The patriarch received permission from the pope to officiate habited like his holiness; whilst the canons of his church had the privilege of wearing habits resembling those of cardinals.
The king immediately caused a most superb patriarchal church to be erected, and greatly beautified the fine palace of his predecessors: he also constructed an aqueduct, which was still more useful than magnificent, Lisbon having been hitherto very ill supplied with water; whilst on the other hand he built the sumptuous convent of Mafra, which may be termed with equal justice more magnificent than useful.[35] The taste displayed by his majesty for architecture, did not divert his attention from the cultivation of arts and sciences. On the 8th of December, 1720, he issued a decree for the institution of the Royal Academy of the History of Portugal.[36] He gave orders for the purchasing of a variety of curious and valuable articles from foreign countries, such as pictures, statues, books, and manuscripts. He encouraged and rewarded artists of every description, and succeeded in inspiring them with that noble emulation so necessary to the progress of talents; but he did not sufficiently interest himself about artificers, and the means of improving the industry of his people, and making it turn out to the greatest advantage: this neglect may probably be attributed to lord Tyrawley, the English ambassador, who had obtained a very great ascendance over the mind of this prince; who, however, paid the strictest attention to every other branch of the administration. He was possessed of much firmness of character, was a rigorous observer of justice, and knew much better than any of his predecessors how to maintain the necessary subordination between the people and the nobles, who had formerly been very absolute, nay, indeed almost independant. He proved his strict adherence to justice on several occasions; especially in the following instance; when Cæsar de Ménézes, the son of the viceroy of Bahia having, with the assistance of several other gentlemen, forcibly rescued one of his attendants from the hands of the corregidor, the king immediately deprived the latter of his employment, as a punishment for his want of firmness; banished Ménézes to Africa, and either exiled or imprisoned all the gentlemen concerned in the business.
This monarch, though slavishly attached to the fair sex, still retained the inflexible justice of his character, even in moments when the greatest men have sometimes yielded to the seductions of beauty. The relations of a gentleman condemned to work in the mines, contrived to interest the king’s mistress in his favour: but this prince presently put a stop to her entreaties, by observing, “that the pardon she solicited depended on the king of Portugal, who resided in the Terreiro de Paco: but that in her house he appeared in no other character than that of her lover.”
The convents, and different houses of the grandees, which had hitherto served as sanctuaries for criminals, were in this reign deprived of that privilege, which indeed had only served to screen the most notorious villains from the punishments due to their crimes. His humanity was equal to his justice, for during an epidemical malady in Lisbon, which in the year 1723 carried off a thousand persons in a month, he gave audience three times a week to every description of his subjects, whether blacks or whites, freemen or slaves; he also forbid the nobles who composed his court to quit the capital, and insisted on their seconding his benevolence, and aiding him in the distribution of his charities.
A dreadful tempest, in the following year, destroyed more than a hundred vessels in the Tagus: immediately the beneficent hand of this humane monarch, was stretched forth, to repair, to the utmost of his power, the cruel losses sustained on this fatal occasion.
The great abuses which had for a long time taken place in the administration of the holy office, called for the attention of a just and merciful sovereign. John the Vth succeeded in making a most important reform. Before his reign, the prisoners detained in the inquisition were never allowed counsel to plead their cause; so great an abuse of power sensibly affected the king, who obtained a bull from pope Benedick the XIIIth, in 1725, by which these unhappy prisoners were granted every assistance that justice made necessary in their situation: this was followed up by a decree, obliging the inquisitors to communicate the sentences they pronounced to the king’s council, before they were put in execution.
Such was the conduct of John the Vth, that he was equally beloved and feared by his people. The grandees, indeed, viewed him with sentiments of fear rather than of love; a truth of which he was so well convinced, that he is said to have declared, that though his grandfather feared the grandees, and his father both loved and feared them, that he himself neither feared nor loved them.
These sentiments are supposed to have arisen in his bosom, from the untoward conduct of the nobles, who, on several years being passed without the queen’s having children, neglected paying their court to his majesty, and attached themselves very particularly to his brother, don Francisco: a prince, who is represented of so savage a disposition, that it appears extraordinary any one should wish to approach his person. One author,[37] in particular, mentions him as cruel, constantly delighting in fighting, and infesting the streets of Lisbon, at the head of a set of armed men, who nightly rambled through the city in search of adventures. These bands of gentlemen were termed ranchos; their amusement consisted in attacking and insulting passengers of every description, and such was the force of example, that several personages of the first nobility vied with don Francisco in the commission of these dreadful disorders. The duke de Cadaval, the marquis de Marialva, de Cascaes, the Aveiros, and the Obidos, had each their separate rancho. No night ever passed without people being wounded or murdered by this illustrious banditti; hatred, revenge, and a sort of civil war throughout the city, unrestrained by the presence of the king, were the natural consequences of such horrid barbarity. Foreigners also formed offensive and defensive treaties; and a body of sailors left their vessels on pretence of attacking the bravoes of Lisbon, whom they plundered, whenever their party happened to be the strongest.
A personage likewise acted a part in these nocturnal scenes, who afterwards made a very different and still more celebrated figure in the page of history. Carvalho, possessed of extraordinary strength, and invincible courage, with a form nearly gigantic, seemed decided to surpass every other bravo of the age. He chose for his companion a man of a mind and person resembling his own, who, with himself, was habited in a white Spanish capotte, with shoes and hat of the same colour: thus accoutered, they were easily distinguished in the night, when, without any other assistance, they attacked the different ranchos, which they frequently conquered; though never without being exposed to the most dangerous resistance, nor without receiving several wounds.
All the endeavours of his majesty to prevent such dreadful disorders, proved fruitless: they were thought, indeed, to proceed in some degree from a spirit of chivalry, which suited the national taste, and which the people did not wish to extinguish. The justice which always distinguished the character of the king, was about that time put to a severe and singular test, by a very unexpected claim, and one which had all the appearance of being well founded. In the year 1724, the chevalier Porta, a gentleman of Lausanne, arrived in Portugal, and was presented at court, where he demanded a private audience of his majesty, on a very particular occasion; no less than to lay claim to the possessions of don Antonio, who had been proclaimed king of Portugal in 1580, and from whom he alledged his wife was lineally descended. The king having granted him several audiences, and received him with great distinction, did not, however, venture to give judgment either for or against his claim, but left the decision to two juntas or councils. These were immediately assembled, and the opinions of the most celebrated civilians taken on the occasion. The result of their deliberations was, that the Swiss gentleman’s claims were not legal, since don Antonio had been proscribed by Philip the IId of Spain, as a traitor to his country, and his property justly confiscated to the crown. This decision of the civilians was approved and confirmed by the two juntas.