Um rei indesejado: notas sobre a trajetória política de D. Antônio, Prior do Crato

O artigo procura mapear, com base na vida e na trajetoria politica de D. Antonio, Prior do Crato, algumas questoes para o estudo da historia politica e cultural iberica na virada do seculo XVI para o XVII. Personagem controvertido, inquieto e ambicioso, esteve envolvido diretamente na disputa sucessoria que antecedeu a Uniao Iberica e liderou o mais forte partido contra Felipe II. Depois de se autocoroar rei de Portugal, foi perseguido pelo duque de Alba, refugiou-se em cortes europeias inimigas do soberano espanhol e morreu pobre e solitario em Paris, em 1595. A numerosa producao historiografica ja dedicada a D. Antonio, bem como a documentacao ja localizada e catalogada sobre sua trajetoria na corte e o breve e conturbado reinado permitem novas aproximacoes com o tempo, os projetos, as aliancas e os insucessos que conheceu, seja para uma analise macro-historica do periodo, seja para o estudo do personagem em suas varias dimensoes e perspectivas.

experiencing a delicate political moment following defeat by the Moors at the Battle of Alcácer Quibir, on that fateful day of 4 August 1578.Unmarried, the king D. Sebastião disappeared into the sands of North Africa without leaving heirs to the Portuguese throne, assumed afterwards by the last living son of D. Manuel, the Cardinal D. Henrique.The latter, an old and sick ecclesiastic, assumed responsibility for one of the most difficult periods in the political destiny of Portugal, having to affirm himself as sovereign, administer the ransom of a large part of the nobility imprisoned in Morocco and most importantly mediate the delicate succession crisis opened with the imminent vacancy of the throne.
It was in this context that D. Antônio requested the end of the exile imposed on him by his uncle and king, since in addition to the many other issues that had to be resolved, the cardinal had to deal with the intended subordination of his nephew, one of the most seasoned candidates to the succession.D. Antônio intended to overcome the intentions of his cousin, the king of Spain Felipe II, and the Duchess of Bragança, D. Catarina, the preferred niece of the cardinal.The Castilian monarch was the grandson of D. Manuel, by the maternal line; D. Catarina was the granddaughter of the Venturoso by the paternal line, and D. Antônio, Prior of Crato, descendent like the others of the House of Avis, the only male with de masculine ascendency, which would have been an advantage over the others were he not the illegitimate son of the already dead Infante D. Luís. 3 The audacious candidacy of D. Antônio, his insistence on being recognized and the means used to enforce his potential rights provoked the wrath and the implacable resistance of the cardinal, who prohibited him from returning to Lisbon while the question remained unresolved.However, the succession dispute and the rupture of the cardinal with D. Antônio did not only arise out of the heat of the controversy provoked by uncertainty about the future or the impertinent ambition of his nephew.Since from the middle of the 1560s at the very least disagreements with the Prior of Crato had been increasing, involving different questions, including the resistance of D. Antônio to the religious life, to the contrary of the wishes of his father, to the accumulation of debts and the unruly and licentious life than embarrassed the royal family.
In addition to defying his uncle and leading a party against Felipe II, daring to confront him militarily, there gravitated around D. Antônio men who would become Sebastianistas, such as D. João de Castro, and clerics involved in the fables of the false D. Sebastiãos, such as Friar Miguel dos Santos.His followers, servants and sons spread throughout the European courts opposed to Spain and at least one of them, Diogo Botelho, reached Brazil, where he held the position of governor between 1602 and 1607. 4s convoluted life, trajectory and political ambitions, his projects and the large number of followers that be managed to attract to the failed resistance to the Castilian king, as well as the subsequent developments in the Antonista adventure, even after the death of the Prior of Crato in 1595, made D. Antônio a singular figure in his time.This text intends to sketch out, based on some points in the trajectory of D. Antônio, a brief outline of Iberian political and cultural history in the Early Modern Period, irradiating the relations, tensions and problems faced by the Prior of Crato from the 1560s onwards.

A bastard at court
Born in 1531, son of the unmarried Infante D. Luís de Avis and Violante Gomes, a new Christan, D. Antônio was raised with his father and from a young age was destined for the priesthood.He studied first in the Monastery of Costa, belonging to the Order of St. Jerome in the town of Guimarães, after which he went to the Royal Monastery of Santa Cruz in Coimbra, where he was awarded a Master of Arts.In Évora he studied Theology under the guidance of Friar Bartolomeu dos Mártires, 5 who accepted him at the request of the cardinal. 6After the death of his father in 1555, he inherited the priory of Crato, but he refused to take holy orders as a presbyter, the probable root of his first disagreements with his cardinal uncle.It is relevant here to make an aside about an aspect that needs to be clarified: despite being an only child, D. Antônio had given up part of his inheritance to the benefit of the Crown "in exchange for promised rewards that were never given to him", 7 as well as dividing with his cousin D. Duarte a considerable part of the inheritance of his father.To understand this final twist in the implementation of the will of D. Luís, it is necessary to better understand the functioning of his House and its importance in the political configuration of the dynasty of Avis in the first half of the sixteenth century.D. Luís, Count of Beja since 1527, was Constable of the kingdom -the highest ranking military position after the king -, lord of a vast property in Portugal and the African city of Ceuta, as well as the administrator of the Priory of Crato. 8D. Antônio inherited the priory, which gave him a considerable fixed income, though one that was always insufficient for his expanses and projects.What is worth noting is the possible relationship between the limits of the inheritance received and the rights he came to petition from the court after the death of his father.All the indications of the insubordination or profligacy of D. Antônio, with the exception of his resistance to the religious life -from what appears to be after the death of his father in 1555 -, are from the 1560s, which allows us raise the hypothesis that the Prior believed himself to be entitled to graces, favors and privileges equal to or greater than those given to the highest ranking nobles in the kingdom.
