":ilHK«ISiDUiNKnllH>SUB)aK£ ^..GAM'A j:"<iA¥i l-nltl il'Jt ;uii'.iilVii\ w Ul''*''Ll.U> ill* I<1n';I1. iiiiammi^ IHii! iii i'.t'i'l''! (I iliii \ VASCO DA GAMA AND HIS SUCCESSORS: 1460-1580 " Grande sobre as ondas, em lucta com os temporaes, 6 a imagem da nagao, cuja grandeza esti na coragem e na teima com que soube veneer o Mar Tenebroso." VASCO DA GAM A I'KF.SEUVKD FROM A I'l.KMISH IM )KT F; A ll', I'AINTED DURING VASCO DA AMA's I.IJF., AND 1\ THE MUSEL NACIONAL DAS I'.EI.LAS ARFES, I.ISISON VASGO DA GAMA AND HIS SUCCESSORS 1460-1580 BY K. G. JAYNE WITH TWENTY-ONE ILLUSTRATIONS AND MAP METHUEN & CO. LTD. ^ \y 36 ESSEX STREET W.G. f 5 ^ LONDON ^ 5 , V ^ > f First Published in igio PREFACE intention, in this book, has been to outline the MY biographies of certain representative Portuguese of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, giving some account of the society in which they lived and the history which they made. The most momentous incident in that history is Vasco da Gama's first to India in not because voyage 1497-1499 ; only it closed the main period of the Portuguese discoveries and ushered in a of and but also period conquest empire ; because it made an epoch in the history of civilization by establishing direct and permanent contact between Europe and the Far East. Vasco da Gama was the instrument by which Portugal rendered her chief service to humanity. But he was also a true type of the national character at its best and worst. He had what a seventeenth-century writer " " calls its mortal staidness — courage, loyalty, endurance ; he had its ignorant ferocity. His achievement and per- sonality single him out as the most representative Portu- guese of his time, and as such Camoes has made him the hero of The Lusiads. Chief among the other illustrious Portuguese whose portraits I have attempted to draw are Prince Henry the Navigator, Diogo Cao and Bartholomeu Dias, the principal forerunners of Vasco da Gama ; Albuquerque, a genius too to be dismissed in a many-sided phrase ; King Manoel, the cynical autocrat who played one of the greatest games of ever lost fine diplomacy ; D. Joao de Castro, the flower vi VASGO DA GAMA AND HIS SUCCESSORS of culture the Portuguese chivalry and ; King Sebastian, last of the futile the crusaders, gallant and ; Camoes, singer who crowned them all with imperishable bays. To these must be added the names of the Humanist George Buchanan " and of Francis Xavier, the Apostle of the Indies," A Scotsman and a Basque may seem out of place among the heroes of Portugal. But the records of Buchanan's uni- versity career and trial throw light upon the educational system of the country, and upon certain vital points at issue between its Humanists and Churchmen ; while Xavier fulfilled his apostolic mission under the Portuguese flag. The lives of all these men are but episodes in one great drama, of which the whole Portuguese nation is the protagonist. In 1460 Portugal was one among several petty Iberian principalities : by 1521 it had become an empire of world- wide fame, with dominions extending eastward from Brazil to the Pacific. Then followed a period of decline, caused partly by certain defects of national character, but more by the pressure of inevitable misfortune, which ended in the loss not only of greatness but even of independence. In " 1580 Portugal entered upon what is known as the Spanish Captivity," and became for sixty years—in fact, though never in constitutional theory—a subject province of Spain. I have tried to keep in view the main course of these dramatic changes of fortune, from the death of Prince Henry " " in 1460 to the beginning of the Spanish Captivity in 1580. But I have not been able to follow a strict chrono- logical sequence in narrating the lives of men some of whom were contemporaries. Nor have I devoted so much space to purely political history as to those tendencies and ideas which better express the character of a nation—its religion, its social, educational and economic ideals, its attitude PREFACE vii towards alien civilizations, its art and literature. My excuse foi venturing to touch, however unskilfully and superficially, upon these large subjects, is that some ac- quaintance with the beliefs and aspirations of sixteenth- century Portugal is necessary for those who would envis- age the characters of Gama and Albuquerque, Xavier and Camoes. No other background will show them in the right historical perspective. As a critical bibliography is given in Appendix A, and as, if every controversial point were fully annotated, the com- mentary would occupy more space than the text, I have used footnotes