
Beatrice de Gusman, 81
Beatrice of Castile, 86, 98
Beatrice, daughter of Pedro I., 101
Beatrice, daughter of Ferdinand and Leonor, 106, 107
Beatrice, daughter of the “Holy Constable,” 125
Beatrice, daughter of Emmanuel, 178, 264
Beauvais, Bishop of, 62
Belatha, Emirate of, 43
Belem, palace at, 176;
Convent at, 184, 204;
Sebastian buried at, 256
Bellesta, Spanish general, 397
Benedict XIV., Pope, 360
Bengal, trade with, 205, 296, 343
Beresford, William Carr, Viscount, 400, 402, 405-7, 412, 413
Bermudo II., King of Gallicia, 13
Berwick, James, Duke of, 351
Bishoprics and bishops, 10, 26, 30, 67, 75, 79, 183
Black Death, the, 95
Blake, Admiral Robert, 323, 324
Bojador, Cape, 146, 147
Bombay ceded to England, 330, 346
Bomfim, Count of, 424
Bonaparte, Joseph, 401
Bonaparte, Lucien, 389
Braamcamp, Antonio José, 427
Bradford, Sir Edward, 405, 406
Braga, Archbishopric of, 26
Braga Cathedral, 32, 98
Braganza, the Dukes of, 303
Braganza, Affonso, Duke of, 125, 126, 131-33
Braganza, Alvaro de, 161
Braganza, Catherine, Duchess of, 278
Braganza, Constantino de, 212, 213, 246, 270
Braganza, Ferdinand, Duke of, 161, 162
Braganza, Jaymé de, 255
Braganza, João, Duke of, 280, 284
Braganza, Theodosio, Duke of, 304
Brandão, Antonio, 301
Brazil, 175, 221-35, 243, 296-98, 318-20, 336, 337, 346-48, 369, 375-77, 392, 414, 419, 428, 430
Breyner, Pedro de Mello, 393, 396
Brézé, Chevalier de, 315
Brito, Bernardo de, 7, 301
Brotero, Felix de Avellar, 380, 385
Bugio, castle of, 312
Burton, Sir Richard F., quoted, 90, 130, 242, 257
Busaco, battle of (1810), 402

C
Cabo Branco, 148
Cabral, Gonçalo Velho, 147
Cabral, Pedro Alvares, 175, 192, 193, 221, 222
Cacello taken, 78, 80
Caceres taken by Affonso Henriques, 55, 56
Cadamosto, Luigi, 151, 152
Cadaval, Duke of, 336, 351
Cafim, abandoned by John III., 179
Calatrava, Order of, 66
Caldeira, Francisco Soares da, 423, 424
Calicut, 189, 193, 198
Calpurnius, C., 6
Cam, or Cão, Diogo, 156
Camara, Luis Gonçalves da, Jesuit, 241, 242
Camara, Martim da, 241
Caminha, Andrade, 267
Caminha, Duke of, 315-17
Camoens, Luis de, his life, 268-71;
his “Lusiads,” 271-74, 379
Camoens, “Lusiads” of, 7, 45, 90, 97, 130, 189, 214
Camoens Celebration, 274, 432
Campbell, Sir Archibald, 405, 407
Campo, Don Luiz de, 311
Cannanore, 193, 196
Cannon, 111, 113, 169
Cantabrians, the, 5
Cantanhede, Antonio Luis de Menezes, Count of, 327
Canton, Andrade at, 175, 215, 342
Cape Matapan, 352
Cape of Good Hope, 156, 343
Cape Saint Vincent, 420
Cape Verde, 150
Cape Verde Islands, 153, 346
Caraffa, Spanish general, 392
Cardenas, Don Didace de, 305
Carlotta Joaquina, 373, 404, 411, 414
Carneiro, Pedro de Alçaçova, 241, 245, 249
Carracena, Marquis of, 331
Carthaginians, the, 5, 6
Carvalho, Antonio Coelho de, 314
Carvalho, Lourenço Peres de, 316
Carvalho e Mello, Sebastião José de, see Pombal, Marquis of
Castanheda, Fernão Lopes de, 185
Castel Melhor, Luis de Sousa e Vasconcellos, Count of, 331-33
Castilho, Antonio Feliciano de, 425, 430, 431
Castlereagh, Lord, 407, 408
Castro Alvaro Peres de, 95
Castro, Antonio José de, 397
Castro, Fernando de, 305, 306
Castro, Ines de, 95-98
Castro, João de, 206, 210-12
Castro, Joaquim Machado de, 368, 380
Castro, Pedro Fernandes de, 93, 95
Catherine, daughter of King Edward, 134, 164
Catherine of Austria, 178, 240
Catherine of Braganza, 323, 329, 330, 336, 340
Catherine de’ Medici, 278, 285
Cave-dwellers in Portugal, 4, 5
Cavida, Antonio de, 334
Celestine III., Pope, 63, 64
Celorico, built by Sancho I., 69
Cerneja, battle of (1137), 38
Ceuta, 123, 333
Ceylon, 184, 203, 292, 342
Cezimbra, palace at, 119
Chancellors of Portugal, 88
Charles I., King of Portugal, 428
Charles I., of England, 314
Charles II., of England, 329, 330
Charles V., Emperor, 178, 179
Charles, Archduke, 338, 340, 351
Charles VIII., of France, 165
Charles III., Duke of Savoy, 178
“Charles-et-Georges,” the, 425, 426
Charlot, General, 397
Charter of 1826, 417, 421, 424, 425
Chastenau, Comte de, 337
Chaul, battle of (1508), 196
Chimnaji Apā takes Bassein, 373
China, 175, 215, 216, 342
Chin Chee, factory at, 215
Christ, Order of, 86, 124, 183
Christianity introduced, 10, 12
Chronica do Conquista do Algarves, 127
Chroniclers, the early, 126, 127, 379
Cintra, 53, 104, 119, 334, 400
Ciudad Rodrigo, 56, 331, 341
Clement XIV., Pope, 364
Cleynaerts, quoted, 236
Clinton, Col. Henry, 390
Cochin, 193, 195, 196, 198, 204, 294, 342
Cochin China, 175, 214
Coelho, Duarte, 175, 214
Coelho da Silva, Francisco, 385
Coelho, José Maria Latino, 431
Coimbra, 15, 18, 24, 28, 58, 74, 83, 87, 97, 105, 111, 119, 406
Coimbra, bishops of, see Annunciacão, Aymeric, Tiburcio
Coimbra, University of, see University
Coligny, Admiral, 234
Colombo, factory, 203
Columbus, Christopher, 169
Commerce, Treaties of, 86, 94, 165, 337-40, 372
Congo, the, 151
Congreve, William, quoted, 216
Constance, daughter of Diniz, 86
Constance, wife of Pedro, 92, 95
Constituent Assembly of 1820, 413, 414
Constitution of 1822, 414, 424
Conti, valet of Affonso VI., 330, 331
Conventions, 400, 421, 424
Correa, Antonio, 309, 316
Correa da Silva, Antonio, 380
Correa da Serra, José, 379, 385
Correia, Paio Peres, 76
Corte-Real, Diogo de Mendonça, Count of, 352
Corte-Real, Gaspar, 175
Corte-Real, Jeronymo, 267, 301
Cortes, 45, 71, 81, 83, 106, 111, 128, 130, 160, 164, 165, 257, 280, 283, 312, 417
Costa Cabral, Antonio Bermudo da, see Thomar, Count of
Costa, Duarte da, 233
Costa, João da, 262
Courts of Love, 89, 91
Coutinho, Francisco, see Redondo, Count of
Coutinho, Gaston, 308, 311
Coutinho, Luis Pinto de Sousa, 386
Coutinho, Manoel de Sousa, 291
Coutinho, Ruy Pereira, 175
Couto, Diogo do, 185, 301
Covada Piedade, battle of, 421
Covilham, João Peres de, 167
Cromwell, Oliver, 323
Crusaders, 48, 52, 60, 62, 72
Crusadoes, struck by Affonso V., 133
Cruz e Silva, Antonio Diniz da, 378
Cueva, Fernando de la, 313
Cunha, Ayres da, 226
Cunha, Cardinal da, 354
Cunha, Estevão da, 308, 309
Cunha e Menezes, Francisco da, 393
Cunha, João Lourenço da, 101, 104
Cunha, Luis da, 308
Cunha, Luis da, 359
Cunha, Nuno da, 204, 205
Cunha, Rodrigo da, 308, 311
Cunha, Tristão da, 175, 196, 197

