Originally Posted by
FrancMor13
Good Question! Well, the start of our story begins with Henry from Burgundy. He served the King of Spain by helping him to gain some territory against the Moors and in 1093, King Afonso VI gave him the "Condado Portucalense" (Northern Portugal, with its capital city in Guimarães). But Count Henry had a secret: he thought a lot about independence. After his death in 1112, his wife, D. Teresa (that was the daughter of the King of Spain) sought to unite with the region of Galicia, and her son D. Afonso Henriques, with 14 years old, raised an army and prepared to fight the galicians and his own mother. After a lot of battles, like the Conquest of Santarém, Leiria and Lisboa, the Reign of Portugal is founded and recognised in 1143, by the Treaty of Zamora.
Portugal never trusted Castilla and León, although we kept cordial relations. We helped them a lot against the moors, because Portugal destroyed the Moors on its territory (that is the same as the today's territory, having one of the oldest borders in the world) by 1249, and the Spaniards had a much harder struggle against them (they only destroyed the moor government in Spain by 1492.
Only in 1578 the problems restarted. Portugal had been in its Golden Age from 1415 to 1578. The King Sebastian, formed an army and sailed towards Morocco to conquer more territory (Note: Portugal had a lot of territory in Morocco), and sailed to don't come back... He disappeared in the battle of Alcácer-Quibir, and presumably died. He died with 18 years old, and left no Heirs. So from 1578 to 1580, Cardinal D. Henrique ruled, but as a catholic Cardinal, he hadn't sons or daughters. So we had 3 main candidates: Philip II of Spain, Catherine of Portugal, and the Illegitimate descendant of D.John the III, D. Anthony. After bribing most of the Council, Phillip entered his army thorough Portugal to reach Lisbon. In my city, Santarém, D. António, and the plebe fought Philip, but in vain... In 1580 started 60 horrible years of dependence from Spain. Philip the I sweared that he would respect our autonomy, Philip the II didn't and Philip the III took Portugal as any other province of Spain. So in 1\12\1640 or 12\1\1640 in the american calendar, we started our Independence War, and we won in 1668.
I skipped another Sucession War, in 1385, that was the reason of our Alliance with Britain.