Lisbon has been a foreigners’ city from ancient times. Waves of new races and tribes have come across the Iberian mainland or by sea to settle, for the most part harmoniously, by the shores of the Tagus. The indigenous Iberian stock, probably settled long before, is already in evidence during the Paleolithic Age. The first overseas arrivals were the Phoenicians, followed by the Greeks and then by the Celts, who had made their way overland. All of these people were attracted to the advantages of living along a large river estuary, with plentiful supplies of fish in the ocean and a fertile hinterland for the production of food. By the time of the Roman occupation in the first century BC, these various races had already been mingled together to form a complex mix.
The arrival of the Romans added another layer to this cosmopolitan base. Thracians, Cretans, Jews and North Africans came to Portugal and Spain in the service of their Latin masters. Slaves, upon whom the economy of the empire depended, were brought in from across the Mediterranean, adding to what was already a racial melting pot. When the Roman Empire collapsed, as we have seen, Germanic tribes invaded Iberia.1 The Suevi came to Portugal and intermingled with the diverse local population; they were followed by the Moors, who ruled Balata, as the province became known, for 500 years. By the time of the Moorish invasion of the eighth century, the Jewish community was already well established, playing a major role in the commercial life of the city. Mozarabic society showed all the signs of fusion found in sophisticated, cosmopolitan communities. When Moorish rule formally ended, a large population of Mudejar citizens (those of Muslim faith) remained. They were to contribute significantly to many arts and sciences, such as ceramics and irrigation, in the country of their birth.
The liberation of Lisbon by Afonso Henriques in 1147 was accomplished with the help of many foreign mercenaries, among whom the English were prominent, but French and German and Flemish crusaders also featured. These foreign supporters needed to be rewarded, whether, as in the case of Gilbert of Hastings, with clerical posts or, as in other cases, with grants of land from the crown. Records of land ownership show foreign names among the Portuguese during the early years of the nation. As Lisbon itself expanded as an international centre of commerce, other foreign communities arrived. Among these were Italians — both Venetian and Genoese merchants began to play a significant part in trading activities, whilst other Italians arrived to meet the demand for artists, sculptors and craftsmen with specialized skills. As the crown and aristocracy became wealthier, they commissioned ambitious building projects. Foreign architects arrived to build as well as to embellish the churches and palaces of Lisbon.
The crusaders who came to the service of Afonso Henriques were little more than hardened adventurers, seeking new opportunities in life. The English in particular were known for their harsh manners and debauched behaviour. They may have been rivalled in these proclivities by the Franks and Germans. The northern invaders came from the same lands as those barbarians who had brought down the Roman Empire. According to the flowery account given by Osbern of Bawdsey, a fighting priest, these rough men were persuaded to stay and fight for the Portuguese cause because of the persuasive words of the Bishop of Oporto and the Archbishop of Braga.2 The bishops strengthened their case by an appeal to the material, as well as spiritual, advantages that would come the way of those supporting their cause. Good wine and other venal delights would be immediate but the promise of the possession of some of the gentle, fertile land, which made up the hinterland of the city, sharpened appetites for the fight. A further stimulus was the rumour that hoards of gold and silver were hidden in the city waiting for its liberators to seize as booty.
Nevertheless the crusaders faced a considerable challenge. Not only was Lisbon well fortified, but its position on hilly slopes, near the river’s edge, made it difficult to attack from any direction. The streets of the city were steep; the citadel which crowned the highest ridge, housing the Moorish palace and headquarters, was particularly inaccessible. Several of the foreign leaders began to talk of months of siege, which would result in their losing the easier pickings that might be made along the Mediterranean coasts or even in the Holy Land itself. Despite these reservations they stayed and a long siege began. As the summer advanced, the inhabitants of the city were reduced to starvation. Added to the extreme discomfort of the sweltering weather was disease brought on by unhygienic conditions. Plague decimated the ranks of attackers and defenders alike. Whenever anyone was captured, on either side, rough justice was meted out. When the crusaders finally breached the defences and got into the city, rape and pillage became the order of the day. It had taken seventeen long, gruelling weeks to reach that point.
Gilbert of Hastings, installed as Bishop of Lisbon, was the first of a long line of Englishmen who were to play a prominent role in the public life of the new nation. Gilbert seemed the perfect candidate for the post — pious and learned, he also proved to be a good administrator. His reputation ensured that a number of English chaplains decided to remain in Lisbon to serve under him. He even managed to integrate the Templars, notoriously independent, into his fold. The king rewarded the churchmen — 32 houses, farmland, fruit groves and vineyards were handed over to the bishop. This made for a good start but Gilbert was not idle. He reorganized the area into a large diocese that spread eastwards to Evora and southwards to Alcácer do Sal. He took a lead in encouraging the programme to build Lisbon Cathedral. Instead of persecuting Moorish inhabitants of the city, he attempted to convert them to Christianity. Sometimes his interventions failed — he could not persuade the crusaders to stay on in order to capture Alcácer do Sal, with its strongly fortified citadel (it was eventually taken in 1218). In the case of other towns that were captured, such as Silves in 1189, he was unable to prevent indiscriminate massacre and pillage from taking place.