D
Da Cunha, Da Silva, &c., see Cunha, Silva, &c.
Dábhol, sacked by Almeida, 197
Daman, taken by Constantino de Braganza, 213, 270
Das Antas, Das Regras, &c., see Antas, Regras, &c.
De Castro, De Noronha, &c., see Castro, Noronha, &c.
Denifle, H., “Universitäten des Mittelalters,” 260
Diamonds discovered in Brazil, 377
Diamper (Udayampura), Synod of, 292
Dias, Bartholomeu, 156
Dickson, Sir Alexander, 405
Diniz, King of Portugal, 81, 83, 85-91, 98, 260
Diniz, son of Pedro I. and Ines de Castro, 103, 114, 118
Diogo, Duke of Viseu, 162
Diu, Island of, 197, 204, 205, 211, 212, 334
Domingues, Rodrigo, 93
Domingues, Vasco, 104
Drake, Sir Francis, 285, 290
Dulce of Aragon, queen of Sancho I., 57, 98
Duperron de Castera, 379
D’Urban, Sir Benjamin, 402
Dutch, the, 290, 291, 294-98, 314, 315, 318, 320, 341-43, 346

E
Eannes, Gil, doubles Cape Bojador, 147
Earthquake of Lisbon, 357, 358
Eben, Baron, 401
Education, National system of, 430
Edward, King of Portugal, 122, 124, 126-29
Edward I., of England, 86
Edward II., of England, 86
Edward III., of England, 93, 94, 104
Edward IV., of England, 134, 164
Edward, the Black Prince, 94
Edward, Duke of Guimaraens, 178, 278
Egas, João, Archbishop of Braga, 79
Elizabeth, Queen of England, 285, 295
Elmina, fort built at, 156
Elvas, 75, 312, 327, 360, 389
Emeralds found in Brazil, 377
Emmanuel, King of Portugal, 170-78, 188, 191, 215
England, 52, 62, 72, 86, 93-95, 106, 111, 113, 116-18, 164, 165, 290, 295, 296, 329, 330, 336, 337-40, 343, 352, 363, 380, 381, 387, 388, 399-405, 414, 417, 421, 429
Epic, first Portuguese, 93
Equator, the, crossed, 154
Era, changed from Augustan to Christian, 121
Espinosa, Gabriel, 288
Euric, Visigothic king, 11
Evora, Pedro de, 167
Evora, 10, 55, 57, 66, 128, 135, 160, 302, 331
Evora Monte, surrender of, 421

F
Faria e Sousa, Manoel, 185, 301
Farinha, Affonso Peres, 76
Faro, Affonso, Count of, 161
Ferdinand, King of Portugal, 99-107
Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, 423, 425, 426
Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, 134, 135, 163, 171
Ferdinand VI., of Spain, 352
Ferdinand I., of Leon, 14, 15
Ferdinand II., of Leon, 54-56
Ferdinand IV., of Castile, 86
Ferdinand, son of Sancho I., 70, 74
Ferdinand, son of Affonso II., 76, 78, 79
Ferdinand, son of John I., the “Constant Prince,” 122, 125, 129, 130
Ferdinand, son of Edward, 153, 161
Ferdinand, son of Emmanuel, Duke of Guarda, 178
Ferdinand, son of Maria II., 426
Fernandes, João, 151
Fernandes, Martim, 73
Ferrario, Francisco, 276
Ferreira, Antonio, 266, 267
Feudalism in Portugal, 87, 88, 120, 121, 160, 413
“Fidelissimus,” title conferred on kings of Portugal, 353
Fielding, Henry, 381
“Filintists,” the, 379
Flor da Rosa, battle of (1801), 389
Fonseca, Agostino Luis da, 405, 407
Fontaine, Pierre Louis, 385
Fontainebleau, Treaty of (1807), 392
Forbes-Skelater, João, 386
Francis Xavier, St., 209, 212, 295
Frederick III., Emperor, 134
Freemasons, 385, 393
Freire, Antonio de Andrade, 371
French, the, in Brazil, 233-35
French Revolution, 382, 383, 385, 414
Friars, Orders of, 74, 208, 417, 422
Funchal, in Madeira, 144

G
Galle in Ceylon, 330
Gallicia, 15, 25, 37-39, 56
Gallicians, mentioned by Strabo, 5
Garveras, Count das, 340
Galway, Henri de Ruvigny, Lord, 340, 341, 351
Gama, Antonio de Saldanha da, see Porto Santo, Count of
Gama, Estevão da, 205, 206
Gama, Vasco da, 175, 188, 189, 191-93, 203, 204
Gaunt, John of, see Lancaster, Duke of
Gazeta de Lisboa, 325
Gelmires, Diogo, 28-30
George IV. of England receives Maria II., 418
Goa, 183, 198, 201, 203, 208, 209, 246, 247, 292, 294, 317, 342, 343, 374, 375, 390
Godoy, Prince of the Peace, 386, 387, 392
Goes, Damião de, 274
Gold, discovery of, in Brazil, 336, 337, 347, 348, 376
Gomes, Diogo, 153
Gomes, Fernan, 154
Gomes, Sueiro, 72, 74, 78
Gomes, Violante, 281
Gonçalves, Alvaro, 97, 98
Gonçalves, Antonio, 148, 151
Gonçalves, Lopo, 154
Gonzales, Sebastião, 218
Gonzales, Sebastião, 286, 287
Goths, the, 10, 11
Govea, Andrea, 261, 262
Govea, Antonio, 261
Govea, Martial, 261
Graa, Ruy de, 169
Granada, Convention of, 424
Greek colonies in Portugal, 5
Gregory IX., Pope, 76
Gregory XI., Pope, 101
Gregory XIII., Pope, 249, 278
Guimaraens, 5, 24, 31, 133, 304
Guinea, discovered by Diniz Dias, 150
Gusmão, Bartholomeu de, 379, 380
Guy of Boulogne, Cardinal, 103
Guy of Vico, Cardinal, 39
Gylfels, Dutch Admiral, 315

