Jorge de Lencastre, 2nd Duke of Coimbra - During Manuel's Reign

During Manuel's Reign

Most of the details of Jorge's subsequent life and career are marred by hagiographers of Manuel, eager to portray the king's rival in the worst possible light. But far from the lazy and dissolute picture painted by the royal scribes, the chroniclers of the Order of Santiago seem to have regarded Jorge de Lencastre as a particularly diligent leader and administrator.

Dom Jorge de Lencastre continued as an important figure in Portuguese politics, particularly in the first decade or so of Manuel's reign. The Order of Santiago was Jorge's principal power base. Dom Jorge established something akin to an 'opposition' court at the Order's headquarters in Palmela. He gathered around him the principal loyalists of John II, who now became political opponents of King Manuel I of Portugal, notably the Almeida clan, the Ataíde family, and, of course, his mother's own family — notably, his uncle, António de Mendonça Furtado, a commendador of the Order of Aviz. Other opposition characters gathered around Dom Jorge included Dom Álvaro de Castro and Dom Diogo Lopo da Silveira (Baron of Alvito), and notable India navigators Vasco da Gama and Francisco de Almeida. Dom Jorge is also said to have had the support of many "New Christians", to have personally given them his protection and to have fought against the introduction of the Holy Inquisition into Portugal.

Dom Jorge's party played a rather important role in the early India expeditions. They formed the 'pragmatic' party, insisting, like John II had, that the India expeditions were a commercial venture, a means for the enrichment of the treasury, a 'Renaissance' focus on wealth and power. Manuel's party had a more 'messianic' outlook, seeing the overseas expeditions through the Medieval goggles of Holy War and religious mission, coming up with schemes for two-pronged invasions of Egypt, marches on Mecca and the reconquest of Jerusalem. In this respect, Dom Jorge (if not himself personally, certainly the party he led) played a vital role in keeping the India expeditions on a sane and viable track. Early India armada captains were drawn more from his party, than from Manuel's.

In the early years, Dom Jorge de Lencastre's power was partly reliant on the hope that he might yet succeed Manuel, but that prospect diminished quickly as Manuel's new queen, Mary of Spain, produced a succession of sons. As time went on, his early fierce partisans began to slowly distance themselves and look for compromise and advancement with Manuel. For some, that meant leaving Dom Jorge's Orders of Santiago and Aviz and passing over to Manuel's Order of Christ. Among those who made the switch were Francisco de Almeida and Vasco da Gama.

Dom Jorge picked a particularly unfortunate fight with Vasco da Gama, once a loyal partisan. After da Gama's glorious return from India in 1499, Manuel deftly promised the town of Sines as a reward to the admiral. But Sines was the property of the Order of Santiago. Instinctively, Jorge was disposed to allow it, as a reward to one of his own; but since it was on the king's order, he feared it was the thin end of the wedge to more royal appropriations of Order properties. So he decided to make a stand on principle and stepped in personally to prevent it. He went so far as to secure the banishment of da Gama from Sines in 1507. This prompted da Gama to make his final break with Jorge, leave his beloved Order of Santiago and switch to the rival Order of Christ.

Dom Jorge de Lencastre dedicated himself to defending his two knightly orders, Santiago and Aviz, from the unremitting poaching by Manuel's Order of Christ. In May 1505, Jorge managed to secure a royal order prohibiting knights from leaving his orders without his express permission. But Manuel soon obtained from Pope Alexander VI two bulls to undermine him — one from July 1505, giving the King of Portugal the right to dispose of the property of all three Orders; another in January, 1506, authorizing knights to move freely from other Orders to the Order of Christ. However, Jorge continued to resist, and made a point of punishing knights who left without permission (for example, seizing the Sesimbra commenda of João de Menezes, Count of Tarouca, for having taken up the position of Prior of Crato without his consent).

In 1509, Dom Jorge introduced a new set of rules for the Order of Santiago, overhauling its administration in a centralized fashion, bringing it closer in line with the rules of their Spanish brethren.

But with so many defections, Dom Jorge found it hard to maintain his political footing, and his star was quickly waning. In 1516, the humiliation was complete when Manuel secured from Pope Leo X the authority to appoint Jorge's successors as grand masters of the orders of Santiago and Aviz.