The English influence, begun with the crusaders’ intervention in the liberation of Lisbon, continued throughout the early period of Portugal’s history as a nation. It was consolidated by a dynastic alliance between King João I and Philippa of Lancaster, which followed the signing of the Treaty of Windsor in 1386. King João himself had inaugurated a new style of monarchy, more absolutist in nature, in which the aristocracy, endowed with estates, was closely dependent on the crown. The alliance with England, which was to be ‘perpetual’, was an important symbol of royal influence abroad. Part of the agreement was that the Portuguese king should support the English claim to the Castilian throne, but as this faded away as a political objective, the benefit of a link which would protect Portugal from Castilian invasion seemed even more important.3 The English alliance would, at the very least, make the Spanish think twice before attempting a takeover. Philippa arrived with a large entourage of courtiers and craftsmen, including disciples of the master builder William of Wykeham, whose influence became visible in local ecclesiastical architecture. Her chancellor was Adam Davenport; important posts at court were filled by his fellow countrymen.
Cultivated and gracious, the queen set the tone for a well-ordered, courteous court, which sometimes sat at Sintra, her favourite place. Writers, artists and poets were encouraged to mix with the courtiers; soon there was intermarriage between Philippa’s English followers and the Portuguese fidalgo families. The English connection also proved a stimulant to trade. English merchants began to see the ease of carrying on business in a country where they were so advantageously placed. Lisbon also benefited from this new cosmopolitan influx, expanding along the river westwards in new, elegant suburbs. The queen’s intellectual interests were passed on to the royal princes. Duarte turned writer, producing his treatise on public law, the Leal Conselheiro, whilst Prince Henry began a lifelong interest in mathematics and navigational studies, with highly significant consequences for Portugal’s development as a maritime nation, as we have seen.4
Other foreigners continued to live in Lisbon alongside the Jews and Moors for many generations after the founding of the nation. A significant influx came with the Manueline expansion of the city in the early sixteenth century. Trade with the east had brought Lisbon enormous wealth; commercial communities from all over Europe wanted to share in this prosperity. Moreover they brought with them specialized knowledge — in commerce and in banking — which would be of enormous benefit to Portugal. Among the most prominent groups were the Italian merchants who specialized in every aspect of maritime business. Lucas Giraldes was a sixteenth-century Florentine banker whose Lisbon interests were so successful that he was able to set himself up in some style in Sintra whither the aristocrats followed the court during the summer months.
Meanwhile the English Factory continued to strengthen its grip on trading between the two nations. Merchants were protected by the terms of treaties that pre-dated the Treaty of Windsor and subsequent agreements made between Edward I and King Dinis in the thirteenth century. Wine, olive oil, cork, salt and fruits were exported from Portugal, while wool, cloth, lead and tin were imported from England. As trade became brisker, the English presence grew and English merchants benefited from the experience of a long-established community. Although traders from both countries came to understand each other, and crucially how to operate within two different spheres of law, there was friction. English merchants complained about the slow clearance of goods through customs, corruption in handling charges and the return of confiscated property in a worse condition than it had been when it had been seized. When legal disputes did arise, the Portuguese courts were accused of acting in a biased and unfair manner. Nevertheless trade between the two countries was too important to be damaged by minor wrangles. The Casa da India, the largest of the Lisbon depots (where spices, sugar, molasses and silks were crammed into the vaults), was the largest warehouse in the world; access to it was the guarantee of wealth and fortune.
Whilst the English merchant community was getting well established, other non-commercial institutions were also becoming embedded in the fabric of Lisbon life. One of these was the Bridge-tine nunnery, which was founded in 1594. The nuns originated from Isleworth, near London, but had left the country after the dissolution of the monasteries in 1536. For the next half-century they moved around different countries in Europe until they reached Lisbon. At first regarded with some suspicion by the Portuguese episcopal hierarchy, the nuns were nevertheless received civilly and provided with a house in the city. From then on, the sisters remained in Lisbon for almost three hundred years, benefiting from Spanish patronage and the sale of their home-made confectionery. They were highly thought of by locals and visitors alike. In the late eighteenth century Joseph Barretti described them as charming company. There was no impetus for them to return to England until the start of the Napoleonic Wars, when things started to become difficult and dangerous for any British inhabitant of the city. A nucleus remained, amalgamating with their Irish holy sisters for greater security, and survived until the middle of the nineteenth century.
