Literature and the Man

The report of the Fugger agent in Lisbon when the news of King Sebastian’s death reached the city, a few days after the battle of Alcazar (1578), illustrated in detail the despair of a nation and the sorrow of the many families in Portugal that had lost one or several members in the expedition:

When this sorry news came unto us, you can well imagine how great were the lamentations, the despair and the grief, not only in this city, but in all the land. The men went about as if dazed. The wailing of the women was so loud that it can be compared with that which arose at the taking of Antwerp. It is a woeful matter to lose in one day the King, their husbands, their sons, and all the goods and chattels they had with them. But what is even more terrible is that the kingdom now must fall under Spanish rule, which they can brook the least of all. May God Almighty therefore perform a miracle by our pious old Cardinal, who is a man of sixty-four, and grant him a male heir. It is also said that His Highness is willing to marry for the sake of this kingdom. Although there were others of the royal blood, such as the Infant Antonio, they have all fallen in this battle. Not one is left but our Cardinal, who made his way here at once on receiving the pitiful tidings. As is reported, the pledge of loyalty will be sworn unto him next week. ¹

Cardinal Henry was now the man on whom all eyes were fixed. The crown was his. But across the border, Philip II waited, and with him the dreaded veterans that would make their entry in the country if the old man died – as in due course happened – without leaving a successor. Alcazar had done away not only with the lives of three kings, but also with the independence of a country, which now awaited the consequences of that dreadful day. It was all too terrible, too painful, and, above all, too sudden to be evaluated calmly. Sebastian, in his ardour and negligence, had set in motion a political chain of events whose true dimension few could at the time foresee, but whose inevitability was soon painfully evident to all.