Like everything related to the history of D. Antônio, the change from a time of welcoming and adequate behavior for the son of a noble to a period of insolence and insubordination is controversial.This is because what is available about him oscillates from explicit praise to more severe criticism.After being raised as a fidalgo (a noble), frequenting colleges which accepted him due to the interference of his father, and in some cases even the king, his uncle, and attending the funeral ceremonies of D. João III in 1557, 9 the Prior of Crato is then not rarely cited as an intruder and delusional second rate Avis.
The bastardy of D. Antônio, taken as an insurmountable obstacle to his candidacy to success the crown -although it had not been a sufficient impediment for names of such weight as the first of the Avis, D. João I 10 -, becomes somewhat relative by observing some of the sparse data about, for example, the consideration of D. João III during his visit to the Monastery of Santa Cruz of Coimbra in 1551: at the request of the king he met with D. João and D. Catarina, who gave him the honor of accompanying him to his cell, "which she visited with evident signs of curiosity and contentment" (cited in Brandão, 1939, pp.106-107).D. Luís' efforts at court to ensure that he would receive an education as accomplished as any member of the royal family indicates that the 'defect' of birth was not always a negative mark.
After the deaths of D. Luís in 1555 and D. João III in 1557, D. Antônio commenced a new phase in his trajectory.He returned to Lisbon after the death of his father and began to frequent the court in the first years of the government of D. Catarina, during the minority of D. Sebastião.The 11 year regency, occupied by the queen between 1557 and 1562 and by Cardinal D. Henrique between 1562 and 1568, 11 was one of growing difficulties for D. Antônio.D. Sebastião was only three years of age when he was crowned king in 1557, and the division of court between those who were close to the queen or to the cardinal corresponded to the maturity of D. Antônio: having been made heir of the priory of Crato and having left the Jesuit College in Évora, he began to frequent the small group of fidalgos who gravitated around power.
Everything indicates that this integration in court was clumsily handled, since it was in this period that D. Antônio came to appear as a nuisance in court.
After the summoning of D. Catarina on the day after the death of the king in 1557, we find D. Antônio present at the proclamation ceremony of D. Sebastião -at which the queen, grandmother and tutor of the future king did not appear. 12By 1562, however, we find him excluded from the consultations made by the regent about her decision to renounce the government of the kingdom at the end of 1562.During the regency of the queen D. Antônio demanded greater benefits and residency at the court, requests refused by the queen and by the cardinal.Advised to leave Lisbon, D. Antônio left for a monastery in Penha Longa, until he was summoned for the 1562 Cortes, in which the renunciation of the queen and the assumption of the regency by Cardinal D. Henrique were discussed.Thus, despite the resistance of D. Catarina and D. Henrique, the Prior of Crato established important relations in court, which earned him a summoning along with the grandees of the kingdom.This was a further moment in the dispute of D. Antônio with D. Duarte, son of the Infante with the same name and brother of the Duchess of Bragança -whom the cardinal would support in the succession dispute a little later.Being given a place inferior to D. Duarte 13 in the Cortes, D. Antônio retired to Crato, feeling offended and outraged.
Nonetheless, his name was on the list of those nominated by the Cortes to be part of a Council to advise the new regent about questions of the highest importance, such the granting of graces, annuities, commendations and provisions.However, the cardinal could decide whether or not to accept the indicated names, and only approved them in part: when he created the Council of State, in addition to not considering the number of councilors suggested by the Cortes, four names were excluded, including those of the Prior of Crato and D. Duarte. 14D. Henrique showed signs that he would not let himself be easily governed and from this moment on did not spare efforts to publically demonstrate his discontent with D. Antônio.The latters refusal to take the vows of presbyter, the many debts he had incurred and his impertinent demands for more funds and privileges were added to his disobedience of the order to remove himself from court and the indication to the Council.
The transition from the regency of D. Catarina to that of D. Henrique was thus a difficult time for D. Antônio.In seven years of court life, heir to one of the largest Houses in the kingdom -when he died D. Luís had more than six hundred servants -, rentier of the Priory of Crato and present at important moments of the kingdom, D. Antônio structured his alliances during an uncertain and delicate political moment.For this he counted on the loyal vassals of his father, many of whom had been favored by the cardinal, to whom D. Luís was always closely connected.Loyalty to the Infante was transferred to D. Antônio, and various nobles remained by the side of the Prior of Crato during the very difficult times that were to come, such as the already mentioned Diogo Botelho.This network of protection for D. Antônio was woven during the regency of D. Catarina, whose renunciation in 1562 appeared to speak for itself about the political gravity of the moment.The queen needed to find a balance between the valid heirs of her husband and the pressures of her brother, the Emperor Carlos V, who was attentive to each detail of what went on in the kingdom and a defender of the rights of his Castilian grandson, D. Carlos, to the succession to the Portuguese throne -although he was also the grandfather of D. Sebastião, the undeniable heir and still alive (!) -, and administering the growing disputes over D. Sebastião, whose grandmother and guardian she was.While the decision to leave the regency encountered resistance and caused fear of instability in the kingdom, nothing appears to have be more difficult for the queen than to leave the company and care of the future king, 'delivered' to the zeal of the cardinal from 15 September 1563 onwards.After this D. Sebastião moved into the king´s apartments and for the first time in nine years, was no longer alongside his grandmother.This moment of passage was also important for D. Antônio, included amongst those who watched the solemnity of coffee with all the pomp owed to kings, even after being overlooked by the Cardinal in his Council of state.Despite the resistance the Prior continued to frequent the court and did not spare any efforts to be alongside his cousin and king.This proximity would be worth a lot to him after D. Sebastião took over the government of the kingdom in 1568.