Another English Catholic institution in the city was the English College, founded in 1622. After a struggle with the Jesuits who had set up the Residency, the College retained its independence, although it came under the general supervision of the Inquisitor General. Its teachers came from Douai; its students were known as the ‘Inglesinhos’ (young Englishmen) and cut a distinct figure in their black cassocks on the streets of the city. Their ostensible devotion to combating heresy among their fellow countrymen earned them the protection of the Portuguese establishment.
Outside the institution, individual priests also made their mark. Father Daniel O’Daly was installed as rector of the Dominican Convent in 1634. O’Daly was an Irish patriot with no love of England; he received financial support from the Spanish royal family, as well as acting as confessor to the Spanish queen of Portugal. These connections made him the object of suspicion among the English community. So impressive was his ability to get resources that he was able to found the Convent of Bom Sucesso, which played an important role in the clerical life of the city thereafter.
Bishop Richard Russell was a very different, but equally successful, cleric. He started life at the English College as a servant but soon proved his intellectual credentials by qualifying for a studentship, which took him to Douai. He was ordained a priest in Paris, returning to Lisbon to be installed as procurator at his old college. Russell’s linguistic ability was considerable; he was chosen to accompany Francisco de Melo, the Portuguese envoy in London, on a mission to extend British military aid to Portugal. Russell must have been a man of some charm; he soon became a royal favourite and the outcome of the diplomatic mission was to begin the elaborate negotiations that ended with Catherine of Bragança becoming the wife of King Charles II. Russell was made Bishop of Portalegre in 1671 as a reward for his part in bringing about the dynastic alliance. His parishioners were not disappointed by his command of Portuguese.
If English Catholics played some role in the development of Anglo-Portuguese relations, the majority of their fellow countrymen, as Protestants, came under the ministry of the chaplain to the English Factory. The right for Englishmen to practise their own religion had been enshrined in the Cromwellian Treaty of 1654. Nevertheless relations with the Catholic Church proved difficult. The administrators of the Inquisition were particularly hostile to allowing the holding of Protestant services at all; in the event the best they could do was to confine them to the British envoy’s house.
Sometimes relations between the chaplain and his parishioners could be stormy. The Reverend John Colbatch, who held the post in the seventeenth century, railed against the lax moral standards of members of the Factory or commercial community. His particular target was the envoy himself, John Methuen, who declared himself to be a disciple of the ungodly Thomas Hobbes. Not only did Methuen spend his time reading Leviathan but he also disregarded holy days, dining in style on Good Friday and, even worse, carrying on a fairly open affair with the consul’s wife. As if to goad the chaplain further, he also agreed with the view of the Inquisition that Protestant services could only be conducted in his residence, so that when he was out of town services were suspended.
Whatever Methuen’s devotion to Hobbes, he was at the same time laying the foundations for a new British hegemony by securing the incipient port wine business for the English merchants of Oporto. As the demand for port grew at the expense of the standard table wine, Red Portugal (which had come from the Minho), the English trading houses were firmly established as the sole regulators of the trade. Importation of Portuguese wine was to be balanced against the export of English cloth. Methuen returned to London, leaving negotiations in the hands of his son. They were successfully concluded in a second treaty of a mere two articles, which bear the family name, in 1703. Meanwhile Col-batch, who seems to have got on better with the young Methuen, approached Bishop Burnet of Salisbury, his patron, to seek official condemnation of the elder Methuen. The Bishop must have been a wily politician who understood that challenging the very man who had just secured the country an advantageous treaty would be a waste of time. He refused to intervene. Colbatch returned to England, where he published his memoirs about his time in Portugal.5
British influence in Portugal was consolidated by the growth of the port wine trade, now protected by the terms of the Methuen Treaty. The trade was based in Oporto where the English built an impressive Factory House, held grand banquets and played cricket in the nearby fields. The port wine trade, as Pombal realized, became a vital part of the Portuguese economy, so that benefits were felt throughout the country, including the city of Lisbon through which much of the trade flowed. This economic interest was matched by the political alliance between Britain and Portugal. For the Portuguese the alliance was meant to guarantee the country’s territorial integrity; for the British it provided a toehold on the continent of Europe. Ironically it was eventually the threat from France, rather than Spain, which consolidated the British grip on Portugal at the time of the Napoleonic Wars. But successive British envoys had the ear of the Portuguese monarch of the day, on account of the strong trade links between the two countries and the dependency of Portugal on Britain for its territorial security.
Throughout the eighteenth century a succession of British tourists, clergymen, soldiers and businessmen passed through the country on visits of various lengths. They recounted their experiences in books, pamphlets and letters home. Sometimes, like Richard Twiss, they described the social structure of the country; at other times, as in the case of James Murphy, they dwelt on buildings and styles of architecture.6 Towards the end of the century a trio of outstanding literary figures — William Beckford, Robert Southey and Lord Byron — came to set the seal of romanticism on a little-known corner of Europe.
