Sebastian, King of Portugal

SEBASTIAN, King of Portugal. - B. in Lisbon on 20 Jan. 1554, d. at Ksar el-Kebir (Morocco) on 4 Aug. 1578.

Penultimate king of the Aviz dynasty, grandson of Charles V (whose daughter Joanna was his mother), he was proclaimed king at the age of three upon the death of his uncle John III; after the two regencies of his grandmother Catherine and his uncle Cardinal Henry, he was king in fact from 1568.

Educated by don Aleixo de Meneses and by the Jesuit Luis Gonçalves de Camara, who impressed upon him that mystical and chivalric character which places him in the great religious and military tradition of the Lusitanian monarchy, S. issued severe laws against pomp and corruption and carried out an administrative decentralization in the Indies. S. had a reputation as a visionary and a mystic, but his government conceived various realistic African enterprises: he conquered the Kingdom of Monomotapa in south-eastern Africa, yet he did not succeed in expanding the dominions in northern Africa. In 1571 he adhered to the invitation of Pius V for a league against the Turks, without taking part in the battle of Lepanto. Learning of dynastic discords in Morocco, he decided on the expedition to Africa in 1577, with the help and encouragement of Gregory XIII and against the opinion of Philip II. He set out on 2 June 1578 and on the fields of Ksar el-Kebir fought the epic battle in which, defeated, he died as a hero. Two years later (1580) Portugal lost its independence at the hands of Philip II of Spain.

Michelangelo Mendella