Before this, however, the tension with the cardinal increased further.Dissatisfied with the refusal of his repeated requests -including the (denied) request to be nominated Archbishop of Évora, despite his refusal to be ordained (!) 15 -, D. Antônio went to seek support from his other cousin in Castile, King Felipe II, in March 1565.The Prior did not go to just anyone, and irrespective of whether or not he was a megalomaniac, he seems to have had space to feed his ambitions, since he was not only welcomed by the powerful Spanish sovereign, but received from him unusual, though not naive or generous, attention: Cristóvão de Moura, a Portuguese noble in the Castilian court and Felipe II's confidant regarding the affairs of the Portuguese court, was the person chosen by D. Antônio to intercede with his uncles.
The family connections which united the Spanish king to D. Catarina and to the then regent D. Henrique and the opportunity offered by the demand of D. Antônio gave the Felipe II the possibility of not only treating the business of the two kingdoms as a family matter, but also to act as a point of equilibrium and political articulation between the two kingdoms.He found the perfect breach to interfere directly in the internal questions of the Portuguese court, acting as a generous and magnanimous councilor.The account would come later, as we know well, although at that time it was impossible to predict the outcome of the ambitions of the Prior of Crato.
Letters from the cardinal, the queen and from D. Joana, mother of D. Sebastião -who had been living in Spain since May 1554, having left her son in the care of his grandparents when he was a little over four months old 16 -, criticizing the conduct of D. Antônio, especially his decision to abandon the priesthood, date from 1566.D. Catarina wrote to her nephew and the King of Castile in January of that year undertaking to pardon the Prior of Crato and to return his revenues -suspended for the payment of debts -if D. Antônio received holy orders, complying with the will of his father.In June Cristóvão de Moura obtained from the cardinal lifelong income and the end of the pressure for the Prior to be ordained.However, D. Henrique did not consent for his nephew to abandon his habit, Although he would no longer compel him to advance in the religious career, he not would be permit him to abandon the vows already taken.Victorious, D. Antônio returned to Portugal.Extremely annoyed with the embarrassing situation to which he had been exposed, the cardinal banished him from court, ordering him to return to the priory and cease making demands. 17The Prior would only return to court after D. Sebastião came to the throne on 20 January 1568.D. Antônio did not participate in the coronation ceremony of his cousin, but soon found himself included among those indicated for positions, a choice that, amongst other things, showed the increased distancing of the young king from the directives of government of the cardinal and the queen.
The two periods of regency deepened the irreconcilable divergences between D. Catarina and her brother-in-law, which only aggravated the division of the nobility and the tensions related to the new moment that began when D. Sebastião effectively took power.And it would not be this time that D. Antônio would listen to his elderly uncle and aunt.While in his seeking out of Felipe II the Prior of Crato managed the rare feat of approximating the queen and the cardinal in the struggle against his demands and against an increase in his privileges, with the ascension of the Desejado a new moment of setbacks would begin for the two old regents.Due to age and to the fact that the networks of power had been consolidated between 1521, date of the beginning of the reign of D. João III, and 1568, the end of the regency, the principal positions in the kingdom were given to older groups who gradually found themselves substituted by the 'new friends of the king'.With the growing distance of the cardinal, it is no surprise that D. Sebastião chose among his men of confidence D. Antônio, now aged 37 and excluded from the clientele networks of the old regents.
Without entering into the debate about the almost atavistic decision of the Desejado to go to Africa to wage war against the Moors, according to his critics the cause of the disaster that led to the loss of the king and the sovereignty of the kingdom in 1580, the fact is that since the 1570s the monarch was increasingly more attentive and involved with the policy of the kingdom towards that region.Moreover, D. Sebastião appears to have seen the Prior of Crato as a possible servant for the cause.This brought together the king's wishes and D. Antônio's longstanding dream of becoming a knight like his father, who had served in Tunis in 1535.Like his son would do later, D. Luís, then Constable of the kingdom, joined the troops of Carlos V without the authorization of his brother and king, D. João III.Embarrassed by the situation, the monarch was obliged to send an expedition on the unplanned journey, in which participated, then still a boy, Luís de Camões (see Buescu, 2005, p.166).In July 1574 when the Prior was nominated governor of Tangier, the cardinal left Lisbon and retired to the monastery of Alcobaça, in a sign of disapproval of the choice of the Prior.D. Sebastião's decision also heightened D. Duarte's resentment, previously the favorite of the regent and now overlooked by the king, in the private dispute he had long fought with his bastard cousin.
. Antônio was chosen theoretically because of the knowledge he had obtained in a previous visit to North Africa.In 1571 the Prior had been in Tangier, without royal authorization and free of his vows -from which he had been released by papal authorization, yet another question in need of further investigation 18 -, to the immense displeasure of his religious uncle.It is not known for certain how much time he spent there, but at the end of 1573 he was alongside D. Sebastião in Santarém; some months later he returned to Africa, now nominated governor.
