JOHN II OF PORTUGAL

'João II, King of Portugal' KG (Portuguese pron. IPA []; English: 'John II'), ''the Perfect Prince'' (Port. ''o Príncipe Perfeito''), fourteenth king of Portugal and the Algarves was born in Lisbon in March 3 1455 and died in Alvor in October 25 1495. He was the son of king Afonso V of Portugal by his wife, Isabel of Coimbra, princess of Portugal. John II succeeded his father briefly in 1477 when the king retired to a monastery, but only became king in 1481.
As a prince, John II accompanied his father in the campaigns in northern Africa and was made a knight by him after the victory in Arzila in 1471. In 1473 he married Leonor of Viseu, Infanta of Portugal and his first cousin.
Even at a young age, he was not popular among the peers of the kingdom since he was immune to external influence and appeared to despise intrigue. The nobles (including particularly Fernando II, the Duke of Braganza) were afraid of his future policies as king. Events proved them right.
After the official accession to the throne in 1481, John II took a series of measures to curtail the overgrown power of his aristocracy and to concentrate power on himself. Immediately, the nobles started to conspire; John II did nothing but observe. Letters of complaint and pleas to intervene were exchanged between the Duke of Braganza and Queen Isabella I of Castile. In 1483, this correspondence was intercepted by royal spies. The House of Braganza was outlawed, their lands confiscated and the duke executed in Évora.
In the following year, the Duke of Viseu, his cousin and brother-in-law was summoned to the palace and stabbed to death by the king himself for suspicion of a new conspiracy. Many other people were executed, murdered or exiled to Castile including the bishop of Evora who was poisoned in prison.
The king is reported to have said, concerning the rebellious nobles: ''"I'm the lord of lords, not the server of servants"''. After these events, no one in the country dared to defy the king. John II was free to govern as he pleased without any other conspiracies during his reign. The nobles who sided with John II or surendered were forced to make public pledges of loyally, in return they were given certain privileges, yet they still had to pay taxes.
Facing a bankrupt Kingdom, John II showed the initiative to solve the situation by creating an agile regime in which the Council of Scholars took a vital rote in it. The king then made a background check on the population and selected memmbers according to their abilities, talents and credentials. Popular complaints on judicial acts normally had the sympathy of the king. Already before the Tordesilhas Treaty, such was the profit coming from John II's investements in the overseas explorations and expansion that the Portuguese currency had become the soundest in Europe. The Kingdom could finally collect taxes on their own as all of their debts had been paid of mainly thanks to their main gold source at that time, the Ginnean coast.
John II then restored the policies of Atlantic exploration, reviving the work of his great-uncle, Henry the Navigator. The Portuguese explorations were his main priority in government, pushing south the known coastal Africa with the purpose of discovering the maritime route to India. During his reign, the following was achieved:

★ 1482 - The first European settlement outside of Europe is founded, the coastal fortress and trade post of S. Jorge da Mina.

★ 1484 – Diogo Cão discovered the Congo River

★ 1488 - Bartolomeu Dias rounded the Cape of Good Hope

★ 1493 – Alvaro Caminha started the settlement of the São Tomé and Príncipe islands

★ Land expeditions were sent to India and Ethiopia in search of Prester John
The complete record of the Portuguese exploration voyages is unknown. Much was kept in secret due to competition with the neighbours of Castile. The archives of this period were destroyed in the fire after the 1755 Lisbon earthquake and what was not destroyed during the earthquake was either stolen or destroyed during the French invansions, the British dictatorship and/or by pure negligence. Modern historians are still debating their true extent, suspecting that Portuguese sailors reached the continent of North America earlier than Christopher Columbus by approximately 1470 and also Brazil by as early as 1480.
Arguments for this are the much more precise calculations on the diameter of the Earth that Portugal held (calculations from Arabic sources). Along side the John II was the Council of Scholars, composed by proiminent scholars, mathematicians, cartographers, theologians, high ranking religious figures of the Kingdom of Portugal, several important Portuguese-Jewish figures, rabbis, bankers, proiminent Jewish intellectuals, (including some outside logistical support from the Medicis) and these were the ones to be later on denominated as the "School of Sages". While Columbus thought it would be possible to reach India through the West, Portuguese intelligence knew already the way to be much longer and possibly that there was a continent in the middle. The travels of the mysterious captain Duarte Pacheco Pereira in the central Atlantic west of Cape Verde probably are more important than traditional history states. In fact a discovery which well reflects the lack of information and sources concerning the exploration efforts was the finding or the order book of a bakery, close to Lisbon's Restello shipward which had had an order for supplying with biscuits for more than a hundred long voyages (east and west) between 1490 and 1497, this comes in direct conflict with the tradional view that there were no voyages between the return of Bartolomeu Dias and the departure of Vasco da Gama in 1497. This made many portuguese historians reflect about the true nature of the frequency and organization of the voyages leading to strong suspicions that just like during this time period, in the 1480's the voyages departing from Lisbon heading towards both east and west would have been made under the same frequency and as secretly. The fact that these voyages were unknown, despite their numbers, also greatly reflect the high level of secrecism from Portugal at that time.
While no direct proof exists, many historians, both Portuguese and non-Portuguese suspect that the Americas may have already been explored and in the first steps of colonization. Not only concerning Brazil, but also Newfoundland and Labrador, which ironically, despite being less known by the masses, are considered more plausible than those of Brazil. Among the several possible indications that could support the possible pre-Columbian exploration of Brazil are:
1: The less known voyages westward and even the unknown frequency of these voyages as mentioned earlier on.
2: The fact that the navigational routes the explortaion ships followed in order to pass the Cape of Good Hope by as early as the 1480's passed by Brazil and the entire Argentinian coast in just a meere 50 to 70 land miles of distance.
3: The agreed boundary made in the Tordesilhas Treaty divided more or less South America in half and reports during the talks mentioned John II's wish to further push the line as west as possible.

