Portuguese Empire

(Today part of: Portugal, coastal Brasil)

The Portuguese throne was taken by the king of Spain in 1580, after the Aviz dynasty had died out. He sat it until 1640, when Portuguese nobility and clergy in the north of the country rebelled against him, because Spanish kings did not keep their promise that they would uphold the laws and customs which guaranteed Portugal’s autonomy, whereas all decisions were made in Madrid. However, out their own interests, trade and Inquisitional circles were not inclined to support the separation (or the return of independence), and the pope himself claimed that the Portuguese political independence was connected with the Protestant religious independence, which had spread in Northern Europe at the time, although Portugal had always been one of the most conservative Catholic parts of Europe. Of course, the pope did not dare to antagonise Spain, the greatest of the remaining Catholic powers. Nevertheless, the rebellion succeeded, in most part because of the preoccupation of Castile with the snuffing out of resistance in Catalonia, and the war against France.

 However, Portugal would soon have to pay for its independence by coming under military protection of Great Britain, becoming, to a certain extent, its vassal state. The consciousness of belonging,as well as that of the necessity for belong to a single state (Portugal), was achieved more through great geographical discoveries than through the close connection between the crown and religion in opposing those who are different, as was the case with, for instance, Spain. Also, centuries of wars against Castile created a deep antagonism between the Portuguese and their neighbours on land. When, at the end of the 17^th century, gold was found in Brazil, the state treasury was filled once again, and this was followed by a period of spectacular flaunting of wealth, where the Church, the crown, and the nobility competed against each other in building chapels and palaces gilded with Brazilian gold.