Sancho Manoel de Vilhena, 1st Count of Vila Flor (1610 - 1677), was a remarkable Portuguese

Portugal

Portugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...

 aristocrat

Aristocracy (class)

The aristocracy are people considered to be in the highest social class in a society which has or once had a political system of Aristocracy. Aristocrats possess hereditary titles granted by a monarch, which once granted them feudal or legal privileges, or deriving, as in Ancient Greece and India,...

 and military leader, of royal background.

He participated in several battles in Central Europe

Central Europe

Central Europe or alternatively Middle Europe is a region of the European continent lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe...

 and fought the Dutch

Netherlands

The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 in Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

 between 1638 and 1640. During the Portuguese Restoration War

Portuguese Restoration War

Portuguese Restoration War was the name given by nineteenth-century 'romantic' historians to the war between Portugal and Spain that began with the Portuguese revolution of 1640 and ended with the Treaty of Lisbon . The revolution of 1640 ended the sixty-year period of dual monarchy in Portugal...

, he was appointed general

General

A general officer is an officer of high military rank, usually in the army, and in some nations, the air force. The term is widely used by many nations of the world, and when a country uses a different term, there is an equivalent title given....

, and participated in the defence of Beira

Beira, Portugal

Beira was one of the six traditional provinces or "comarcas" of Portugal.-Administrative history:The medieval province of Beira was divided in 1832 into* Beira Alta Province* Beira Baixa ProvinceBeira Litoral...

. His greatest victory was the Battle of Ameixial

Battle of Ameixial

The Battle of Ameixial, was fought on June 8, 1663, near the village of Santa Vitória do Ameixial, some 10 km north-west of Estremoz, between Spanish and Portuguese as part of the Portuguese Restoration War....

 in 1663.

António Manoel de Vilhena

António Manoel de Vilhena

Dom Fra' António Manoel de Vilhena was the 66th Prince and Grand Master of the Order of Malta from 19 June 1722 to his death in 1736....

, Grand Master

Grand Master (order)

Grand Master is the typical title of the supreme head of various orders of knighthood, including various military orders, religious orders and civil orders such as the Ancient Order of Hibernians and the Orange Order...

 of the Order of Saint John

Knights Hospitaller

The Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta , also known as the Sovereign Military Order of Malta , Order of Malta or Knights of Malta, is a Roman Catholic lay religious order, traditionally of military, chivalrous, noble nature. It is the world's...

 and ruler of Malta

Malta

Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...

, was his fifth son.