A student of the expeditions to North Africa which preceded Alcácer Quibir, Sales Loureiro states that D. Antônio's going to Tangier was a type of preamble to D. Sebastião's first trip to the region in August 1574.Passing through Algarve, the Desejado reached Ceuta a little after D. Antônio had landed in Tangier.The Prior do Crato's departure involved military preparations, amongst other measures men were summoned to accompany him on his enterprise, with the aim being to recruit "one thousand lances of horse, and with them persons of high quality and state."The recruitment did not reach the number expected and D. Antônio left with a set of general and private 'Instructions', according to which he was urged to follow the advice of a Council and to observe the limitations of power determined by D. Sebastião.
An aspect that is still relatively unexplored in this part of the troubled trajectory of D. Antônio is the letter sent to Felipe II informing him of the nomination and the secret incumbency that he had received from D. Sebastião.On 14 May 1574 D. Antônio wrote to the Spanish king telling him about his departure and the objectives of his journey.It can be imagined that he did this as a mark of gratitude in return for his cousin's efforts to free him from religious service, since he declared that the king now wanted him in "acts of war of which he was always more fond than the habit and from now on His Highness wants me to serve him", however it is impossible not to register the betrayal of D. Sebastião and his recommendations of secrecy. 19Nevertheless, the Desejado appears to have never trusted his cousin completely: the nomination of a Council to advise him in Tangier and the limitations imposed on his actions demonstrate well the reserve with which he always acted towards D. Antônio.
The adventure was short: at the end of October the former governor returned to Portugal accompanying the king, who had begun his first journey to North Africa on 17 August 1574, going to Ceuta and afterwards to Tangier, when he met with D. Antônio and brought him back to Portugal.He held the position for a little more than three months and was replaced by D. Duarte de Menezes, who had been displeased with the nomination of D. Antônio due to the antiquity of the position exercised by the former's father and grandfather.Little else is known about this clumsy 'mission' of D. Antônio, and Sales Loureiro says that it was his lack of ability and weak military determination that motivated the untimely decision of D. Sebastião to leave for North Africa, to the affliction of his grandmother and the old and tired cardinal.Although the king did not trust his cousin enough for the task, this moment in their relationship and the reason behind D. Sebastião's decision to leave for Africa still need to be better understood.
Frustrated again, D. Antônio was shocked by D. Sebastião, from whom he had received unthinkable favors during the cardinal's government.As already mentioned, it is not easy to know what led the king to nominate his cousin for such an important mission, since at that time D. Sebastião's intention to go to Africa was almost decided.Sales Loureiro speculates that the decision may have been aimed at pleasing Felipe II -until then a type of ally of his bastard cousin -and to annoy the cardinal, with whom he was already disagreeing and did not hesitate to publically disagreed.Whatever the reason the choice created new problems and exposed D. Antônio to yet another uncomfortable and fragile situation in the political economy of favors and prestige in life at court (Loureiro, 1989, p.163). 20ter 1574, and in the years that preceded the expedition to Morocco, we only meet D. Antônio again on the day of departure for the African adventure, once again upset with the king, who he believed had treated him badly the day before.Susceptible and always resentful, he remained in the River Tagus with the Duke of Aveiro, his intimate friend, and coincidentally or not alongside the fleet of the Duke of Bragança, who was awaiting the arrival of his new heir, the young Duke of Barcelos.After the death of D. Duarte, 21 a long term competitor, in 1576, D. Antônio must have thought that his life in court would be facilitated, but we see him leaving for Alcácer Quibir without any leading role.This hiatus, like so many others in the trajectory of D. Antônio in court, still deserves attention.1576 was decisive in relation to various aspects: the question of the succession in Morocco opened a crisis based on which D. Sebastião decided to prepare his clumsy adventure.In December the Portuguese king went to meet his Castilian uncle in Guadalupe, where he believed he had obtained Spanish aid for the Moroccan venture.He also discussed a possible matrimonial contract with the oldest daughter of the Catholic King, Isabel Clara Eugênia, which Felipe II promised to decide on after Alcácer Quibir. 22 do not know where D. Antônio was during the period of preparation for the battle, though we find him again on the docks alongside the Tagus River.Once again upset and resentful.However, if he thought that his opportunity had finally arrived to show his warlike qualities he was once again frustrated: wounded and captured by the Moors, he was ransomed by the knight Gaspar da Grã with help from the Jew Abrãao Gibre, possibly favored by D. Antônio in the few months in which the Prior governed Tangier.The great contradiction of the ransom of D. Antônio was that his release was facilitated by the habit of the Knights of Malta which he wore under the miserable clothes of a prisoner.Gaspar da Grã, also a captive, convinced the enemy that the insignia meant that Prior was the parish priest of a profitable church, whose benefit would expire at the end of the year, with his replacement, which hurried up the terms of ransom.On 12 October 1578 D. Antônio disembarked safely in Lisbon (Velloso, 1945, p.411).Perhaps the cardinal believed that he all the unpleasantness with his nephew was over, but not even in his worst nightmares could he imagine what was to come.

A bastard on the throne
At this moment a new and decisive stage in the troubled life of the Prior of Crato began.As seen in the epigraph, in the year after Alcácer Quibir D. Antônio had once again fallen out with Cardinal D. Henrique, been banished from Lisbon and had decided to confront the cousin who had welcome him in 1565, the powerful Felipe II.After the death of the cardinal on 30 January 1580 and with the succession question still undecided -D.Henrique's favorite was the Duchess of Bragança, but he could not achieve support from the nobility, who had been strongly wooed by Felipe II, and he would never admit the hypothesis of recognizing D. Antônio's rights -, the kingdom was given over to a Council of Governors. 23It is worth noting that since September 1579, due to the lack of alternatives and to prevent Portugal from being invaded by the troops of Felipe II, the cardinal appears to have considered, or found himself forced to consider the candidacy of the Spanish king.Whether due to hesitation or resistance to the subordination of the Portuguese crown by Castile, the fact was that the cardinal died without officially recognizing Felipe as his heir, leaving the kingdom almost adrift, at the mercy of the forces in confrontation.
