its neighbor and rival Malindi, depriving the Portuguese of their only ally in the region. So the Almeida expedition of 1505, the 7th Armada to the Indies, had the double objective of securing the Portuguese position in India against Calicut and in East Africa against Kilwa, before the Egyptian-led coalition cobbled their naval strike force together. Appointment of Almeida The 7th Armada was to be an expedition like no other before: it was going to establish a Portuguese government in the Indian Ocean, a Viceroy of the Indies This had been a long-gestating and controversial idea in the Portuguese court. When King John II of Portugal devised the plan of opening a sea-route to India, he thought primarily in terms of personal enrichment. An ambitious and centralizing monarch, John II saw wealth as a means to break the crown's dependence on the feudal nobility, and concentrate power in the king's hands. The spice trade was merely a means to build up the royal treasury. John II's successor, King Manuel I of Portugal, was a more traditional monarch, happy in the company of high nobles, with a more Medieval outlook, including an eagerness to spread religion and pursue 'holy war'. For the first few years of Manuel's reign, the India armadas had been largely handled by the 'pragmatic' party inherited from John II. They saw the India run largely as he had – a commercial venture – and tailored the missions accordingly. But the success of the early Portuguese armadas had now attracted other parties. The 'Medievalists' in the Portuguese court, notably Duarte Galvão, now wanted to give the India expeditions the glitter of a crusade, presenting it as the opening of a 'new front' in a holy war on Islam, a resumption of the old reconquista. Galvão openly romanticized about King Manuel personally conquering Jerusalem and even Mecca. The old pragmatists naturally balked at the prospect of turning their lucrative cash-making enterprise into a quixotic venture for holy glory. Court pragmatists like D. Diogo Lobo, Baron of Alvito, the powerful vedor da fazenda, fought hard to keep the India armadas from being diverted into messianic pursuits by Duarte Galvão's clique. The decision to establish a Portuguese 'Vice-roy' of the Indies, to oversee all Portuguese establishments in the Indian Ocean, had been conceived as early as 1503. It represented something a victory for the Medievalists. In effect, it announced that the