H
Hamilton, Captain, quoted, 374
Hamilton, Sir John, 407
Haro, Don Luiz de, 327
Hawker, Sir Richard, 405
Henry of Burgundy, 18, 20, 21, 20-24, 98
Henry, Cardinal, King of Portugal, 183, 240, 241, 257
Henry IV., of England, 118
Henry V., of England, 118
Henry VII., of England, 165
Henry I., of Castile, 70
Henry II., of Castile, 101, 103, 106
Henry III., of Castile, 113
Henry IV., of Castile, 134
Henry, Prince, “the Navigator,” 122, 124, 125, 131, 132, 140-53
Hensler, Elise, 426
Hentzel, squire of John of Gaunt, 111
Herculano de Carvalho e Araujo, Alexandre, 102, 425, 431
Herman, M., 396
Heytesbury, W. A’Court, Lord, 415
Historians of Portugal, 126, 127, 274, 275, 301, 369, 372, 379, 425, 431, 432
Holland, Earl of, 72
Honorius III., Pope, 73, 75
Hoseyn, Emir, 197
Hospital, Knights of St. John, of the, 32, 66, 76, 80
Houtman, Cornelius, 291
Hugh of Cluny, 23, 28
Hunter, Sir W. W., quoted, 190, 201, 291, 294

I
Iberianism, 2, 415, 421
Ilheos in Brazil, 229
India, 143, 167, 175, 189, 190, 192-213, 245-48, 291-96, 342, 343, 373-75
Innocent II., Pope, 39, 40
Innocent III., Pope, 67, 69, 71
Innocent IV., Pope, 79
Inquiracãoes-geraes, 73, 160
Inquisition, 183, 231, 246, 291, 294, 343, 354, 367, 413
Interdicts, 69, 73, 78, 81
Isabel, St., 86, 91, 92
Isabel, daughter of John I., 125, 134
Isabel, queen of Affonso V., 132, 134
Isabel, daughter of Emmanuel, 178
Isabel Maria, daughter of John VI., 416
Isabella, Queen of Castile, see Ferdinand and Isabella
Isabella, eldest daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, 163, 171, 174

J
Jaffnapatam, taken by Dutch, 342
Jant, Chevalier de, 323, 329
Jaymé, son of Duke of Coimbra, 133
Jesuits, 183, 209, 230, 231, 343, 347, 359-61, 364
Jews, Portuguese, 171, 172, 173
Joanna, Lady of Flanders, 70
Joanna, daughter of King Edward, 135
Joanna, queen of Affonso V., 134
Joanna, daughter of Affonso V., 165
Joanna, daughter of Charles V., 179, 240
John I., King of Portugal, 97, 103, 105-7, 109-11, 113-27, 133, 261
John II., King of Portugal, 156, 158-70
John III., King of Portugal, 174-84, 261, 263
John IV., King of Portugal, 304-6, 312-17, 321, 323, 324
John V., King of Portugal, 350-54
John VI., King of Portugal, 373-89, 392, 393, 408, 410, 411, 414-16
John XXI., Pope, 83
John XXII., Pope, 86
John I., of Castile, 106, 107, 110, 111, 113
John, son of Pedro I., 103-5
John, Duke of Beja, 122, 125
John, son of John III., 179, 184
John, son of Maria II., 426
John of Abbeville, Cardinal, 75, 76
Joseph, King of Portugal, 354-70
Joseph, bastard son of John V., 371
Joseph, son of Maria I. and Pedro III., 373
Julião, Chancellor, 67, 71
Junot, General, 391, 392, 393, 395-97, 400
Juromenha, 66, 389
Justice, administration of, 88, 121, 160, 367

K
Kandy, conquest of king of, 292
Kersaint, French deputy, 385
Knights, military religious Orders of, 32, 48, 66, 76

L
Labrador discovered, 175
La Clue, French admiral, 358
Lafões, João de Braganza, Duke of, 371, 372, 385
Laharpe translates “Camoens,” 379
Lamego, 8, 15, 45
Lançarote, his slaving voyages, 149
Lancaster, Henry, Earl of, 93
Lancaster, John of Gaunt, Duke of, 103, 113
Lane-Poole, S., quoted, 11, 172
Language, the Portuguese, 2, 8, 89, 121, 265
Law, Portuguese, 10, 88, 121, 124
Leça granted to Knights of Hospital, 32
Le Cor, Carlos Frederico, 392, 405, 407, 411
Leiria, 10, 43, 46, 81, 87, 106, 183, 368, 421
Lemos, Damião Antonio de, 369
Leonor Telles de Menezes, Queen, 101, 103-5, 107, 110
Leonor, daughter of Affonso IV., 94
Leonor, daughter of Edward, 134
Leonora of Aragon, 124, 130, 131
Leonora of Castile, 101, 102
Lhuillier, member of Regency, 396
Lima, Luis de, 255
Limia, taken by Affonso Henriques, 37, 56
Linhares, built by Sancho I., 69
Lippe-Buckeburg, Count of, 363, 364, 367
Lisbon, 5, 8, 12, 17, 18, 51, 52, 64, 87, 95, 102, 103, 109, 110, 119, 120, 182, 236, 237, 257, 260, 261, 286, 290, 302, 308-12, 333, 338, 353, 355, 357, 358, 368, 372, 380, 381, 393, 413, 421, 426, 427
Literature, 89, 90, 126, 127, 135, 137, 169, 259-77, 301, 325, 369, 377-79, 425, 430-32
Lobeira, Vasco de, 126
Lodeiro, granted to Knights of Sepulchre, 32
Loison, General, 397
London, crusaders from, 62, 94
Lopes, Fernan, chronicler, 127, 379
Lopes, Martim, 167
Louis XI., of France, 135, 159
Louis XIV., of France, 329, 332
Loulé, Marquis of, 415
Lourenço, Archbishop of Braga, 110, 121
Lourenço, Theresa, 97
Luis I., King of Portugal, 426, 427, 430
Luis, son of Emmanuel, Duke of Beja, 178, 179, 211, 281
Luisa de Guzman, Queen of John IV., 304, 305, 326-31
Lusitania, not Portugal, 6-8
Lusitanians, 5-7
Luz Soriano, Simião José da, historian, 431

