Sebastian of Portugal
Sebastian I, " the desire of " (Portuguese Dom Sebastião I. " O Desejado " ) out of the house Avis (* January 20, 1554 in Lisbon; † August 4, 1578 in Alcácer - Quibir ) was from 1568 to 1578 of 16. King of Portugal.
Life
Sebastian was born on January 20, 1554 in Lisbon, the son of Joan of Spain and posthumous son of her husband John Manuel of Portugal. He was thus a grandson of the Portuguese King John III. , Whom he succeeded on the throne after his death in 1557.
Just three months after Sebastian's birth, his widowed mother, as Infanta of Castile and Aragon to the Spanish court returned to there to take over the regency for her brother Philip II, while he stayed in England and the Netherlands. They never returned to Portugal and became a major supporter of the Jesuit Order. Since she was in personal contact with the Saint Ignatius of Loyola and St. Francis Borgia of Aragon, is told by her that she was the only woman who ever entered the Society of Jesus, as " jesuita secreta ".
Upon the death of his grandfather, the king, Sebastian was just three years old. Again, therefore, had to take over power a regency. This initially fell to his energetic grandmother Catherine, John III. Widow to. It was she who in 1536 a tribunal of the Inquisition in Portugal introduced and wanted to repeat this even in Goa. The heir to the throne was meanwhile brought up mainly by Jesuits. But soon took on Cardinal Henry, archbishop of Lisbon, a brother of John III. and thus great-uncle Sebastian, the regency. 1568 Sebastian appeared as a 14 -year-old eventually to self- government.
His reign would have disastrous consequences for Portugal: Sebastian lived in a dream world, filled with medieval chivalric ideals and the idea of a crusade. His great object was to conquer the great Marokkinische Empire to Christianity again. In 1574 he led a military expedition to Morocco. A succession dispute in the Sultanate of Fez took the king an opportunity to finally rid Morocco by the Arabs. With an army of 18,000 men, he marched against the advice of all his counselors in the Arab part of the country. He led not only to the Portuguese crown with another, newly -made crown, which should represent his kingdom in Africa.
However, the battle of Alcácer - Quibir ( al -Qasr al - Kabir ) 1578 Morocco became a disaster for Portugal. The vastly superior army of the Sultan Muley Abd el - Malik struck the Portuguese King Sebastian was killed in battle.
Since Sebastian was unmarried and childless, the former Regent, Cardinal Henry, as Henry I took the throne himself. The defeat of Alcazarquivir the country had so weakened that it was after the death of Cardinal Henry of the Spanish Habsburgs, which the Portuguese independence was completed for 60 years.
Sebastianismus
Since the body of the king was never found, the legend developed, Sebastian was still alive and would one day save his country from danger. During the reign of the Spanish Habsburgs in Portugal were also at least three "false Sebastiane " which were leaders of local uprisings against the Spaniards.
Literary and artistic processing
The poetic fiction of King Sebastian's survival is based on a 1839 novel published by Adelheid Reinbold.
The fate of the king and his campaign to Morocco is the subject of Gaetano Donizetti's last opera Dom Sébastien, roi de Portugal ( 1843).