For some years the Portuguese had been justly irritated by the giving to Spaniards of administrative offices in Portugal, and by the contemptuous way in which Olivares habitually received representations or remonstrances as to the injuries suffered by Portuguese subjects in consequence of the union with Castile. The principal instruments of the Count-Duke in his attempts to rule Portugal on Castilian lines were two creatures of his--Miguel Vasconcellos and Diego Suarez, both Portuguese of obscure origin, who had practically superseded the Duchess of Mantua, Philip's nominal figurehead, who was personally not unpopular. In 1637, at an attempt to impose a tax on all property in Portugal for Spanish purposes, risings took place in the Algarves and Evora, and protests loud and deep came from other Portuguese cities. Madrid at once announced that the King himself would go with a large force and conquer his realm of Portugal; but though this was untrue, the Duke of Medina Sidonia marched into the Algarves with a Spanish force, whilst another threatened the north of Portugal, and the Portuguese, unready as yet for the conflict, were cowed by the threat. But the injury rankled deeply, and when, in the following year 1638, Olivares summoned to Madrid the Portuguese archbishops, seven nobles and three {334} Jesuit priests, to discuss the closer unity of the two countries--an assembly which coincided with the imposition of a new illegal tax upon the Portuguese as a punishment for the risings--Portuguese nobles and people alike knew that unless they were to be enslaved by Castile they must needs fight for their national existence. Thenceforward the great conspiracy that was to bring independence to Portugal never ceased until victory crowned the attempt. The Duke of Braganza, the Portuguese pretender with the best right to the throne, was prodigiously rich and over cautious, but his virile Spanish Guzman wife was eager and ambitious; whilst her wealthy brother, the Duke of Medina Sidonia, head of the Guzmans, silently helped forward the scheme which would make his sister a Queen, and afford him, the most powerful vassal of the Castilian crown, a precedent for the creation of an independent principality for himself in Andalucia, free from the weak and corrupt bureaucracy led by his cousin Olivares in Madrid.