Excerpts from Books and Wikipedia
"King Sebastiao I of Portugal was twenty-four years old when he embarked on the conquest of the Muslim kingdom of Morocco. . . . Enlisting mercenaries from Spain, Germany, and Ireland, he sailed from Lisbon on June 25, with an 18,000-strong army. Landing at Tangier, the Christian army struggled across Morocco in the burning summer heat. The superior forces of Moroccan Sultan Abd al-Malik, amply provided with firearms, awaited them at Alcazarquivir (Ksar el-Kebir). . . . The loss of Sebastiao was significant. In 1580 Philp inherited the Portuguese throne. Absorbed into the Spanish kingdom for the next eighty years, Portugal ceased to exist. . . . the myth of the return of the lost king, remained a mystical strand in Portuguese thinking well into the twentieth century." [Furtado: 1001 Days]