When Dom João III. died in 1557 he was succeeded by his grandson Sebastião, who was then only three years old. At first his grandmother, Dona Catharina, was regent, but she was thoroughly Spanish, and so unpopular. For five years she withstood the intrigues of her brother-in-law, Cardinal Henry, but at last in 1562 retired to Spain in disgust. The Cardinal then became regent, but the country was really governed by two brothers, of whom the elder, Luis Gonçalves da Câmara, a Jesuit, was confessor to the young king. Between them Dom Sebastião grew up a dreamy bigot whose one ambition was to lead a crusade against the Moors--an ambition in which popular rumour said he was encouraged by the Jesuits at the instigation of his cousin, Philip of Spain, who would profit so much by his death. Since the wealth of the Indies had begun to fill the royal treasury, the Cortes had not been summoned, so there was no one able to oppose his will, when at last an expedition sailed in 1578. At this time the country had been nearly drained of men by India and Brazil, so a large part of the army consisted of mercenaries; peculation too had emptied the treasury, and there was great difficulty in finding money to pay the troops. Yet the expedition started, and landing first at Tangier afterwards moved on to Azila, which Mulay Ahmed, a pretender to the Moorish umbrella, had handed over. On July 29th, Dom Sebastião rashly started to march inland from Azila. The army suffered terribly from heat and thirst, and was quite worn out before it met the reigning amir, Abd-el-Melik, at Alcacer-Quebir, or El-Kasar-el-Kebir, 'the great castle,' on the 3rd of August. Next morning the battle began, and though Abd-el-Melik died almost at once, the Moors, surrounding the small Christian army, were soon victorious. Nine thousand were killed, and of the rest all were taken prisoners except fifty. Both the Pretender and Dom Sebastião fell, and with his death and the destruction of his army the greatness of Portugal disappeared. For two years, till 1580, his feeble old grand-uncle the Cardinal Henry sat on the throne, but when he died without nominating an heir none of Dom Manoel's descendants were strong enough to oppose Philip II. of Spain. Philip was indeed a grandson of Dom Manoel through his mother Isabel, but the duchess of Braganza, daughter of Dom Duarte, duke of Guimarães, Cardinal Henry's youngest brother, had really a better claim. But the spirit of the nation was changed, she dared not press her claims, and few supported the prior of Crato, whose right was at least as good as had been that of Dom João I., and so Philip was elected at Thomar in April 1580.