When Gil Airaz saw that he was in earnest he told him how he had only made a pretence of having beaten the man of Setubal and how all the citizens had gone contentedly home. Nun’ Alvarez was so overjoyed at this that he rose straightway from the table and went out to the orchard and flowing streams. In three months, with the help of the King’s physicians, he was well, and going alone with a page he set to cutting the brushwood in front of him, and found his strength had returned.
There is something infinitely touching in this story about a man who was usually so calm and restrained that he might be in a passion of anger and only show it—to those who knew him—by his smile, and whose whole life was marked by exceptional strength of will. But his old vigour returned, and very soon he was challenging the Master of Santiago, begging him not to tire himself in advancing through so hot a country, as he, “Nun’ Alvarez Pereira, Count of Barcellos and of Ourem and of Arrayolos and Constable of my Lord the King of Portugal,” would save him the trouble.
The great grief of the latter part of his life was the death of his daughter Beatriz, Countess of Barcellos, and his life must have been lonely despite the friendship of the King and especially of Prince Duarte, heir to the throne. Before the expedition to Ceuta they went to ask his advice under pretext of consulting him about some dogs for the chase, so as to keep the secret of their enterprise. None better than the King knew the value of Nun’ Alvarez’ opinion. He always seemed to know precisely the right thing to be done and the right moment to do it, was as far removed from boasting and vanity as from false humility, and respected his own rights as well as those of others.
In charity he gave liberally, but never carelessly. Thus he yearly bestowed the same quantity of cloth, but bestowed it in different districts, and stored the corn from his estates, to be given away in years of scarcity.
Before the end of the fourteenth century (1393) he divided most of his land, that is a great part of Portugal, between his followers. Large portions of Tras-os-Montes, Minho, and Alentejo belonged to him. He was Count of Ourem, of Arrayolos and Barcellos, Lord of Braga, Guimarães, Chaves, Montalegre, and nearly a score of other towns. His policy of dividing these lands among his vassals under condition that they should maintain certain forces in his and the King’s service, proved unsatisfactory. Like the sated Marshals of Napoleon, they were subsequently less willing to leave their estates and risk their persons in battle.
The King, who had been too lavish in his gifts, proposed to buy back his grants of land. Other nobles agreed to sell, but Nun’ Alvarez was resolved not to brook the injustice, and, far from agreeing to the proposal, departed to Alentejo and gathered his followers with a view to leave Portugal, although, as he said, he would never serve any other king.
King João, thoroughly alarmed, sent the Bishop of Evora, the Dean of Coimbra and the Master of the Order of Avis post-haste after him. But Nun’ Alvarez then, as always when he seemed to be acting rashly on impulse, was carrying out a quick but well-reasoned decision, and was only with difficulty persuaded to a compromise. It was finally agreed that his vassals should be transferred to the King, while Nun’ Alvarez was to retain in his own hands most of his territorial possessions. Seven years after the victorious capture of Ceuta he again renounced them.
He had always been a man of great piety; after one of his victories he had gone barefoot in pilgrimage to Santa Maria de Assumar; he had founded churches throughout the country, heard mass twice or thrice daily, and would rise at midnight to pray the hours. But it was probably the death of his only daughter that moved him to retire to serve God in the monastery of Santa Maria do Carmo, which he had founded in memory of his victory of Valverde. There, on August 15, 1423, he professed as Frei Nuno de Santa Maria, after giving away all his lands and titles. Of his daughter’s three children, Isabel married the Infante João, Affonso became Conde de Ourem, and, later, Marquez de Valença, and Fernando, Conde de Arrayolos and, later, Duke of Braganza.
When Nun’ Alvarez, penniless, retired to his cell it was his purpose to beg his daily bread in the streets of Lisbon, and he also intended to end his days where he might be quite unknown; but Prince Duarte went to see him at the Carmo and affectionately ordered him to accept a pension from the King, a great part of which, however, he spent in charities.
In 1431, in his seventy-first year, and two years before his life-long friend, King João, the greatest of all Portugal’s great men died. “God grant him as much glory and honour as in this world was his,” says the old chronicle.