King Filipe's First Year: The Pompous Year
King Filipe I's First Year: The Pompous Year
O Primeiro Ano de Filipe I: O Ano da Pompa
O Primeiro Ano de Filipe I: O Ano da Pompa
Despite all of his faults, Filipe I intended to continue all of his father’s policies. One of his life mottos was in broad terms “If it’s not broken, don’t mess with it”. Nevertheless, his personality was different than his father’s and as such, Filipe ended up pushing some situations to the extreme. His rather flamboyant and pompous personality made plenty of people believe he was dumb but he was not, he heard advice from knowledgeable people and was quick to see when someone was trying to manipulate him but he was also headstrong when he believed he was right and less prone to heed advice in such conditions.
For example, in diplomacy, Filipe kept his father’s policy of neutrality as he had no intention of joining the Great Religious War, preferring to support peace negotiations and guarantee religious tolerance for Protestants to avoid more bloodshed. And just like his father, Filipe saw the Ottomans as his number one enemy. As any good Catholic of the time, he felt the need to kick them away from Europe but just like his father, he believed them to be the biggest threat to the Estado da Índia even though the Dutch and the English were becoming bigger problems than the Turks. In this condition, Filipe wanted to organize a Liga Santa [Holy League] to face them but this was impossible with the Great Religious War raging in Europe.
But he also brought some immediate changes such as promising Emperor Fernando II and the Danube Principalities military support in case of another Ottoman invasion but he also assured Jénova [Genoa] and Toscânia that Portugal would defend them in case of an invasion, and this was interpreted as Filipe being willing to go to war for these two countries.
The Italian Peninsula had become a very important zone for Portuguese interests namely economic ones, because plenty of investors were from there and defending the country’s two most important partners was a feeling shared in Lisboa though many did not want to go to war because of these two countries. As for Valáquia [Wallachia], Moldávia and Transilvânia, were increasingly seen as vassals by Filipe despite the distance separating them from Lisboa and no one else seeing them that way. What the Portuguese aristocracy saw was the heavy debts these countries owed to Portugal that would never been paid if they were to be conquered by the Ottomans.
Filipe’s coronation ceremony and the funeral he organized for his father were the first signs of his famous pompous nature. He disregarded his father’s wishes for a rather simple funeral arguing that his father deserved better than a noble’s funeral and made big expenses such as the ornamented coach in which his father’s body was transported.
His coronation was even more extravagant, with his attire and Henrieta’s being made of Chinese silk and the mantle was coloured in Tyrian Purple. Their crowns, near identical copies except for a few small details, were made in the imperial format with four half-arches surmounted by a monde of Globus Cruciger and the diadem was ornamented in floral patterns all made of gold and silver and with sapphires, rubies and emeralds all around. To reflect the King’s obsession with Byzantine and Roman culture, it had four pendilia that reached the shoulders made of pearls and ended in rubies and sapphires. Filipe also got a sceptre made of gold with the armillary sphere and with the cross of the Order of Christ. He had the servants well dressed, almost rivalling the nobility, which was seen as an outrage, and gave a Tostão a silver coin worth 80 Reis to each of the common folk who came to see him pass to the Cathedral of Lisboa.
The ceremony also had a deeper meaning, Filipe showcased to the world his wealth and power. His new crown also showed the ambition of building an Empire, a notion that Sebastião I promoted first but had somewhat fallen into disuse during Henrique I, Duarte II and João IV’s reigns. The crown also incorporated materials from all over the empire: gold from São Jorje da Mina, silver from Japão and Spanish America, pearls from Ormuz and Mascate, sapphires from Seilão, rubies from Sião [Thailand], and emeralds from Camboja. The crown, the sceptre and the mantle were from this reign forward symbols of the Portuguese Monarchy.
As stated, the now Queen Henrieta had been pregnant by the time João IV died and gave birth to a girl named Izabel Maria on July 5, 1628. Filipe made yet another pompous celebration in the capital but unfortunately, the girl passed away on August 11 much to everyone’s dismay and grief. Filipe inherited from his father a very good economic and stable situation in the country which in turn allowed more resources to be spent in the Empire but three very pompous ceremonies on top of each other immediately took a heavy toll on the treasury though fortunately, for the time being, the surplus left by João IV held on and prevented the country from going into debt.