As the highest scale of the nobility and the clergy had done, 24 Felipe II tried to negotiate his path to the Portuguese throne with the principal pretenders to the Portuguese crown, D. Catarina de Bragança and D. Antônio.Since the end of 1578 Cristóvão de Moura had tried to dissuade D. Antônio from participating in the succession dispute, for which the latter was reminded of the many obligations he owed his cousin -in his difficulties with D. Catarina and with the cardinal, as well as his intervention with Rome to dispense with the deaconship -, however the Prior insisted on his rights, though he stated that if he was not successful, he would serve Felipe II.During 1579, however, their positions irredeemably clashed, especially after his interview with Moura in June when D. Antônio maintained his refusal to make any agreement to desist from the succession.In October, feeling valorized by the appeals of the Spanish king, he once again began to make demands to abdicate his 'rights': he asked for a lifelong and hereditary income and wanted to be the perpetual governor of Portugal.He finalized with the tone of an ultimatum: peace or war for the end of the impasse was in the hands of Felipe II.The strength of D. Antônio in the political grammar of the succession of the scenario was evident. 25ter January 1580 and with Spanish troops at the gate, the Prior of Crato proclaimed himself D. Antônio I of Portugal in Santarém on 19 June 1580.At the end of the same month Castilian forces commanded by the Duke of Alba invaded Portugal and on 25 August D. Antônio was wounded and defeated in the Battle of Alcântara.Following this the mysterious, surprising and successful flight of the Prior of Crato to the north of the country occurred: D. Antônio was never captured by the feared troops of the Duke.Tirelessly he went to England and then to France until he decided to settle in the Azores in 1581, from where he intended to return to Portugal.In 1583, however, the Antonist adventure in the Atlantic islands was ended by the final victory of Felipe II.In 1589 the last gasp of his enterprise took place with the English fleet led by Sir Francis Drake, which was also a failure.From England, to where he had moved in 1585, he left for Paris, the place of his death in 1595.
The meteoric monarchical career of the Prior of Crato, resumed here with the brevity of his rise and fall, was what gave D. Antônio the protagonism he had so desired during the two previous decades.Trying to gain the throne once again he had to confront his old uncle, now in a context of the absolute exhaustion of the cardinal's patience.With his bastardy being the principal obstacle to his 'official' participation in the dispute, he sought in every possible way to clean the stain of illegitimacy, which as he have seen had not necessarily been an impediment at other moments and in other contexts.D. Antônio concentrated his efforts on the attempt to prove that his father, the Infante D. Luís, had married Violante Gomes.This is a separate chapter in his trajectory in relation to which we still have much to learn.Regarding the importance assumed by the question between 1578 and 1580, it is worth mentioning the investigation ordered by the Spanish king in Portuguese archives.He ordered that documents be copied, including the will of the Infante D. Luís, deposited in Torre do Tombo.The evidence he sought to gather to prevent D. Antônio's candidacy demonstrated how legitimacy could threaten the latter's pretentions.
Felipe II built up a dossier on the question, now kept in the Archives of the House of Alba in Madrid. 26In Caja 117 we can find the so called "Original process concerning the legitimacy of the Prior of Crato and other papers referring to the succession in Portugal", with documents from 1579 and 1580, which demonstrates the importance the Spanish king gave to the issue. 27From what the Spanish documents allow us perceive, D. Antônio's pretensions were not treated as those of a simple adventurer, but rather as someone capable of upsetting Felipe II's projects.
The question of the legitimacy of the Prior of Crato, in discussion since his return from captivity in Africa, also led to a rift between the cardinal and the pope, Gregory XIII.By declaring his nephew illegitimate -"we declare the said D. Antônio, my nephew, as not legitimate, thus making illegitimate any intentions to matrimony and legitimacy," -D.Henrique had gone further that the authorization he had received to indicate witnesses and to prepare the acts, which were to be sent 'closed and sealed' to await the decision of the Holy Pontiff.The old king saw his decision annulled, which shows the political capacity of D. Antônio to make his request reach Rome, despite the pressure of Felipe II on the papacy to implement his own rights to the Crown. 28 Antônio continued to maintain his art of displeasing and intriguing the highest authorities, in this case the Iberian kings and the pope!What was at play was the succession to the monarchy of a valuable kingdom in the political and religious chess of that period, a time of religious wars and the affirmation of the power of Felipe II at the head of Christianity.The only one to openly defy Felipe II, D. Antônio appears to have hastened the Spanish king's decision to invade Portugal when he proclaimed himself king at Santarém.Furthermore, he was an enemy capable of mobilizing the intelligence and military force led by the feared Duke of Alba. 29D. Antônio thus appears at the forefront of the political and cultural life of his time, attracting supporters and making enemies wherever he went.Nobility, life at court, proximity with monarchs and the privileges which he enjoyed appear to have always been little for him.Ambitious, he resented the intermediate position he occupied at court, although for the time it was prestigious, and he did not hesitate to demonstrate his discontent or to demand rights which he felt he deserved, rights that were always increasing, with only the throne being the limit.Moreover, if his complicated political trajectory were not enough, his personal life was no less intense, as shown by the six to eight children he had, all bastards like him.Some of these continued their father's pretension to royalty, or paid dearly for them, such as his daughters imprisoned in Spain while Felipe II tried to capture D. Antônio, who may have been protected by clerics in convents where he sheltered during his flight. 30ny aspects in D. Antônio's life are in need of further analysis.From his New Christian origins and his religious education, his relationship with his father and with D. João III, his disagreements with D. Catarina and the cardinal during the minority of D. Sebastião and the approximation with Felipe II.At the court of the Desejado his presence oscillated between recognition and ostracism, and at Alcácer Quibir he flirted with the heroic image for which it appears he had always longed.The monarchical adventure was the peak of his unique trajectory, both due to the grandeur of his project and to the followers he managed to attract, of which the vast correspondence now kept in the National Archive at Torre do Tombo is proof. 31The judicial debate about his legitimacy is another vast field of investigation, as are his tentative relations with Queen Elizabeth I and Catharine de Médici in search of political and military support against Felipe II.With the candidacy of D. Antônio and the difficulty in proving his legitimacy, there reappears in the political debate the theme of the 'election' of the Portuguese monarch, an argument which had important adepts in the case of the Prior of Crato.For example, the arguments of Friar José Teixeira about the popular origin of power. 32His ephemeral 'royalty' in the Azores, his relationship with his children, the mysterious mothers and his exile represent other areas of interest, some of which are perhaps insolvable.
