Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III KING, PRINCE, AND MINISTER ‘ T'HE gloomy forebodings of M. de Turenne were – not realised upon the downfall of Donha Luiza. On the contrary, from that event onwards the fortunes of Portugal began to mend. The Spaniards, though now free to concentrate all their strength against the devoted little nation, and though commanded by the redoubtable Don Juan de Austria, were driven back towards the frontier, and the whole body politic took on a healthier complexion. But if Her Majesty was not essential to the kingdom’s welfare, neither was her son. It was not his withered hand that steered the ship before the now favouring wind. True, immediately after his assumption of the royal authority he had braced himself to the discharge of his duties; he presided at the Council Board, he received ambassadors in audience, he considered documents, though he did not read them, with the gravest face. But this new mood was of the shortest, and was sustained while it lasted only by the strenuous exertions of Castelmelhor and his confederates. They coached him for his part and were ever at his side to prompt him; till (we are told by Mr. Pepys)
the courtiers began to change their discourse, and many of them who before were still speaking of the incapacity of the King, now extolled the quickness of his wit, and made him seem more worthy of a greater kingdom than his own. To hide their inconstancy, they protested the King had become another man and spoke of his change as of a miracle; but this added nothing of belief in the case, for his reason being hurt of his maladies, it rendered him incapable to conceive either that which they made him say, or that which was said to him. When he was to say something in public they instructed him beforehand as well as they were able what…
