Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/564

Rh 542 PORTUGAL [HISTORY. 11. whereupon Pope Honorius III. excommunicated the king and laid an interdict upon the kingdom until Affonso should make compensation and should expel his chancellor from court. This Affonso refused to do, and he was still under the interdict of the church when he died in 1223. Sancho Sancho II. was only thirteen when he succeeded his father, and, as might have been expected during a minority, the turbulent nobility and intriguing bishops tried to undo the late king s labours to consolidate the royal power. The old statesmen of Affonso II. Gongalo Mendes, the chan cellor, Pedro Annes, the &quot; mordomo mor &quot; or lord steward, and Vicente, dean of Lisbon saw that it was necessary to get the interdict removed if there was to be peace during the king s minority, and so they prudently retired into the background. Estevao Scares, the archbishop of Braga, then became the most powerful man in the kingdom, and, with Abril Peres, the new mordomo mor, he agreed with- Alphonso IX. of Leon that the Portuguese should attack Elvas at the same time that the Spaniards laid siege to Badajoz. The siege of Elvas was completely successful ; the young king greatly distinguished himself, and in the following year, 1227, felt strong enough to reinstate his father s old friends in office, making Vicente chancellor, Pedro Annes once more mordomo mor, and Martim Annes &quot; alferes mor &quot; (standard-bearer). This change of power greatly disconcerted the bishops and clergy, who began to intrigue for the overthrow of the young king, but he wisely continued to occupy himself with fighting the Mohammedans, knowing well that the pope would not dare to attack a crusading monarch. He endeavoured to imitate closely his cousin St Louis of France, and his wise policy secured him the protection of the pope, who in 1228 sent John of Abbeville as legate, with full powers to re buke the Portuguese bishops. The legate made the chan cellor, Vicente, bishop of Guarda, and highly commended the favour shown by the king to the friars, who had been introduced into Portugal by his aunts, and to the military orders. But in 1237 Dom Sancho II. had another serious quarrel with the church, and an interdict was laid on the kingdom ; but prompt submission to Pope Gregory IX. secured immediate pardon. Meantime his old and wise councillors had mostly died, and his court was thronged with gay young knights and troubadours. He again attacked the Mohammedans, and invaded Algarves ; and in 1239 he took Mertola and Ayamonte, in 1240 Cacello, and in 1244 Tavira. Unfortunately in the interval between 1240 and 1244 the king fell in love with a Castilian lady, Donna Mencia Lopes de Haro, the widow of Alvares Peres de Castro, whom he probably married. This union was most distasteful to the Portuguese people, and furnished the bishops with a pretext for forming a party and over throwing him, provided they could find a leader and obtain the assistance of the pope. In 1245 the king s brother, Affonso, who had settled at the court of his aunt, Blanche of Castile, queen-dowager of France and mother of Louis IX., and who had there married the heiress of Boulogne, offered himself as a leader to the Portuguese malcontents. The pope at once issued a bull, deposing Sancho, and Joao Egas, archbishop of Braga, Tiburcio, bishop of Coimbra, and Pedro Salvadores, bishop of Oporto, went to Paris and offered Affonso of Boulogne the crown of Portugal on cer tain conditions, which he accepted and swore to obey. In 1 246 Affonso arrived at Lisbon, and solemnly declared him self the defender of the kingdom ; and for two years a civil war raged, which ended in Dom Sancho s retiring to Toledo, where he died on 8th January 1248. Affonso With such a commencement it might have been expected that the reign of Affonso III. would have been a period of civil war and internal dissension, or at least of complete submission to the church and the feudal nobility, but, on III. the contrary, it was from a constitutional point of view the most important of all the early reigns, and also that in which Portugal concluded its warfare with the Moham medans and attained to its European limits. In short, Affonso III. was essentially a politic king, if not a high- principled man. On his brother s death he exchanged his title of &quot; visitador &quot; or &quot; curador &quot; of the kingdom for that of king, and at once prepared to complete the conquest of Algarves. Aided by his uncle Dom Pedro and the Knights Hospitallers under Gongalo Peres Magro, he speedily re duced the remainder of the province. This rapid extension of the Portuguese territory was by no means agreeable to Alphonso X. &quot;the Wise,&quot; king of Leon and Castile; but, after a short war, Affonso III. consented to marry Alphonso s illegitimate daughter, Donna Beatrice de Gusman, and to hold Algarves in usufruct only. He then turned his at tention to his own position in Portugal, and determined to bridle the power of the bishops, in spite of his oath at Paris. Perceiving that this could only be done with the help of the mass of the people, he summoned a cortes at Leiria in 1254, to which representatives of the cities were elected and sat with the nobles and higher clergy. With the help of this cortes one of great importance in the constitutional history of Portugal- he dared the interdict laid upon the kingdom for having married again (the daughter of Alphonso the Wise) whilst his first wife (Matilda, countess of Boulogne) was alive. Finally, how ever, on the petition of the archbishops and bishops of Portugal, Pope Urban IV. legalized the disputed marriage in 1262 and legitimated his elder son, Dom Diniz, while in 1263 Alphonso X. made over to him the full sovereignty of Algarves. On the other hand, the people made use of their power, and in a full cortes at Coimbra in 1261 the representatives of the cities boldly denounced Affonso s tampering with the coinage, and compelled recognition of the fact that taxes were not levied by the inherent right of the king but by the free consent of the people. After a prosperous and successful reign Nemesis came upon Affonso in the rebellion of his eldest son Diniz in 1277, Avhich con tinued until 1279, in which year the king died. The period of war and of territorial extension in the Diniz. Peninsula was now over, and the period of civilization was to dawn. Territorially and constitutionally Portugal was now an established kingdom ; it remained for it to become civilized and thoroughly homogeneous before the great heroic period of exploration and Asiatic conquest should begin. No better man for such work than the new king, Dom Diniz, could have been found : he was himself a poet and loved letters ; he was a great administrator and loved justice ; above all he saw the need of agriculture and the arts of peace to take the place of incessant wars, and nobly earned the title of the &quot;Re Lavrador,&quot; or &quot;Denis the Labourer.&quot; From all these points of view his reign is of vast importance in the history of Portugal, though, like all reigns of peaceful progress, it is not signalized by many striking events. It began with a civil war between Diniz and his brother Affonso, who disputed his legitimacy, which ended in a compromise; and in 1281 Diniz married Isabel, daughter of Pedro III. of Aragon, who for her pure and unselfish life was canonized in the 16th century. His reign is only marked by one war with Sancho IV. and his successor, Ferdinand IV., of Castile and Leon, which was terminated in 1297 by a treaty of alliance, according to the terms of which Ferdinand IV. married Constance, daughter of Diniz, while Affonso, the heir to the throne of Portugal, married Beatrice of Castile, sister of Ferdinand. Still more interesting are the king s relations with Edward I. of England, with whom he ex changed many letters, and with whom he made a com mercial treaty in 1294. He corresponded also often with