William Beckford arrived in Lisbon in March 1787 on his way to visit family estates in Jamaica, a journey that he never completed. He arrived in Portugal in some style — with a retinue of servants, furniture and books, which caused a great stir in the city. The French ambassador noted the princely income of this English ‘milord’ with some envy.7 Within a short time of his arrival, Beckford was introduced to the influential Marialva family, the head of which was traditionally appointed Master of the Horse, with direct access to the monarch.8 Surprisingly, Beckford’s first description of Pombalese Lisbon is not favourable; like Fielding he complained about the jumbled, medieval aspect of its skyline. The large, conventual buildings towered above what seemed to be a string of villages perched on various hills. Nor did he seem pleased with the interior of Portuguese houses, finding the Marialva Palace along the west coast sparsely furnished, without much taste. James Murphy was to remark that many aristocratic Portuguese families were, in fact, quite hard up despite owning landed estates outside the city and being accompanied everywhere by bevies of servants and hangers-on.9 This would have explained something of the austerity of the interiors that Beckford saw.
Nevertheless Beckford was impressed by the semi-feudal manner of the Marialvas’ home life. There were interminable meals, always attended upon by scores of servants and hangers-on, with musical entertainment provided. Beckford had a covert interest in the family, which arose because of its connection with the queen. He himself had had to leave England under the cloud of a homosexual scandal; by being presented at a foreign court he might begin to make the comeback into the upper echelons of English society which he was so keen to do. His efforts were thwarted by Robert Walpole, the British envoy, who may have been acting from instructions from home or may merely have been venting his spleen against a young, attractive millionaire. The intrigue surrounding this affair, with the Marquis of Marialva championing Beckford’s cause, is recorded in a private journal Beckford kept during the blazing Lisbon summer of 1787.10
One aspect of Lisbon life that enthralled Beckford was the spectacular religious ceremonies that were performed regularly. Soon after his arrival he attended the consecration of the Bishop of the Algarve at the Convent of the Necessidades amid a ‘mighty glitter of capes, censures, mitres and croziers continually in motion’.11 Only a few days later came the festival of Corpo de Deus, when the Patriarch of Lisbon led a glittering procession of clerics through the streets of the city. The patriarch himself was borne forward like a pontiff under a great arched canopy, while the priests and acolytes who followed were dressed in magnificent ceremonial robes. Cannons blasted from the castle; church bells peeled across the city decked in flowers; crowds swarmed about to watch the progress of this majestic procession. The pomp and circumstance of the occasion appealed much to Beckford’s sense of theatre. The elaborate Masses, sometimes held in the sumptuous church attached to the Patriarchal Seminary, also appealed to his sensuous nature. Devoting himself to St Anthony, the English visitor began to attract attention to himself for his own public displays of piety.
Beckford moved in the highest aristocratic circles. His descriptions of life in the ancien régime are regarded by Portuguese historians as important sources about the life of the court aristocracy. Among the palaces he visited in Lisbon was that of the Palhavã princes, bastard offspring of King João V. The princes, who by the time of Beckford’s stay in Portugal were in their sixties, had led a sheltered and dreary existence, dragged out in the fusty and gloomy apartments of their palace. Beckford spares no effect in re-creating its atmosphere of heaviness, noting the dark crimson draperies and the heavy scent of burnt lavender which hung in the stale air and was sickening. No one could imagine that there was much pleasure in the lives of these now elderly princes, who, as royalty, had to observe the stiff etiquette of the court.
Other company was more cheerful and interesting: Beckford derived a great deal of amusement from the company of the Duke of Lafões, who though older than the Palhavã princes was sprightly and high-spirited.12 The duke was the epitome of a dandy, speaking in a lisping French and parading the privileges of his old, noble line. A more sombre personage was the second Marquis of Pombal, the great man’s son, who came to visit Beckford. Although ‘worn down with gambling and lechery’ he was possessed of ‘an ease and fashion in his address not common in Portugal’.13 Although Pombal seemed to have any amount of credit, he confided in Beckford that his father had died in debt. Both sons of famous politicians, who were never accepted in the highest circles, the two men had much in common.