M
Macao, 215, 270, 317, 342, 369, 375
Macassar, 343
Machado, Diogo Barbosa, 369
Machado de Castro, Joaquim, see Castro
Machico, Province of Madeira, 144
Machin, Robert, 144-46
Madden, Sir Samuel, 405
Madeira, 144-46, 390, 399
Madrid, 341;
treaty of, 351, 352
Mafra, 53, 353, 397
Magalhães, Fernão de, 175, 180, 199, 214
Magalhães, Pedro Jacques de, 331
Magellan, see Magalhães
Magro, Gonçalo Peres, 80
Major, R. H., quoted, 141, 149
Malacca, 175, 199, 214, 247, 248, 294, 317, 342
Malagrida, Gabriel, 361, 364
Maldive Islands, 175, 196
Mangalore, 246
Manique, Diogo Ignacio de Pina, 172, 382, 385, 390
Manufactures, Pembal and, 368
Marāthas, the, 343, 373, 374
Margaret of France, 244
Margaret of Savoy, 305, 306, 309
Maria I., Queen of Portugal, 370-73, 393, 408
Maria II., Queen of Portugal, 417, 418, 421-25
Maria, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, 174
Maria, daughter of Affonso IV., 92
Maria, daughter of John III., 179
Maria Amelia, queen of Carlos I., 428
Maria Barbara, daughter of John V., 352
Maria Benedicta, 373
Maria Francisca, marries Affonso VI., 332;
and Pedro II., 333, 334
Maria Josepha, marries Pedro IV., 412
Maria Pia, queen of Luis I., 426
Maria Sophia, queen of Pedro II., 336
Marialva, Marquis of, 331
Marialva, Marquis of, 412
Marianna, queen of John V., 351
Marianna Vittoria, queen of Joseph, 352, 370
Martinho, commander of Palmella, 72
Martinho, Archbishop of Lisbon, 109
Martins, Lourenço, 109
Mascarenhas, Francisco de, 291
Mascarenhas, João de, 211
Mascarenhas, João de, see Cadaval, Duke of
Mascarenhas, Martinho de, 371
Mascarenhas, Pedro de, 175
Mascarenhas, Pedro de, 212
Mascarenhas, Pedro de, 308
Masséna, Marshal, 404-6
Matapan, Cape, battle off, 352
Matilda of Savoy, 41
Matilda, daughter of Affonso Henriques, 54
Matilda, daughter of Sancho I., 70
Maurice of Nassau, 298, 318, 319
Maurice, Bishop of Coimbra, 21, 28
Mauritius, 175, 346
Mayne, Colonel, 399
Mazagon, 240
Mazarin, Cardinal, 321, 323, 329
Medina Sidonia, Duke of, 304
Melinda, 189, 213
Mello, Affonso de, 312
Mello de Menezes, Antonio, 308, 309
Mello e Castro, Diniz de, 340
Mello, Francisco de, 314, 329
Mello, Jorge de, 308, 309, 312
Mello, e Castro, Martinho, 367, 368, 372, 388
Mello, Vasco Martins de, 105
Mencia, queen of Sancho II., 78, 80
Mendes, Antonio, 262
Mendes, Gonçalo, 73, 74
Mendes, Nuno, 15
Mendes, Paio, 30, 31
Mendes, Sueiro, 17, 30, 31
Mendes Leal, José da Silva, 425, 431
Mendonça, Antonio Lopes de, 180
Mendonça, Diogo de, 297
Mendonça, Diogo de, see Corte Real, Count of
Mendonça, João de, 246
Mendonça, Lopo Furtado de, see Rio Grande, Count of
Mendonça Furtado, Pedro de, 308, 311
Mendonça, Pedro Francisco de, 334
Menezes, Alexis de, 242, 245
Menezes, Alexis de, 292
Menezes, Diogo de, 248
Menezes, Duarte de, 203, 209
Menezes, Duarte de, 255
Menezes, Duarte de, 291
Menezes, Emmanuel de, 297
Menezes, Fernando de, 270
Menezes, Garcia de, 6
Menezes, Henrique de, 204
Menezes, João de, 169
Mertola, taken (1239), 78
Methuen, Right Hon. John, 337
Methuen Treaty, 337-40, 368
Metternich, Prince, 412
Meudon, Château of, 418
Mickle, William James, 379
Miguel, King of Portugal, 411, 412, 414-21
Miguel, son of Emmanuel, 174
Miller, Colonel John, 405
Minas, Marquis das, 340, 341
Miranda, bishopric of, 183
Missionaries, their work in India, 208, 209, 292, 343
Mohammed III. of Gujarāt, 205, 211, 212
Mohammed En-Nasir, 71
Mohammedans, 11-13, 40-58, 60-63, 78, 80
Molingen, Baron of, 317
Moluccas, the, 175, 214, 294
Mombassa, 189, 195, 213
Moniz, Egas, tutor of Affonso
Henriques, 31, 35, 36
Moniz, Emigio, 31
Montaigne, Michel de, quoted, 261
Monte Mor, João de Braganza, Marquis of, 161
Monte Video taken (1817), 411
Montes Claros, battle of (1665), 331
Montijo, battle of (1642), 317
Moplas, the, 190, 193
Moradias, 180
Morales, Juan, 146
Morocco, 122, 123, 129, 133, 179, 211, 248, 252-55, 346
Mortmain, laws of, 71, 73, 88
Moura, 76
Moura, Christovão de, 280
Mousinho, Manoel de Brito, 402
Mowbray, Thomas, 111
Mozambique, 189, 213, 247, 337, 343, 428
Munden, Captain Anthony, 346
Municipal Institutions, 10, 12, 22, 65, 87, 120
Muscat taken (1554), 270

N
Nanfran, Richard, 165
Napier, Sir Charles, 420, 421
Napoleon I., 388-92
Napoleon III., 426
Nascimento, Francisco Manoel de, 379, 385
Navas de Tolosa, battle of, 71
Navy, the Portuguese, 88, 121, 290, 353, 354, 367
Neiva, Gonçalo Telles, Count of, 104
Nestorian Christians in India, 209, 292, 294
Neutim, 374
Nicholas IV., Pope, 87
Niza, Marquis of, 386
Noel, Pierre, 385
Noronha, Affonso de, 212, 214
Noronha, Antonio de, 246, 247
Noronha, Carlos de, 308, 309
Noronha, Diogo de, 386, 387
Noronha, Francisco Xavier de, 393
Noronha, Garcia de, 205
Noronha, Pedro de, 169
Noronha Sebastião de Mattos de, 306, 309, 311, 315-17
Noronha, Theresa de, 355
Norris, Sir John, 285
Northberry, John, 111
Nova Castella, João de, 175
Nova Zembla discovered, 167
“Novaes Christiãos,” 173, 182, 228, 316, 365
Nunes, Gomes, 38
Nunes do Prado, João, 91
Nunes, Pedro, 262, 277
Nunes, Sancho, 31

