Iberia United: Portugal won, Spain lost
- Written by Lynne Booker, Algarve History Association
The War of Acclamation beween Portugal and Spain by Lynne Booker, Algarve History Association. Portugal had finally rid itself of the Moors in 1139 and then beat the Castilians at the definitive battle of Aljubarrota in 1385. Portugal had become an independent nation and there was no further threat from Castile.
At the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494 the Pope carved up the world: half for Spain and half for Portugal and each country sailed the seas claiming lands in Africa, America and Asia.
These conquests brought great wealth which was reflected in the built environment in those countries: palaces, convents, monuments mushroomed throughout the peninsula and reflected the power and wealth of these two nations. But the boy king, D Sebastião lost Portugal´s independence on a mad crusade in Morocco. At great cost he raised an army in 1578 in an attempt to defeat the Moors once and for all and retake some of the fortresses that Portugal had given up during the reign of D João III.
At the Battle of Alcácer Quibir in 1578 not only did D Sebastião lose his life, his Portuguese throne was lost to Castile. He had no heir and was succeeded in 1580 by Felipe II of Spain who invaded Portugal to fight off the claims of the other contenders. He became D Filipe I of Portugal. At the Cortes of Tomar in 1581 he granted to the Portuguese their own tax system, their own coinage and he agreed to employ Portuguese nationals as advisers to the King on Portuguese affairs. He declared that all officials in Portugal would be Portuguese and that the Viceroy would be a member of D Filipe´s own family. The Spanish Interregnum had started off auspiciously. However, Spain´s wars with the Netherlands and France were draining the country´s resources and Spain declared itself bankrupt four times (in 1576, 1596, 1607 and 1627). D Filipe I´s successors had no choice but to attempt to dig into Portugal´s financial resources.
It was D Filipe III´s minister Olivares that finally led to the rebellion of the Portuguese, the Catalonians and the Andalusians. Olivares had introduced a new tax for Iberia called the real d´água which was a tax on all wine and meat and he proposed the Unión de Armas whereby each province would be taxed according to the number of people and for recruitment to the royal army. Spain was faced by a France which saw itself encircled by Habsburg territory and which was trying to break Spanish rule in the Netherlands.
There had been revolts against the tax burden in the Alentejo in 1637 and 1638 and in 1639 the King called on Portuguese fidalgos to participate in the war against France. This move together with the suppression of the Consejo de Portugal indicated that Portuguese separateness was threatened and on 1 December 1640 40 fidalgos went to the Paço da Ribeira and locked up the vicereine, the Duchess of Mantua. When they found Miguel de Vasconcelos, the Secretary of State, hiding in a cupboard, they threw him out of the window - he suffered the fate of a collaborator. There were very few Castilian soldiers in Lisbon at the time so it was a relatively bloodless coup. Within two weeks the whole of Portugal had declared for D João, Duke of Bragança as D João IV. His brother, D Duarte, was in Germany fighting for the House of Habsburg in Germany, but they immediately locked him up and he died in prison in Milan in 1649. His empty tomb still awaits him at Vila Viçosa!
D João IV was married to D Luisa de Gusmão, daughter of the Spanish Duke of Medina Sidónia but she firmly supported her husband in regaining Portugal´s independence. Many senior nobles chose to stick with the King of Spain and the middling nobility and churchmen stuck to the Bragança cause. In a clever strategy, second sons joined D João, thus some families backed both sides. As some ancient titles disappered, new nobles were promoted to replace them.
Spain was not going to cede Portugal without a fight and the task of invasion was delegated to the Duke of Medina Sidonia (brother of the new Queen of Portugal) who chose Ayamonte as the springboard for the invasion of Portugal. However, he was so slow in preparing his force that he was accused of conspiracy against his own king. The Spanish slowness in attack was beneficial to the newly independent Portugal since the kingdom was in a very weak state. They had not only Spain to contend with but also the Dutch. The only way the Bragança dynasty could survive was to buy alliances with England and the Netherlands with concessions on trade. The Braganças concluded treaties with England in 1642, 1654, 1660, 1661 and the famous Methuen treaty in 1703. 