John II's refusal of Columbus proposals was not out of a foolish act, but only due to the fact that the king knew Columbus was wrong from the beginning. When Columbus requested an audience with the king there was somewhat a friction between personalities, Columbus was boastful, exaggerated, while the king was quiet and careful with assumptions. Columbus reached the king and told him that the quickest route to Japan would be by travelling through the Atlantic ocean (it should be noted that Japan's existence was alrady known to southern Europe at that time), however the king did not believe Columbus, and this is reflected by the records written by the King's chronicler, "His Majesty saw Cristóvão Colombo to have a big mouth and to be boastful, exaggerated his accomplishments and more inflated with fancy and imagination than certain on his case." Still, the King presented him on to the Council of Scholars for a more carefully denifed opinion. The council immediately rejected Columbus's calculation as they were already aware of Columbus sources, his sources were from a Florentine scholar, Paolo Toscanelli, ironically, these same calculations were sent in a letter to the Council of Scholars by the author himself a few years before and they were regected for being "too short". In that same letter was the same statement Columbus repeated to the King. Other justifications for the King's refusal was the fact that the sea route to India was already known and detailed information about winds, available spices, and local customs had already been recorded by master spy Pero da Covilhã.
When Columbus returned from his voyage he thought of first stopping by in Lisbon in order to claim his victory in front of King John II. King John II's only response to this was that under the treaty with Spain Columbus's discoveries lay within Portugal's sphere of influence. Before Columbus even reached her Majesty Queen Isabela of Castile, John II had alrady sent a letter to them threatening to send a fleet to claim it for Portugal. Spain quickly hastened to the negotiating table which took place in a small town near the Portuguese border named Tordesilhas. There was also a papal representative during that occasion in order to act as mediator. The result of this would be the famous Treaty of Tordesilhas.
But the dividing of the world was not the main issue between the Iberian kingdoms. Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon had several daughters, but only one feeble male heir — Juan. The oldest daughter, Isabella of Aragon, was married to Prince Afonso of Portugal since childhood. Afonso was John II's only son and beloved by the king. If Juan died without male heir, as was probable, Afonso would be heir not only of Portugal but also of Castile and Aragon. This threat to Castilian and Aragonese independence was very real and the Catholic kings tried every diplomatic trick to dissolve the wedding. Finally, in 1491, Afonso died in mysterious circumstances — a fall from a horse during a ride in the margin of the Tagus river. The influence of the Catholic kings in this accident was never proved but the prince was an excellent rider, his Castilian valet fled never to be seen again and after this, Isabella, the heiress, was no longer married to the enemy. John tried without success until the end of his life to legitimise Jorge, Duke of Coimbra, his illegitimate son.
John II died without leaving male issue on October 25, 1495. Due to the hatred the Portuguese nobility had for him, the hypothesis of poisoning was never ruled out. He was succeeded by his first cousin Manuel I.
The nickname ''the Perfect Prince'' is a late description and refers to Niccolò Machiavelli's work The Prince. John II is considered to have lived his life exactly according to the writer's idea of a perfect prince. To his contemporaries, John II was known as ''the Tyrant''.

Contents

References

Ancestors

Marriage and descendants

References

★ Page, Martin ''The First Global Village''

★ Boxer, Charles R. ''From Lisbon to Goa'', 1500-1750 (1991)

★ Boxer, Charles R. ''The Portuguese Seaborne Empire'' 1415-1825

★ Mira, Manuel S. ''Forgotten Portuguese: The Melungeons and the Portuguese Making of America'' (1998)

★ Duffy, James ''Portuguese Africa (1968)''

★ Bodian, Mirian ''Hebrews of the Portuguese Nation'' (1997)

Ancestors

'John's ancestors in three generations'

'John II of Portugal'	'Father:' Afonso V of Portugal	'Father's father:' Edward of Portugal	'Father's father's father:' John I of Portugal
			'Father's father's mother:' Philippa of Lancaster
		'Father's mother:' Leonor of Aragon	'Father's mother's father:' Ferdinand I of Aragon
			'Father's mother's mother:' Eleanor of Albuquerque
	'Mother:' Isabel of Coimbra	'Mother's father:' Infante Pedro, Duke of Coimbra	'Mother's father's father:' John I of Portugal
			'Mother's father's mother:' Philippa of Lancaster
		'Mother's mother:' Isabella of Urgell	'Mother's mother's father:' James II, Count of Urgell
			'Mother's mother's mother:' Isabella of Aragon

Marriage and descendants

Of his wife, Leonor of Viseu, Infanta of Portugal John had two sons, but only one of them survived childhood.

Name	Birth	Death	Notes
'By Leonor of Viseu' (May 2 1458-November 17 1525; married on January 1471)
Prince Afonso	May 18 1475	July 13 1491	Prince of Portugal. Died in a horse riding accident. Because of the premature death of the prince the throne was inherited by Manuel of Viseu, Duke of Beja, son of Ferdinand, Duke of Viseu, who reigned as Manuel I, 14th King of Portugal.
Infante João (John)	1455	1483
'By Ana de Mendonça' (c. 1460-?)
Jorge	August 21 1481	July 22 1550	Natural son known as Jorge de Lencastre. Duke of Coimbra.
'By Brites Anes' (c. 1460-?)
Brites Anes de Santarém	c. 1485	?	Natural daughter.