The Story of the Nations: Portugal

by H. Morse Stephens

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.

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.