The body was conveyed to the Chapel of Our Lady of the Conception, which he had founded outside the gates of Goa on the spot where he had witnessed the second capture of the city.
'There accompanied the procession,' it is recorded in the Commentaries, 'all the people of the city, not only Christians, but Hindus and Moors [Muhammadans], who filled the streets, demonstrating by the profusion of their tears the great sorrow they felt at his death. As for the Hindus, when they beheld his body stretched upon the bier, with his long beard reaching down to his waist, and his eyes half open, they declared, after their heathen notions, that it could not be that he was dead, but that God had need of him for some war, and had therefore sent for him.'12
12 Albuquerque's Commentaries, vol. iv. p. 198.
His son, according to the last wishes of the great captain, desired to remove the body of Affonso de Albuquerque to Portugal, but King Emmanuel would never consent, saying that as long as the bones of Affonso de Albuquerque were at Goa India was secure. John III held the same view, and it was not until 1566, more than fifty years after his death, that his remains were removed to Portugal by permission of Queen Catherine, who was then Regent in the name of the boy-king, Dom Sebastian. They were then solemnly interred in the Chapel of Our Lady of Grace at Lisbon, attached to the Augustinian monastery, where they still repose.
The deeds of Albuquerque form his fittest memorial, and in the next chapter an attempt will be made to examine his character as exhibited by his internal policy. Nevertheless it is interesting to quote here his son's description of his person and his character as given in the Commentaries.
'This great Captain was a man of middle stature, with a long face, fresh coloured, the nose somewhat large. He was a prudent man, and a Latin scholar, and spoke in elegant phrases; his conversation and writings showed his excellent education. He was of ready words, very authoritative in his commands, very circumspect in his dealings with the Moors, and greatly feared yet greatly loved by all, a quality rarely found united in one captain. He was very valiant and favoured by fortune. King Ferdinand said to Pedro Correa, when he was Portuguese ambassador at the Spanish Court, that it was a very astonishing thing, that King Emmanuel, his son-in-law, should have ordered Affonso de Albuquerque to return from India, seeing that he was so great a captain and so fortunate in his wars. He always gained the victory in his battles against the Moors, both at sea and on land, sometimes indeed being wounded, for the places where he was posted were never of the safest. He was very prompt in the performance of any undertaking when he had once determined upon it, and his name and his successes are so celebrated among all the kings and princes of Europe and Asia, that the Grand Turk, when conversing with Don Alvaro de Sande, captain of the Emperor Charles V, whom he held in captivity, concerning the state of India, laid his hand on his breast and said that Affonso de Albuquerque had been a very remarkable captain. He was a man of the strictest veracity, and so pure in the justice he administered that the Hindus and Moors after his death, whenever they received any affront from the Governors of India, used to go to Goa to his tomb and make offerings of choice flowers and of oil for his lamp, praying him to do them justice. He was very charitable to the poor, and settled many women in marriage in Goa. For he was of such a generous disposition that all the presents and gifts which the kings of India bestowed on him—and they were numerous and of great value—he divided among the captains and fidalgos who had assisted him in obtaining them. He was very honourable in his manner of life, and so careful over his language, that the greatest oath which he ever took when he was very much enraged was this: "I abhor the life that I live." He died at the age of sixty-three years, having governed India for six years.'13
13 Albuquerque's Commentaries, vol. iv. pp. 199, 200.