Sebastian I of Portugal
Sebastian I disappeared in Morocco at twenty-four and his kingdom lost its independence within two years. Born in Lisbon in 1554, he was the posthumous son of Prince João and the grandson of João III, and became king at three when his grandfather died in 1557. He was raised by his grandmother Catherine of Austria and then his great-uncle Cardinal Henrique, and educated by Jesuits who filled him with an intense crusading piety. He was physically vigorous, obsessive about hunting and military exercise, uninterested in government, and refused to marry or produce an heir despite constant pressure — he suffered from a genital condition and possibly from the diabetes that ran in the family. He took power at fourteen and directed everything towards a crusade in North Africa. The occasion came when the deposed Moroccan sultan Abu Abdallah Mohammed asked for help against his uncle, who had Ottoman backing. Sebastian assembled some seventeen thousand men, including a large part of the Portuguese nobility, foreign mercenaries and inadequate cavalry, and landed in 1578 against the advice of Philip II of Spain and of his own council. At Alcácer-Quibir on 4 August the army was caught in open country by a much larger Moroccan force and encircled. Almost all of it was killed or captured; three kings died that day, and the survivors had to be ransomed at ruinous cost. Sebastian's body was never certainly identified, which produced Sebastianism — a belief that he would return in fog to restore Portugal — and four impostors. Cardinal Henrique succeeded, died in 1580, and Philip II took the throne.
- Lived: 1554 CE – 1578 CE
- Nationality: Portuguese
- Roles: king, military_leader, head_of_state
