Death of King Sebastian at Alcácer Quibir
King Sebastian of Portugal invaded Morocco in 1578, was killed with most of his nobility in an afternoon, and Portugal lost its independence two years later. He was twenty-four, had been raised by Jesuits, was obsessed with crusading, and had no children and no intention of marrying. The pretext was a Moroccan dynastic quarrel. The deposed Saadi sultan Abu Abdallah asked for Portuguese help against his uncle Abd al-Malik, who had taken the throne with Ottoman backing, and Sebastian took the invitation as a providential opportunity. He raised perhaps 17,000 men — Portuguese levies, German and Spanish mercenaries, Italian volunteers — and landed at Asilah, then marched inland with a baggage train that included the court and slowed everything down. Abd al-Malik met him near Ksar el-Kebir with a much larger and better-mounted force and let him march into a position between two rivers. The battle on 4 August is called the battle of the three kings because all three died: Abd al-Malik of illness during it, Abu Abdallah drowned fleeing, and Sebastian killed in a charge with his body never conclusively identified. Some 8,000 Portuguese were killed and most of the rest enslaved, with ransoms that drained the country's silver for years. His elderly great-uncle, a cardinal, reigned two years and died, and Philip II of Spain claimed the crown through his mother and took it in 1580. Portugal was ruled from Madrid for sixty years, and a belief that Sebastian would return persisted for centuries. Sebastianism outlived the kingdom that produced it. Pretenders appeared for decades, the belief that the king would return on a foggy morning to restore Portugal became a durable strand of Portuguese messianism, and it travelled to Brazil, where it turned up in the millenarian revolt at Canudos in the 1890s.
- Year: 1578 CE
- Category: Political
