Chapter 3 - O Príncipe Perfeito
D. João II
Afonso V (and XII of Castile
jure uxoris) died in 1481, leaving his second wife Juana I and their only child produced in their union, a healthy one named Infante Enrique in 1479, who would succeed her as Enrique V upon her death in 1530, making Castile into something close to a Portuguese vassal (although it is technically not) under a new cadet branch of the House of Avis. As per the Treaty of Mérida in 1477, the short-lived personal union between Castile and Portugal is split between Portugal, with Prince João assuming the thrones of Portugal, Galiza and Leão as João II and Castile under Juana and her heir apparent, Infante Enrique.
At 26 years old, he was well experienced in the affairs of the Kingdom, especially when working with his father in decision-making. He was very smart, pious and well educated thanks in part to the Italian Humanist Justo Baldino. Determined, hard-working and skilled in politics, João II brought new steel to the power of the king for many generations. Even
Niccolò Machiavelli allegedly used him as a model of how an archetypical ruler should rule in his work
The Prince. Those of his own subjects know that under his rule, they soon learned to submit - or die trying.
João II’s long reign [1] was one, if not the most pivotal in Portuguese history. It was under his reign that Portugal made great strides in overseas expansion from Brazil to
Elmina to the island of the
Luções, with recognizable names like
Bartolomeu Dias,
Vasco da Gama,
Afonso de Albuquerque and
Fernão de Magalhães playing key roles in the early years of the empire. The power of the crown has also grown immensely under his reign, keeping the fidalgos in check.
Upon his ascension to the throne in 1481, he convened his first Portuguese
cortes in
Évora in an intense atmosphere, as everyone, even the Galician and Leonese nobles that gained the support of Afonso V during the War of the Castilian Succession know about João’s personality feared what might he do. The representatives of the
concelhos took the opportunity in the
cortes to present a long list of grievances committed by greater nobles within their patrimonies and calling for royal justice to be enforced by crown officials in all such jurisdictions. João himself remembered hearing several grievances during his father’s reign in the
cortes sessions of 1475 and 1477 while acting as regent for him, and was aware that under his father’s reign that the nobility’s influence prevented him from taking action.
While affirming the traditional rights of the nobility, João declared that all grants of land, lordships and jurisdictional privileges now required confirmation from the king, and subjected to scrutinization. He also insisted that the nobles and the other leading subjects must swear allegiance to the new king as their unequivocal superior, and no longer as merely first among equals in the traditional feudal way. Accordingly, a great oath-taking ceremony took place to solidify João’s position in the throne, while the assembled magnates and representatives of the cortes remained humbly standing. The ceremony roused bitter resentment among some nobles, especially from
Fernando, the third Duke of Bragança and the most powerful magnate in the country at the time. The king aware of the potential threat posed by Bragança, and the army he probably possesses. João was supposed to have once quipped to him, “the royal patrimony is divided more or less equally between you and me.”
Fernando II, Duke of Bragança
Given João’s determination to consolidate and build his reputation in the Kingdom, he knew that a showdown with Bragança was almost inevitable. By 1482, Fernando and his supporters had already decided that João must go and begun to conspire for his removal. However, with the lack of foreign encouragement [2], and with
Henry I consolidating Aragon following John II’s death three years earlier, they were eventually doomed from the start. João moved swiftly, arresting Bragança and the other conspirators he could find. Imprisoned, for a year, he was eventually tried for 22 counts of treason, including obstructing royal justice in a special court, and was beheaded. Fernando’s brothers, the marquis of Montemor-o-Novo and the count of Faro were similarly tried and executed the same way [3]. The Bragança domains were confiscated and remained in royal hands indefinitely.
For the anti-centralist nobles, the Bragança conspiracy was a devastating failure, but their resentment for the rising power of the crown was by no means extinguished, and within a few months, other nobles began to conspire for a second time. The new conspiracy again involved some of the most illustrious families in the country, including the Meneses, Coutinhos, Silveiras, Albuquerques and Ataides. One of the key instigators was the Bishop of Évora, Garcia de Meneses, but the real leader was
Diogo, the Duke of Viseu, whose sister
Leonor was João II’s queen. A passive supporter of the Bragança conspiracy, he had been cautioned, but fell on death ears. The conspirators planned to assassinate both the king and his heir apparent Infante Afonso, and elevate Diogo to the throne. Once Diogo becomes king, he would marry an Aragonese princess and return to the pro-nobility policies of Afonso V.
