LOPES, FERNÃO (1380?-1459?), the patriarch of Portuguese historians, was appointed keeper of the royal archives, then housed in the castle of St George in Lisbon, by King John I. in November 1418. He acted as private secretary to the Infants D. Duarte and D. Fernando, and when the former ascended the throne he charged Lopes, by letter of the 19th of March 1434, with the work of “putting into chronicles the stories of the kings of old time as well as the great and lofty actions of the most virtuous king my lord and father” (John I.). The form of the appointment marked its limits, and is a sufficient reply to those modern critics who have censured Lopes for partiality. Notwithstanding his official title of chief chronicler of the realm, he was the king’s man (Vassallo del Rei), and received his salary from the royal treasury. King Alphonso V. confirmed him in his post by letter of the 3rd of June 1449, and in 1454, after thirty-six years’ service in the archives and twenty as chronicler, he resigned in favour of Gomez Eannes de Azurara. The latter pays a tribute to his predecessor as “a notable person, a man of rare knowledge and great authority,” and the modern historian Herculano says, “there is not only history in the chronicles of Fernão Lopes, there is poetry and drama as well; there is the middle age with its faith, its enthusiasm, its love of glory.” Lopes has been called the Portuguese Froissart, and that rare gift, the power of making their subjects live, is common to the two writers; indeed, had the former written in a better-known language, there can be little doubt that the general opinion of critics would have confirmed that of Robert Southey, who called Lopes “beyond all comparison the best chronicler of any age or nation.” Lopes was the first to put in order the stories of the earlier Portuguese monarchs, and he composed a general chronicle of the kingdom, which, though it never appeared under his name, almost certainly served as a foundation for the chronicles of Ruy de Pina (q.v.). Lopes prepared himself for his work with care and diligence, as he tells us, not only by wide reading of books in different languages, but also by a study of the archives belonging to municipalities, monasteries and churches, both in Portugal and Spain. He is usually a trustworthy guide in facts, and charms the reader by the naïve simplicity of his style.
His works that have come down are: (1) Chronica del Rei D. João I. de boa memoria, parts 1 and 2 (Lisbon, 1644). The third part relating the capture of Ceuta was added by Azurara. A corrected text of the chronicle has been issued by instalments in the Archivo Historico Portuguez. (2) “Chronica do senhor rei D. Pedro I.,” in vol. iv. of the Colleccão de Livros Ineditos da Historia Portugueza, published by the Academy of Sciences (Lisbon, 1816); a much better text than that published by Father Bayão in his edition of the same chronicle (Lisbon, 1760). (3) Chronica do senhor rei D. Fernando published in the same volume and collection. The British Museum has some important 16th-century MSS. of the chronicles.
See Damião de Goes, Chronica del Rei Dom Manoel, part iv. ch. 38; Araãgo Morato, introduction to vol. iv. of the above collection; Herculano, Opusculos, vol. v.
(E. Pr.)
LOPEZ, CARLOS ANTONIO (1790-1862), Paraguayan autocrat, was born at Asuncion on the 4th of November 1790, and was educated in the ecclesiastical seminary of that city. He attracted the hostility of the dictator, Francia, and he was forced to keep in hiding for several years. He acquired, however, so unusual a knowledge of law and governmental affairs that, on Francia’s death in 1840, he obtained an almost undisputed control of the Paraguayan state, which he maintained uninterruptedly until his death on the 10th of September 1862. He was successively secretary of the ruling military junta (1840-1841), one of the two consuls (1841-1844), and president with dictatorial powers (1844-1862) by successive elections for ten and three years, and in 1857 again for ten years, with power to nominate his own successor. Though nominally a president acting under a republican constitution, he ruled despotically. His government was in general directed with wise energy towards developing the material resources and strengthening the military power of the country. His jealousy of foreign approach several times involved him in diplomatic disputes with Brazil, England, and the United States, which nearly resulted in war, but each time he extricated himself by skilful evasions.