Although Beckford spent some time in Sintra, he returned in 1793 to live in his old house in the Rua Cova da Moura rented to him on his first visit. Its location suited him perfectly. Situated to the west of Lisbon, somewhat away from Buenos Ayres, the favoured residence of the British, it was near to the royal palace of Necessidades, something that appealed to Beckford’s snobbish sense. It was also within easy reach of the coast and of the valley of Alcântara, where he liked to ride. Like many other post-earthquake buildings the house was made of wood. Beckford regarded it as a ‘paste board’ habitation, which he wanted to replace with a more substantial property reflecting his position in Lisbon society. He therefore moved to a villa at Belém, a little further west, and started planning for a grand mansion, with salons and wings, on the site of the wooden house. His drawings for this house illustrate how his ideas were developing and hint at the plan he would later follow at Fonthill Abbey, his grandest project.14
Beckford’s accounts of Lisbon society and his creation of a Romantic Sintra setting had a lasting effect on the imagination of the Portuguese. His role as a dashing and lordly English figure of immense wealth added to his legendary status. Most nineteenth-century Portuguese came to know about him through periodicals that enjoyed a wide middle-class readership. Like the readers of travel accounts in England, these bourgeois Portuguese hankered after tales from the more spacious days of the ancien régime. Beck-ford’s portrayal of aristocratic life was sufficiently decadent, while his connection with the royal family appealed to their snobbish sense. In 1863 Rebelo da Silva, who was both novelist and historian, introduced a Beckfordian hero into his story Lágrimas e Tesouros, portraying him as a man of mystery and imagination. In this way Beckford joined the canon of foreign Romantics, historical and fantastic, like Byron and Werther.15
In contrast to most English visitors who arrived on the ‘Packet’ at Lisbon harbour, Robert Southey came overland from Spain, crossing into the country at Elvas. Compared to the arid plain of Castile, Portugal at once seemed greener and more pleasant to the young English man of letters. Southey stayed in Lisbon with his uncle, the chaplain to the British Factory in the popular residential area of Buenos Ayres. The chaplain’s house was perched on the western slopes of the city with commanding views of the river. Nevertheless, despite the comfortable domesticity of his uncle’s home and its decent library of books, Southey seems at first to have succumbed to the usual expatriate irritation at the heat and dust of Lisbon. Wherever he went he was assailed by gangs of beggars who stuck as tenaciously to foreigners as the mosquitoes. Church bells pealed out day and night invading his privacy and preventing him from sleeping properly. Nor was the demanding critic impressed by the Portuguese. His innate suspicion of Catholic society was confirmed by learning that the majority of aristocrats did little more than languish their days attending the court, neglecting their estates and all other duties. If they were not a sufficient target, there was always the Inquisition, with its barbaric public burnings in the centre of the city, to rail against. But Southey did not have a low opinion of the Portuguese alone. He rated his fellow countrymen little higher. They had no knowledge of the culture of the country they lived in, preferring to waste their time at the card tables night after night. His uncle, a fluent Portuguese speaker, was a noble exception.
Occasionally Southey was impressed by someone whom he met. The Italian poet Angelo Talassi was a guest at his uncle’s house and entertained the young English man of letters with his improvising skills. Contact of that sort contrasted favourably with the culture-less activities of the expatriate community. There were also parts of the city to be enjoyed. He particularly liked the narrow, twisted streets of the Alfama. Outside of the city, the wild, rugged slopes of the Sintra mountain were a source of inspiration.
By the time Southey returned to Lisbon in 1800 for a second visit he had started to give the lusophone world serious scholarly attention. He claimed to find both Portuguese and Spanish easy languages to read and had returned after his first visit with a thorough grounding in both. Now his ambitious plan was to write a monumental work on the history of Portugal and all her overseas territories. This vast undertaking would cover many volumes and establish him for good as the historian of the Lusitanian world, as Gibbon had become the historian of Rome. Indeed Portugal would provide a modern example of an imperial power that had flourished and declined, just as Rome had done. But the grandiose plan never materialized. A decade later he did produce a history of Brazil in several volumes, but that was as far as the grand scheme went. The history was only lukewarmly received. Meanwhile Southey poured scorn on some of the works on Portuguese themes which were being published in England. He found W.J. Mickle’s translation of Camões’s Lusiads, which had appeared in 1776, heavy in style and not close enough to, nor as elegant as, the original. Even more scathing was his view of James Murphy’s account of his travels in Portugal. Like many other travel books of the period, Murphy’s lacked lustre; it proved too prosaic for the taste of the poetic Southey.
Southey’s literary labours had in fact broken his health, so he returned to Portugal a sick man, with frayed nerves and a quirky disposition. This time there was a palpable excitement in his description of his first sight of Lisbon, with its churches and convents silhouetted against a blue sky and its harbour crammed full of vessels from every corner of the world. Soon he and his wife Edith were ensconced in a house near his uncle’s. From the very desk where he wrote he had a fine view of the bustling estuary of the Tagus. With its ships and boats and flags fluttering in the breeze, it was an auspicious vista for a historian of empire to gaze upon when pausing from his serious pursuits.
For a while it seemed that Southey’s return to Lisbon had reinvigorated him. His days were spent arranging his papers and planning his research; his evenings were given to intelligent conversation with his uncle, a well-read cleric who had always encouraged his nephew’s interest in Portuguese history and culture. Southey was now a good deal more relaxed in his attitude to Catholicism, realizing that the Catholic clergy were among the more cultured members of the local community. Having learnt his lesson from his first visit, he kept away from the English community, annoyed by both the philistines among the Factory members and the aristocracy who came to Lisbon merely to indulge themselves in banquets and celebrations. But his good humour did not last. Working each day in his uncle’s well-stocked library, he was plagued by the constant ringing of bells, sometimes in the private chapels of nearby homes. As the city became unbearably hot, he needed a change of scenery and something to inspire him. Sintra provided both. Southey moved to live in his uncle’s remote cottage, amid the lemon and orange trees. In that romantic and inspiring landscape of mountain and stream, he passed perhaps the happiest days of his life, sometimes in the company of a Miss Barker rather than his staid wife Edith, wandering the hills and planning his great literary projects. Southey’s nostalgia for those days never left him; visiting Lisbon had a lasting effect on his career as a writer, not all of which proved beneficial.
