PORTUGAL 



Portugal's commercial and indus- 

 trial activities, but war with the 

 Moors and struggles to resist the 

 dominion of Castile were the chief 

 occupation of his son, Alfonso IV, 

 the Brave. The struggle with Cas- 

 tile was finally decided by the bril- 

 liant Portuguese victory at Alju- 

 barrota, Aug. 14, 1385, in the reign 

 of John I (1385-1433). John's 

 marriage to Philippa, daughter of 

 John of Gaunt, the father of Henry 

 IV, king of England, gave rise two 

 centuries later to the claim to the 

 English throne put forward by 

 Philip of Spain, whose mother was 

 a Portuguese princess, through 

 whom he had already claimed the 

 Portuguese crown. 



The Maritime Empire 

 John's long and wise reign laid 

 the foundations of the Portuguese 

 maritime empire, a work of which 

 the prime promoter was his young- 

 er son, Prince Henry, called the 

 Navigator, under whose direction 

 expedition after expedition sailed 

 from the shores of Portugal, dis- 

 covered the Canaries and the 

 Azores, and crept round the great 

 western shoulder of Africa. Other 

 maritime states were absorbed with 

 the traffic in the Mediterranean and 

 the seaboard of Western Europe. 

 The south was left to the Portu- 

 guese, who, while John II (1481- 

 95) was engaged, like so. many other 

 monarchs of the time, in establish- 

 ing the supremacy of the crown 

 over the feudal nobility, reached 

 the extreme south of the Dark Con- 

 tinent. In 1488 Bartholomew Diaz 

 first doubled the Cape of Good 

 Hope, and in 1497 Vasco da Gama 

 crossed the Indian Ocean, and 

 reached the shores of India, at 

 Calicut. Three years later the 

 Portuguese sailors discovered Bra- 

 zil, the eastern shoulder of South 

 America. The famous bull of Pope 

 Alexander VI (1493) bestowed 

 upon the Portuguese all new lands 

 which had been, or might be, dis- 

 covered E. of a line which was 

 ultimately drawn from N. to S. 

 270 leagues W. of the Azores, while 

 all territory W. of that line was to 

 go to Spain. 



For 80 years Portugal enjoyed 

 a monopoly of the southern and 

 eastern seas. With her tiny popu- 

 lation, she could not acquire wide 

 territory, and even her purely mari- 

 time empire, despite the wealth it 

 brought her, imposed too heavy a 

 strain on her capacities. In 1580, 

 when the direct male line of the 

 kings came to an end, the crown 

 was claimed, through his mother, 

 by Philip II of Spain, despite the 

 better title of the House of Bra- 

 ganza. Philip had no difficulty in 

 enforcing his claim, though the 

 English tried to win the throne for 



628 1 



an illegitimate pretender, Don An- 

 tonio. In effect, Portugal was an- 

 nexed by Spain. In the 17th cen- 

 tury, however, the Spanish mon- 

 archy was striving to suppress all 

 provincial rights and liberties, and 

 the Portuguese, roused to revolt in 



Portugal. Map showing distribution 



of natural wealth and the principal 



industries of the people 



1640, proclaimed John of Bra- 



finza king. The rivalry between 

 ranee and Spain ensured for the 

 new claimant the support of France, 

 though it was not till the struggle 

 had lasted 28 years that the House 

 of Braganza was decisively estab- 

 lished on the independent throne 

 of Portugal by the treaty of Lis- 

 bon. The recognition of the dy- 

 nasty by the marriage of Charles 

 II to Catherine of Braganza, in 

 1661, established what was a per- 

 manent, if not a formal, alliance be- 

 tween Portugal and Great Britain. 



Peninsular War 



But Portugal, once the queen of 

 the seas, was now no more than 

 an insignificant European state, 

 though she still held possession of 

 her American colonies, of the Bra- 

 zils, and of trading settlements in 

 the Indian Ocean. Externally, her 

 political significance lay mainly in 

 the fact that she provided an open 



Gateway for the British into the 

 panish Peninsula. Portugal was 

 the base of the British peninsular 

 campaigns in the War of the Span- 

 ish Succession (1701-1713) and the 

 Peninsular War (1808-1814). 



PORTUGAL 



In 1807 Napoleon resolved to 

 sweep Portugal into the net of his 

 continental system directed against 

 the commerce of England ; but 

 King John, faithful to the friend- 

 ship with Great Britain, chose exile 

 in preference to submission, and 

 withdrew to Brazil, where he es- 

 tablished the headquarters of the 

 Portuguese government. Napo- 

 leon's attempt to seize Portugal, 

 and Spain also, brought about the 

 British intervention and the Pen- 

 insular War. After the fall of Napo- 

 leon, King John remained in Bra- 

 zil, leaving the Portuguese ad- 

 ministration in the hands of the 

 British. But in 1820 John re- 

 turned to Portugal, assigning Bra- 

 zil as a separate empire to his son, 

 Pedro IV. Pedro, on his accession 

 to the Portuguese throne in 1826, 

 resigned it, while retaining the 

 Brazilian empire, in favour of his 

 daughter Maria da Gloria. 



A prolonged struggle followed 

 between the reactionaries, headed 

 by Pedro's brother Miguel, who 

 claimed the crown, and the con- 

 stitutionalists, with the young 

 queen as their figure-head, in which 

 the victory of the latter was not 

 secured until 1834, chiefly through 

 the protection extended against 

 foreign intervention, first by Can- 

 ning and then by Palmerston. 

 Portugal felt the general political 

 unrest which was disturbing Eu- 

 rope ; the party contests between 

 the advanced democrats, known as 

 the Septembrists, and the moder- 

 ate constitutionalists, called Chart- 

 ists, as supporters of the charter of 

 1826, were frequently acute. 



Fall of the Monarchy 

 The crown in Portugal enjoyed 

 prerogatives which gave it a con- 

 trolling power, while the popular 

 assembly became increasingly de- 

 mocratic. King Carlos, who came 

 to the throne in 1889, was a mon- 

 arch of liberal views, who was fre- 

 quently forced by circumstances 

 to adopt a repressive course of 

 action, while the administration 

 generally, captured by a corrupt 

 type of politician, was the real 

 cause of the misgovernment for 

 which he was blamed. While dis- 

 content ran high, the king and the 

 crown prince were assassinated at 

 Lisbon, Feb. 1, 1908. The young 

 prince Manoel was raised to the 

 throne, but he was driven from the 

 country by a revolution in Oct., 

 1910. Portugal was proclaimed a 

 republic Oct. 5, 1910. 



A. D. limes 



A provisional government was 

 formed with Theophila Braga as 

 acting president, and he was re- 

 placed on Aug. 24, 1911, by Dr. 

 Arriaga, who held office as full 

 president till May 29, 1915. The 



