Part 17

Such a monarch was not the man to check the decadence of Portugal; only a practical man, who should try to husband the resources of the nation, could have attempted such a task, and even he would have had difficulties to face which might well seem insurmountable. But practical measures of reform, such as a systematic attempt to regulate the expenditure of the kingdom, and an effort to check the corruption which had grown up in all departments of the state, demanded an amount of serious and prolonged labour which the dreamy king was little inclined to bestow; he thought he had done enough in issuing his sumptuary edict, and paid no further attention to the evils which were sapping the strength of his kingdom. For one measure, however, he deserves much credit. Though paying no attention to the slaves in Portugal, and regarding negroes as a race made for slavery, he yet under the influence of the Jesuits issued a decree of the greatest importance for the colony of Brazil, by which it was ordered that for the future none of the aboriginal Brazilians should be publicly sold or sent as slaves to work in the plantations, except prisoners taken in a just war. Even in the higher domain of foreign politics as opposed to internal administration, he made no attempt to watch over the interests of Portugal. His early marriage was a matter of supreme importance to the kingdom, for the only male heir of the house of Aviz was his great-uncle, the Cardinal, and the deaths of Dom Sebastian and Dom Henry without direct heirs would inevitably be followed by a civil war arising from the disputed succession. This consideration weighed but little with the romantic monarch, who after making a half-hearted attempt in 1570 to secure the hand of the beautiful Princess Margaret, sister of Charles IX. of France, the famous “Reine Margot,” by the mediation of Dom Luis de Torres, abandoned the idea of marriage, and devoted himself to his schemes of fighting the Mohammedans.

The times were singularly unfit for a war against the infidels. Crusading ardour had long been extinct, and though Pope Pius II. (Æneas Sylvius Piccolomini) had in the preceding century tried to form a coalition against the Turks, and in 1571 Don John of Austria had broken their naval power at Lepanto, the ardour of the Pope and the navy of the prince were directed against the Turks, not because they were unbelievers, but because they were a conquering race and threatened Western Europe. The expeditions of the Emperor Charles V. against Tunis in 1535, and Algiers in 1541, were dictated rather by naval and commercial than by religious considerations, and John III. had acted with the thorough sanction of the Church, whose most humble devotee he was, in abandoning the smaller towns held by Portugal in Morocco. Yet Dom Sebastian persisted; he would be crusader rather than politician, and he was determined to fight the Mohammedans. His first idea was to go in person to India and place himself at the head of the Portuguese forces there; but the minister, Pedro de Alçaçova Carneiro, pointed out the difficulty of finding a regent to govern during his absence, and his former tutor, Aleixo de Menezes, turned his thoughts to Africa. He was fired by the fame of his ancestor, Affonso V. “the African,” and determined to waste what strength still remained to the exhausted Portuguese nation in useless expeditions to the barren regions of north-west Africa, where no possible advantage could be obtained of the slightest value to Portugal. Filled with the notion of recapturing the useless places which his grandfather had evacuated, such as Alcacer Seguier, Azamor, Arzila, and Cafim, King Sebastian in his twentieth year, in 1574, suddenly made up his mind to sail across to Africa. The expedition partook rather of the nature of a _reconnaissance_ than of a serious campaign. The king spoke only of a visit to Tangier, and started off suddenly with his guards and courtiers from a hunting excursion, ordering the Duke of Aveiro to follow with a force of four hundred cavalry and one thousand two hundred infantry. With these troops Dom Sebastian made a few raids, and exhibited his personal courage by uselessly exposing his person, and he returned more bent than ever on a great war in Africa, which was to end in the Portuguese conquest of Morocco, and the acquisition of everlasting fame for its leader as a brave “soldier of the Cross.”