His eldest son, Francisco Solano Lopez (1826-1870), was born near Asuncion on the 24th of July 1826. When in his nineteenth year he was made commander-in-chief of the Paraguayan army, during the spasmodic hostilities then prevailing with the Argentine Republic. He was sent in 1853 as minister to England, France and Italy, and spent a year and a half in Europe. He purchased large quantities of arms and military supplies, together with several steamers, and organized a project for building a railroad and establishing a French colony in Paraguay. He also formed the acquaintance of Madame Lynch, an Irish adventuress of many talents and popular qualities, who became his mistress, and strongly influenced his later ambitious schemes. Returning to Paraguay, he became in 1855 minister of war, and on his father’s death in 1862 at once assumed the reins of government as vice-president, in accordance with a provision of his father’s will, and called a congress by which he was chosen president for ten years. In 1864, in his self-styled capacity of “protector of the equilibrium of the La Plata,” he demanded that Brazil should abandon her armed interference in a revolutionary struggle then in progress in Uruguay. No attention being paid to his demand, he seized a Brazilian merchant steamer in the harbour of Asuncion, and threw into prison the Brazilian governor of the province of Matto Grosso who was on board. In the following month (December 1864) he despatched a force to invade Matto Grosso, which seized and sacked its capital Cuyabá, and took possession of the province and its diamond mines. Lopez next sought to send an army to the relief of the Uruguayan president Aguirro against the revolutionary aspirant Flores, who was supported by Brazilian troops. The refusal of the Argentine president, Mitre, to allow this force to cross the intervening province of Corrientes, was seized upon by Lopez as an occasion for war with the Argentine Republic. A congress, hastily summoned, and composed of his own nominees, bestowed upon Lopez the title of marshal, with extraordinary war powers, and on April 13, 1865, he declared war, at the same time seizing two Argentine war-vessels in the bay of Corrientes, and on the next day occupied the town of Corrientes, instituted a provisional government of his Argentine partisans, and summarily announced the annexation to Paraguay of the provinces of Corrientes and Entre Rios. Meantime the party of Flores had been successful in Uruguay, and that state on April the 18th united with the Argentine Republic in a declaration of war on Paraguay. On the 1st of May Brazil joined these two states in a secret alliance, which stipulated that they should unitedly prosecute the war “until the existing government of Paraguay should be overthrown,” and “until no arms or elements of war should be left to it.” This agreement was literally carried out. The war which ensued, lasting until the 1st of April 1870, was carried on with great stubbornness and with alternating fortunes, though with a steadily increasing tide of disasters to Lopez (see [Paraguay]). In 1868, when the allies were pressing him hard, his mind, naturally suspicious and revengeful, led him to conceive that a conspiracy had been formed against his life in his own capital and by his chief adherents. Thereupon several hundred of the chief Paraguayan citizens were seized and executed by his order, including his brothers and brothers-in-law, cabinet ministers, judges, prefects, military officers, bishops and priests, and nine-tenths of the civil officers, together with more than two hundred foreigners, among them several members of the diplomatic legations. Lopez was at last driven with a mere handful of troops to the northern frontier of Paraguay, where, on the 1st of April 1870, he was surprised by a Brazilian force and killed as he was endeavouring to escape by swimming the river Aquidaban.
LOPEZ DE GÓMARA, FRANCISCO (1510?-1555?), Spanish historian, was educated at the university of Alcalá, where he took orders. Soon after 1540 he entered the household of the famous Cortés, who supplied him with most of the material for his Historia de las Indias (1552), and Crónica de la conquista de Nueva España (1552). The pleasing style and novel matter enchanted the Spanish public, but the unmeasured laudation of Cortés at the expense of his lieutenants and companions brought about a violent reaction. Though the Historia was dedicated to Charles V., both works were forbidden on the 17th of November 1553, and no editions of them were issued between 1554 and 1727. Italian and French versions of his books were published in 1556 and 1578 respectively.