ENRICO, king of PORTUGAL. — Born in 1512, died in 1580. Son of Emanuele I, at the age of fourteen he chose an ecclesiastical career, whose ranks he ascended rapidly, being endowed as he was with sincere faith and a sound humanistic education. At twenty, in 1532, he was appointed archbishop of Braga (and subsequently also of Evora, Lisbon, and Coimbra); ten years later he became a cardinal; in 1547 he assumed the office of supreme inquisitor; in 1550, upon the death of Paolo III, he was considered among the papabili; Giulio III made him perpetual legatus a latere in Portugal. E. used his influence to extend and strengthen the activity of the Jesuits; he placed at the disposal of one of them, Maffei, the documents needed for a history of the conquest of the East Indies, to which the history of the Portuguese missions was closely connected.
Upon the death of his brother Giovanni III, he joined his widow on the Council that was to govern the kingdom until the young Sebastiano came of age. In 1562, the more or less voluntary withdrawal of the old queen from the regency left E., until 1568, as the sole tutor of the prince. When the latter died without heirs at Alcazar-Québir (4 August 1578), E. succeeded him (28 August), taking up the heavy inheritance at a particularly difficult moment, since the struggle for succession to the throne immediately began. Since among the claimants the most dangerous was Filippo II, E., yielding to the demands of the Portuguese, who were fiercely hostile to Spain, requested a dispensation to marry from Gregorio XIII, who refused it (August 1579), partly because of pressure from the Spanish king (Pastor, IX, p. 257). The intrigues that beset him, the threats from Filippo II, and his limited political ability meant that E. died (31 January) without having taken any decision whatsoever regarding the succession.