Unlike the learned Southey, Byron arrived in Portugal with little knowledge of the country and even less of the language. He boasted that his Portuguese was confined to swear words, which were enough for him to bear down upon the natives. Yet the poet’s first description of Lisbon portrays a majestic city:
What beauties doth Lisboa first unfold!
Her image floating on that noble tide,
Which poets vainly pave with sands of gold16
When he was leaving, only two weeks later, he wrote home in a cheerful tone saying that he has been happy eating oranges, talking to monks in bad Latin and swimming the Tagus. Byron and John Cam Hobhouse, who accompanied him, did the tourist rounds with intensity during their short stay. They went to the theatre, visited monasteries and churches, paid a visit to Sintra, and no doubt imbibed a fair measure of Portuguese wine. Both were shocked by the griminess of Lisbon. The wild dogs mentioned by every foreign visitor of the time were bad enough; but tourists were also exposed to being attacked by gangs of youths armed with knives. The mendicant clergy who thronged the streets particularly offended the more puritanical Hobhouse. Unlike Byron, Hobhouse was not amused by their poor command of Latin. Whether Hob-house’s negative views came to influence Byron or whether the poet simply changed his mind, by the time he came to publish Childe Harold, three years later in 1812, the relaxed mood of the tourist has completely vanished. Instead, a distinctly lusophobe tone runs right through the work.
Byron and Hobhouse had come to Portugal at a bad time. The country was under threat of French invasion. The Portuguese royal family had fled to Rio de Janeiro accompanied by the British Navy, an apparently supportive gesture from an old ally, which nevertheless protected British economic interests. During the entire period of the French invasions, there was considerable destruction to buildings and much pillaging of works of art and other valuables. Despite finding these grim legacies of French occupation, Byron was still impressed by the scale of Lisbon and enjoyed its environs. He records his pleasure at the polychromal interior of Mafra convent but it was Sintra, particularly with its romantic, almost wild setting, that most appealed to his poetic nature. The frugal monks of Pena convent provided a salutary contrast to the debauched clergy of the city. Gazing at the panorama he is at his most expansive:
Lo! Cintra’s glorious Eden intervenes
In variegated maze of mount and glen.
Ah me! what hand can pencil guide, or pen,
To follow half on which the eye dilates
Through views more dazzling unto mortal ken
Than those whereof such things the bard relates,
Who to the awe struck world unlock’d Elysium’s gates?17
Byron loved every aspect of Sintra, even the ‘fairy dwelling’ ruin of William Beckford at Monserrate, where he finds something gothic and even ghostly in the air. Here amid the grandeur of nature is also to be found the dark and sinister forces that drive man to doom and destruction. It has to be the starting point for Childe Harold’s pilgrimage, a spiritual as much as a physical journey through adversity and harshness as well as grandeur and nobility. One of the places that Childe Harold passes is the site of Seteais Palace, one of the Marialva homes, where Byron mistakenly thought the Convention of Cintra had been signed the year before, in 1808.18
By the terms of the Convention, the French General Junot was allowed to leave the country with his army’s booty intact. No reparations to compensate for the enormous damage to Portugal were written into the armistice agreement which the British commander-in-chief, Sir Hugh Dalrymple, had concluded at nearby Torres Vedras, the site of Wellington’s later entrenchments. The French negotiator, Marshall Kellerman, must have been delighted with the terms of the peace settlement. Although Dalrymple may have been taking a practical view that the terms would be accepted without more bloodshed, it was a bad settlement for Portugal, leaving the country weak and at the mercy of the British, something which, if not the covert objective of British policy, nevertheless did British interests no harm.
Byron did not seem to accept that the armistice had been unfairly foisted on Portugal when its leaders had little choice but to acquiesce. He took the rather ungenerous view that the Portuguese had been craven to agree to such conditions without a fight. Although the English press had at first taken the view that the settlement was probably sensible given the strength of the French bargaining position, opinion soon swung the other way and the Convention was attacked as a national disgrace. Eminent subjects of the crown, including William Wordsworth, wrote tracts and verse deploring what had happened; Beckford and Southey were shocked by its terms. While some critics, like Sir Walter Scott, claimed that the settlement would not have happened if Sir Arthur Wellesley (later Duke of Wellington) had been in command instead of Dalrymple, others blamed it on the great man himself. No decent Englishman could accept that the old ally had been well served.
