ella, had handed over.

On July 29th, Dom Sebastiao rashly started to march inland from Azila.
The army suffered terribly from heat and thirst, and was quite worn out
before it met the reigning amir, Abd-el-Melik, at Alcacer-Quebir, or
El-Kasar-el-Kebir, 'the great castle,' on the 3rd of August.

Next morning the battle began, and though Abd-el-Melik died almost at
once, the Moors, surrounding the small Christian army, were soon
victorious. Nine thousand were killed, and of the rest all were taken
prisoners except fifty. Both the Pretender and Dom Sebastiao fell, and
with his death and the destruction of his army the greatness of Portugal
disappeared.

For two years, till 1580, his feeble old grand-uncle the Cardinal Henry
sat on the throne, but when he died without nominating an heir none of
Dom Manoel's descendants were strong enough to oppose Philip II. of
Spain. Philip was indeed a grandson of Dom Manoel through his mother
Isabel, but the duchess of Braganza, daughter of Dom Duarte, duke of
Guimaraes, Cardinal Henry's youngest brother, had really a better claim.

But the spirit of the nation was changed, she dared not press her
claims, and few supported the prior of Crato, whose right was at least
as good as had been that of Dom Joao I., and so Philip was elected at
Thomar in April 1580.

Besides losing her independence Portugal lost her trade, for Holland and
England both now regarded her as part of their great enemy, Spain, and
so harried her ports and captured her treasure ships. Brazil was nearly
lost to the Dutch, who also succeeded in expelling the Portuguese from
Ceylon and from the islands of the East Indies, so that when the sixty
years' captivity was over and the Spaniards expelled, Portugal found it
impossible to recover the place she had lost.

It is then no wonder that almost before the end of the century money for
building began to fail, and that some of the churches begun then were
never finished; and yet for about the first twenty or thirty years of
the Spanish occupation building went on actively, especially in Lisbon
and at Coimbra, where many churches were planned by Filippo Terzi, or by
the two Alvares and others. Filippo Terzi seems first to have been
employed at Lisbon by the Jesuits in building their church of Sao Roque,
begun about 1570.[162]

[Sidenote: Lisbon, Sao Roque.]

Outside the church is as plain as possible; the front is divided into
three by single Doric pilasters set one