Dying at the age of 64, an advanced age for the time and for the precarious conditions in which he appears to have died in Paris, D. Antônio defied the limits imposed by the conditions of being a bastard infante.Relationships built up in court, and through it, gave him a privileged position at various moments of the Iberian history of his time, of which there is still much to discover.I thus believe that the interest in the trajectory of D. Antônio is not restricted to the his personal history, although it is instigating and intriguing in various aspects, but because of how much it can reveal about political and cultural injunctions of the time.His passage through the Portuguese court at such a delicate and tense moment can help us understand some of its meanderings and the representations of power and debates about the legitimacy of the royal succession.Despite its singularities, the Antonist resistance had a heavyweight and unpredictable competitor: Sebastianism, the belief that emerged in the middle of the succession dispute which defeated the Prior of Crato in time and space, not to mention those close to him, such as D. João de Castro and Friar Miguel dos Santos, co-opted by the Sebastianist belief out of disillusion with a king without a throne or persecuted by Castilians. 33There are thus many questions intersected by the ambition of D. Antônio and by the unfolding of a cause that crossed the borders of Portugal, involving sovereigns from various European monarchies.

A historiographic sketch
The trajectory of D. Antônio in the Portuguese court between 1560 and 1580 is still little known or studied, and the rapid outline presented here intended to analyze, focusing on sparse fragments, the tumultuous presence of the Prior of Crato in some of the principal scenarios of Iberian politics of the period.Perhaps because he witnessed so closely and so actively the important decisions taken in the two courts, he thought he was authorized to demand the highest position in the Portuguese hierarchy, and no matter how much his ambitions can be understood through a singular and complex personality, to say the least, D. Antônio worried and discomforted the greatest Iberian authorities, and received from them the special treatment suitable to the great fidalgos of his time.From this perspective the protagonism achieved after the presentation of his candidacy during the succession dispute can be seen from a new angle, capable of, at the very least, problematizing the interpretations which see him as an almost anecdotal addendum without much weight in the politics of the time, or as an intrepid representative of Portuguese nationality, a patriot avant la lettre, whose struggle symbolized the heroic, melancholic and defeated resistance to the Spanish.
The majority of works on D. Antônio have concentrated on the ephemeral royalty of the Prior of Crato.In addition to this phase, there is vast list of bibliographic references about him, notably the large number of texts produced between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth. 34ut it was especially between 1930 and 1950 that the most cited and complete studies of D. Antônio were published -works which remain obligatory references on the Prior and his monarchical enterprise.While between the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth the transition from monarchy to republic may have motivated interest in the Prior of Crato, indicating the nostalgic appeal of the regime which had just ended -a return to something similar experienced with Sebastianism -, in the middle of the twentieth century perhaps nationalist fervor and its impasses help us to understand the valorization of D. Antônio's struggle and his project in Portugal.
Since it would be impossible to list the entire bibliography encountered to the present moment, a tariff that is perhaps never-ending, due to the copious citations of documents and publications scattered in archives in France, England and Holland, not to mention Portugal and the Spanish archives, 35 I will only present the reference works, in order to indicate how D. Antônio and his 'court' were treated by historiography now considered to be classics.
In 1939 Mário Brandão published Coimbra e D. Antônio Rei de Portugal, 36 in the first volume of which, concerned with the education of D. Antônio, he made a detailed and meticulous analysis of the future Prior's first years of study, highlighting his intelligence and his lack of inclination for the monastic life and his love of the hunt and bull fighting.The author continued his research on the period publishing a further two volumes of documents, essential for the study of D. Antônio's life, clearly biased in favor of the latter. 37Like all the other authors he considers the Prior do Crato King of Portugal, which clearly informs the adoption of a position in favor of someone who was never sworn in as the Portuguese king, other than by himself and a few loyal defenders.
