Vimioso (Counts of)

They held the captaincy of Machico, which Dom Afonso de Portugal, 2nd Count, bought from António da Silveira for 35,000 cruzados, with the licence of John III. When this Dom Afonso de Portugal was given up for dead at the Battle of Alcácer Quibir, the captaincy was taken over by his son, Dom Francisco de Portugal. He is generally regarded as the 3rd Count of Vimioso, but he died before his father, in the naval battle of Vila Franca do Campo, and so never truly inherited the captaincy. In 1582 Philip II granted the captaincy of Machico to Tristão Vaz da Veiga. In 1604, however, Tristão Vaz having died, it passed into the possession of Dom Luís de Portugal, whom some consider the third and others the fourth Count of Vimioso. For reasons that are not well known, he later took religious vows, as did his wife, a daughter of the Count of Basto.

An old manuscript records that on 20 October 1767 the Treasury Council (Conselho de Fazenda) ordered the superintendent (provedor) to take possession of the donatary captaincy (donataria) of Machico in the name of the monarch, ‘since it has fallen vacant on the death of the 5th Count of Vimioso, Dom Martinho de Portugal, without a successor’. If such an order was indeed given, however, it seems not to have been carried out, for there are later documents referring to the chief castellanship (alcaidaria-mor) of Machico and to its holders, the Marquesses of Valença and Counts of Vimioso. It should also be noted that the 5th count, Dom Afonso and not Dom Martinho, died in the 17th century, and that the holder of the donatary captaincy of Machico at the time to which the said manuscript refers was Dom José Miguel de Portugal e Castro, 9th count, who was born in 1706 and died in 1775.

The donataries of Machico were also Marquesses of Valença from 10 March 1716, when King John V renewed this title, conferring it on Dom Francisco de Portugal, 8th Count of Vimioso, a sixth-generation descendant (6.° neto) of the Valença who died in 1460.