Filipe I kept his father’s councillors chief among them Fransisco Coutinho, his father’s best friend, now Count dos Olivais. A man who as said plenty of times had a mind like the deceased João IV and was thus the best way for the new King to make sure he was following his father’s footsteps properly but he also brought his own such as his treasurer João Luíz Sampaio to keep the Crown’s treasury in surplus. A hard task considering who the King was.
A Change of Stance:
The supply of cereals and wood coming from Polónia-Lituânia to Portugal had lowered and the prices had gone up causing economic problems as the country could not produce enough food for itself and was having difficulties building it’s ships. It was thus imperative that the Polish products left the ports but obviously, the Polish were not going to send the products when the Swedish were tolling and attacking them.
João IV de Portugal had toyed around with the idea of sending his ships to the Baltic Sea and compelling the Swedish to cease their blockades by force but the prospect of going to war in Europe left the King uneasy and his best friend, Fransisco Coutinho ended up convincing him against it with little trouble. Filipe I had a very different opinion on the matter especially when he felt that he could use this opportunity to show the world that he was not a weakling nor a lesser version of his father as many believed. Thus he decided to send the bulk of his Navy to the Baltic Sea.
Disregarding Coutinho and his mother’s advice, Filipe sent Miguel de Noronha, Count of Linhares as an extraordinary Ambassador to Cristiano IV da Dinamarca-Noruega to secure the right to moor his fleet on Danish ports for a semester. Saying that Cristiano was worried was an understatement, as he feared that the Portuguese were finally joining the Emperor against him but Noronha defused the situation though not without encouraging Cristiano to accept the Emperor’s terms as at this point the two were still at war.
With Filipe assuring that he would pay the expenses of his ships on Danish soil, Cristiano accepted to harbour the Portuguese fleet hoping they would engage the Swedish and weaken them because he still had interests in controlling the Baltic and needed to buy time. 38 war galleons made their way to Copenhaga [Copenhagen] under the command of Luíz de Portugal, Count of Vimiozo and Almirante de Portugal [Admiral of Portugal], whose flagship Santiago do Mar was an 800 tons war galleon with 50 cannons.
Despite not being a large fleet by any means, the ships were deemed well armed and dangerous, intimidating and worrying every country they passed by be it Madride, Paris, Londres or Amesterdão [Amsterdam] as they were unsure if Filipe would become a warmonger and completely change Portuguese diplomacy which his first actions were pointing to. When they arrived at Copenhaga by late August, they were met by mesmerized crowds and a sizable Danish Army that was monitoring their every move.
Vasco António da Costa Corte-Real, Count of Angra, was sent to meet with Gustavo II Adolfo and presented Filipe’s demands to the Swedish King who was concerned while his opponents, the Polish were overjoyed at the prospect of having an ally in the war. Rather than accepting the demands and succumbing to the intimidation attempt, Gustavo figured that he could reverse the situation and intimidate the Portuguese with his larger navy so he sent Corte-Real away and ordered the Swedish Navy to face the Portuguese in battle at the first opportunity.
While Gustavo had hoped his behemoth ship, Vasa, a 1 020 tons ship with 64 cannons, to be in the battle, it sunk in its maiden voyage and with it went a lot of wasted gold. Nevertheless, 57 Swedish ships sailed to meet the Portuguese in the Estreito de Ôresão [Øresund/Öresund/The Sound]. The Count of Vimiozo was informed that the Swedish were coming his way so he hired Danish sailors to reinforce his contingent and divided his fleet into two groups, one with 25 ships, his stronger ones which would position itself along the strait between Copenhaga and Malmô and the other group of 13 ships was sent to the island of Amaguer [Amager] which was right next to the Danish capital from where Cristiano IV reportedly watched the engagement from the shore.
Battle of Amaguer
On September 28, the Portuguese ships spotted the Swedish and while the weather was somewhat rough, it calmed as if anticipating the upcoming battle. Vimiozo gave the order to shoot as soon as the conditions allowed and refrained his men from bordering, giving the incentive to the opponent so that the Swedish got closer to Portuguese cannons. By 4 p.m., the Portuguese ships started bombing the Swedish vessels causing heavy damage due to their superior firepower and positioning which allowed them to shoot three times as much as the Swedish vessels.
The Swedish were surprised by it, as they expected the Portuguese to try and board them just as the Polish had done a couple of months earlier, and lost seven ships in half an hour of combat but continued with their attempt at boarding their opponents, a strategy that was obsolete in Western Europe since the Invínsivel Armada’s failure. With much cost of lives, the Swedish did manage to board the São Filipe and São Pedro but the battle there was fierce.
