These years of servitude and captivity spread like an immense oil stain over the brilliant history of Portugal, and the sun which sank in clouds of blood at Kassr-el-Kebir plunged the country into an obscure and long night until it rose radiantly once more on the field of Montijo. It falls to our lot to relate the history of this painful period of darkness and tears, barely illuminated in the beginning by the last rays of light thrown out by the conquests of the old East. The warlike genius which gave to Portugal the most glorious pages in modern epopee, the spirit of adventure, chivalrous and combatant, which carried its name to every corner of the world, and gave it a place of honour in the vanguard of the nations of Europe, was the same that apparently lowered the national colours before the victorious crescent on the sands of Africa, was the same that strangled national independence with the bonds of captivity, and delivered it inert and defenceless into the hands of the devil of the south, the lugubrious Philip II.
Portugal, having reached the apogee of her glory, became giddy and fell into the abyss of slavery. In the supreme hour of her agony, the red hat of a cardinal appeared at the bedside of the dying kingdom. Portugal’s grave-digger, the cardinal Dom Henry, was a sinister figure. But who killed her, who struck her the fatal blow? It was not the perverse imbecilities of the cowardly Jesuit; it was not the dangerous errors of the youthful knight-king. The assassin of Portugal was that fanatic and imbecile monarch who opened his foolish arms to the Society of Jesus, who planted deep in the kingdom that deadly tree known as absolutism, under whose protecting shadow was planted, thrived, and flowered that colossal infamy—the Inquisition. And who has to answer before the same tribunal of history for the lost liberty, the outraged honour, the valour spurned, the ruined wealth of that nation which gave to the world the most magnificent spectacle of modern times, a diminutive country throwing over the two hemispheres her power, her influence, her name? It is not the ambitious and imbecile old man chronicled under the hated name of cardinal-king; not the heroic child, the beardless youth who, enamoured of glory, died in pursuit of it, like a daring paladin on the sands of Kassr-el-Kebir; not the cold inert corpse to whom, with pungent irony, tradition has given the nickname of Piedoso, and who is known in history as João III. In history’s terrible logic Philip II was fatal heir to João III. It was the unhappy reign of this inept monarch which prepared the way to Portugal’s ruin.
His internal policy completely transformed the government into a fierce unchecked absolutism; his external policy of pure neutrality, at a time of grave disputes between all the European nations, alienated from him the sympathies of all the states of Europe; and later, when Philip II wiped from the map this diminutive nationality which, hidden in a corner of the west, had spread its fame and name throughout the world, Europe paid back to Portugal the debt of haughty indifference she had incurred under the pious king. When the Spaniards made their threatening invasion into Portugal, instead of finding an energetic and valiant nation defending its life and its liberty, they found a weak and inert people, humbled beneath the yoke of fierce absolutism, fanaticism enveloping the souls of all, demoralisation rampant in the army, luxury enervating the higher social classes, hunger and misery devastating the people; a nation of lions transformed into a flock of sheep by immorality, by despotism, by misery—a flock of sheep guided by an imbecile and disastrous shepherd, the unlucky cardinal, Dom Henry.
Dom Henry and Dom Sebastian could barely reap the deadly fruits of the venomous seeds sown by João III. It would seem that in such critical moments providence chooses incapable, weak, and blundering kings, who instead of delaying for a time the inevitable fall, seem rather unhappily to hasten it.
And thus at the close of the sad reign of João III, on seeing the crown placed on the head of an infant of three years, obstinately disputed by two great ambitions, that of the queen Catherine the grandmother, and that of Cardinal Henry the uncle, on seeing the indifference of Europe, on seeing Spain’s vast power in Portuguese policy, one does not need to be a prophet to foretell in the near future the sad development which fanaticism, tyranny, and the stupidity of the unworthy son of the great Dom Emmanuel had prepared for the splendid epic commenced at the battle of Ourique; to foretell the tremendous downfall of the colossus known as Portugal. Before entering the most lamentable reign of Dom Sebastian, let us cast a glance over the state of Portugal during the last years of Dom João’s life, and consider what manner of kingdom and people the desired king received in heritage, upon taking his first childish steps in a world to which he was to leave so sad a tradition.
The reign of Dom João III is an original mixture of splendours and threats, of wealth and misery. It presents brilliant lights and implacable shadows, but unhappily the lights were the last reflections of Portuguese glory soon to be extinguished, the shadows the unfortunate heralds of the immense night into which Portugal was to be plunged. Portugal at this epoch had reached the apogee of her prosperity. The Portuguese flag fluttered over the most remote countries of the wealthy East. Her commerce sucked fabulous wealth from the abundant breasts of old Asia. India resigned herself to the conquest; Brazil was beginning to be peopled; China and Japan discovered, Oceania subjected, Abyssinia explored, were rich harvests of glory and gold, of heroic deeds and vast fortunes for Portugal. But this gold scarcely circulated in the country; instead of benefiting the latter, it went to enrich England, to give power to Italy and Flanders, stupidly to fill the ever insatiable coffers of the Vatican. This glory instead of acting as a stimulus was suffocated by the tyrannies of absolutism, was crushed by the stupid fanaticism of the Jesuits, who paraded, triumphant and strong, under the sinister protection of the Inquisition. The period of Dom João III marks out distinctly and perfectly in history the transition from the pinnacles of triumphant power to the dark abysses of slavery, from a glorious life to a humiliating death.
The conquests and prosperity in the East were the outcome of the former impulses; what the country owed to the pious king was the demoralisation of the army and people, the glorification of tyrants, the relaxation of judicial authority crushed by the Inquisition, the gilded poverty of the people, the enervation of the aristocracy, the loss of commerce by the flight of foreigners residing in Lisbon harassed at every step by the infamous cruelties of the Inquisition, and the stupid despotism of individual power. All the glory of his reign is due to his predecessors; the shame, opprobrium, immorality, and misery are due to him, and unhappily were left as an inheritance to his successors and to the country.[f]
THE REGENCIES AND THE REIGN OF SEBASTIAN (1557-1578 A.D.)
[1557-1574 A.D.]