Before entering on the history of this expedition, which was to end so disastrously, and strike a last and final blow at the declining power of Portugal, it would be as well to see how the Portuguese dominion in Asia had been faring during the regencies of Queen Catherine and the Cardinal Henry, and during the earlier part of Sebastian’s own tenure of power. Dom Constantino de Braganza, the friend of the poet Camoens, had succeeded Francisco Barreto, the enemy of the poet, in 1558, the year after the death of John III., and had distinguished his viceroyalty by the capture of Daman. He was a truly great governor, although he permitted the Inquisition to be established at Goa, and his high rank gave him an ascendency not possessed by previous viceroys. His conduct was so blameless and his power so wisely exercised that the queen-regent begged him to accept the viceroyalty for life. He refused, and at the end of his three years of office resigned and was succeeded by Dom Francisco Coutinho, Count of Redondo, a nobleman of high character, who died in office, and was succeeded first by João de Mendonça, and then by Dom Antonio de Noronha, who took the important city of Mangalore by assault. During his viceroyalty in 1565 occurred the battle of Talikot, in which the powerful Hindu kingdom of Vijayanagar, which embraced the greater part of Southern India was overthrown by the Mohammedan kings of Ahmadābād, Bīdar, and Bijápur, and the way prepared for the extension of the Mohammedan power over Southern India. The next viceroy, Dom Luis de Athaide, was specially selected by King Sebastian himself in 1568, and he certainly justified the choice of the boy-king and his advisers. The Mohammedan kings of the Deccan were full of delight at their great victory of Talikot, and Alī Adìl Shah, king of Bijápur, believed he could expel the Portuguese from his dominions. With this intention he collected a vast army of one hundred thousand men, recruited from various adventurers of the Mohammedan religion, and laid siege to Goa in 1570. The city was being ravaged by a pestilence, but nevertheless the defence was a gallant one--the last great feat of arms of the Portuguese in India. The siege lasted ten months, and ended in the discomfiture of the besiegers and their final defeat in a pitched battle beneath the walls of Goa, when a victory was won, second only to that of Dom João de Castro at Diu, twenty-five years before. On his return to Portugal, Dom Luis de Athaide was received with the greatest favour by King Sebastian, who created him Count of Atouguia, and also by the people of Lisbon, who gave him the greatest reception vouchsafed to any Indian governor on his return for many generations. King Sebastian then made an important alteration in the government of his Asiatic possessions. Hitherto all the petty governors from the Cape of Good Hope to Japan had been subject to the Governor-General or the Viceroy at Goa, an extent of command which caused many serious inconveniences. In 1571 this vast extent of land and sea was divided into three separate governorships. The new viceroy, Dom Antonio de Noronha, was to be supreme from Cape Guardafui to Ceylon with his capital at Goa, while Francisco Barreto was to govern the south-east coast of Africa with his headquarters at Mozambique, and Antonio Moniz Barreto was to rule from Pegu to China with his capital at Malacca. Antonio Moniz Barreto succeeded as viceroy in 1573, and Dom Diogo de Menezes in 1576; and in 1578, the very year in which King Sebastian met his fate, his faithful servant, Dom Luis de Athaide, became viceroy for the second time, and it is said that the defeat of his sovereign broke the heart of the defender of Goa and caused his untimely death.

The expedition which was to meet with such a disastrous termination had long been contemplated by Sebastian, but its despatch was hastened by the state of affairs in Morocco itself, which seemed to the king most propitious for the success of his enterprise. The empire of Morocco had been divided between two brother Sherīfs, as the rulers of that country were termed, in the early part of the sixteenth century. The younger of the brothers, Maulā[20] Mohammed, beheaded his senior, Maulā Ahmed, and was in his turn assassinated in 1556. The successor to the throne, Maulā Abdallah, murdered two of his brothers and was succeeded by his illegitimate son, Maulā Ahmed ibn Abdallah, the “Muly Hamet” of old English writers. At this, the brother of the late Maulā Abdallah, Abd-el-Melik, commonly known as Muley Moloch, fled to Constantinople and, with the help of the Turks, ousted his nephew, Maulā Ahmed. The defeated usurper then decided to make an application for Christian help, and when refused asylum by Philip II., of Spain, he appealed to Dom Sebastian. This was the opportunity the young king had longed for, and when Maulā Ahmed promised to hold the crown of Morocco as a vassal of the King of Portugal, Sebastian enthusiastically welcomed him and promised him assistance. The wiser statesmen of Portugal pointed out that the strength of Portugal in men and arms was in Asia, and that it was impossible to attempt such an enterprise as the invasion of Morocco without foreign help. Sebastian therefore sent embassies asking for help from the Pope, and from his uncle, Philip II. of Spain. Pope Gregory XIII. sent him an arrow of S. Sebastian and nothing else, but the arrangements with Philip II. were more important. The minister Pedro de Alçaçova Carneiro was sent in person to the King of Spain to ask for troops and ships, in recognition of which Dom Sebastian would marry a Spanish infanta. Philip opposed the project strongly, but eventually promised five thousand men and fifty galleys to assist in an attack on Larache (El Araish), an offer which he afterwards withdrew, when the Duke of Alva assured him that at least fifteen thousand veteran soldiers would be necessary. In December, 1576, Sebastian had an interview in person with his uncle, when Philip II. again opposed his nephew’s mad idea, and he is reported to have said when his efforts proved in vain, “If he win, we shall have a good son-in-law; if he lose, a good kingdom.”

