mblance to the lost monarch: the credulous
crowd swallowed the story, and he soon had a respectable following.
Orders from Lisbon, however, checked his prosperous career. He was
arrested and escorted by 100 horsemen to the dungeons of the capital.
There he was tried and condemned to death. The sentence was not,
however, carried into effect; for the imposture was deemed too
transparent to merit the infliction of the extreme penalty. The
prisoner was carried to the galleys instead of the scaffold, and
exhibited to visitors as a contemptible curiosity rather than as a
dangerous criminal. So ended the first sham Sebastian.

In the same year another pretender appeared. This was Alvarez, the son
of a stone-cutter, and a native of the Azores. So far from originating
the imposture, it seems to have been thrust upon him. Like the youth
of Alcazova, after being a monk, he had become a hermit, and thousands
of the devout performed pilgrimages to his cell, which was situated on
the sea-coast, about two miles from Ericeira. The frequency and
severity of his penances gained him great celebrity, and at last it
began to be rumoured abroad that the recluse was King Sebastian, who,
by mortifying his own flesh, was atoning for the calamity he had
brought upon his kingdom. At first he repudiated all claim to such
distinction; but after a time his ambition seems to have been aroused;
he ceased to protest against the homage of the ignorant, and consented
to be treated as a king. Having made up his mind to the imposture,
Alvares resolved to carry it out boldly. He appointed officers of his
household, and despatched letters, sealed with the royal arms,
throughout the kingdom, commanding his subjects to rally round his
standard and aid him in restoring peace and prosperity to Portugal.
The local peasantry, in answer to the summons, hastened to place
themselves at his service, and were honoured by being allowed to kiss
his royal hand. Cardinal Henrique, the regent, being informed of his
proceedings, despatched an officer with a small force to arrest this
new disturber of the public tranquillity; but on the approach of the
troops Alvares and his followers took to the mountains. The cardinal's
representative, unable to pursue them into their inaccessible
fastnesses, left the alcalde of Torres Vedras at Ericeira with
instructions to capture the impostor dead or alive, and himself set
out for Lisbon. He had scarcely reached the plain when Alvares, a