In the 1940s two works were of particular importance.In 1942 Fr.José de Castro published O Prior do Crato, one of the few works of that period which did not treat the Prior as king of Portugal.The author sought to highlight the importance of D. Antônio in the context that led to the Iberian Union, and defended that "everyone, friends or enemies, those who sought to build or censor his image, agree that D. Antônio was the most interesting person in the national drama that was the loss of our independence."For the priest, who followed D. Antônio from his struggle for legitimacy to his solitary death in Paris, the Prior of Crato was "the standard bearer of the liberty of the patria", deserving for this the sympathy of future generations.Despite his taking of sides, it is an important and well documented book, with sources from the Secret Archive of the Vatican. 38In 1947 Pedro Batalha Reis published Numária d'El-Rei D. Antônio.Décimo oitavo rei de Portugal.O ídolo do povo, the title of which speaks for itself about the author's position.The study of the possible coins minted by the bastard king was possible due to his contact with the manuscript of Crônica de D. Antônio, by Pedro de Frias, about which I will speak below. 39 the 1950s D. Antônio received attention from some of the most important Portuguese historians of that time.In 1953 José Maria de Queiroz Velloso published O Interregno dos governadores e o Breve Reinado de D. Antônio.Velloso is the author of three of the most complete research works on the period, with the volume about the Prior of Crato completing the trilogy formed by the biography of D. Sebastião, published in 1935, and by the study of the kingdom of Cardinal D. Henrique, published in 1946. 40The author proposed an analysis of the political action of the Prior of Crato based on widespread documentation, although in the cases of the works on D. Sebastião and the cardinal, his perspective was a Spanish usurpation had occurred, despite his numerous indications about the negotiations of the Spanish envoys with important members of the Portuguese envoys.The historian examined the ample correspondence between Cristóvão de Moura, a Portuguese in the service of Felipe II, and the Spanish king, demonstrating the enlistment of a good part of the nobility for the project involving the annexation of the two crowns, in which the actual Duchess of Bragança, seeing her pretensions frustrated, also took part (Velloso, 1946, pp.259-269).Queiroz Velloso's perspective which focused on a transition agreed by part of the nobility and the Spanish king has been expanded by the Spanish historian Fernando Bouza Alvarez in 1987, whose thesis about the negotiated character of the incorporation of Portugal into the Hispanic monarchy updated the analysis using a study of the dynamics of court society at that time.Based on the questions raised by the so-called now political history, combined with the developments of cultural history with an anthropological perspective, Bouza Alvarez analyzed the policy of negotiations implemented by Felipe II as part of the logic of the policy and the exercise of power in the shaping of the Iberian Union. 41Although the concept of 'agreement' is present in the work of Queiroz Velloso and Bouza Alvarez, the meaning attributed to the actions of those involved can be read in a very different way in the two authors, a difference that is also important for the study of adherence and resistance to the Antonist royalist policy.
A large part of the documentary and analytical novelty of Queiroz Velloso's work is due to the use of Spanish sources in the study of the three periods.In O Arquivo Geral de Simancas.Sua importância capital para a história portuguesa, 42 edited in 1923, the author highlighted the importance of this collection to understand Habsburg policies in Portugal and the longstanding intention to annex Portugal to the Spanish crown since the time of Carlos V.
Two years later, in 1955, Mario Alberto Nunes Costa's Crónica del-rei D. António, was published, attributed to Pedro de Friasa, a contemporary of the events at the end of the sixteenth century and a follower of D. Antônio in the Azores.A manuscript copy of the chronicle was located in Brussels and bought by the National Archive of Torre do Tombo in 1934.The chronicle, attributed to one of the adherents of Antonist royalty, is a precious document about the enterprise of the Azores and provides information about the origin and diversity of the group which followed the Prior of Crato, as well as being an important source for the political terminology of the time.What calls attention here is the coincidence of the name with that of the friar cited João Lúcio de Azevedo, author of Coplas de frei Pedro de Frías, which emerged in Valência, Spain in 1520.These were glosses in popular rhymes of prophetic texts attributed to Saint Isidoro of Sevilha, which probably circulated in the Hispanic kingdom even before the ballads of the shoemaker Gonçalo Annes Bandarra.Persecuted by the Inquisition, Bandarra was considered by a former Antonist, D. João de Castro, as a prophet of Sebastianism. 43In one of the notes in the chronicle about D. Antônio, cited here, there is mention of the author as a friar, making even more intriguing the relationship between the prophetic versions and the later adhesion to Antonism.Another aspect to be considered are the corrections made in the original, or rather the exclusion of passages seen as superstitious and concerned with wonders in the text of Pedro de Frias.If these suspicions were confirmed, we would see in this chronicler an inverse trajectory to that of D. João de Castro, who after defending the Prior of Crato and becoming disillusioned with him, wrote the first history of D. Sebastião, including sacred aspects to explain the survival of the king after Alcácer Quibir. 44 1956 Joaquim Veríssimo Serrão published O reinado de D. António Prior do Crato, originally a doctoral dissertation in the University of Coimbra. 45A monumental work and the first volume in an unfinished about the Prior, the work is unsurpassable on the brief but agitated period between his proclamation in Santarém, in June 1580 and the eve of the Battle of Vila Franca do Campo on São Miguel island in the Azores in 1582.In addition to the courageous research which accompanies almost on a daily basis the footsteps of D. Antônio and a number of his direct assistants, the work includes a valuable documentary index and the itinerary of the Prior between June 1580 and June 1582.The almost seven hundred pages dedicated to such a short period confirm the wealth of the theme and its many complex implications in the political and cultural scenario of the epoch.