Dom Sebastian then decided to have all the glory of conquering Morocco for himself, and his hopes reached their height when Maulā Ahmed managed to buy over the Kaid of Arzila and handed over that place, one of those surrendered by John III., to the Portuguese monarch. Maulā Abd-el-Melik, who was in bad health, tried to dissuade his rash opponent from attacking him, and in a letter pointed out that he was the rightful Sherīf of Morocco. He even went further, and offered to the young king a district of ten miles round each of the Portuguese towns--Tangier, Ceuta, Mazagon and Arzila--if he would give up supporting the usurper. Never might the hackneyed line of Horace be quoted with more justice than in regard to the rash young Christian monarch:

“Quem Deus vult perdere, prius dementat.”

No amount of opposition could check the king’s ardour; he believed himself already surpassing in glory both John “the Great” and Affonso “the African,” and proceeded to raise money in every possible way. The treasury was nearly empty owing to peculation and bad management, and it was filled by imposing new taxes, by further harrying the converted Jews, and by partial bankruptcy. As the country was nearly drained of men the king had to hire mercenaries belonging to different nations, who were not properly equipped, and he never seemed to realize the difference between an expedition to take a sea-side town and the invasion of a powerful empire. If Affonso V. had met with difficulty in taking Tangier, how could Sebastian hope to penetrate to Fez, seventy miles up the country? Dom Sebastian trusted too much to the promised help of Maulā Ahmed; he believed other cities would yield as quickly as Arzila; and he had been thoroughly convinced by the expelled usurper that his uncle Maulā Abd-el-Melik was not only hated in Morocco, but enfeebled by illness; and that his offers of peace were dictated by fear.

The preparations made for the campaign were ridiculous in the extreme; all the most experienced generals and most tried Portuguese soldiers were in India, and the Portuguese troops who were enlisted consisted of a few old veterans whose time had expired in Asia, and of youthful raw recruits. These latter were not in the least disciplined, and were officered by young courtiers, who may have been brave, and were certainly inexperienced. The king himself intended to take the command in person, and instead of making plans for the conduct of the campaign and looking after his troops, he spent his time in borrowing the sword of King Affonso Henriques from the convent of Santa Cruz at Coimbra, and in having a banner worked in which the arms of Portugal were for the first time surmounted by an imperial crown. This banner was solemnly blessed by the archbishop in the cathedral of Lisbon on the 14th of June, and the king then considered that all was ready.

