Famous Imposters 4

Famous Imposters 4

The fate of Sebastian was sealed in that battle. Whether he lived or

died, he disappeared on 5 August, 1578. One story was that after the

battle of Alcaçer-el-Kebir, his body stripped and showing seven wounds

was found in a heap of the slain; that it was taken to Fez and there

buried; but was afterwards removed to Europe and found resting place

in the Convent of Belen. Another story was that after a brilliant

charge on his enemies he was taken in, but having been rescued by Lui

de Brito he escaped unpursued. Certainly no one seemed to have seen

the King killed, and it was strange that no part of his clothing or

accoutrements was ever found. These were of great splendour, beauty and

worth, and must have been easily traceable. There was a rumour that on

the night following the battle some fugitives, amongst whom was one of

commanding distinction, sought refuge at Arzilla.

 

Alcaçer-el-Kebir was known as the “Battle of the three Kings.” All the

principals engaged in it perished. Sebastian was killed or disappeared.

Abd-el-Mulek died as we have seen, and Mohammed was drowned in trying

to cross the river.

 

The dubiety of Sebastian’s death gave rise in after years to several

impostures.

 

The first began six years after Sebastian’s successor--his uncle,

Cardinal Henry--was placed on the throne. The impostor was known as the

“King of Penamacor.” The son of a potter at Alcobaca, he established

himself at Albuquerque, within the Spanish borders, somewhat to the

north of Badajos, and there gave himself out as “a survivor of the

African Campaign.” As usual the public went a little further and said

openly that he was the missing Don Sebastian. At first he denied the

soft impeachment, but later on the temptation became too great for him

and he accepted it and set up in Penamacor, where he became known as

the “King of Penamacor.” He was arrested and paraded through Lisbon,

bareheaded, as if to let the public see that he in no way resembled the

personality of Sebastian. He was sent to the galleys for life. But he

must have escaped, for later on he appeared in Paris as Silvio Pellico,

Duke of Normandy, and was accepted as such in many of the salons in the

exclusive Faubourg St. Germain.

 

The second personator of Sebastian was one Matheus Alvares, who having

failed to become a monk, a year later imitated the first impostor, and

in 1585 set up a hermitage at Ericeira. He bore some resemblance to the

late king in build, and in the strength of this he boldly gave himself

out as “King Sebastian” and set out for Lisbon. But he was arrested

by the way and entered as a prisoner. He was tried and executed with

frightful accessories to the execution.

 

The third artist in this imposture appeared in 1594. He was a Spaniard

from Madrigal in Old Castile--a cook, sixty years old (Sebastian would

have been just forty if he had lived). When arrested he was given but

short shrift and shared the same ghastly fate as his predecessor.

 

The fourth, and last, imposture was more serious. This time the

personator began in Venice in 1598, calling himself “Knight of the

Cross.”

 

As twenty years had now elapsed since the disappearance of Sebastian,

he would have changed much in appearance, so in one respect the

personator had less to contend against. Moreover the scene of endeavour

was this time laid in Venice, a place even more widely removed in the

sixteenth century from Lisbon by circumstances than by geographical

position. Again witnesses who could give testimony to the individuality

of the missing King of twenty years ago were few and far between. But

on the other hand the new impostor had new difficulties to contend

against. Henry, the Cardinal, had only occupied the Portuguese throne

two years, for in 1580 Philip II of Spain had united the two crowns,

and had held the dual monarchy for eighteen years. He was a very

different antagonist from any one that might be of purely Portuguese

origin.

 

In the eyes of many of the people--like all the Latin races naturally

superstitious--one circumstance powerfully upheld the impostor’s

claim. So long ago as 1587, Don John de Castro had made a seemingly

prophetic statement that Sebastian was alive and would manifest himself

in due time. His utterance was, like most such prophecies of the

kind, “conducive to its own fulfilment;” there were many--and some of

them powerful--who were willing at the start to back up any initiator

of such a claim. In his time Sebastian had been used, so far as it

was possible to use a man of his temperament and position, by the

intriguers of the Catholic Church, and the present occasion lent itself

to their still-existent aims. Rome was very powerful four centuries

ago, and its legions of adherents bound in many ties, were scattered

throughout the known world. Be sure these could and would aid in any

movement or intrigue which could be useful to the Church.

 

“The Knight of the Cross”--who insinuated, though he did not state

so, that he was a Royal person was arrested on the showing of the

Spanish Ambassador. He was a born liar, with all the readiness which

the carrying out of such an adventure as he had planned requires. Not

only was he well posted in known facts, but he seemed to be actually

proof against cross-examination. The story he told was that after the

battle of Alcaçer-el-Kebir he with some others, had sought temporary

refuge in Arzilla and in trying to make his way from there to the East

Indies, he had got to “Prester John’s” land--the semi-fabled Ethiopia

of those days. From thence he had been turned back, and had, after

many adventures and much wandering--in the course of which he had been

bought and sold a dozen times or more, found his way, alone, to Venice.

