Portugal’s ambitious but impetuous monarch, Sebastião I (1554-1578), is remembered as the young man who orchestrated the greatest of all military disasters in his country’s long and chequered history.
The posthumous son of Prince João of Portugal and of his wife Joanna, daughter of the emperor Charles, he was born at Ribeira Palace in central Lisbon and became king three years later on the death of his grandfather, João III.
Obsessed with the glory of his illustrious forefathers, including Afonso Henriques (the first king of Portugal) and Manuel I the Fortunate, Sebastião lived by the somewhat prophetic motto ‘Uma boa morte honra toda a vida’ (A fine death gives honour to one’s entire life).
As a young king (he succeeded to the throne at the tender age of three) he believed himself to be a man of great destiny in the wake of everything Portugal had achieved since its conception as an independent nation in the 12th century.
Worried that his country might slide into a slow but gradual decline, Sebastião (nicknamed the Boy King) gambled much of his country’s accumulated wealth and power in a crusade against the Muslims to restore some of the greatness Portugal had established over the centuries.
After rallying his troops from the windows of the Church of Santa Maria in Lagos, southern Portugal, he promptly set out in early August 1578 with around 800 ships and some 70,000 men, the cream of Portugal’s young manhood, with the ultimate aim of conquering the imperial city of Fez.
In doing so he led Portugal into a single, overwhelming disaster through a total lack of command, control and communication.
The History of Portugal
Outnumbered five to one by the Moroccans, the Portuguese suffered a terrible defeat at the Battle of Alcácer Quibir which was fought under a very hot sun on the 4th of August 1578, thus marking the end of Portugal’s attempts to reconquer some of the territories it had previously lost in Morocco.
Besides the majority of his weary troops being killed in battle, approximately 15,000 were captured, ransomed or sold into slavery and around 100 survivors escaped to the coast. The body of King Sebastião, who led a charge into the midst of the enemy and was then cut off, was presumed missing by the Portuguese people.
This shocking defeat, coupled with the disappearance of the childless King Sebastião, triggered the end of the Aviz dynasty after almost 200 years of rule and brought about the integration of Portugal under the terms of the so-called Iberian Union for 60 long years until regaining its independence sixty years later.
Such was the affection of the Portuguese people for this young, charismatic king (who so epitomised the heroic spirit of the nation) that a semi-religious cult emerged in his honour labelled Sebastianism, the essence of which involves a widespread refusal to believe that he is dead and will someday return to restore the country back to its former greatness.
King Sebastião was almost certainly killed in action because he was last seen riding headlong into enemy lines in the heat of the Battle of Alcácer Quibir.
But King Filipe II of Spain (who ascended to the Portuguese throne in 1580) later claimed to have received his remains from Morocco and subsequently buried them in the magnificent Jerónimos Monastery (indicated on the Google map below) in the historic quarter of Belém, west Lisbon, where his supposed body now rests.
Oddly enough, the tomb of Portugal’s greatest poet, Luís de Camões (who died on exactly the same day as the Battle of Alcácer Quibir), lies close by in the same church – and his last words are said to have been: ‘I am dying at the same time as my country’.
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