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.)
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.”
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.
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.)
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.)
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.”
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.)
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.)
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.)
OPORTO. PRESENT STATE.
(After a Photograph.)