O
Obidos, 104
Odivelas, Convent of, 98
Oeyras, Count of, see Pombal, Marquis of
Olhão, Marquis of, 393
Olivares, Count-Duke of, 298, 299, 307, 313, 316
Olivença, 389, 408
Omar, Emir, 44-46
Opera-house at Lisbon, 370
Oporto, 8, 12, 13, 64, 113, 133, 338, 397, 401, 413, 419, 420
Oporto, bishops of, see Castro, Hugh, Rodrigues, Salvadores
Oporto Wine Company, 368
Orense, 28, 30
Oriolla, Jeronymo Lobo da Silveira, Count of, 408
Ormuz, 197, 214, 296
Osorio, Jeronymo, Bishop of Silves, 262
Ossuna, Duke of, 331
Ourem, João Fernando Andeiro, Count of, 104-6, 109
Ourique, battle of, 44-46
Oxenstiern, Chancellor of Sweden, 314

P
Pacheco, Diogo Lopes de, 97, 98
Pacheco, Duarte, 195
Pack, Sir Denis, 405, 406
Paços de Penalva, granted to knights of Sepulchre, 32
Paes, Gualdim, 62
Palmeirim, General, 405
Palmeirim, Luis Augusto, 431
Palmella, 53, 62
Palmella, Pedro de Sousa Holstein, Duke of, 404, 408, 415, 417-19, 421
Panjim, 198, 374, 375
Paraguay, 175
Paraiba, Captainship of, 298
Passos, João Soares de, 431
Patuleia, war of, 424
Paulist Republic, the, 376
Paullus, L. Æmilius, 6
Payva, Affonso de, 167
Pedro I., 92, 95, 98, 99
Pedro II., 332-41
Pedro III., 370-73
Pedro IV., 411, 414, 416, 417, 419-22
Pedro V., 425, 426
Pedro II., Emperor of Brazil, 419, 428
Pedro IV., King of Aragon, 94
Pedro, son of Sancho I., 70, 76, 78, 80
Pedro, Duke of Coimbra, 122, 124, 126, 130-33
Pedro Hispano elected Pope, 83
Pekin, Andrade at, 175, 215
Penafiel, Count of, 413
Peninsular War, the, 399-407
Pennamacor, Count of, 165
Pepper trade, 193, 342
Pereira de Mello, Antonio Manoel Fontes, 427
Pereira, Christovão de Brito, 331, 332
Pereira, Nuno Alvares, “the Holy Constable,” 107, 109, 110, 111, 125, 126
Peres, Abril, 75
Peres, David, 370, 380
Peres, Rodrigo, 38
Peres de Trava, see Trava
Perestrello, Bartholomeu, 144, 147
Perignon, Marshal, 387
Pernambuco, in Brazil, 229, 295, 298, 320
Persian trade, 214, 296
Pessanha, Lançarote, 109
Pessanha, Manoel, 88, 93, 145
Philip II., of Spain, 179, 248, 280, 283, 290, 298
Philip III., of Spain, 299
Philip IV., of Spain, 304, 313
Philip V., of Spain, 337, 340
Philip “the Good,” 125
Philip of Flanders, 58
Philippa daughter of John of Gaunt, queen of John I., 113-15, 123
Pieterzoon, L. S., 379
Pina, Ruy de, 169, 379
Pina Manique, Diogo Ignacio de, see Manique
Pinheiro, Antonio de, 280
Pinhel, 104
Pinto, Fernão Mendes, 216, 217
Pinto, Serpa, 429
Pires, Ines, 118, 125
Pisano, Matthew de, 6, 7, 127
Pitt, William, Earl of Chatham, 362
Pizarro, Quevedo, 419
Placencia, 341
Plate, River, 175
Po, Fernando, 154
Poetry and poets, 89, 90, 126, 263, 264-74, 301, 378, 379, 430, 431
Pombal, Sebastião José de Carvalho e Mello, Marquis of, 355, 357, 358, 360-71
Ponáni, 196
Ponte de Lima, 421
Ponte de Lima, Thomas Xavier de Lima Brito, Marquis of, 372
Ponte Delgada, Leonor da Camara, Marchioness of, 418
Porches, 80
Porto, see Oporto
Porto Alegre, bishopric of, 183
Porto Carrero, Cardinal, 337
Porto de Moz, 53
Porto Santo, island of, 144
Porto Santo, Antonio de Saldanha da Gama, Count of, 408
Porto Seguro, 222, 229
Portuguese Legion, the, 395
Povoa, General da, 405
Praia Bay, battle of (1830), 419
Prehistoric monuments, 4, 5
Prose, its commencement, 126, 127
Puebla, Marquis de la, 305, 311

Q
Quebedo, Vasco Mousinho de, 301
Quesnel, French general, 397
Quiloa, South-east Africa, 195
Quilon, India, 196

R
Ramires, Mem, 49
Rarim, 374
Ratton, Jacome, 385
Raymond of Toulouse, 18, 21, 23
Raymond Berenger of Aragon, 54
Rebello da Silva, Luis Augusto, 425, 431
Recife, island of, 298, 320
Red Sea, the, 200, 204, 205, 270
Redondo, Francisco Coutinho, Count of, 184, 246, 270
Regency of 1807, the, 393, 400, 401, 404, 407, 412, 413
Regency of 1808, 396
Regras, João das, 109, 111, 121
Republican party, 428
Resende, Andrea de, 7, 262, 277
Resende, Count of, 413
Resende, Sebastião de, 256
Réunion, island of, 175
Ribeiro, Bernardim, 263, 264, 276
Ribeiro, João Pinto, 305, 306, 308, 309, 325
Ribeiros, Bernardim, 405
Richard II., of England, 106, 113, 118
Richard III., of England, 165
Richard of Saham, 93, 94
Richelieu, Cardinal, 302, 314, 315
Rio de Janeiro, 351
Rio d’Ouro, 147
Rio Grande, 298
Rio Grande, Count of, 352
Rodil, General, 421
Rodrigues, Martinho, 69, 76
Roliça, battle of (1808), 399
Romans, the, 6-8, 10
Romances, 126
Rooke, Admiral Sir George, 337, 340
Rosslyn, General Earl of, 391
Roussel, Captain, 426
Rubies in Brazil, 377
Rupert, Prince, 323

