"At Ksar el-Kebir in northern Morocco an invading Portuguese army faced overwhelming odds. Their king had risked everything – an army, a dynasty and an empire – on his destiny.
Don Sebastian, the twenty-four-year-old King of Portugal, rose early on the morning of August 4, 1578. He was restless as they dressed him under the silken tent in new armor, over which was applied a leather tunic to guard against the heat of the Sun. Outside, the din of the camp was building as the army too girded for battle. On the hills facing them, the Moroccan army was also stirring. For Don Sebastian, the coming fight was the fruit of his labor and the culmination of months of personal tribulation. The victory to follow would cover him in glory he had sought all his young life.
Don Sebastian was born in Lisbon on July 20, 1554 during the reign of his grandfather, King John III. From his first day, Sebastian's life had an ominous quality. The death of his father, eighteen days prior to his birth, left young Sebastian as the sole heir to the House of Aviz. His people regarded the fair, golden-haired infant as the salvation of the throne, which might otherwise have passed to Portugal's eternal nemesis, Spain. Phillip II, King of Spain, was a nephew of John III and therefore a potential claimant to the Portuguese throne. When John died in 1557, a regency was formed under Don Sebastian's great-uncle, Cardinal Henry, until 1568, when the young man, at the age of fourteen, mounted the throne as Sebastian I…"
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Amicalement
Armand
receives a gift from his wife…