On the 24th of June, 1578, King Sebastian set sail with a fleet of fifty ships of war and about nine hundred transports under the command of the Admiral of Portugal, Dom Diogo de Sousa, carrying fifteen thousand infantry, two thousand four hundred cavalry, and thirty-six guns. Of this army only about ten thousand were Portuguese, the rest consisting of Spanish and German volunteers and mercenaries, and of nine hundred Italians, under the command of a gallant Englishman, Sir Thomas Stukeley. This well-known English Catholic, who had been created Marquis of Leinster by the Pope, had been stopped with his soldiers by Sebastian while on his way to raise an insurrection in Ireland against Elizabeth. In spite of the desperate hurry in which he had been to start, Sebastian made no attempt to hasten his passage and try the effects of a surprise. He first stopped at Lagos in the Algarves, then at Cadiz, where he was sumptuously entertained by the Duke of Medina Sidonia, and did not reach Tangier until July 6th. He was there met by his Mohammedan ally, Maulā Ahmed, who handed over his son as a hostage, but who only brought eight hundred Moors instead of the army which he had promised. Sebastian at first amused himself with hunting, while his opponent was concentrating his forces, and then repulsed a few Moors in a skirmish, which he magnified into a victory. From Tangier he suddenly carried his army to Arzila, where he encamped beneath the walls and wasted time. At last he determined to hold a council of war to decide in what way the army should attack Larache; Maulā Ahmed wisely suggested by sea, so as to have the advantage of a convenient means of retreat to the ships, but Sebastian answered the Moorish prince so rudely that he left the council, and the king decided to march by land. Even at this last moment Maulā Abd-el-Melik offered to cede Larache to Sebastian if he would cease his military operations, but the rash young king returned no answer whatever, and the Sherīf of Morocco, finding all his efforts for peace repulsed, determined to crush the invader.

On the 29th of July the march inland, away from the cool breezes off the sea, was commenced under the burning sky of an African summer; the soldiers were soon maddened by hunger, thirst, and heat, and by the incessant attacks of the Moorish skirmishers; and the army was dispirited before a battle took place. These miseries continued for five days, until August 3rd, when the Portuguese had some success in a skirmish, and Dom Sebastian took up what he considered a strong position near the little town of Alcacer Quibir, or more correctly El-Kasr el-Kebīr. The position was from a military point of view utterly indefensible, for both flanks were exposed, and Maulā Abd-el-Melik, who was now face to face with the Christians with an army of forty thousand cavalry and fifteen thousand infantry saw that the Portuguese king was lost. At daybreak on the 4th of August, 1578, the battle commenced with some brilliant charges on the part of the Portuguese, but in a short time the wings of the Moorish army, which were entirely composed of cavalry, overlapped the small Christian army, and for four hours the army of Dom Sebastian was compelled to defend itself. The result of the continued charges of the Moorish cavalry could not be doubtful, and at the end of the four hours’ fighting nearly the whole of the Christian army was cut to pieces. The Moorish monarch, Maulā Abd-el-Melik, had been in the agonies of death when the battle commenced, and died in his litter from the exertion of trying to mount his horse at the first charge of the Christians, placing his finger on his lip as a sign that his death should be kept secret for a time. His rival, Maulā Ahmed, was drowned in crossing the Wed or Wady M’Hassan, and his brother, Ahmed ibn Mohammed, was declared king by the soldiers at the conclusion of the battle. The slaughter was terrible; more than nine thousand Christians were killed, and all the rest, except about fifty, were taken prisoners. Sir Thomas Stukeley, after gallantly defending himself, was killed, with many of the chief Portuguese nobles and prelates, including Dom Jaymé, brother of the sixth Duke of Braganza, the Duke of Aveiro, who had commanded the cavalry, and the bishops of Coimbra and Oporto, while among the prisoners were the Duke of Barcellos and Dom Duarte de Menezes, Quarter-Master-General of the army.