The relationship between Portugal and England was not always as friendly as many people believe. The countries were at war with one another from 1649 to 1654. The relatively recently proclaimed King of Portugal, D João IV, looked very unfavourably on England when Charles I was executed and he declared war on the country, supporting the Royalist fleet which was harboured in the Tagus from 1649 to 1650. The alliance with England, however, was necessary and it was reinstated in 1654, reinforced in 1660 and cemented in 1661 by the marriage of Charles II to D Catarina de Bragança, daughter of D João IV.English merchants won trading rights in Portuguese territories, especially Brazil and in 1660 Portugal won the right to recruit mercenaries in England. Although the Netherlands agreed to stop raiding in the Portuguese Empire, they continued to take Portuguese Empire outposts even after the Treaty of the Hague in 1661. The Portuguese ceded to England the ports of Tangier and Bombay and paid them 2 m cruzados. At the Treaty of the Hague, the Dutch were promised an indemnity of 4 m cruzados to abandon any claim to Brazil and Angola.
In one of his first acts after being acclaimed king, D João established his Conselho de Guerra in December 1640. Portugal´s military position in 1640 was dire and the Conselho de Guerra re-established the system of raising troops, arranged for the repair of the fortresses on the Spanish frontier, appointed district military governors, re-established the stud farms and sought artillery and artillery experts. Contemporary opinion was that Portugal had little chance of withstanding a Spanish invasion. The main Spanish effort at reconquest came between 1657 and 1665 and was characterised by Portuguese defence and Spanish invasions. The major battles were at, Montijo on 26 May 1644, Elvas 14 January 1659, Castelo Rodrigo on 7 July 1664, Ameixial on 8 June 1665 and at Montes Claros on 17 June 1665. Although most of the fighting was conducted in the Alentejo, the Algarve did not escape scot free. In 1642 Spanish forces bombarded and crossed to Alcoutim and got as far as Castro Marim.
D João IV had introduced a prudent and participative kind of government which was very different from the Spanish model. In sharing power, he befriended the middle and lower aristocracy and, feeding on the current atmosphere of nationalism, he provided stability and continuity. He was also well served by his Spanish Queen who nailed her colours firmly to the Portuguese mast. D João died in 1656 a victim of the stone and gout, leaving as heir to the throne D Afonso VI. This boy was 13 years old and had suffered mengoencephalitis when he was four and was to prove that he was never suitable to govern the kingdom. D Luisa occupied the post of Regent from 1656 until 1662 when a palace coup d´état by D Afonso and the Conde de Castelo Melhor unseated her.
In 1666 D Maria Francisca de Sabóia married D Afonso VI by proxy and brought with her a large French dowry; she soon discovered that D Afonso was impotent and she told her confessor that Portugal would not secure the succession through this king. In 1668, D Afonso´s brother (Infante D Pedro) and the Queen engineered the deposition of D Afonso and the annulment of her marriage. It was widely believed that the two of them were already lovers. D Afonso was exiled to the Azores for 6 years and then imprisoned at Sintra until he died in 1683, curiously in the same year as his ex wife. Meanwhile in Spain, Philip IV had died in 1665 and his successor Charles II was only four years old. The Regent was the Queen Dowager, Marianna of Austria. Spain´s lack of military succes, lack of leadership and lack of money caused them to sue for peace with Portugal. The Treaty of Lisbon was ratified on 13 February 1668. The agreed terms were as follows: the legitimacy of the claim to the throne of D João IV was recognised; Portuguese sovereignty over its Empire was reaffirmed with the exception of Ceuta which did not accept a return to Portuguese rule: prisoners were exchanged, reparations were agreed and commercial relations re-established.
The war had been financially ruinous to both countries but Portugal had regained its independence - at the cost of economic dominance by England who gained rights to trade in Goa, Cochin, Diu, Bahia, Pernambuco and Rio, as well as in Portugal. As it turned out Portugal had swapped cultural absorption by Spain for centuries of economic domination by Britain. If you missed celebrating Portuguese Restoration Day as a bank holiday on 1 December 2011 you missed the last opportunity of doing so. It is one of the four bank holidays to be cut under the new austerity measures imposed by Portugal´s new economic overlords, the Troika.