S
Sá e Mello, Ayres de, 372
Sá, Emmanuel de, 234
Sá, Emmanuel de, 308
Sá de Menezes, Francisco de, 301, 325
Sá de Miranda, Francisco de, 264-66
Sá, Garcia de, 212
Sá, Pantaleone de, 323
Sá, Rodrigo de, 308, 309, 323
Sá e Benevides, Salvador Correa de, 324, 343, 346
Sá de Bandeira, Viscount, 421, 424
Saccavem, 104
Sadashivgarh, 374
Sagre, Prince Henry at, 125, 140, 141
St. Antonio, Castle of, 312
St. Benedict of Aviz, Order of, 66, 80, 103, 125, 170, 183
St. Caetano, Ignacio de, 372
St. George, Citadel of, 311, 395
St. Helena, 175, 346
St. Ildefonso, Treaty of (1796), 387
St. Julian, Castle of, 313
St. Lourenço, João Amberto de Noronha, Count of, 371
St. Lourenço, Count of, 420
St. Mamede, battle of, 31
St. Michael in the Azores, 147
St. Paio de Gouvea, 32
St. Paul in Brazil, 376
St. Pé, Chevalier de, 302
St. Salvador, 230, 297, 298
St. Thomé, 343
St. Vincent, Cape, battle off, 420
St. Vincent, Earl of, 391
Salado, The, battle of, 93
Saldanha, Antonio de, 193
Saldanha, Antonio de, 308, 311
Saldanha, Cardinal de, 60
Saldanha, João Carlos de Saldanha de Oliveira e Daun, Duke of, 418, 420, 421, 424, 427
Salic law, the, rejected, 106
Salvaterra, 87, 107
Sampaio, Lopo Vaz de, Governor-General of India, 204
Sampaio, Count of, 396, 413, 418
San Caetano, San Lourenço, &c., see St. Caetano, &c.
Sancha, daughter of Sancho I., 74
Sanches, Affonso, 91, 92
Sancho I., 56-58, 60-70
Sancho II., 74-80
Sandwich, Earl of, 330, 333
Santarem, 17, 18, 49, 57, 58, 60, 62, 87, 393
Santarem, João de, 154
Santarem, Viscount of, 215, 425
Santiago, Knights of, 76, 87, 125, 170, 183
Sarria, Marquis of, 363
Sartorius, Admiral Sir George Robert, 419, 420
Savage, Thomas, 165
Scabra, José de, 396
Schomberg, Frederick, Count, 327, 331
Sebastian, King, 184, 238, 240-45, 249, 251-56
Sebastianistas, the, 256, 257
Sebastians, the false, 286-90
Seia, Castle of, 37
Senegal, River, 150
Sepulchre, Knights of the, 32, 66
Sequeira, Diogo Lopes de, 175, 199, 203
Sequeira, Domingos Antonio de, 380
Sequeira, Luis de, 292
Serpa, 76, 299
Serra, José Correa da, 379, 385
Serrão, Francisco, 175, 199, 214
Serrano, General, 421
Sesnando, Count of Coimbra, 15, 17
Seyr, 18, 24
Shah Jehān, takes Hūglī, 296
Ship-building, 143, 144, 169
Siam, 175, 214
Sieges, 24, 28, 29, 37, 49, 52, 54, 56, 58, 60, 62, 72, 75, 103, 110, 123, 129, 205, 211, 247, 320, 326, 373, 374, 419, 420, 421
Silkworms, 368
Silva, Antonio Correa da, 380
Silva, Antonio Telles da, 319, 320
Silva, Diogo da, 183
Silva, Estevão Soares da, 73, 75
Silva, Francisco Coelho da, 385
Silva, Luca de Scabra da, 391
Silva, Luis Augusto Rebello da, 425, 431
Silveira, Antonio de, 205
Silveira, Antonio de, 401, 405, 413
Silveira, Francisco de, see Amarante, Count of
Silveira, Jeronymo Lobo de, see Oriolla, Count of
Silves, 62
Simcoe, Gen. J. G., 391
Simon of Dover, 52
Skelater, Gen. João Forbes, 386
Slavery, 182, 243, 365
Slave-trade, the African, 148-50, 228, 347, 375
Smith, Sir Sidney, 392
Soares, Garcia, 31
Sodre, Vicente, 193
Solano, Spanish general, 392
Soriano, Simião José da Luz, 431
Soult, Marshal, 401
Soure, 32, 351
Sousa, Diogo de, 252, 257
Sousa Coutinho, Domingos Antonio de, 400
Sousa Holstein, Frederico de, 371
Sousa, Gonçalo de, 311
Sousa Coutinho, Luis Pinto de, 386
Sousa, Manoel de, 214
Sousa, Martim Affonso de, 205, 206, 209
Sousa Holstein, Pedro de, see Palmella, Duke of
Sousa Coutinho, Rodrigo de, 388
Sousa, Thomas de, 229-33
Sousa, Vasco Martins de, 99
Southwell, Sir Richard, 333
Spanish Succession, war of the 340, 341, 351
Spencer, Gen. Sir Brent, 399
Spice Islands, 199, 294, 295
Spice trade, 214, 294, 295, 342
Stephanie of Hohenzollern, 425
Stephens, Thomas, 294
Strabo, 5
Stratton, Robert, 94
Strozzi, Philip, 285
Stuart, Major-General Hon. Sir Charles, 387, 388
Stuart de Rothesay, Lord, 404, 407, 412, 417
Stukeley, Sir Thomas, 252, 255
Suez, Estevão da Gama at, 206
Sugar, cultivation of, 145, 228, 318, 347, 375
Sumatra, 175, 199, 294
Surat, 295
Synod of Diamper, 292

T
Talavera, battle of (1809), 401
Talikot, battle of (1565), 246
Tamaraca in Brazil, 229, 298
Tangier, 129, 133, 245, 253, 330
Taranco, Spanish general, 392
Tavira, 76, 80
Tavora, Christovão de, 256
Tavora, Marquis of, 361, 362, 374
Taxation, right of, 83
Telles de Menezes, Gonçalo, 104
Telles de Menezes, João Affonso, 104
Telles de Menezes, Leonor, see Leonor
Telles de Menezes, Maria, 104, 105
Tello, Sebastião de, 316
Templars, Knights, 32, 43, 57, 62, 66, 72, 86
Terceira, battle of (1582), 285
Terceira, Count of Villa Flor, Duke of, 418-22, 424
Teshfīn, last Almoravide Caliph, 44
Texeira, Miguel de, 297
Theodosio, son of John IV., 312, 324
Theotonio, St., 49, 58
Theresa, daughter of Alfonso VI., Countess of Portugal, 18, 22-32, 98
Theresa, daughter of Affonso Henriques, 58
Theresa, daughter of Sancho I., 63, 64
Thierry of Alsace, 54
Thomar, 43, 44, 62, 184, 283
Thomar, Antonio Bermudo da Costa Cabral, Count of, 424
Thomas, St., bones of, 208, 209
Thomières, General, 397
Tieve, Diogo de, 262, 266
Tobacco in Brazil, 347, 375
Topazes in Brazil, 377
Tordesillas, Treaty of (1494), 163
Toro, battle of (1476), 135
Torre del Tombo, 135, 186
Torres Novas, 53, 130, 421
Torres Vedras, 104, 405
Tower and Sword, Order of, 135, 137
Trancoso, battle of (1385), 111
Trant, Colonel Sir Nicholas, 405, 406
Trava, Bermudo Peres de, 29, 37
Trava, Fernando Peres de, 28, 29, 31, 37, 38
Travot, General, 397
Treaties, 29, 39, 40, 55, 107, 113, 163, 333, 337-40, 351, 352, 386, 387, 389, 392
Treaties of Commerce, 86, 94, 165
Tristão, Nuno, reached Cabo Branco, 148;
killed, 150
Troubadours, influence of the, on Portuguese poetry, 89, 91
Truxillo, taken by Affonso Henriques, 55
Tullio, Marco, 288-90
Tunis, expedition to, 179, 211
Tuy, 28-30, 38, 56
Tyrawley, Lord, 257, 352

