Baese confessed, when put to the torture, and on August 29th all the noblemen concerned, including the Marquis of Villa Real and the Duke of Caminha, were publicly executed at Lisbon, while the Primate and the Grand Inquisitor were condemned to imprisonment for life. This severe punishment did not check the ardour of the friends of Spain, who were chiefly officials and discontented nobles, and numbered few adherents among the people, and in 1643 a new plot was discovered, headed by Francisco de Lucena, Secretary of State, who was promptly executed. In spite of these difficulties, the government managed to get together an army; it was neither well-disciplined nor well-equipped, but popular enthusiasm took the place of experience, and on May 26, 1642, the Portuguese under the command of Mathias de Alboquerque, defeated a Spanish army under the Baron de Molingen at Montijo. This victory, which was loudly compared to that of Aljubarrota, was, in truth, of no great importance from a military point of view, but it invigorated the spirit of the Portuguese people, and encouraged them to persist in fighting for their independence. From every quarter of the globe news arrived that the old Portuguese possessions had declared for John IV. Mozambique, Goa and the possessions in India, Malacca, and Macao, all threw off the domination of Spain, and prepared to send money and men to Lisbon; while Brazil, the most valuable possession of the Portuguese crown, since the Dutch had taken possession of the Asiatic trade, began a gallant struggle for the House of Braganza, a struggle which brought about a war with the Dutch in Europe, and lost the Portuguese the assistance which had been promised them in 1641 by the arrival of the fleet under Gylfels.