Câmara (Martim Gonçalves da)

He was the son of João Gonçalves da Câmara, 4th captain-donatary (capitão-donatário) of Funchal, and of Dona Leonor de Vilhena, and the brother of Father Luís Gonçalves da Câmara, whom we discuss elsewhere in this Elucidário. He must have been born at the beginning of the second quarter of the 16th century. We know nothing of his early years: the first acts of his public life of which we have any knowledge date from when he was about forty, with his appointment as rector of the University of Coimbra (Universidade de Coimbra).

He was the Madeiran who attained the greatest influence and prestige in the sphere of public government. He was also one of the men in our country who enjoyed the widest powers and achieved the most absolute ascendancy over the mind of the monarch. It has been said that, apart from the Marquis of Pombal, perhaps no other public figure in Portugal had ever wielded his influence with the king, in his capacity as minister, as absolutely and despotically as Martim Gonçalves da Câmara.

Historians are almost unanimous in stating that he abused the power and prestige he held over the restless and fickle mind of King Sebastian. Pinheiro Chagas, who deals with him at length in vol. 4 of his Historia de Portugal, describes him as an extremely proud and despotic man and highlights his baneful role in many matters of public administration.

He was nonetheless a man of great intellectual stature, who knew how to command the admiration of his contemporaries. He held the highest offices, among them those of rector of the University, president of the

Board of Conscience and of the Desembargo (Mesa da Consciência e do Desembargo), overseer of justice (vedor da justiça) and others besides.

The post that won him great prestige and influence was that of king’s private secretary (escrivão da puridade, in effect chief minister), which was then the office of highest responsibility in the government of the state. Having fallen from the favour of King Sebastian, he withdrew to the house of the Society of Jesus, the Casa de São Roque (House of St Roch), in Lisbon, and there ended his days. He was a secular priest and a doctor of theology of the University of Coimbra.