U
Udayampura (Diamper), 292
University at Lisbon, 89;
at Coimbra, 260-62, 268, 278, 355, 367, 376
Urban IV., Pope, 81
Urraca, daughter of Alfonso VI., 18, 23, 29, 30
Urraca, daughter of Affonso Henriques, 54
Urraca, queen of Affonso II., 70, 74
Uruguay, Republic of, 411

V
Valdevez, tourney and truce of, 39
Valença, 421
Valencia de Alcantara, battle of (1762), 363
Valignano, Alexandre de, 292
Valverde, battle of (1385), 113
Vasconcellos de Brito, Miguel, 306, 309
Vasconcellos, Rodrigues de, 111
Vasconians, the, 5
Vasques, Fernan, 102
Vaublanc, Viennot de, 396
Vaz, Tristão, 144
Vela, Rodrigo, 38
Vertot, Abbé, 45, 308
Vespucci, Amerigo, 175, 222
Vianna, 368, 421
Vicente, Dean of Lisbon, 74-76
Vicente, Gil, 262, 263
Victor, Marshal, 401
Vidigueira, Count of, see Gama, Vasco da
Vieira, Antonio, 325
Vieira, João Fernandes, 320
Vienna, Congress of, 407, 408
Villa Flor, Count of, 331
Villa Flor, Count of, see Terceira, Duke of
Villa Real, Marquis of, 315-17
Villa Velha, battle of (1762), 363
Villa Verde, Count of, 391
Villa Viçosa, 104, 305, 306, 312, 332
Villegagnon, Nicolas Durant, Sieur de, 234
Villiers, Right Hon. J. C, 400
Vimeiro, battle of (1808), 400
Vinetus, Elias, 262
Viniculture, 87, 145, 368
Viriathus, Lusitanian hero, 6
Viseu, 8, 15
Visigothic rule, 10, 11

W
Waldeck, Prince of, 387, 388
Waldemar, King of Denmark, 70
Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, Duke of, 399-402, 405-407, 418
Willikens, Dutch admiral, 297
Wilson, Colonel John, 405
Wilson, Colonel Sir Robert T., 399, 401
Windsor, Treaty of (1386), 113, 118, 128, 131, 164
Witchcraft, 69

Y
Ya’kūb, Almohade Caliph, 60, 62, 63
Yokohama, factory at, 217
York, Edmund, Duke of, 106
York, Edward, Duke of, 106, 107
Yusūf, Almohade Caliph, 57, 58
Yusūf Adil Shah, King of Bijápur, 198
Yusūf Ibn Teshfīn, 17

Z
Zalaca, battle of (1086), 17
Zamora, Affonso Henriques, 35, 39, 40
Zamorin of Calicut, the, 190, 195, 196
Zarco, João Gonçalves, 144

The Story of the Nations.

IN the story form the current of each National life is distinctly indicated, and its picturesque and noteworthy periods and episodes are presented for the reader in their philosophical relation to each other as well as to universal history.

It is the plan of the writers of the different volumes to enter into the real life of the peoples, and to bring them before the reader as they actually lived, labored, and struggled—as they studied and wrote, and as they amused themselves. In carrying out this plan, the myths, with which the history of all lands begins, will not be overlooked, though these will be carefully distinguished from the actual history, so far as the labors of the accepted historical authorities have resulted in definite conclusions.

The subjects of the different volumes have been planned to cover connecting and, as far as possible, consecutive epochs or periods, so that the set when completed will present in a comprehensive narrative the chief events in the great Story of the Nations; but it is, of course, not always practicable to issue the several volumes in their chronological order.

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GREECE. Prof. Jas. A. Harrison.

ROME. Arthur Gilman.

THE JEWS. Prof. James K. Hosmer.

CHALDEA. Z. A. Ragozin.

GERMANY. S. Baring-Gould.

NORWAY. Hjalmar H. Boyesen.

SPAIN. Rev. E. E. and Susan Hale.

HUNGARY. Prof. A. Vámbéry.

CARTHAGE. Prof. Alfred J. Church.

THE SARACENS. Arthur Gilman.

THE MOORS IN SPAIN. Stanley Lane-Poole.

THE NORMANS. Sarah Orne Jewett.

PERSIA. S. G. W. Benjamin.

ANCIENT EGYPT. Prof. Geo. Rawlinson.

ALEXANDER’S EMPIRE. Prof. J. P. Mahaffy.

ASSYRIA. Z. A. Ragozin.

THE GOTHS. Henry Bradley.

IRELAND. Hon. Emily Lawless.

TURKEY. Stanley Lane-Poole.

MEDIA, BABYLON, AND PERSIA. Z. A. Ragozin.

MEDIÆVAL FRANCE. Prof. Gustave Masson.

HOLLAND. Prof. J. Thorold Rogers.

MEXICO. Susan Hale.

PHŒNICIA. George Rawlinson.

THE HANSA TOWNS. Helen Zimmern.

EARLY BRITAIN. Prof. Alfred J. Church.

THE BARBARY CORSAIRS. Stanley Lane-Poole.

RUSSIA. W. R. Morfill.

THE JEWS UNDER ROME. W. D. Morrison.

SCOTLAND. John Mackintosh.

SWITZERLAND. R. Stead and Mrs. A. Hug.

PORTUGAL. H. Morse-Stephens.

THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE. C. W. C. Oman.

SICILY. E. A. Freeman.

THE TUSCAN REPUBLICS. Bella Duffy.

POLAND. W. R. Morfill.

PARTHIA. Geo. Rawlinson.

JAPAN. David Murray.

THE CHRISTIAN RECOVERY OF SPAIN. H. E. Watts.

AUSTRALASIA. Greville Tregarthen.

SOUTHERN AFRICA. Geo. M. Theal.

VENICE. Alethea Wiel.

