Their
dominions
and
settlements extended along the western and eastern sides of the vast
African continent.
settlements extended along the western and eastern sides of the vast
African continent.
Camoes - Lusiades
About twenty years after
this fatal defeat there appeared a stranger at Venice, who called
himself Sebastian, King of Portugal, whom he so perfectly resembled,
that the Portuguese of that city acknowledged him for their sovereign.
He underwent twenty-eight examinations before a committee of the nobles,
in which he gave a distinct account of the manner in which he had passed
his time from the fatal defeat at Alcazar. It was objected, that the
successor of Muley Molucco sent a corpse to Portugal which had been
owned as that of the king by the Portuguese nobility who survived the
battle. To this he replied, that his _valet de chambre_ had produced
that body to facilitate his escape, and that the nobility acted upon the
same motive, and Mesa and Baena confess, that some of this nobility,
after their return to Portugal acknowledged that the corpse was so
disfigured with wounds that it was impossible to know it. He showed
natural marks on his body, which many remembered on the person of the
king whose name he assumed. He entered into a minute detail of the
transactions that had passed between himself and the republic, and
mentioned the secrets of several conversations with the Venetian
ambassadors in the palace of Lisbon. He fell into the hands of the
Spaniards, who conducted him to Naples, where they treated him with the
most barbarous indignities. After they had often exposed him, mounted on
an ass, to the cruel insults of the brutal mob, he was shipped on board
a galley, as a slave. He was then carried to St. Lucar, from thence to a
castle in the heart of Castile, and never was heard of more. The
firmness of his behaviour, his singular modesty and heroical patience,
are mentioned with admiration by Le Clede. To the last he maintained the
truth of his assertions: a word never slipped from his lips which might
countenance the charge of imposture, or justify the cruelty of his
persecutors.
[71] Portugal, when Camoens wrote his Lusiad, was at the zenith of its
power and splendour. The glorious successes which had attended the arms
of the Portuguese in Africa, had gained them the highest military
reputation. Their fleets covered the ocean.
Their dominions and
settlements extended along the western and eastern sides of the vast
African continent. From the Red Sea to China and Japan, they were sole
masters of the riches of the East; and in America, the fertile and
extensive regions of Brazil completed their empire.
[72] Lusitania is the Latin name of a Roman province which comprised the
greater part of the modern kingdom of Portugal, besides a considerable
portion of Leon and Spanish Estremadura. --_Ed. _
[73] _The sun. _--Imitated, perhaps, from Rutilius, speaking of the Roman
Empire--
_Volvitur ipse tibi, qui conspicit omnia, Phoebus,
Atque tuis ortos in tua condit equos;_
or, more probably, from these lines of Buchanan, addressed to John III.
King of Portugal, the grandfather of Sebastian--
_Inque tuis Phoebus regnis oriensque cadensque
Vix longum fesso conderet axe diem.
Et quaecunque vago se circumvolvit Olympo
Affulget ratibus flamma ministra tuis. _
[74] _i. e. _ poetic. Aonia was the ancient name of Boeotia, in which
country was a fountain sacred to the Muses, whence Juvenal sings of a
poet--
"Enamoured of the woods, and fitted for drinking
At the fountains of the Aonides. "
JUV. Sat. vii. 58.
this fatal defeat there appeared a stranger at Venice, who called
himself Sebastian, King of Portugal, whom he so perfectly resembled,
that the Portuguese of that city acknowledged him for their sovereign.
He underwent twenty-eight examinations before a committee of the nobles,
in which he gave a distinct account of the manner in which he had passed
his time from the fatal defeat at Alcazar. It was objected, that the
successor of Muley Molucco sent a corpse to Portugal which had been
owned as that of the king by the Portuguese nobility who survived the
battle. To this he replied, that his _valet de chambre_ had produced
that body to facilitate his escape, and that the nobility acted upon the
same motive, and Mesa and Baena confess, that some of this nobility,
after their return to Portugal acknowledged that the corpse was so
disfigured with wounds that it was impossible to know it. He showed
natural marks on his body, which many remembered on the person of the
king whose name he assumed. He entered into a minute detail of the
transactions that had passed between himself and the republic, and
mentioned the secrets of several conversations with the Venetian
ambassadors in the palace of Lisbon. He fell into the hands of the
Spaniards, who conducted him to Naples, where they treated him with the
most barbarous indignities. After they had often exposed him, mounted on
an ass, to the cruel insults of the brutal mob, he was shipped on board
a galley, as a slave. He was then carried to St. Lucar, from thence to a
castle in the heart of Castile, and never was heard of more. The
firmness of his behaviour, his singular modesty and heroical patience,
are mentioned with admiration by Le Clede. To the last he maintained the
truth of his assertions: a word never slipped from his lips which might
countenance the charge of imposture, or justify the cruelty of his
persecutors.
[71] Portugal, when Camoens wrote his Lusiad, was at the zenith of its
power and splendour. The glorious successes which had attended the arms
of the Portuguese in Africa, had gained them the highest military
reputation. Their fleets covered the ocean.
Their dominions and
settlements extended along the western and eastern sides of the vast
African continent. From the Red Sea to China and Japan, they were sole
masters of the riches of the East; and in America, the fertile and
extensive regions of Brazil completed their empire.
[72] Lusitania is the Latin name of a Roman province which comprised the
greater part of the modern kingdom of Portugal, besides a considerable
portion of Leon and Spanish Estremadura. --_Ed. _
[73] _The sun. _--Imitated, perhaps, from Rutilius, speaking of the Roman
Empire--
_Volvitur ipse tibi, qui conspicit omnia, Phoebus,
Atque tuis ortos in tua condit equos;_
or, more probably, from these lines of Buchanan, addressed to John III.
King of Portugal, the grandfather of Sebastian--
_Inque tuis Phoebus regnis oriensque cadensque
Vix longum fesso conderet axe diem.
Et quaecunque vago se circumvolvit Olympo
Affulget ratibus flamma ministra tuis. _
[74] _i. e. _ poetic. Aonia was the ancient name of Boeotia, in which
country was a fountain sacred to the Muses, whence Juvenal sings of a
poet--
"Enamoured of the woods, and fitted for drinking
At the fountains of the Aonides. "
JUV. Sat. vii. 58.
