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Portugal.

Alfonso X. of Castile had obliged Alfonso, the Restaurador of Portugal, to swear that, for his conquest of A. D. Algarve, he would attend him in his wars with fifty 1279. lances. Diniz, the able successor of the effeminate Sancho, prevailed on the king of Castile to abolish this mark of the dependence of Portugal.

1357.

Pedro, the grandson of Diniz, was an able, just, and vigorous prince: he contended with spirit against the power of the church, which was excessive in Portugal, and held it in check. Ferdinand, his feeble son, left an only daughter, married to John king of Castile, and Portugal 1383. was in imminent danger of losing her independence.

A conspiracy was formed against the queen dowager, who was regent, and her partisans: John, a natural son of king Pedro, and grand master of the order of Avis, was at the head of it. The conspirators rushed into the castle where the queen resided, and Ruy Pereira slew before her eyes her favourite count Ourem. The people rose; the bishop of Lisbon was flung from the tower of his cathedral; the queen fled to Castile ; the master of Avis was appointed regent. The king of Castile (John I.) entered Portugal with an army. Most of the nobles were on his side: the commons were for 1385. Don John, and liberty. At the battle of Aljubarrota 7000 Portuguese defeated more than four times their number of Castilians, and the master of Avis was proclaimed king of Portugal. His reign of forty-eight years was the most brilliant period Portugal had yet 1415. seen. The Portuguese chivalry crossed the strait, and conquered Ceuta from the Moors. Discovery was pro secuted along the coast of Africa, through the generous efforts of his son Don Henry, and Madeira and the Azores 1459, were added to his dominions. While his grandson Alfonso V. was carrying on war with success against the Moors of Fez, adventurous mariners had passed the line, settled on the Gold Coast, and discovered Congo. The Cape of Good Hope was doubled by Diaz.

Discovery of America.

The progress of the Portuguese along the coast of Africa, the discovery of new nations, and the knowledge of the incorrectness of the ideas of the ancients respecting geography, aided by the compass, and the courage and skill acquired by navigating the stormy seas of the north, had prepared men for bold and distant voyages. The great problem was, the passage by sea to India: this the Portuguese sought by the circumnavigation of Africa. Christopher Columbus, a Genoese, a man of great naval skill and courage, by reflecting on the magnitude of the earth, now known to be globular, had conjectured that, by sailing westwards, a ship might, after passing over a moderate space of sea, arrive at the coast of India. Pieces of carved wood, natural productions, and even the bodies of men had been thrown ashore in different places by the waves running from the west various traditions were current of a land to the west having been formerly visited. All these circumstances combined, convinced Columbus that, by sailing due west, a ship must, within a moderate space of time, reach a country which, he was firmly persuaded, must be India. Under this impression, he made, as he thought himself bound to do, the first proposal of attempting the discovery to his native city Genoa. Meeting with no encouragement there, he applied to the king of Portugal, in whose capital he resided; but Don John was too firmly bent on the course which the Portuguese had been so long pursuing to hearken to him. Columbus now sent his brother Bartholomew to Henry VII. of England: he went in person to Ferdinand and Isabel of Spain. Bartholomew was taken by pirates, and did not reach England for a long time, by which means that country probably lost the honour of the future discovery. Christopher, after long soliciting at the court of Castile, at length obtained a small squadron from Isabel, elated with the recent conquest of Granada.

A. D.

With three small vessels, carrying but 90 men, Co- 1492.

lumbus sailed from the port of Palos on the 3d Aug. 1492. He steered westwards, and proceeded a long way without meeting any signs of land: his crews began to grow terrified and mutinous: Columbus soothed and pacified them. At length, one morning (Oct. 12.), the coast and woods of St. Salvador, one of the Bahamas, rose before them, and the New World was discovered. Sailing farther on, they arrived at Cuba and Hispaniola or St. Domingo; and Columbus returning to Spain with intelligence of his discoveries, all Europe was filled with wonder and conjectures. The new country was named West-India, so convinced were men that it could be A. D. no other than a part of India, of which they had such 1493. indistinct conceptions. The next year Columbus dis

covered Puerto Rico, Guadaloupe, and Jamaica. In 1498. his third voyage he discovered Trinidad and a part of South America, which he knew not to be a continent. The ungrateful return made to the services of this great man are too well known, and too consonant to the usual practices of courts, to need mention. He died four 1506. years after his fourth and last voyage, poor and neglected, at Valladolid.

While Columbus was prosecuting his discoveries to the west, the court of Portugal, having now ascertained Africa to be circumnavigable, had sent a fleet under the command of Vasco da Gama, round Africa, in quest of India. He sailed from the Tagus on the 9th of July, 1497, and on the 18th May, 1498 he reached the port of Calicut, on the western coast of India.

They began in

The middle ages here terminate. ignorance, anarchy, and confusion: knowledge and order now regain their dominion. The discordant elements of theocracy, monarchy, feudalism, and democracy, which had been in ceaseless conflict during this period, have so modified one another, as to make the fit state of transition to the blended form which characterises that which follows.

OUTLINES OF HISTORY.

PART III.

MODERN HISTORY.

CHAP. I.

VIEW OF THE STATE OF EUROPE.

Introduction.

Ar the commencement of the middle ages the great empire of Rome was fallen to pieces from internal corruption and decay: the stream of hardy population which poured down from the north had burst all the opposing mounds and dikes, and overflowed the whole of the western empire. Taste and learning, long declining, were almost extinct; the Christian religion, now that of all parts of the empire, was corrupted and debased; and in that state it was embraced by the rude conquerors, and farther degraded by the admixture of their barbarous tenets and practices. The clergy acquired from the superstitious fears of the people wealth, influence, and power; they ruled the laity with despotic sway, and bishops made kings tremble on their thrones: the pope, as head of the church, sought to draw all this power to himself, and then to make it a source of emolument. The papal dominion had finally attained a height unparalleled in the history of man; but, like every other empire, its ascent only led to its descent. The extravagance of the papal pretensions became apparent when learning began

to be cultivated, and its gradual decline has marked the last period of those ages.

One great empire arose in Europe after the fall of Rome; but it fell to pieces when the vigorous mind which had erected it was gone. Europe was divided into small states, and war, internal and external, raged without ceasing: a haughty independent nobility insulted kings, and tyrannised over the people. The barbarians of the North and the East, and the enthusiastic warriors of the Koran, overran, pillaged, and destroyed the fairest regions of the West. The intercourse of nations, except in war, was small; trade and commerce hardly existed; the merchant was subject to be plundered openly by the stranger-lord, and to be pillaged by the arbitrary taxation of his own.

Gradually the night was seen to pass away; monarchs began to extend their power, and to perceive that it was their true interest to protect the people against the tyranny of the nobles, and to bring these last under obedience; the church used her extensive power for the same purpose; the people gradually acquired wealth; their towns were secured by charters and immunities granted by the crown or the feudal lord, and where the crown was feeble, voluntary associations secured them from the rapacity of the nobles. The latter acquired a relish for luxury to obtain money, they alienated or let their lands, and soon felt that they had transformed their obedient retainers into sturdy independent yeomen and citizens.

The lamp of learning was relumed; the study of the scholastic theology and philosophy, and of the Roman law, sharpened men's intellects; travels into the East enlarged their knowledge of the earth; the use of the mariner's compass emboldened their navigation; gunpowder changed the face of war; paper, and at length the art of printing, gave a more rapid diffusion to knowledge; the taking of Constantinople scattered the learning of the Greeks over the West; schools and universities were numerous; men were become eager for knowledge;

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