The historiographic and documentary value of the work, nevertheless, does not hide a clear taking of sides, since although the author stresses that it is not a panegyric, the challenge was to go back to "the data of a historic problem to conclude with the aggrandizement of a figure who -measuring his valuable qualities against the defects of which he had left clear evidence -appears to have justified his recognized homage among the Portuguese".Serrão also stressed the importance of the publication of sources from the period for the development of his work, such as Pero Roiz Soares' Memorial, from which we extracted the epigraph of this text, and the already mentioned Crônica de Pedro de Frias.The same year Mário Alberto Nunes Costa, editor of Crônica, published Os Arquivos del-Rei D. Antônio e de seus servidores, a rich catalogue which mapped the correspondence between the Prior of Crato and his followers and descendents, now in Torre do Tombo National Archive and archived in the same operation that brought the text of Pedro de Frias to Portugal. 46There seems to be no doubt about the importance of the question in 1950s Portugal. 47nce the 1970s various studies have been concerned with specific aspects of the trajectory of D. Antônio or have proposed bibliographic essays, but for a long time there have been no new studies summarizing his entire career. 48rom what has been shown in this text, the vastness of the themes, questions and characters involved in the tangles Antonist adventure can be glimpsed, all of which were capable of unifying European macro-history and the singular path of men and women both in the highest spheres of the nobility and in poorer groups.This text presented a brief overview of these possibilities of analysis and proposed some developments of the various questions arising out of the personal and political history of the bastard candidate to the kingship of Portugal. 4D. João de Castro adhered to the resistance to D. Antônio after the Battle of Alcântara, fought on 25 August 1580, where he was injured.He left Portugal and participated in the 1582 Azores expedition, but became disillusioned with the king and his court in 1583, when he abandoned the Antonist project and moved to Sebastianism.His admiration for the shoemaker Bandarra, whom he considered a true prophet, make him publish for the first time (Paris, 1602) part of his ballads, with the title Paráfrase e concordância de algumas profecias de Bandarra.The following year he rewrote the biography of D. Sebastião narrating how the king could have survived the aftermath of the battle, with the title Discurso da vida do sempre bem-vindo e aparecido Rei Dom Sebastiam Nosso Senhor Encoberto desde seu nascimento até o presente.Later he was involved in the conspiracy of the pretender from Venice, the Calabrian Marco Túlio Catizzone, between 1599 and 1603, in which various other Antonistas living in Europe participated.Friar Miguel dos Santos, orator of the funeral of D. Sebastião, was close to Cardinal D. Henrique, but since early on had doubted the death of D. Sebastião.After adhering to D. Antônio, he was exiled from Portugal by order of Felipe II, transferred to a convent in Madrigal, near Valladolid, and appears to have been the mentor of the plot of the false D. Sebastião of Madrigal between 1594 and 1595.The relationship of Diogo Botelho, a confidant of D. Antônio, with both the Habsburgs and with Brazil, where a noble with the same name was nominated governor between 1602 and 1607, need greater investigation.There was more than one Diogo Botelho, and for Serrão there is no doubt that this Diogo Botelho was the former ally of D. Antônio, afterwards sheltered by Felipe II.Nevertheless, there is some evidence that it was the Antonista uncle of this Diogo who came to Brazil, since according to document 362 of the Inventário dos arquivos de D. Antônio e seus descendentes, Diogo Botelho died in Paris on 23 March 1607.He had accompanied the Prior of Crato in his flight from Portugal and resisted the "great and advantaged party" of the enemies of the Prior.Cf.Panegírico à Memória de Diogo Botelho, falecido em 23 de março de 1607.It is worth noting that in 1607 the governor with the same name was still in Brazil, which indicates that this was pos-10 Bastard son of D. Pedro I and a Galician woman.He was destined for the mastery of the Order of Avis when he was still a child and become one of the richest lords in Portugal.During the 1383 succession crisis, he confronted and defeated D. João of Castile at the battle of Aljubarrota.He was crowned king in 1385 and started the dynasty of Avis.His image was tied to that of the Messiah of Lisbon and his 'choice' was based on the thesis of the right of the people to elect their sovereign, returned two centuries later by the defenders of the right of D. Antônio.In relation to this, see Ventura, Margarida Garcez.Messias de Lisboa: um estudo de mitologia política.Lisboa: Cosmos, 1992.The dynasty of Bragança, which assumed the monarchy upon the 1640 Restoration, also had a bastard origin: the House emerged from the marriage of the infante D. Afonso, bastard son of D. João I, and D. Brites Pereira, the only daughter of Nuno Álvares Pereira.The latter received for the wedding a large amount of land, farms and castles, while D. João also gave his son a vast property.The wealth of the House was increased in following years through the granting

NOTES1
This research was supported by the National Council of Scientific Research in Brazil (Conselho Nacional de Pesquisa Científica do Brasil -CNPq).I borrowed the title of indesejado (undesired') from the play by Jorge de Sena, O indesejado, about the tragedy, in the words of the author, of the misadventures of D. Antônio.Written between 1944 and 1945, the first edition was released in 1951.I would like to thank Andréa Doré for the observations and suggestions made in regard to the first version of this text. 2Almeida, M. Lopes (Ed.).Memorial de Pero de Roiz Soares.Leitura e revisão de M. Lopes de Almeida.Acta da Universitatis Conimbricensis.Coimbra, 1953, cap.51, p.123.The spelling has been updated. 3In addition to Felipe II, grandson of D. Manuel I through his mother, the empress and queen of Spain, D. Isabel de Portugal (1503-1539); the Duchess of Bragança, D. Catarina, also a granddaughter of the Venturoso on the male side, since she was a daughter of D. Duarte (1515-1540), and D. Antônio, grandson of D. Manuel and natural son of D. Luís (1506-1555), also presenting credentials for the succession were the Duke of Savoy, Manuel Felisberto, son of the infanta D. Beatriz (1504-1538), and the Duke of Savoy, Carlos III, and Rainúncio Farnese, great-grandson of D. Manuel, son of the Prince of Parma, Alexandre Farnese and the Portuguese infanta D. Maria (1538-1577).In addition, Catarina de Médicis demanded her rights based on a remote connection with the king D. Afonso III, killed in 1279.