Queen of Portugal

“ If the king of Portugal should leave no male issue, his daughter shall be our queen, provided she marry a Portugueze nobleman; who, however, shall not bear the title of king till after the birth of a male child. In presence of the queen, he shall always be placed on her left hand, and shall not be permitted to wear the regal crown. ”

“ King Pedro himself died in the same year. In 1836 Queen Maria was married to Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Her reign was embittered by military pronunciamentos in favour of a more radical or more moderate constitution, and, in 1852, a year before the Queen’s death, the Duke of Saldanha succeeded in imposing a constitution which remained in force for some years. He himself continued to be the make-weight in Portuguese politics until 1871, when after a brief term of office he was overthrown in turn by the Conservatives and sent as Ambassador to London, where he died in 1876. ”

“ The health of the queen, on the demise of her husband, in 1786, was so much deranged, that the prince of Brazil took into his own hands the reins of government. This enlightened and prudent prince has neglected nothing to promote the national industry; he has encouraged literature, made commerce flourish, and even sometimes caused the Brazil gold to circulate again from England to Portugal. He has established so strict a police in Lisbon, that it is impossible for an assassin or conspirator, should such still exist, to escape the punishment due to his crimes. ”

“ The Infanta, of Portugal landed in May (1662) at Portsmouth. The king went thither, and was married privately by Lord Aubigny, a secular priest, and almoner to the queen, according to the rites of Rome, in the queen's chamber; none present but the Portuguese ambassador, three more Portuguese of quality, and two or three Portuguese women. What made this necessary was, that the Earl of Sandwich did not marry her by proxy, as usual, before she came away. How this happened, the duke knows not, nor did the chancellor know of this private marriage. ”

“ The whole population of Lisbon continued throughout the winter in tents or huts in the fields. The distress was extreme in every part of Portugal, and called forth, as has been already stated, the pity of all neighbouring nations. In Spain, Ferdinand deeply sympathised in his queen’s sorrow for her countrymen, and repealed the existing prohibitions of exporting some of the necessaries of life, and the heavy duties imposed upon the export of others, as related to Portugal. ”

“ The Casket of M. de Lauzun.—His Historical Gallery.—He Makes Some Nuns.—M. de Lauzun in the Lottery.—The Loser Wins.—Queen out of Pique.—Letter from the Queen of Portugal.—The Ingratitude of M. de Lauzun.
Twice during the captivity of M. de Lauzun the Queen of Portugal had charged her ambassador to carry to the King that young sovereign’s solicitations in favour of the disgraced gentleman. Each time the negotiators had been answered with vague and ambiguous words ”

“ She has almost completed national unity by the marriage of Isabella, the Queen of Castile, with Ferdinand, the King of Aragon. Then, with all her long sea-coast and the sea-going habits of its inhabitants, she will become for a while the greatest naval power in the world and play a leading part in the story. Portugal is independent of her and is opening up the trade with the East round the Cape of Good Hope.
Italy, as we have seen, is split into the five principal States, and has far to go yet before she can be one nation. ”

“ Ellesmere told me yesterday that the Government must not attempt to try any fresh experiments with the army, for if they did the Duke would certainly resign.
THE QUEENS OF SPAIN AND PORTUGAL.
Affairs in Spain and Portugal are in a very strange state. The young Queen of Spain exhibits some character and some talent, but she is unsteady and uneducated. The turn matters have taken at Madrid is, however, enough to provoke and annoy the French, while every day exhibits more and more the infamy and disgrace of the marriage which the French Government forced upon the Queen. ”

“ The Portuguese flag fluttered over the most remote countries of the wealthy East. Her commerce sucked fabulous wealth from the abundant breasts of old Asia. India resigned herself to the conquest; Brazil was beginning to be peopled; China and Japan discovered, Oceania subjected, Abyssinia explored, were rich harvests of glory and gold, of heroic deeds and vast fortunes for Portugal. But this gold scarcely circulated in the country; instead of benefiting the latter, it went to enrich England, to give power to Italy and Flanders, stupidly to fill the ever insatiable coffers of the Vatican. ”

“ The Portuguese, against whom the efforts of the Spanish and French were especially directed, lost thirteen regiments and they were unable to hold the positions they had taken. Far from profiting by the hard lesson that fortune had administered to him, João V lost no time in rebinding through marriage the political alliances that his father had adopted; he married Maria Anna of Austria, sister of the emperor Joseph I and of the archduke Charles, Philip V’s rival, and celebrated this brilliant union with the most magnificent fêtes that Portugal had ever seen. ”

“ This splendid period of the reign of Dom Emmanuel, which includes the years 1500 to 1517, the eighteen years during which the fortunate monarch was married to Doña Maria of Castile, the most brilliant in Portuguese history for the military glory and wealth and commerce enjoyed by Portugal, and in which science, letters, and art were so flourishing—was not equally happy as regards public health, the safety of the lives and property of the inhabitants of these kingdoms, and internal administration. ”

“ No clouds dimmed the aurora of Portuguese liberty. Who can divine the thoughts which assailed the conspirators at waking upon this cold winter morning to undertake this hazardous enterprise? Hiding her scalding tears behind a smile, Donna Filippa de Vilhena herself girded on the swords of her two sons, commanding them not to think upon her fate, but upon the fate of Portugal; declaring that to die for one’s country when she lay groaning under oppression was still more beautiful than to live for one’s mother. ”

“ Every great—or small—landowner who takes a personal interest in his property, every non-political politician—the phrase is no contradiction in terms—who studies not rhetoric but reality, every Portuguese, however humble, who cultivates his own garden, whether that garden be the Portuguese language or literature or soil or subsoil or industry, will go a step towards constituting a real Portugal of the Portuguese, and will deserve as many laurels of his country as crown the brows of the old Conquistadores. ”

