After her death without issue, he vainly wooed her sister, until he was gradually forced by her Protestant buccaneers into an undesired war.
Notwithstanding all that he could do to lose fortune's favors, she continued for many years to smile on her darling Hapsburg.

After a naval disaster inflicted by the Turks on the Spaniard off the coast of Tripoli, the defeated power recovered and revenged herself in the great naval victory of Lepanto, in October 1571.

The lustre added to the Lions and Castles by this important success was far outshone by the acquisition of Portugal and all her colonies, in 1581.

Though not the nearest heir, Philip was the strongest, and by bribery and menaces won the homage of the Portuguese nobles after the death of the aged king Henry on January 31, 1580.

For sixty years Spain held the lesser country and, what was more important to her, the colonies in the East Indies and in Africa.