[1581 - 1640] Iberian Union

The year is 1580. A heavy silence hangs over Lisbon, a city accustomed to the boisterous clamor of a global empire. The air, usually thick with the scent of cloves from the Moluccas and salt from the Atlantic, now carries only the scent of uncertainty. King Henry, the Cardinal-King, is dead, and with him, the direct line of the House of Aviz that had ruled Portugal for two centuries has been extinguished. The throne is empty, a vacuum of power pulling at the very fabric of the nation. Three figures step into the void. There is Catherine, the Duchess of Braganza, a granddaughter of the great King Manuel I, her claim strong, her blood pure Portuguese. There is António, the Prior of Crato, another grandson, illegitimate but beloved by the common people who saw in him a symbol of national defiance. And then, there is the most powerful man in Europe: Philip II, King of Spain. His claim was just as valid, through his mother, Isabella of Portugal. But he was Spanish. To many, he was the embodiment of a foreign threat, the shadow of Castile looming over their hard-won independence.

Philip, a master of statecraft, did not rely on lineage alone. While António rallied the populace with patriotic fervor, Philip mobilized the formidable Spanish army under the command of the ruthless Duke of Alba. In the summer of 1580, the Spanish tercios, the most feared infantry in Europe, marched on Lisbon. António’s hastily assembled forces met them at the Battle of Alcântara, just outside the city walls. It was a slaughter. The discipline and firepower of the Spanish professionals overwhelmed the Portuguese resistance. Lisbon fell, and with it, the dream of a continued independent Portugal. In 1581, at the Cortes of Tomar, the Portuguese nobility, clergy, and bourgeoisie, faced with the undeniable reality of Spanish military might, officially recognized Philip II of Spain as Philip I of Portugal. The Iberian Union had begun. It was a personal union, two kingdoms joined under a single crown, a partnership that would last for sixty years.

Initially, Philip was careful to soothe Portuguese pride. At Tomar, he swore an oath to preserve the autonomy of his new kingdom. The Portuguese language would remain official. The currency, the 'real', would not be merged with Spain’s. Government posts would be filled by Portuguese subjects, and a separate Council of Portugal would advise the king from Madrid. For the wealthy merchant class and the high nobility, this was an acceptable compromise. The vast Spanish Empire now offered new markets and protections for Portugal’s own sprawling trade network. Lisbon’s port remained a whirlwind of activity. The Ribeira Palace, the royal residence, still looked out over ships laden with Brazilian sugar, West African gold, and pepper from India. The architectural style of the era, the “Estilo Chão” or Plain Style, reflected this new reality—a sober, austere Mannerism, shorn of the flamboyant decoration of the previous century, embodying the solemn, bureaucratic nature of the Habsburg court.

But the promises of a king are only as strong as his successors. When Philip I of Portugal died, he was followed by his son, Philip II, and then his grandson, Philip III. These were Spanish kings with Spanish priorities. The careful balance their forebear had struck began to crumble under the immense pressure of Spain’s sprawling European conflicts, particularly the devastating Thirty Years' War (1618-1648). The architect of this decline in Portuguese eyes was a single, powerful figure in Madrid: Gaspar de Guzmán, the Count-Duke of Olivares, chief minister to Philip IV of Spain (Philip III of Portugal). Olivares dreamed of a unified, centralized Spanish state. His “Union of Arms” policy demanded that all parts of the empire, including Portugal, contribute soldiers and, more importantly, vast sums of money to fund Spain’s wars.

The stream of Portuguese wealth, once reinvested into its own empire, was now diverted to Madrid to pay for campaigns in the Netherlands and Germany. New, crippling taxes were levied on the Portuguese people. The salt tax, the flour tax, the property tax—each decree from Madrid felt like another stone laid on the back of the nation. Resentment, once a low murmur in the taverns of Porto and the farms of the Alentejo, grew into a roar. Portuguese nobles found themselves sidelined, their positions of influence given to Spanish loyalists. Their sons were being conscripted to die in foreign fields for a Spanish cause. The commoner saw their meager earnings vanish into the royal coffers, while the empire overseas, left under-defended, began to fall prey to aggressive new rivals like the Dutch and the English.

By the late 1630s, Portugal was a powder keg. A series of popular revolts, like the one in Évora in 1637, were brutally suppressed, but they signaled a profound shift. The conspiracy was no longer a question of if, but when. The plot was hatched in the shadowed halls of Lisbon’s palaces, led by a group of forty nobles and gentlemen who came to be known as 'Os Quarenta Conjurados' (The Forty Conspirators). Their plan was audacious: to overthrow Spanish rule in a single, decisive blow. They had a candidate for the throne, a man with the wealth, prestige, and legitimate bloodline to unite the country: John, the 8th Duke of Braganza, the grandson of the very same Catherine who had been a contender for the throne sixty years prior. He was hesitant, aware of the immense risk, but the tide of national feeling was too strong to resist.

The chosen day was December 1st, 1640. As a gray dawn broke over the Tagus River, the conspirators put their plan into motion. Their target was the Ribeira Palace and the two figures who represented Spanish authority: the Duchess of Mantua, the King's cousin and regent, and her hated Secretary of State, Miguel de Vasconcelos, a Portuguese man seen as a traitorous puppet of Olivares. The conspirators stormed the palace. Panic erupted. Vasconcelos, desperately trying to save himself, hid in a large cupboard within his apartments. He was quickly discovered. Without trial or ceremony, the conspirators shot him and hurled his body from the palace window onto the square below, a gruesome message to all who collaborated with the Spanish crown. The Duchess of Mantua was captured and forced to order the surrender of the Spanish garrison. Within hours, Lisbon was in the hands of the rebels. From a palace balcony, John, Duke of Braganza, was acclaimed by a euphoric crowd as King John IV of Portugal. Sixty years of Spanish rule had ended in a single morning of calculated violence. But as the cheers echoed through the city, a new reality dawned. Independence had been declared, but it was far from secured. A long, draining war with a wounded and vengeful Spain was now inevitable.