Africa, Portuguese in by internal political and religious wars in the 16th century, although the appearance of a strong ruler, Henry IV, began the process of healing the rifts and stabilizing the government—at least until Henry was assassinated in 1610 His successor, Louis XIII, was not as assertive, and by the 1620s he had effectively delegated much of his authority to Cardinal Richelieu Louis XIV may have consciously portrayed himself as an absolute ruler, but the daily reality of managing his kingdom was something quite different He did not rid himself of all obstacles to his authority, but through a combination of compromise and assertiveness he was able to reduce the resistance of such bodies as the nobility, the parlements, and the church Louis XIV was only partially successful in establishing himself as the unquestioned master of his kingdom, and even less so in his attempt to act as the “arbiter of Europe.” In fact, scholars such as Nicholas Henshall argue that the lingering image of Louis XIV as an absolute monarch owes more to the perpetuation of a myth by English polemicists than to his actual behavior After the Glorious Revolution in 1688, Henshall says, absolutism came to be defined by the English as everything that their constitutional monarchy was not: French, Catholic, and despotic This was a simplistic definition that ignored the continuing importance of the monarch in British politics and the real constraints on the power of the French king Even with all of the centralization and modernization associated with absolutism in this period, most states still remained a patchwork of different jurisdictions under the nominal control of a single crown Spain, France, the Austrian empire, and Russia all had ancient internal divisions that no monarch could simply erase, no matter how much he or she might want to See also Louis XI; Vasa dynasty Further reading: Anderson, Perry Lineages of the Absolutist State London: NLB, 1974; Bodin, Jean On Sovereignty: Four chapters from The Six Books of the Commonwealth Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992; Bossuet, Jacques-Bénigne Politics Drawn from the Very Words of Holy Scripture Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990; Franklin, Julian H Jean Bodin and the Rise of Absolutist Theory Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973; Henshall, Nicholas The Myth of Absolutism: Change and Continuity in Early Modern European Monarchy London and New York: Longman, 1992; Hobbes, Thomas Leviathan, Parts I and II Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview, 2005; Krieger, Leonard An Essay on the Theory of Enlightened Despotism Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975; Miller, John, ed Absolutism in Seventeenth-Centu- ry Europe London: Macmillan, 1990; Riasanovsky, Nicholas, and Mark D Steinberg A History of Russia, Seventh Edition New York: Oxford University Press, 2005 Christopher Tait Africa, Portuguese in The Portuguese were the first to make significant inroads into Africa during the age of discovery, yet they were the last to decolonize their African possessions This was to a large extent true of Portuguese socioeconomic and political activities in the various communities of Africa in which they operated The Portuguese empire in Africa was the earliest and longest lived of the colonial empires, lasting from 1415 until 1974, with serious activity beginning in 1450 The first attempt made by the Portuguese to establish a presence in Africa was when some Portuguese soldiers captured Ceuta on the North African coast in 1415 Three years later, a group of Moors attempted to retake it A better armed Portuguese army defeated the Moors, although this did not result in effective political control In 1419, two captains in the employ of Prince Henry (Henrique) the Navigator, João Gonzalez Zarco and Tristão Vaz Teixeira, were driven by a storm to Madeira A Portuguese expedition to Tangier in 1436, which was undertaken by King Edward (Duarte) for establishing Portuguese political control over the area, followed However Edward’s army was defeated, and Prince Ferdinand, the king’s youngest brother, was surrendered as a hostage Tangier was later captured by the Portuguese in 1471 The coast of West Africa also attracted the attention of the Portuguese The Senegal was reached in 1445, and Cape Verde was passed in the same year In 1446, Álvaro Fernandes was close to Sierra Leone By 1450, the Portuguese had made tremendous progress in the exploration of the Gulf of Guinea Specifically under João II, exploration had reached the fortress of São Jorge da Mina (Elmina), which was established for the protection of the trade of the Guinea The Portuguese reached the ancient kingdom of Benin and the coastal part of present-day Niger Delta region of Nigeria before 1480 Oba (King) Esigie, who reigned in the last quarter of the 15th century, is said to have interacted and traded with the Portuguese The famous Portuguese explorer Diogo Cão sighted the Congo in 1482 and reached Cape Cross in 1486 The Portuguese thus found themselves in contact with one of the largest states in Africa The leading kingdom in the area was the Kongo Kingdom built by the Bakongo, a