crusade against Islam. And the Spanish king, Philip II, in sending only lim-
ited troops to bolster Portugal’s arguably reckless cause, not only positioned
himself against the Turks; his tepid support had the side effect of leaving the
Portuguese—and ultimately the Portuguese state—vulnerable.^28 Backed by
insufficient forces and foresight, Sebastian risked and lost his life in Morocco.
Because he had no heir, his death opened Portugal up to takeover by Spain,
whose king had a strong claim to the throne. After Alcazar, all that stood be-
tween Philip II and Portugal’s autonomy were Sebastian’s sixty-six-year-old
uncle, Cardinal Henry, who ruled for two years ( 1578 – 80 ) and then died with-
out an heir, and Don Antonio, who had been captured in Morocco but who
was ransomed in time to succeed. Still, within a week of his investiture in
1580 , Spanish forces invaded, and within four months, the crown belonged to
Philip, Portugal to Spain. Ultimately, then, the events at Alcazar determined
not simply the allocation of rule within Morocco, but the balance of power
across Europe and the Mediterranean.
Although England was not militarily invested in the battle in any sig-
nificant way, perhaps what made the “renowned” event so marketable to
English audiences was that it underscored Barbary’s centrality as a site for
global change and exchange. In France, in immortalizing the “notable” bat-
tle in 1580 , Montaigne not only valorizes the exemplary behavior of Abd el-
Malek and emphasizes its immediate outcome, the remarkable death of
“three Kings” (Abd el-Malek, Mulai Mohammed, and the Portuguese Sebas-
tian); he also laments its political aftereffect, the “transmission of so great a
Kingdome [Portugal] to the crowne of Castile” ( 405 ).^29 In Portugal, anti-
Spanish propaganda presented Alcazar and Philip’s limited backing of Se-
bastian there to display the Spanish king’s “unmesurable ambition &
insatiable desire to have dominion” over Portugal, as A. R. Braunmuller as
noted.^30 And it may be, as D’Amico has suggested, that Portugal’s failure “to
reassert dominion in Morocco” increased England’s interest in and access to
the Barbary trade—at least until Spain’s absorption of Portugal heightened
“Anglo-Spanish tension over, among other things, that very Moroccan
trade.”^31 Yet while these material consequences certainly registered within
England, for an English state that was just beginning to come to terms with
an evolving “world” economy, the implications were, I think, much broader.
If England stood on the margins of Alcazar, Alcazar was not marginal to En-
gland. For the event and its aftermath exposed Morocco as a place whose
cross-cultural connections not only carried “through the world” but, in-
deed, defined it.
28 chapter one