history had inspired among the Portuguese, the union of 1581
might have endured if the terms of the Thomar compact had
been observed. But few of the promises made in 1581 were
kept by the three Spanish kings who ruled over Portugal—Philip II.
(1581–1598), Philip III. (1598–1621) and Philip IV.
(1621–1640).[1] The cortes was only once summoned (1619),
and the government of Portugal was entrusted by Philip III.
chiefly to Francis duke of Lerma, by Philip IV. chiefly to Olivares
(q.v.). The kingdom and its dependencies were also involved in
the naval disasters which overtook Spain. Faro in Algarve was
sacked in 1595 by the English, who ravaged the Azores in 1596;
and in many parts of the world English, French and Dutch
combined to harass Portuguese trade and seize Portuguese
possessions. (See especially Brazil; India; Malay Archipelago.)
Union with Spain had exposed Portugal to the
hostility of the strongest naval powers of western Europe,
and had deprived it of the power to conclude an independent
peace.
Insurrections in Lisbon (1634) and Evora (1637) bore witness
to the general discontent, but until 1640 the Spanish ascendancy
was never seriously endangered. In 1640 war with
France and a revolution in Catalonia had taxed the
military resources of Spain to the utmost. TheThe Rebellion
of 1640.
royal authority in Portugal was delegated to Margaret of Savoy,
duchess of Mantua, whose train of Spanish and Italian courtiers
aroused the jealousy of the Portuguese nobles, while the harsh
rule of her secretary of state, Miguel de Vasconcellos de Brito,
provoked the resentment of all classes. Even the Jesuits, whose
influence in Portugal had steadily increased since 1555, were
now prepared to act in the interests of Cardinal Richelieu, and
therefore against Philip IV. A leader was found in John, 8th duke
of Braganza, who as a grandson of the duchess Catherine was
descended from Emanuel I. The duke, however, was naturally
indolent, and it was with difficulty that his ambitious and energetic
Castilian wife, D. Luiza de Guzman, obtained his assent to the
proposed revolution. He refused to take any active part in it;
but D. Luiza and her confidential adviser, João Pinto Ribeiro,
recruited a powerful band of conspirators among the disaffected
nobles. Their plans were carefully elaborated, and on the 1st of
December 1640 various strategic points were seized, the few
partisans of Spain who attempted resistance were overpowered,
and a provisional government was formed under D. Rodrigo da
Cunha, archbishop of Lisbon, who was appointed lieutenant general
of Portugal.
6. The Restoration: 1640–1755.—On the 13th of December 1640 the duke of Braganza was crowned as John IV., and on the 19th of January 1641 the cortes formally accepted him as king. The whole country had already declared in his favour and expelled the Spanish garrisons, an example followed by all the Portuguese dependencies. Thus the “Sixty Years’ Captivity” came to an end and the throne passed to the house of Braganza. But the Portuguese were well aware that they could hardly maintain their independence without foreign assistance, and ambassadors were at once sent to Great Britain, the Netherlands and France. The struggle between the Crown and the parliament prevented Charles I. from offering aid, but he immediately recognized John IV. as king. Richelieu and the states-general of the Netherlands dispatched fleets to the Tagus; but commercial rivalry in Brazil and the East led soon afterwards to a colonial war with the Dutch, and Portugal was left without any ally except France.
The Portuguese armies were at first successful. D. Matheus
d’Albuquerque defeated the Spaniards under the baron of
Molingen at Montijo (May 26, 1644), and throughout
the reign of John IV. (1640–1656) they suffered
no serious reverse. But great anxiety was causedWar with Spain,
1640–1668.
by a plot to restore Spanish rule, in which the duke of Caminha
and the archbishop of Braga were implicated; and especially
by the action of Mazarin, who had assumed control of French
foreign policy in 1642. At the congress of Münster (1643) he
refused to make the independence of Portugal a condition of
peace between France and Spain; and in a letter dated the
4th of October 1647 he even offered the Portuguese Crown
to the duke of Longueville—an offer which illustrates the
weakness of John IV. and the dependence of Portugal upon
France.