Brooding on these sinister matters, Childe Harold blames the Portuguese for lacking the spirit to fight for freedom. Byron’s strong lusophobic remarks have attracted much attention and rebuttal from Portuguese scholars and critics over the ages. Francisco Costa ascribed the poet’s utterance to a malevolent streak in him; others have insisted that Byron was caught up in a matrimonial tangle having made advances to a married woman. His public humiliation — of being slapped in public outside a Lisbon theatre — implanted in him a need for revenge.19 Byron’s own explanation is given in a hidden footnote to Childe Harold. He says:
As I found the Portuguese, so I have characterised them. That they have since improved, at least in courage, is evident. The late exploits of Lord Wellington have effaced the follies of Cintra, changed the character of a nation, reconciled rival superstitions, and baffled an enemy, who never retreated before his predecessors.20
So Byron had taken against the Portuguese because of what he perceived to be their lack of martial spirit. It was only when led by an English commander that they had begun to stand their ground against the French. Although this is a harsh judgement against a small nation attacked by the strongest European power of the day at a time when its ablest leaders had fled abroad, it would have been an opinion shared by many Englishmen who experienced the Peninsular Wars. Byron was a young man imbued with ideas of glorious struggles for freedom: it was the stuff of heroes; an excited call to arms. The absence of a fighting spirit in any nation would have attracted his scorn. Byron’s attitude towards Portugal was therefore a complex one. He made up his mind early on that the Portuguese were a servile race. They hardly deserved to have the paradise of Sintra as their own. Ironically, Byron’s romantic evocation of Sintra and the legend of Childe Harold had a profound effect on the imagination of both the English and the Portuguese long after his calumnies were forgotten.
Although Byron’s reference to Wellington as the English general who stiffened up the Portuguese, it was Marshall William Carr Beresford who in fact took control of the Portuguese army as its commander-in-chief in 1809. The British had been deeply involved in Portuguese affairs since the evacuation of the royal family to Brazil two years before; leading military figures left the country with the king, and the subsequent French invasion left the Portuguese army totally demoralized. Beresford was determined to restore discipline in its ranks; he deployed British officers across its entire structure. Although Beresford’s suzerainty was acceptable enough during the campaigns against the French — he received a Portuguese baronetcy in recognition of his services in 1810 — his continued presence after the war had ended was less welcomed. As a favourite of the absent king, he was a political force equal to the rump of ministers who retained nominal control; he soon became known as the odious Briton who interfered in everything, including the conduct of civil administration, something unforgivable to the remaining Portuguese courtiers.
In 1815 Beresford went to Brazil to re-establish his credentials with the king personally. It was an astute move for he returned to Lisbon as marshall general of all the king’s armies with a mandate to reform them as he wished. Beresford lived in some style at the Palace of Junqueira, becoming amorously involved with the Viscondessa de Juromenha, wife of the Visconde. As viceroy, Beresford was effectively dictator; his stern manner did nothing to placate fractured Portuguese sensibilities. In 1817 there was an alleged conspiracy against the crown led by General Gomes Freire de Andrade but it may have been directed against Beresford as much as the king. The British commander-in-chief used intelligence methods to infiltrate the group; in due course the conspirators were ruthlessly executed by the Portuguese authorities on his advice; the leader himself was executed in prison. Beresford’s role in the conspiracy renewed the campaign against him.21 He once more made for Brazil to get further support from the king and once again he managed to get royal approval for his continuing role.
By the time he returned to Europe in 1820, the Liberal Constitutionalists had taken control and Beresford was prevented from returning to Lisbon. It was only with the restoration of the monarchy that the position changed once more and Beresford was able to return to Lisbon in 1823. But his time was up, the Machiavellian moment had passed and he could no longer influence the course of events. Neither then nor in 1826 on another visit did he manage to re-establish himself in his once overpowering position.
One literary tourist of the eighteenth century who had strong links with England but was not himself British was Giuseppe Baretti, the Italian man of letters who had been well received by Dr Johnson and other members of the Literary Club when he took up residence in London in 1751. His Portuguese recollections originally contained comments critical of the Portuguese government and had to be revised to soothe ruffled Iberian sensibilities. He came to Lisbon in 1760, only five years after the earthquake, staying like so many foreigners in the Buenos Ayres district to the west of the centre of the city. Baretti was obviously shocked at what he saw: large parts of the city still lay in ruins; rebuilding was under way but at a slow pace. Like so many other visitors, he complains of the unsightly piles of rubbish dumped in the streets, the roaming wild dogs and the general dilapidation of the buildings that had actually survived the tremors and the floods of 1755. His description of a ravaged city, full of pickpockets, dwarf-like inhabitants and plump middle-class gentlemen who were ‘not melted into slenderness’22 borders on the picaresque.