The Swedish defeat was consummated when the other smaller Portuguese fleet appeared and surrounded the Swedish ships by the west and shot a new barrage that finally forced the Swedish to retreat. From the 57 Swedish ships that came to intimidate the Portuguese, 21 ships were sunk and 5 more that had engaged in boarding actions were left behind and were captured along with their crew. Portugal had 3 ships sunk and 7 damaged.
The Battle of Amaguer had been won by Portugal, confirming the status of the country as a naval power and was the last bad news that Gustavo II received during that year. His gamble did not pay off and made everything worse for Suésia. Perhaps if his Navy had been victorious, he could have made Filipe back down as he intended, but with his loss, not only did he give the Portuguese a good reason to join Polónia-Lituânia in a full fledge war but he also likely convinced Cristiano IV to have a go at him too when Dinamarca recovered from the beating it took from the Empire. Thus, he sent an Ambassador to Lisboa in hopes of preventing a war by negotiating.
Meanwhile, the victory was celebrated in Lisboa and Filipe, was as expected, calling for war, demanding the whole Navy to be ready to be sent to Dinamarca with a large Army of 20 000 men. Coutinho, João Sebastião de Bragansa and others grew restless with the whole situation and desperately tried to convince Filipe to not go to war so far away and instead sent funds to help the Polish. Filipe, however, disagreed, citing the Swedish attack on the Portuguese Fleet as the Casus Belli to a war he could not back away from or he would be seen as a pushover by the rest of Europe.
The Conselho de Estado [Council of State] met for a long time and deliberated on the matter and agreed under pressure from the King to send the 2 Tersos Reais and at least one Terso made of volunteers, a tamer version of Filipe’s original plan. Having gotten his way, Filipe spent the remaining autumn and winter preparing the expedition while ignoring the Swedish Ambassador, telling the man that after the attack at Amaguer, only Polish ports being open without restrictions and the war ending would stop him from joining, terms that Suésia could not fulfil. By March 1629, 8 000 men were ready to be transported to Guedanhesque [Gdańsk] to, in Filipe’s mind, put an end to the war…
This was the perfect outcome for Emperor Fernando II do Sacro-Império who had been concerned with Swedish gains in Polónia, because now he did not have to commit resources to help Sijismundo III who also had his perfect outcome because not only was he getting support from another country but because many did not believe Portugal would actually go to war, the Seím [Sejm] agreed to increase the military expenditure after another Polish defeat at the Battle of Gujeno [Górzno].
While his commanders were concerned with having to fight another country, Gustavo II saw this dire outcome as a good way to test his military reforms and anticipate the likely difficulties he would face in an intervention in the Empire, considering the Portuguese Army followed Habsburgo doctrines. It was a good way for Gustavo to leave the war which he was tired of though the problem was if his opponents refused to accept a Status Quo Ante Bellum…
Small Chapter to start Filipe I's reign. Who would have guessed that Portugal would once again find itself in a war at the beginning of a reign? Is Portugal changing its diplomatic stance? Is the treasury going to survive the Pompous?
I wanted to make sure that everything goes up and down in history, sometimes you rule the world and others you get screwed. Making every Monarch do good is not realistic in the sense there are always bad monarchs. I'm not saying Filipe I will be a bad Monarch but many of his decisions will be interesting to write about. I was originally going to put this conflict with Suésia/Suécia/Sweden in the last Polish-Swedish Chapter but because it was a new Monarch I scrapped it and put it here. I'm a bit concerned with the realism of Portugal sending a fleet to the Baltic and Sweden replying with a "get out of here, this is my lake"...I don't think it's out of this world but still...
I also have to say that I have finished "improving" the previous chapters until the end of the Empire Updates, including Austrália. Honestly, it has been fun shifting names to the TL's Portuguese but some things are cursed like Jénova...though, funnily enough, we almost got this in OTL as some linguists in the 19th Century proposed replacing <g> before e and i with <j>. I'm still not fully happy with some changes so in the future things could change but for now I leave like this. Some things I haven't changed include geographic names such as Europe, Baltic Sea, etc.; adjectives such as French rather than Fransêz/Franseza and English and French given names though I'm sort of inclined to also change them. I also need to change the maps at some point. Currently, I'm going to continue improving the previous chapters and hopefully reduce the number of chapters about Europe.
Without further ado, thank you for the support and I hope everyone has a nice day and stays safe.