very sparingly, except when it seemed desirable to give some further bibliographical reference or to express my indebtedness to the work of a living or recent writer. I hope that I have sufficiently acknowledged what I owe to the researches of Dr E. G. Ravenstein, Dr Theophilo Braga, Senhor Luciano Cordeiro, and Mr R. S. Whiteway, whose work in the domain of Portuguese geo- graphical and literary history it were an impertinence for me to praise. Readers are asked to observe that wherever a book is mentioned in the text or footnotes under an abbreviated title or the name of its author, without further particulars, full details will be found in Appendix A under that title or name. " As Portuguese is not yet the universal language," and this book is not primarily intended for those who are already acquainted with the sources of Portuguese history, I have systematically referred to such translations as are available but there are no versions of ; adequate English many of the most important authorities, notably the chronicles of Barros, Castanheda, Correa and Couto. For viii VASCO DA GAMA AND HIS SUCCESSORS similar reasons I have excluded from Appendix A many manuscripts which nobody can consult without paying a visit to Portugal. My thanks are due to those friends in Lisbon who have aided with advice to Messrs me ; Sampson Low & Co., for kindly allowing me to reproduce the portrait of Prince Henry the Navigator which forms the frontispiece to R. H. classic to the Lisbon Major's Life ; Geographical Society and the managers of the Casa Pia at Belem, whose courtesy has permitted me to reproduce various pictures, etc., in their collections to Senhor M. da of 21 ; and J. Silva, Rua P090 dos Negros, Lisbon, in whose photographs of faded six- teenth-century manuscripts and paintings many technical difficulties have been skilfully surmounted. CONTENTS PACE xi List of Illustrations . Chronological Tables. xiii THE EARLY DISCOVERERS, c. I4i5-U97 CHAP. I I. The Making of Portugal . II. Prince Henry the Navigator 7 III. Seamen and Slaves . IV. Cao, Dias and Columbus 24 VASCO DA GAMA, 1497-1524 V. By Sea to India : The Start 33 VI. By Sea to India : Rounding the Cape 39 VII. By Sea to India: Civilized Africa 45 VIII. By Sea to India: Calicut . 52 IX. Vasco da Gama's Second Voyage . 60 X. Vasco da Gama in Retirement 67 FROM SEA-POWER TO EMPIRE, 1505-1548 XI. D. Francisco de Almeida . 71 XII. Albuquerque THE Conqueror : Goa and Malacca 78 XIII. Albuquerque the Conqueror : Aden and Ormuz .... 91 XIV. Albuquerque : the Statesman 99 XV. King Manoel the Fortunate: 1495-1521 115 XVI. D. Vasco da Gama, Viceroy 123 XVII. D. JoAo de Castro 130 XVIII. A Red Sea Raid 135 XIX. The Epos of Diu 143 XX. The Last of the Heroes 150 IX VASCO DA GAMA AND HIS SUCCESSORS JUDAISM, HUMANISM AND THE CHURCH CHAP. PAGE XXI. The Jews in Portugal . XXII. At the University of Paris 162 XXIII. The Trial of George Buchanan 168 XXIV. An Act of Faith . XXV. The Church in the East 182 1 XXVI. Francis Xavier in Goa . 88 XXVII. Xavier among the Pearl-Fishers 195 XXVI 1 1. Xavier in the Malay Isles 202 XXIX. A Pious Pirate 210 XXX. The First Mission to Japan 2X8 XXXI. The Portuguese in China 227 XXXII. Xavier: The End . 232 ART AND LITERATURE XXX I II. The Art and Literature of Discovery 241 XXXIV. Camoes at Coimbra 250 XXXV. Camoes at Court .... 256 XXXVI. Camoes in the East 263 XXXVII. Camoes: Last Years 273 THE DECLINE OF PORTUGAL, 1548-1580 XXXVIII. The Last Crusade .... 279 XXXIX. The Decadence and its Causes . 285 XL. The Fidalguia . • .295 APPENDIXES A. List of Authorities 299 B. Coinage 3" Index 3^3 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Vasco da Gama . Frontispiece From a Flemish Portrait painted during his hfe and preserved in the Museu Nacional das Bellas Artes, Lisbon. PAGE Prince Henry the Navigator . io From a Fifteenth Century French Manuscript. Vasco da Gama ....... 34 From a Statue in the Casa Pia, Belem, Document written and signed by Vasco da Gama, as Count of Vidigueira and Admiral of India . 70 From the Museum of the Lisbon Geographical Society. Malacca, early in the Sixteenth Century . 86 " " From the Lendas da India of Caspar CorrSa. Aden in the Year 1512 ...... 92 " From the Lendas da India" of Caspar CorrSa. Concluding Paragraph of Albuquerque's last Letter TO King Manoel ...... 97 From the Museum of the Lisbon Ceographical Society. Affonso de Albuquerque ..... 100 From the Drawing by Caspar CorrSa in the Museum of the Lisbon Ceographical Society. King Manoel the Fortunate . .116 From a Sixteenth Century Painting in the Casa Pia, Belem. The Tower of St Vincent, Belem . .121 From a Photograph by J.