PORTUGAL
303
PORTUGAL
to secure a league of Christian princes against the
Turks. Though these objects failed, the king ob-
tained many personal favours, including the amplifica-
tion of the Padroado, or right of patronage over
churches in non-Christian countries. The pope
received the submission of the Abyssinian Church
through Emanuel and, recognizing the king as the
chief protector and propagator of the Faith, twice
sent him the Golden Rose. Emanuel %vas especially
anxious to add Castile to his world-wide dominions,
and he made three marriages to that end, but all
in vain. It was a condition of his first marriage
(to the eldest daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella)
that he should expel the Jews and unconverted
Moors. The Jews had enjoyed the protection of
previous kings and had supplied them with trusted
servants, laut, as both the clergy and people hated
them for their usury, and envied their talents md
wealth, Emanuel sacrificed them, against the pro
tests of some of his best councillors. They wer(
given the choice of conversion or exile, and naturxih
from worldly motives, the greater part accepted th(
former alternative and became known as ntw
Christians", intermarrying with old Christ ixns
Many of these converts went back to Judaism md be
came" the victims of bitter and continual persecution
when the Inquisition was established.
King Emanuel and his son, John III, were greit builders; the former erected the Hieronymite church and monastery at Belem, to commemorate Vasio da Gama's discovery, and the latter made greit i<ldi- tions to the superb convent of Christ at Thom ii Though the Golden Age apparently continued Por tugal began to decline in the reign of John III (Hil- 57). Emigration drained the best blood of the couii try; the East corrupted, while it enriched, its con querors; the cultivation of the soil was left to sli\( commerce was blighted by the Inquisition, which drove capital abroad. The Government could not make both ends meet, and the wealth of the Hebrews invited their spoliation. The king, a serious con- scientious man, but of small education, satisfied the complaints of the people against that race by petition- ing the Holy See in 1531 to establish the Inquisition. After a twenty years' struggle at Rome with the Hebrews, marked by disgraceful bribery on both sides, John forced the pope's consent in 1547, and the bigoted Infanta Henry, afterwards king, became chief inquisitor. The tribunal was popular and prac- tically destroyed Judaism, but its methods divided the nation into spies and victims, encouraged black- mail and false denunciations, and contributed to undermine the national character. It put a new weapon into the hands of the monarch, who now had no check on his rule, for the Cortes had lost their power by the end of the preceding century. In 1540 the first Jesuits came, and the king became a warm patron of their early missionary labours in the East. In addition to the ministry of the confessional and the pulpit, the Society devoted itself to teaching and opened colleges which were crowded by youths of the better classes. The university, which since its foundation had moved to and fro between Lisbon and Coimbra, was fixed at the latter place in 1537, and distinguished professors, Portuguese and foreign, raised its intellectual level. Experience proved how- ever that their learning was superior to their ortho- doxy and morals, ancl they were replaced by the Jesuits, who by degrees obtained that control of higher education which they held for two centuries.
John deserves credit for his policy of peace abroad and for the colonization of Brazil, in which he had the assistance of the Jesuits, who civilized the natives and protected them from the European settlers. A number of new colonial tliiu^escs were founded in this reign, and Pnrt\igues(' theologians, among them Ven. Bartholomew of the Martyrs, took a prominent part
in the Council of Trent. On John's death, his widow
became regent for her grandson Sebastian (1557-78),
who was a minor. The latter grew up an exalted
mystic and knight errant of the Cross, without in-
terest in the work of government. Though pressed
by St. Pius V, he refused to marry and obstinately
insisted on attempting to conquer North Africa
without sufficient men or money. His rout and death
at the battle of Alcacer decided the fate of Portugal,
for Cardinal Henry (157S-S01 lived less than two
South Doob of the IIiebonymite CnnECH, Beles
years, and in 1580 Philip II of Spain claimed the
throne as next heir. Partly by force and partly
by bribery, he secured election as Philip I of Portugal
(1.580-98) at the Cortes of Thomar in 1581, and for
si.xty years the Crowns of Portugal and Spain were
united. If Philip I and II (1598-1621) ruled well,
the period was none the less a disastrous one from a
religious, as from a political point of view, and
Portugal suffered heavily in the duel between the
Protestant Powers and .Spain. Her Eastern posses-
sions fell into the hands of the English and Dutch,
and the latter seized a large part of the coastline of
Brazil. The monetary exactions of Philip III
(1621-40) and the determination of his minister,
Olivares, to destroy the liberties of Portugal, aroused
in all classes a fierce hostility to foreign rule. The
lower clergy and religious orders embraced the popu-
lar cause. The tolerance shown to the Jews, who
were permitted to return, and the expulsion of the
papal nuncio, Castracani, outraged their feelings,
and the increasing burden of taxation pressed them
hard, so that they encouraged their flocks to look for
a deliverer in the Duke of Braganza and greatly con-
tributed to the issue.
The revolution of 1640 raised John IV (1540-56) to the throne, and liberated Portugal and her re- maining possessions from a foreign yoke, but it led to an exhausting war with Spain which lasted twenty- eight years. Moreover, owing to Spanish pressure, the popes refused to recognize the new monarch; see after see fell vacant and remained so, and ecclesias- tical discipline became relaxed. These evils con-