Amongst other statements he alleged that Sebastian’s confessor had

already recognised and acknowledged him; but he was doubtless ignorant,

when he made the statement, that Padre Mauricio, Don Sebastian’s

confessor, fell with his king in 1578. Two things, one, a positive

inference and the other negative, told against him. He only knew of

such matters as had been made public in depositions, and _he did not

know Portuguese_. The result of his first trial was that he was sent to

prison for two years.

 

But those two years of prison improved his case immensely. In that

time he learned the Portuguese language and many facts of history.

One of the first to believe--or to allege belief, in his story, Fray

Estevan de Sampayo, a Dominican monk, was in 1599, sent by the Venetian

authorities to Portugal to obtain an accredited description of the

personal marks of King Sebastian. He returned within a year with a

list of sixteen personal marks--attested by an Apostolic notary.

Strange to say the prisoner exhibited every one of them--a complete

agreement which in itself gave rise to the new suspicion that the list

had been made out by, or on behalf of, the prisoner. The proof however

was accepted--for the time; and he was released on the 28th of July,

1600--but with the imperative, humiliating proviso that he was to quit

Venice within four and twenty hours under penalty of being sent to

the galleys. A number of his supporters, who met him before he went,

found that he had in reality no sort of resemblance to Sebastian. Don

John de Castro, who was amongst them, said that a great change in

Sebastian seemed to have taken place. (He had prophesied and adhered

to his prophecy.) He now described him as a man of medium height and

powerful frame, with hair and beard of black or dark brown, and said

he had completely lost his beauty. “What has become of my fairness?”

the swarthy ex-prisoner used to say. He had eyes of uncertain colour,

not large but sparkling; high cheek bones; long nose; thin lips with

the “Hapsburg droop” in the lower one. He was short from the waist

up. (Sebastian’s doublet would fit no other person.) His right leg

and arm were longer than the left, the legs being slightly bowed like

Sebastian’s. He had small feet with extraordinarily high insteps; and

large hands. “In fine,” Don John summed up illogically, “he is the

self-same Sebastian--except for such differences as resulted from years

and labours.” Some other particulars he added which are in no way

helpful to a conclusion.

 

The Impostor told his friends that he had in 1597, sent a messenger

from Constantinople to Portugal--one Marco Tullio Catizzone--who had

never returned. Thence he had travelled to Rome--where, when he was

just on the eve of being presented to the Holy Father, he was robbed of

all he had; thence to Verona and so on to Venice. After his expulsion

from Venice he seems to have found his way to Leghorn and Florence, and

thence on to Naples, where he was handed over to the jurisdiction of

the Spanish Viceroy, the Count of Lemos, who had visited him in prison,

and who well remembered King Sebastian whom he had seen when in a

diplomatic mission. The Viceroy came to the conclusion that he bore no

likeness at all to Sebastian, that he was ignorant of all save the well

known historical facts that had been published, and that his speech

was of “corrupt Portuguese mingled with tell-tale phrases of Calabrian

dialect.” Thereupon he took active steps against him. One witness who

was produced, recognized in him the real Marco Tullio Catizzone, and

Count de Lemos sent for his wife, mother-in-law and brother-in-law,

all of whom he had deceived and deserted. His wife, Donna Paula of

Messina, acknowledged him; and he confessed his crime. Condemned to the

galleys for life, Marco Tullio, out of consideration of a possibility

of an error of justice, was so far given indulgence by the authorities

that he did not have to wear prison dress or labour at the oar. Many

of his supporters, who still believed in him, tried to mitigate his

lot and treated him as a companion; so that the hulk at San Lucar, at

the mouth of the Guadalquiver became a minor centre of intrigue. But

still he was not content, and adventuring further, he tried to get

money from the wife of Medina-Sidonia then Governor of Andalusia. He

was again arrested with some of his associates. Incriminating documents

were found on him. He was racked and confessed all. And so in his real

name and parentage, Marco Tullio, son of Ippolit Catizzone of Taverna,

and of Petronia Cortes his wife, and husband of Paula Gallardetta

was executed. He had, though of liberal education, never worked at

any occupation or calling; but he had previously to his great fraud,

personated other men--amongst them Don Diego of Arragon. On 23rd of

September, 1603, he was dragged on a hurdle to the Square of San Lucar;

his right hand was cut off and he was hanged. Five of his companions,

including two priests, shared his fate.

 

But in a way he and the previous impostors had a sort of posthumous

revenge, for Sebastian had now entered into the region of Romantic

Belief. He was, like King Arthur, the ideal and the heart of a great

myth. He became “The Hidden King” who would some day return to aid his

nation in the hour of peril--the destined Ruler of the Fifth Monarchy,

the founder of an universal Empire of Peace.

 

A hundred years ago, the custom in British theatres was to finish

the evening’s performance with a farce. On this occasion the tragedy

had been finished two centuries before the “comic relief” came. The

occasion was in the French occupation of Portugal in 1807. The strange

belief in the Hidden King broke out