Luís de Meneses, 3rd Count of Ericeira

His Lordship
The Count of Ericeira
Portrait by Feliciano de Almeida, c. 1673–75
Comptroller of the Exchequer
of the Kingdom of Portugal
In office
16 October 1675 – 26 May 1690
MonarchPeter II
Personal details
Born22 July 1632
Lisbon, Portugal
Died26 May 1690
Lisbon, Portugal
SpouseJoana Josefa de Meneses[1]
Parents
  • Henrique de Meneses, 5th Lord of Louriçal (father)
  • Margarida de Lima (mother)
Military service
AllegianceKingdom of Portugal
Battles/warsPortuguese Restoration War

D. Luís de Meneses, 3rd Count of Ericeira (22 July 1632 — 26 May 1690) was a Portuguese nobleman, military man, historian, and politician.[2][3]

Biography

He was the second son of D. Henrique de Meneses, 5th Lord of Louriçal and D. Margarida de Lima, daughter of João Gonçalves de Ataíde, 5th Count of Atouguia,

He was commander of São Cipriano de Angueira (St Cyprian), São Martinho de Frazão (St Martin) and São Bartolomeu da Covilhã (St Bartholomew) he was also commander the Order of Christ.

He was eight years old when the Portuguese Restoration War started in 1640, he served under the eldest son of King John IV, Theodosius of Braganza who was later Prince of Brazil; during the war, he was artillery general and later a member of the Council of State. He took part in the Battle of São Miguel in 1658, Battle of the Lines of Elvas in 1659, Battle of Ameixial in 1663 and Battle of Montes Claros in 1665. After the end as a reward for defeating Spanish troops at the countryside of rio Degebe, he received the Lordship of the town of Ansião. After the end of the war, he became Governor-at-Arms of the Province of Trás-os-Montes in 1673. Later he wrote a couple of works related to the war.

Later he was a supporter of the Duke of Beja and the crisis of the aristocracy which led to the abdication of Afonso VI of Portugal on 1667. In 1675, he returned to Lisbon where he was chosen for deputy of the Board of the Three States.

He served as finance minister to the king, Dom Pedro II.[4][3] His economic policies were noted as being highly mercantilist.[5][3]

He appeared to suffer from depression, described at the time as "bouts of melancholy"; in 1690 he committed suicide at the palace in Lisbon.[4] He was succeeded by Francisco Xavier Menezes as the Count of Ericeira.

Selected works

  • "Compendio panegyrico da vida e acções do Excellentissimo Senhor Luiz Alvares de Tavora, conde de S. João, marquez de Tavora". Lisbon, 1674
  • "Historia de Portugal Restaurado (Parte I)". [History of Portugal During the Restoration, Part 1] Lisbon, 1678
  • "Historia de Portugal Restaurado (Parte II)". [History of Portugal During the Restoration, Part 1], Lisbon, 1698 - His last work that defended the work including its introduction and the legitimacy of the new Bragança Dynasty.
  • "Exemplos de virtudes morales en la vida de Jorge Castrioto, llamado Scanderbeg, principe de los Epirotas y Albanezes, etc.," [Examples of Moral Virtues on the Life of George Castrioto, known as Scanderbeg, Prince of Epirus and the Albanians, etc;]
  • "Relação do felice successo que conseguiram as armas do Serenissimo principe D. Pedro, nosso senhor, governadas por Francisco de Tavora, governador e capitão general do reino de Angola, contra a rebellião de D. João, rei das Pedras e Dongo, no mez de dezembro de 1671";, as anonymous and in the same year of impression
  • "Soneto em applauso do Panegyrico poetico que dedicou a el rei D. Pedro II o principe Seneschal de Ligne, Marquez de Arronches". Lisbon, 1685 [Modern Portuguese: Soneto em aplauso do Panegirico poético que dedicou á rei D. Pedro II, o príncipe Senechal de Ligne, Marques de Arronches, English: Sonnet in Applause of a Panegyric Poems Dedicated to King Peter II and Prince Senechal de Ligne, Marquis of Arronches]

He also had a few manuscripts mainly written in the Castilian (Spanish) language, two of them were comedies in verse.

Further reading

  • Serrão, Joel - Dictionary of the History of Portugal, p. 26-28
  • Torres, João Romano. Portugal - Dicionário Histórico, Corográfico, Heráldico, Biográfico, Bibliográfico, Numismático e Artístico, Volume II, p. 1262-1263.

References

  1. ^ "Ericeira (D. Joana Josefa de Meneses, 3.ª condessa da)". Portugal - Dicionário Histórico, Corográfico, Heráldico, Biográfico, Bibliográfico, Numismático e Artístico (in Portuguese). Vol. III. p. 162.
  2. ^ Villegas de la Torre, Esther Maria (2011). Villegas de la Torre, Esther Maria (2012) Women and the republic of letters in the Luso-Hispanic world, 1447-1700 (PDF). University of Nottingham.
  3. ^ a b c Rodrigues, Lúcia Lima; Sangster, Alan (2013-07-01). "The role of the state in the development of accounting in the Portuguese–Brazilian Empire, 1750–1822". Accounting History Review. 23 (2): 161–184. doi:10.1080/21552851.2013.803758. ISSN 2155-2851.
  4. ^ a b Arenz, Karl Heinz (2022-12-14). Cassava, Cacao and Catechesis: Agriculture and Extractivism in the Jesuit Missions on the Amazon in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-52942-7.
  5. ^ Hanson, Carl A. (1981), Hanson, Carl A. (ed.), "The Mercantilist Mind in Seventeenth-Century Portugal", Economy and Society in Baroque Portugal, 1668–1703, London: Palgrave Macmillan UK, pp. 108–140, doi:10.1007/978-1-349-05878-5_5, ISBN 978-1-349-05878-5, retrieved 2023-01-11
Preceded by Count of Ericeira
1632-1690 		Succeeded by