“ A season of peace and regularity, a monarchy well limited, but no longer the sport of domineering families, a virtuous king, a ministry too haughty and ambitious, but able and resolute, were encouragements to that light strain of amorous poetry which a state of ease alone can suffer mankind to enjoy. And Portugal, for the whole of this century, was in as flourishing a condition as Castile during this single reign. ”

“ It is after all little more than a label (the label “Monarchy” being more useful in an Empire) ; the thing required is a Government willing and able to employ the services of all Portuguese in the work of making Portugal once more great and prosperous, to give free scope to individual energies under a régime of true liberty and toleration. ”

“ The wonders that the sailors had to tell on their return, and the sight of the gold and ivory, the monkeys and curiosities they brought with them, kindled an eager spirit of adventure among their countrymen. Lisbon became the headquarters of bold mariners bent on exploring new lands, with the King of Portugal as patron. It was his ardent wish to find a sea-route to India and the East, whence came the rich carpets and shawls, the silks and gems, the drugs and spices so highly valued in Europe. ”

“ The Portuguese were an independent nation until Philip II. of Spain overran the country, and annexed it in the year 1580 to his own dominions, but in the year 1640 they threw off the Spanish yoke, which had grown intolerable, and raised John, Duke of Braganza, to the throne. The regal power has ever since remained in this family.
The Royal Standard bears on its scarlet field the arms of Portugal, surmounted by the regal crown. These arms were originally only the white shield with the five smaller escutcheons that we see in the centre of the present blazon. ”

“ She will linger yet, and perhaps be absorbed. Her independent existence is not of sufficient consequence to the world to induce an effort on her behalf; and England, now that France must relinquish her claims on Spain, can afford to withdraw her patronage from Portugal—if, indeed, we may not rather say that in the present disturbed and crumbling state of European monarchies, neither England nor any other kingdom will feel that she has much superflux of power to shake to any decaying state.
Portugal was once an integral portion of Spain, and she may again be in union with her sister. ”

“ His majesty deeply laments the occurrence of these hostilities, and will omit no effort of friendly interposition to restore peace.” “His majesty commands us to acquaint you, that his majesty had every reason to hope, when he last addressed you, that the arrangements which had been made for administering the government of Portugal., until the period at which the Emperor of Brazil should have completed his abdication of the throne of Portugal, would have secured the peace and promoted the happiness of a country in the welfare of which his majesty has ever taken the deepest interest. ”

“ The monarchy owed its triumph to its championship of national interests, to the support of the municipalities and military orders, and to the prestige gained by the royal armies in the Moorish and Castilian wars. In 1263 Alphonso X. renounced his claim to suzerainty over Algarve, and thus the kingdom of Portugal simultaneously reached its present European limits and attained its complete independence. Lisbon was henceforth recognized as the capital. ”

“ The prospect of so great an enterprise excited the natural courage of her character, and awakened every aspiring sentiment in her bosom. She asked Braganza [15] in what manner he would act, in case his refusal of the crown should end in Portugal’s becoming a republic, and how he would conduct himself between that new form of government and the king of Spain? to which the duke replied, that he should ever remain inviolably attached to the interests of his country. ”

“ But the discoveries and conquests followed, the magic of the sea, the mystery of the East wove a spell over the imagination of the Portuguese, the country was drained of men, devastated by plague and famine. Lisbon and the East absorbed energies hitherto given to the soil. Portugal, moreover, was doomed to share Spain’s losses during the period 1580-1640, and later was ravaged by frequent civil wars. In fine one might expect to find a dwindling miserable population, dying out from sheer exhaustion. ”

“ Meanwhile the Portuguese monarchy approached the summit of its power and glory. While Spain, under the dominion of Ferdinand and Isabella, began to form itself internally into a single state, the government and people of Portugal directed their attention to discoveries and conquests in Africa and India. A peculiar union of the heroism of chivalry, and the industry of social life which prevailed in Portugal, under the auspices of her enterprising sovereigns, impressed on the nation a consciousness of power, in which the Portuguese were in no respect inferior to the Castilians. ”

“ Portugal in the first half of the sixteenth century presents a further instance of an empire actuated by the same ideals as those of Spain. Within a single century, almost within the memory of a single life, Portugal appears successively as a strong united nation, an empire of great and far-stretched renown, and then, by a revolution in fortune of which there are few examples, as a vanquished and subject State. Her merchants were princes, her monarchs, John II, Emmanuel, John III, and Sebastian, were in riches kings of the kings of Europe. ”

“ The history of Portugal, when it separates from that of Spain, is the history of a single stupendous achievement. A small nation raising itself in a short time to the power of a great empire, reaching a height which to gain was incredible, to keep impossible, and at the first relaxation of effort suddenly falling with a disastrous crash,—that is the drama of Portugal's greatness. ”

“ He wished to be the Portuguese Louis XIV. He lavishly encouraged art and science, and took personal and intelligent interest in their progress. He acted generally with a magnificence befitting a lord of all Europe, or at least of all the possessions in the East that had once been Portugal’s, whereas his treasury was supplied mainly by gold from Brazil. In the matter of buildings, especially, his extravagance was unbridled, and two of them, the Convent of Mafra and the Alcantara Aqueduct, still excite wonder and admiration. ”

“ Education is backward. The Government is a limited monarchy, there being two houses of Parliament—Peers and Deputies. The Azores and Madeira are part of the kingdom; there are colonies in Africa and Asia, in which slavery was abolished only in 1878. The 14th and 15th centuries saw the zenith of Portugal's fortunes. At that time, in strict alliance with England, she raised herself by her enterprise to the foremost maritime and commercial power of Europe; her navigators founded Brazil, and colonised India. ”