[1500-1521 A.D.]
In the midst of this splendid series of voyages and discoveries, and of brilliant victories and conquests of the Portuguese in Asia, a fatal incident afflicted Lisbon, in the year 1506. The deplorable catastrophe which plunged the capital in mourning sprang from religious intolerance, of which Dom Emmanuel had given such a fatal example on the occasion of his first marriage. On Low Sunday, the 19th of April, 1506, in the church of St. Dominic in Lisbon, where a vast concourse of people were assembled, the rays of the sun striking upon the splendour of a crucifix produced such a brilliant effect that certain visionaries, religious, or fanatics, took it for a miracle. The cry of “a miracle” already flew from mouth to mouth, when a bystander, more intelligent but with little prudence for his speech, suggested that this effect was due to the reflection of the sun and could only be called a natural phenomenon. This sufficed to cause him to be looked upon as a disguised Jew; a tumult arose, and such was the frenzy of the populace that a horrible massacre upon the so-called New Christians followed.
The massacre lasted for three days. More than a thousand persons perished. Dom Emmanuel was at Aviz at the time. As soon as he heard of what had occurred in the capital, he sent Dom Diogo Lobo, baron de Alvito, and the prior of Crato with full powers to punish the guilty.
He ordered that besides the special punishment of the guilty all the inhabitants should forfeit a fifth of all their property, movable and immovable, to the crown, and that from the date of the sentence there should be no more courts of aldermen, freemen of guilds, nor judges of hospitals; he further subjected the municipality to the jurisdiction of the harbingers, the amount of these impositions to be levied by officers of the crown. This species of interdict lasted for two years.
This splendid period of the reign of Dom Emmanuel, which includes the years 1500 to 1517, the eighteen years during which the fortunate monarch was married to Doña Maria of Castile, the most brilliant in Portuguese history for the military glory and wealth and commerce enjoyed by Portugal, and in which science, letters, and art were so flourishing—was not equally happy as regards public health, the safety of the lives and property of the inhabitants of these kingdoms, and internal administration.
The plague, which had frequently visited Portugal since the fifteenth century, attacked and ravaged the capital many times, as well as other towns of this kingdom; then royalty and those able to follow their example might be seen flying from the infected places. Real preventive measures were never adopted until the reign of João III. Novenas, feast-days, processions of the relics of St. Roque, which Dom Emmanuel sent for from Venice, such were the chief means adopted by the king and people to combat the epidemic, not, however, forgetting the safest course of flight.[k]
Dom Emmanuel died December 12th, 1521, after one of the most glorious reigns on record. Of his public administration enough has been said; and of his private character what little we know is chiefly in his favour. He administered justice with impartiality; and had regulated hours when he received his subjects without distinction; nay, such was his anxiety to do them justice, that if at the expiration of the appointed period complaints remained unredressed, he would sacrifice the hours sacred to enjoyment or repose. The persecution of the unfortunate Jews is a deep stain on his memory; but in every respect he was a great monarch, and his fame filled the world as much as his enlightened policy enriched his kingdom. He despatched embassies to all the potentates of his time—to the king of England, and the ruler of Abyssinia; to the royal chief of Congo, and the sultan of Egypt; to the sultan of Persia, and the emperor of China. Some of them—that, for instance, in which he displayed before the astonished pope and cardinals a Persian panther and an Indian elephant, with their native attendants—were distinguished by magnificence suitable to the lord of so many regions.[e]
FOOTNOTES
[144] A bastard daughter of Ferdinand and her husband were about the same time placed in confinement.
[145] The fate of this prelate has excited little pity among the orthodox Portuguese, such as Lemos[b] because he favoured the anti-pope.