Even so, Baretti did not underestimate the task facing the authorities and the citizens. He understood that many Lisbon folk had lost everything — possessions, homes and businesses from which to make a living. Being a practical man, he observed that even the tools needed to rebuild houses were lacking since they too had been swept away by the earthquake and its aftermath. His real criticism was of the direction being taken in the reconstruction. Instead of concentrating on what was for him the most important thing — rehousing the inhabitants — huge effort was invested in the building of a grand new arsenal. With some incredulity, Baretti himself witnessed the scene of the laying of the foundation stone of this structure. Procession after procession of grandees arrived in coaches. First came the patriarch in a gilt coach lined with blue velvet and escorted by a further seven coaches with any number of liveried attendants. Next came Prime Minister Pombal’s entourage, which was followed by the royal party in many more coaches (Baretti notices the Irish, Scots and German attendants in this posse). Despite the sweltering heat of an early September day the great and good had turned up for the ceremony in force. It lasted for more than an hour and left the attendees exhausted.23
Baretti much enjoyed the hills and dales in which Lisbon was built. He greatly admired the elegance of the aqueduct, which once seen cannot be forgotten, and the fine views across the Tagus to Almada nestling on the other side.24 The monastery of Jerónimos impresses him for its scale and the commodious accommodation of the monks. Sintra casts its usual, poetical spell on the visitor. But these observations are less acute than Baretti’s understanding of what makes the city tick. One of its most prominent social features is its mixture of races: black, Jewish and Arabic mixed with various Caucasian strains. He remarks that ‘with such a variety of odd faces’ the traveller must doubt ‘whether Lisbon is in Europe’ and he speculates on the possibility of a future when there would be no ‘pure’ Portuguese living in its surrounds.25
One of Southey’s ‘Goths’ (northerners whom he deemed to be of the right sensibility to enjoy the South) to visit the city a generation after Baretti was the botanist M. Link. Link, a university professor and established writer, came with the Count de Hoffmannseg in 1797, the year before Beckford’s last visit. The two tourists covered the entire length of the country from north to south. Link’s scientific interest was much stimulated; he identified numerous plants which had thitherto been uncategorized or unrecorded. But his interest was not confined to botanical matters; he was an acute observer of Portuguese society and culture in the widest sense. There is a great deal of social and economic data in his account — details of agricultural production and the commercial trading activities of Lisbon come under his intense scrutiny. He was particularly concerned with trying to analyse the causes of Portuguese economic decline during the course of the century. But he also wanted to enjoy cultural aspects of Portuguese life, visiting the theatre and listening to music. His collected works on travel, including the Portuguese episode, gained wide attention and was admired by Goethe and Schiller among others.26
Nearly a century later another northern man of letters, much better known than Link, arrived in Lisbon in 1866, taking up residence with the Danish ambassador. This was Hans Christian Andersen, who stayed in Pinheiros, to the west of the city, not far from the place where Baretti had stayed before him. Hans Christian Andersen gives an enthusiastic account of the bucolic hills of that part of Lisbon:
Late in May the hills are still green, as at home in Denmark. Little fields of maize peep out between the quintas, the name used for a house and garden in the country. Olive trees all round amid the corn; the feeling of fruitfulness and freshness and the abundance of the trees remind me of Kent. To the west the hills on the horizon are literally sown with small windmills, one after another, like a line of battlements.27
In one direction he sees the ‘dizzying’ arches of the aqueduct and beyond the hidden gardens of Lisbon. In the other Sintra broods in the clouds. Like Baretti, Hans Christian Andersen is mesmerized by the aqueduct, towering over everything and reducing all other structures to insignificance. In nearby Laranjeiros, in the grounds of the quinta of Baron Quintela, he is delighted to find a theatre hidden amid greenhouses and Chinese pavilions. The estate itself is somewhat derelict, adding a romantic charm familiar to Lisbon houses through the ages. A more lively contrast is provided in the nearby mansion of the Marquis of Fronteira, where Italianate terraces and Roman busts lend a classical feeling that is nonetheless made exotic by Eastern willows and hidden grottoes.
In contrast to many other visitors, Hans Christian Andersen does not find the streets of Lisbon itself dirty or disagreeable. He described broad, well-kept avenues and handsome villas with tiled fronts. The main theatre (Queen Maria II) is imposing while the Baixa, with its gleaming and well-lit jewellers’ shops, could be in Genoa or Edinburgh on account of a similar grid system. One interesting literary encounter he has is with António Feliciano de Castilho, though blinded in his youth an avid enthusiast for classical literature.28 Castilho was married to a Danish lady, Froken Vidal, and had learnt his wife’s language. This greatly eased contact between the two literary men. When they met, Hans Christian Andersen found the Portuguese writer busy on a translation of Virgil. Later they entered a literary correspondence, in Danish on the one side and in French on the other, just one more symbol of the continuing foreign presence in the city.