closer to Spain had given him a Spanish wife, Luisa
Guzman, daughter of the duke of Medina Sidonia. Matters, however, turned
out very differently from what he had expected. A gypsy had once told
Dona Luisa that she would be a queen, and a queen she was determined to
be. With difficulty she persuaded her husband to become the nominal head
of the conspiracy for the expulsion of the Spaniards, and on the 1st of
December 1640 the first blow was struck by the capture of the regent and
her ministers in the palace at Lisbon. Next day, December 2nd, the duke
of Braganza was saluted as King Dom Joao IV. at Villa Vicosa, his
country home beyond Evora.

The moment of the revolution was well chosen, for Spain was at that time
struggling with a revolt which had broken out in Cataluna, and so was
unable to send any large force to crush Dom Joao. All the Indian and
African colonies at once drove out the Spaniards, and in Brazil the
Dutch garrisons which had been established there by Count Maurice of
Nassau were soon expelled.

Though a victory was soon gained over the Spaniards at Montijo, the war
dragged on for twenty-eight years, and it was only some years after Don
John of Austria[168] had been defeated at Almeixial by Schomberg (who
afterwards took service under William of Orange) that peace was finally
made in 1668. Portugal then ceded Ceuta, and Spain acknowledged the
independence of the revolted kingdom, and granted to its sovereign the
title of Majesty.

It is no great wonder, then, that with such a long-continued war and an
exhausted treasury a building like Santa Engracia should have remained
unfinished, and it would have been well for the architecture of the
country had this state of poverty continued, for then far more old
buildings would have survived unaltered and unspoiled.

Unfortunately by the end of the seventeenth century trade had revived,
and the discovery of diamonds and of gold in Brazil had again brought
much wealth to the king.

Of the innumerable churches and palaces built during the eighteenth
century scarcely any are worthy of mention, for perhaps the great
convent palace of Mafra and the Capella Mor of the Se at Evora are the
only exceptions.

In the early years of that century King Joao V. made a vow that if a son
was born to him, he would, on the site of the poorest monastery in the
country, build the largest and the richest. At the same time anxious to
emulate the glories of the Escorial, he det