Eighty thousand of the exiles crossed into Portugal and purchased permission to tarry in that kingdom for eight months, preparatory to their departure for Africa. King John II. even connived at the permanent settlement of some of them in the country. But the King’s tolerance was not shared by his subjects. ♦1481♦ John had already been beset with complaints of Jewish cavaliers being suffered to parade the streets mounted on richly caparisoned horses and mules, arrayed in fine cloaks and velvet doublets, and dangling gilt swords at their sides. Under his successor popular hatred obtained the satisfaction which had hitherto been denied to it. King Emanuel, a liberal but deeply enamoured prince, was forced to yield to the wishes of his superstitious betrothed,--the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella,--who made the banishment of the Jews a condition of her acceptance of his suit; and he ordered the hapless people to quit his dominions. ♦1495♦ But, as though the measure of Israel’s woes were not yet full, the same King, yielding again to the pressure of love, caused all Jewish children of fourteen years of age and under to be torn from their parents in order to be kept in Portugal, and be reared in the Catholic faith. The scenes of agony which followed this diabolical edict would be revolting beyond endurance, but for their occurrence directly after the _autos-da-fé_. Many Jewish mothers, mad with grief and despair, slew their darlings with their own hands and then destroyed themselves. A contemporary writer concludes his description of these ghastly events with the characteristic comment: “It was a great mistake in King Emanuel to think of converting to Christianity any Jew old enough to pronounce the name of Moses.” In the writer’s opinion the age limit ought to have been three years. Many Jews, afraid to face the perils of the unknown, shielded themselves from the storm under the cloak of conversion, and either remained in Portugal or returned to Spain to join the pseudo-converts left there, and for ages after supplied the hounds of the Inquisition with a healthy occupation. The State, of course, aided the Church in her lethal work; for dissent in religion is close akin to dissent in politics, and domestic discord is incompatible with vigorous expansion abroad. ♦1498♦