DECLINE OF PORTUGUESE POWER 35 1493 and the treaties based upon it. Prom the first Charter of Elizabeth to the London Company in 1600 the English Crown acknowledged only Portuguese rights based on " actual possession/ ' and altogether ignored the wider claim under the Demarcation Bull. But the " discovery " of continents and of groups of islands scattered over great oceans and the " actual possession " of them were widely different terms. The real question was— which of the two nations could enforce its view. Ten years, from Best's coast fight in 1612 to our capture of Ormuz in 1622, sufficed to decide this issue. The Portuguese were no longer the gallant little nation, in the first heat of independence, which opened the Cape route to India and made themselves masters of the Asiatic seas. In less than two centuries from 1385, when the field of Aljubarrota had freed Portugal from the standing menace of Castile and launched her on a career of glory under the House of Aviz, that patri- otic dynasty flickered out, and the Portuguese passed under the bigot rule of Philip II. The first half of their " sixty years' captivity" to Spain (1580-1640) sufficed to exhaust their resources in Philip's struggle with Dutch Protestantism, and to blight their national vigour. Portugal ceased to be prolific of great men. The four successors of Albuquerque who stand out in In- dian history belonged to the period before her " cap- tivity " to Spain. Nuno da Cunha (1529-1538), who opened out the Portuguese trade to Bengal; Joao de
