of the Plantagenet blood in them. Only one prince of the line, Pedro
II., can be said to have attained anything like greatness. Another,
Joseph, had the sense to give a free hand to an able, if despotic,
minister, the Marquis of Pombal. But, on the whole, the history of the
Braganza rule was one of steady decadence, until the second half of the
nineteenth century found the country one of the most backward in
Europe.

Nor was there any comfort to be found in the economic aspect of the
case. A country of glorious fertility and ideal climatic conditions,
inhabited by an industrious peasantry, Portugal was nevertheless so
poor that much of its remaining strength was year by year being drained
away by emigration. The public debt was almost as heavy per head of
population as that of England. Taxation was crushing. The barest
necessaries of life were subject to heavy imposts. Protection
protected, not industries, but monopolies and vested interests.

In short, the material condition of the country was as distressing as
its spiritual state to any one with the smallest sense of enlightened
patriotism.

King Charles I.--name of evil omen!--ascended the throne in 1889. His
situation was not wholly unlike that of the English Charles I.,
inasmuch as--though he had not the insight to perceive it--his lot was
cast in times when Portugal was outgrowing the traditions and methods
of his family. Representative government, as it had shaped itself since
1852, was a fraud and a farce. To every municipality a Government
administrator was attached (at an annual cost to the country of
something like £70,000), whose business it was to "work" the elections
in concert with the local _caciques_ or bosses. Thus, except in the