Dom Sebastian throughout the battle behaved himself as a gallant knight, though he had not been a prudent general, and when the fortunes of the day went against him he determined to lose his life also. Many accounts are given of his death. One tradition says that he was taken prisoner by some Moors, who stripped him of his arms, and began to quarrel about him, and that a Mohammedan general rode in amongst them, and shouting out, “What, you dogs, when God has given you so glorious a victory, would you cut each other’s throats about a prisoner,” immediately struck the King of Portugal down in ignorance of his rank. Another story is that the king met Dom Luis de Brito with the consecrated banner wrapped around him, and said, “Hold it fast, let us die upon it;” and that when, after fierce fighting, Brito was taken prisoner with the banner, he saw the king riding away unpursued. Dom Luis de Lima also asserted that he saw the king making his way towards the river unhurt. According to the most trustworthy account, Christovão de Tavora, the king’s equerry, showed a flag of truce, and offered to surrender with the fifty horsemen, who still remained about the king, when Sebastian suddenly dashed on the Moorish cavalry, who, irritated at this breach of faith, instantly slew him, as well as the brave equerry, who followed his master. Anyhow, it is certain that the new Sherīf Ahmed ibn Mohammed sent out Sebastião de Resende, a gentleman of the bedchamber, to discover the corpse of the king, and that a naked body was brought in covered with wounds, which the Portuguese prisoners at once recognized as that of the ill-fated Dom Sebastian. The body was temporarily buried in the palace at Alcacer Quibir, and removed in the following September to Ceuta, at the request of Cardinal Henry. It was eventually taken to Portugal in 1582, by the orders of Philip II., and buried with great pomp in the church of St. Jerome at Belem.

It is important to lay stress on this subject, because for many years the lower classes of the Portuguese people refused to believe that their sovereign was dead, a belief encouraged by the stratagem of a wounded noble on the evening of the fatal battle to gain admission into the city of Tangier by asserting that he was the king. It was this belief which led to the acceptance of the successive false Dom Sebastians, who played a part in the ensuing half century, and it had a still further influence upon the whole future of the Portuguese people. That the “Principe Encuberto” or Hidden Prince would appear again became a religion, and the sect of the Sebastianistas became a powerful body of fanatics. Their belief was fostered by the princes of the House of Braganza as patriotic, and whenever Portugal has been subject to a great strain, the Sebastianistas have always come to the front. Even at the present day they are not extinct, and Sir Richard Burton asserts that he has met with them in the interior of Brazil. It was this firm belief that gave point to the remark of Lord Tyrawley, in the English House of Lords in 1763: “What can one possibly do with a nation, one half of which expect the Messiah, and the other half their king, Dom Sebastian, who has been dead two hundred years?”

The news of the terrible disaster of Alcacer Quibir was brought to Lisbon by the Admiral Dom Diogo de Sousa, and occasioned the most passionate lamentation. There was not a noble family which had not lost more than one of its representatives, not a patriot who failed to see that ruin was staring his country in the face. Deprived of soldiers, resources, and reputation at one fell blow, the Portuguese nation seemed stunned at the extent of its calamity. Even in India the same alarm was felt, and it is said that the brave Viceroy, Dom Luis de Athaide, died of a broken heart at the news. The Cardinal Henry was solemnly crowned king, but he was a feeble old man of sixty-six, who had to be fed like a baby, and he was quite incapable of facing the situation. He utterly refused to acknowledge any successor, or to express any opinion on the subject, and when he died on January 31, 1580, the Cortes which had been summoned to decide this important question was still sitting at Lisbon. With him ended for a time the separate existence of the Portuguese nation, and it is significant and interesting to observe that Camoens, the great national poet of Portugal, the poet who had immortalized its heroic epoch, died in a hospital of semi-starvation a few months before or after the Cardinal-king. It was well he did not live longer, for Portugal was to enter on the period of its “Sixty-Years’ Captivity,” and her proud sons, who had the patriotism of a Camoens in their hearts, would not have been able to bear the burden of subjection to a foreign king.

XII.

PORTUGUESE LITERATURE--CAMOENS.

It has always been the case in the history of a nation which can boast of a golden age, that the epoch of its greatest glory is that in which its literature chiefly flourished. The energies of a nation at its zenith cannot be bounded by the vastest schemes of conquest, but develop in other directions as well. It was so with Portugal. The age which witnessed the careers of its famous captains and conquerors was also the age of its greatest poets and prose writers. The establishment of the Inquisition soon checked the progress of Portuguese literature, but before its fatal power had time to thoroughly stifle free thought, and before the disaster of Alcacer Quibir, and the annexation of the country by Philip II. of Spain, Portugal had been able to produce many great writers, and one of the most supremely-gifted poets the world has ever seen, Luis de Camoens.