The conspirators came close to confronting the King on several occasions, but eventually João learned about the second conspiracy and summoned the Duke of Viseu to his private chambers in
Setúbal. On September 28, 1484, Diogo was stabbed to death after João confronted him with evidence to assassinate him. The other ringleaders were rounded up to be executed or imprisoned, and the bishop of Évora was placed in a disused cistern in
Palmela Castle, where he soon died. However, he did not extend the punishments beyond the immediate conspirators. He allowed Diogo’s younger brother
Manuel to succeed him and inherit his demesne as both the dukes of Viseu and Beja.
After the suppression of both the Bragança and the Viseu conspiracies, João II was able dominate the higher nobility to an extent that is much greater than his previous predecessors. He kept the creation of new titles to a bare minimum, and only four individuals were granted peerages, one being his much-loved illegitimate son
Jorge and another to Duke Manuel of Viseu and Beja. The prestige and power of the crown grew steadily to the satisfaction of the
cortes, which in 1490 endorsed the trend of centralization. Dynastic continuity, external security and internal stability was brought into Portugal [4].
The Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela
In regards to his policy towards Portugal’s new territories, in the late half of the 1480s, João sought to restore the old ties between Portugal and Galiza. The language was more influenced by Castilian language in the last few centuries, thanks in part to the Castilianized nobility. He encouraged the upper echelons of Galician society to drop the use of Castilian and adopt Portuguese, without hesitation thanks to his charisma. The
Archdiocese of Santiago de Compostela’s hierarchy became more dependent of Lisbon, with the local church bishops slowly becoming replaced with Portuguese ones, a policy that was of João’s predecessor after 1477, and Portuguese becomes the language used in official church documents. Another policy Afonso made after the war was that in 1480, the Galician notaries had to go to Lisbon in order to do their exams in Portuguese and write every official document in that language. Slowly, but surely was the Galician language becoming de-Castilianized and becoming more influenced by Portuguese, restoring the union made between the two languages.
In Leão, João also began to adopt the policy of slowly replacing the noble titles and church officials with local nobles and bishops that are loyal to the crown perspectively. This angered some of the Leonese nobles, which led to a small rebellion in
Salamanca in 1486 which was easily crushed. As with Galiza, João implemented the abandonment of Castilian and the encouragement of the renaissance of the Leonese language, although the language and its dialects were becoming more influenced by Portuguese over time. The Portuguese also claimed the territories in Western Andalusia per the
Treaty of Sahagún in 1158, which placed
Niebla and
Huelva in the Leonese sphere of influence. Those territories later became part of Portugal (as part of the Kingdom of Leão) in 1483 in exchange for the expenses of Portuguese troops brought in after a noble conspiracy in Castile that called for the reinstatement of Isabel as the Queen of Castile.
The Conquest of the Canary Islands
The Canary Islands became fully conquered by 1496. Unlike the earlier noble conquests made by
Jean de Béthencourt, the conquest was carried directly by the Kingdom of Portugal itself, who armed and partly financed the conquest of the islands which are still unconquered:
Tamarão,
Benahoare and
Achinet. After this, the Canaries were directly incorporated into the Kingdom of Portugal. Like in the earlier settlement of the Açores and Madeira, the new Portuguese settlers to the Canaries came mostly from Algarve, Minho and Alentejo, as well as some from Madeira and the Açores, and the newly gained territories of Galiza and Huelva, as well as some Flemish migrants, growing at the expense of the existing Norman and Castilian settlers, which became increasingly subject to lusification. The indigenous
Guanche people become ethnically and culturally absorbed by the Portuguese, and large elements of their culture survive to this day, intermixed within Canarian customs [5] and traditions.
The Kingdom of Portugal after 1483, with the addition of Niebla and Huelva
[1] João II will reign 30 more years than OTL
[2] Apparently OTL they were received some encouragement from Isabella and Ferdinand, but that is butterflied TTL.
[3] OTL they fled to Castile after the conspiracy, but were caught TTL.
[4] Infante Afonso's fatal horse-riding accident in 1491 gets butterflied TTL as well.
[5] Read as Canarian Portuguese, not Canarian Spanish.