bride insisted that both the Portuguese and exiled Spanish Jews be ordered to leave Portugal or be baptized as Catholics. The Jews were given ten months to decide.
However, just three months later, King Manoel commanded all Jews to gather at the ports. They believed they were going to be given passage out of the country, but instead they were told no Jew was now allowed to leave Portugal. Their children were seized and every Jew was ordered to convert to Christianity. Those who refused were either killed or forcibly baptized. The converts and their descendants became known as New Christians, or Marranos, which meant pigs.
King João III (1521–57) allowed the Grand Inquisition of the Catholic Church to establish itself in Portugal in 1536, but in the first three years it was only permitted to gather information on heretics and apostate Christians, not to act. Their particular targets were the communities of Marranos who, though outwardly Christian, were suspected of practising Judaism in secret. But the king would not allow the Inquisition to unleash its full power, because he needed the New Christians for their crafts and trade links. The Inquisition was growing increasingly frustrated.
Then in 1539, banners appeared on all the churches in Lisbon proclaiming that Jesus was not the Messiah. A young Marrano, Manuel da Costa, was arrested and under torture confessed that he was responsible. He was executed, and the scandalized populace, whipped up by the priests, demanded that Portugal be cleansed of its heretics. The king finally granted permission for the Inquisition to round up Marranos, Muslims and Lutherans, the last being identified as anyone found in possession of a Bible translated into Portuguese. Any Christian convert who was suspected of having secretly returned to their former Jewish or Muslim faith was considered a heretic and liable to be arrested, tortured and executed. And so began the reign of terror under the Inquisition.
Some readers may be wondering what became of little King Sebastian, the child-king in the novel. In 1578, aged just twenty-four, he embarked on a war to aid the deposed ruler of Morocco, Abu Abdallah Mohammed II Saadi, in defeating his Turkish-backed uncle. Portugal had lost several important trading stations in Morocco which were vital for its route to India. At the Battle of Alcácer Quibir – the Battle of the Three Kings – Sebastian was last seen charging into enemy lines and was presumed killed. His great-uncle, Cardinal Henry, succeeded him as king until his own death in 1580, when Sebastian’s uncle, Philip II of Spain, claimed the Portuguese throne.
Although Philip later claimed to have recovered Sebastian’s body and interred it in the monastery at Belém, rumours persisted that Sebastian had survived the battle and had been taken prisoner for ransom, and that he would one day return to claim his throne. Over the years several men appeared, each purporting to be Sebastian and saying that he, not Philip, was the rightful king of Portugal. The last of these claimants was hanged in 1619. But the rumours lived on, and down the centuries the legend grew that, like King Arthur of England, Sebastian was merely sleeping and would one day return as O Encoberto or The Hidden One, to aid his country when it was in grave peril, a belief held by some right up until the nineteenth century.
Iceland
From AD 874 when Iceland was first settled by the Norwegian Viking, Ingólfur Arnarson, it had to a greater or lesser extent been ruled by Norway. But in 1397 at Kalmar, under the terms of the Scandinavian union pact between Norway, Denmark and Sweden, the sovereignty of Iceland was transferred from Norway to Denmark. So when Lutheranism was established in Denmark in 1537, it also spread to Iceland.
At first, the Catholic bishops of Iceland declared it heresy, but even after they were replaced by Lutheran bishops, the Reformation had little impact and was largely ignored by the Icelandic clergy and laity. But in 1550, when a Catholic bishop was arrested and murdered, the Icelanders took revenge by slaughtering Danes. Denmark was then determined to impose Lutheranism on Iceland. The Lutherans seized all the assets of the Catholic churches in Iceland and stripped them bare of all images of saints and religious decoration. They closed abbeys and monasteries, driving out priests, monks and nuns. They confiscated Latin Bibles, relics and religious items from Icelandic families and from the churches. The Reformation also destroyed much of the traditional cultural life of Iceland, because many of the long-established arts