John IV. was succeeded by his second son, Alphonso VI. (1656–1683), who was then aged thirteen. During the king’s minority the queen-mother, D. Luiza, acted as regent. She prosecuted the war with vigour, and on the 14th of January 1659 a Portuguese army commanded by D. Antonio Luiz de Menezes, count of Cantanhede, defeated the Spaniards under D. Luiz de Haro at Elvas. In March 1659, however, the war between France and Spain was ended by the treaty of the Pyrenees; and D. Luiz de Haro, acting as the Spanish plenipotentiary, obtained the inclusion in the treaty of a secret article by which France undertook to give no further aid to Portugal. Neither Louis XIV. nor Mazarin desired the aggrandisement of Spain at the expense of their own ally; they therefore evaded the secret article by sending Marshal Schomberg to reorganize the Portuguese army (1660), and by helping forward a marriage between Charles II. of England and Catherine of Braganza, the sister of Alphonso VI. This project had been already mooted by D. Luiza, who had foreseen the restoration of the Stuart monarchy, and- had in 1650 welcomed the exiled princes Rupert and Maurice at the court of John IV. The dowry to be paid by Portugal was fixed at £500,000 and the cession to Great Britain of Bombay and Tangier. In May 1663 the marriage was celebrated, and thus Great Britain took the place of France as the active ally of Portugal.
Meanwhile, on the 20th of June 1662, the regency had been terminated by a palace revolution. Alphonso VI. declared himself of age and seized the royal authority; D. Luiza retired to a convent. The king was feeble and and vicious, but had wit enough to leave theSchomberg and Castello Melhor. conduct of affairs to stronger hands. D. Luiz de Sousa e Vasconcellos, count of Castello Melhor, directed the policy of the nation while Schomberg took charge of its defence. The army, reinforced by British troops under the earl of Inchiquin and by French and German volunteers or mercenaries, was led in the field by Portuguese generals, who successfully carried out the plans of Schomberg. On the 8th of June 1663 the count of Villa Flor utterly defeated D. John of Austria, and retook Evora, which had been captured by the invaders; on the 7th of July 1664 Pedro de Magalhaes defeated the duke of Osuna at Ciudad Rodrigo; on the 17th of June 1665 the marquess of Marialva destroyed a Spanish army led by the marquess of Carracefia at the battle of Montes Claros, and Christovão de Brito Pereira followed up this victory with another at Villa Viçosa. The Spaniards failed to gain any compensating advantage, and on the 13th of February 1668 peace was concluded at Lisbon, Spain at last consenting to recognize the independence of the Portuguese kingdom.
The signature of the treaty of Lisbon had been preceded by; another palace revolution. Castello Melhor, hoping to secure. further French support for his country, had arranged a marriage between Alphonso VI. and Marie Francoise Elisabeth, daughter of, Charles Amadeus of Nemours, and grand-daughter of Henry IV. of France. The marriage, celebrated in 1666, caused the downfall both of Castello Melhor and of the king. Queen Marie detested Alphonso and fell in love with his brother D. Pedro; and after four months of a hated union she left the palace and applied to the chapter of Lisbon cathedral to annul her marriage on the ground of non-consummation. D. Pedro imprisoned the king and assumed the regency; on the 1st of January 1668 his authority was recognized by the cortes; on the 24th of March the annulment of the queen’s marriage was pronounced and confirmed by the pope; on the 2nd of April she married the regent. Castello Melhor was permitted to escape to France, while Alphonso VI. was banished to Terceira in the Azores. A conspiracy to restore him to the throne was discovered in 1674, and he was removed to Cintra, where he died in 1683.
Pedro II., who had acted as regent for fifteen years, now
- ↑ Philip I., II. and III. of Portugal.