THE CRUSADES. T. S. Archer and C. L. Kingsford.

VEDIC INDIA. Z. A. Ragozin.

BOHEMIA. C. E. Maurice.

CANADA. J. G. Bourinot.

THE BALKAN STATES. William Miller.

BRITISH RULE IN INDIA. R. W. Frazer.

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Heroes of the Nations.

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The narratives are the work of writers who are recognized authorities on their several subjects, and, while thoroughly trustworthy as history, will present picturesque and dramatic “stories” of the Men and of the events connected with them.

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GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS. By C. R. L. Fletcher.

PERICLES. By Evelyn Abbott.

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FOOTNOTES:

[1] “The Moors in Spain.” By Stanley Lane-Poole. 4th ed. 1890.

[2] See “The Moors in Spain,” chap. x.

[3] Some writers have ascribed the five “inescutcheons” on the shield of Portugal to the five Moorish kings killed at Ourique, the version adopted by Camoens in “The Lusiads,” canto iii. stanza 53.

[4] Crucesignati Anglici Epistola de Expugnatione Olisiponis, printed in vol. i. pp. 392, &c., of the Portugalliæ Monumenta Historica, published by the Academy of Lisbon.

[5] “Encyclopædia Britannica,” 9th edition, Article “Portugal.”

[6] Camoens, “Lusiads,” canto iii. stanzas 96, 97, Burton’s translation.

[7] “Lusiads,” canto iii. stanzas 118-135.

[8] Camoens, “Lusiads,” canto iv. stanzas 52, 53.—Burton’s translation.

[9] The leading authority for the discoveries of the Portuguese in this century is “The Life of Prince Henry of Portugal, surnamed the Navigator, and its results,” by R. H. Major, London, 1868, of which a Portuguese translation, by J. A. Ferreira Brandão, was published at Lisbon in 1876.

[10] There is a good deal of contentious literature on the chronology of the African voyages of the Portuguese explorers, and in this account Mr. Major’s “Prince Henry the Navigator” has been followed.

[11] “The Story of the Moors in Spain,” chapter ii. p. 24.

[12] “Apontamentos para a Historia da Conquista de Portugal por Filippe II,” by A. P. Lopes de Mendonça, in vol. ii. of the “Annaes das Sciencias Moraes e Politicas.”

[13] These Commentaries have been translated for the Hakluyt Society by W. de Grey Birch.

[14] For this quotation, as well as the most precise and exact information on the state of India during the Portuguese dominion, I must express my indebtedness to Sir W. W. Hunter’s “Imperial Gazetteer of India,” new edition, and refer to vol. vi., article India, chapter xiv., and the articles on Calicut, Cochin, Daman, Diu, and Goa.

[15] Hunter’s “Imperial Gazetteer of India,” vol. vi., article India, p. 360.

[16] Camoens, “Lusiads,” canto v. stanzas 46-48.

[17] The Viscount de Santarem in his “Memoria sobre o estabelicemento de Macau.”

[18] According to the estimate formed at the close of 1888, Brazil had a population of 14,002,335 inhabitants, while according to the census of 1878 Portugal had a population of 4,160,315, in the Azores and Madeira 390,384, the possessions in Asia 847,503, and the possessions in Africa, 2,741,448.

[19] On the character of Dom Sebastian, Sir Richard Burton has written some thoughtful pages; see his Commentary on Camoens, vol. i. pp. 341-344.

[20] The word Maulā, generally corrupted into Muley, is said by Sir Richard Burton (Camoens, Commentary, vol. i. p. 350) to mean lord, master, and leader.

[21] For the early history of the university, see Denifle “Die Universitäten des Mittelalters,” vol. i. pp. 519-534.

[22] Montaigne’s “Essais,” i. 25.

[23] “Encyclopædia Britannica,” Art. Portugal.

[24] On the history of these pretenders, see “Les Faux Don Sébastien,” by Miguel Martins d’Antas, the late Portuguese minister in London, published at Paris, 1866.

[25] Hunter’s “Imperial Gazetteer of India,” article, India, vol. vi. p. 360.

[26] The “Da Asia” of Diogo de Couto, decade xii. book i. chap. xix.

[27] Hunter’s “Imperial Gazetteer of India,” vol. vi. p. 251.

[28] Richelieu’s “Letters,” edited by the Vicomte d’Avenel, vol. vii. p. 858.

[29] Mazarin’s “Letters,” edited by M. Chéruel, vol. ii. p. 501.

[30] See the interesting little book by Jules Tessin, published at Paris in 1877 under the title of “Le Chevalier de Jant. Rélations de la France avec le Portugal au temps de Mazarin.”

[31] See Carlyle’s “Speeches and Letters of Cromwell,” vol. iv. p. 21; Whitelocke’s “Memorials,” ed. 1732, pp. 592, 595.

Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
and and Gallicia=> and Gallicia {pg 25}
the the chief=> the chief {pg 189}
in both direction=> in both directions {pg 213}
when he succeeded to his county=> when he succeeded to his country {pg 238}
her to believed in him=> her to believe in him {pg 288}
Aorna, João Alorna, João {pg index}
Máráthás=> Marāthas {pg index}
Melllo, Jorge de=> Mello, Jorge de {pg index}
Novães => Novaes {pg index}

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Table of Contents

- PORTUGAL

- PREFACE.

- CONTENTS.

- Genealogical Tables—

- LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

- THE KINGS OF PORTUGAL

- THE STORY OF PORTUGAL.

- I. EARLY HISTORY.

- II. THE COUNTY OF PORTUGAL.

- III. PORTUGAL BECOMES A KINGDOM. THE REIGN OF AFFONSO HENRIQUES.

- IV. PORTUGAL ATTAINS ITS EUROPEAN LIMITS.

- V. THE CONSOLIDATION OF PORTUGAL.

- VI. PORTUGAL DURING THE AGE OF EXPLORATION.

- VII. THE PORTUGUESE EXPLORERS.

- VIII. THE HEROIC AGE OF PORTUGAL.

- IX. THE PORTUGUESE IN INDIA AND THE EASTERN SEAS.

- X. THE PORTUGUESE IN BRAZIL.

- XI. THE LAST KINGS OF THE HOUSE OF AVIZ—DOM SEBASTIAN AND THE CARDINAL HENRY.

- XII. PORTUGUESE LITERATURE—CAMOENS.

- XIII. THE SIXTY YEARS’ CAPTIVITY.

- XIV. THE REVOLUTION OF 1640.

- XV. THE ENGLISH ALLIANCE.

- XVI. PORTUGAL IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. THE MARQUIS OF POMBAL.

- XVII. THE ERA OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION—THE PENINSULAR WAR.

- XVIII. MODERN PORTUGAL. CIVIL WARS AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF PARLIAMENTARY GOVERNMENT.

- INDEX.

- FOOTNOTES:

- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE