CHAPTER XVI.
THE TROUBLES OF THE REGENCY AND THE FALL OF DON PEDRO.
1440-9.
on Pedro had been nominated sole Regent of Portugal on November 1, 1439, and by the end of the next year all the unsettlement consequent on the change at court seemed to be at an end. But a deep hatred continued between the various parties.
First of all, the Count of Barcellos, natural son of John I., created Duke of Braganza by Affonso V., had taken up a definite policy of supplanting the Regent. The Queen Mother had not forgotten or forgiven Don Pedro's action at Edward's death, and the young King himself, though engaged to the Regent's daughter, was already distrustful, was fitting himself to lead the Barcellos party against the Prince.
On February 18, 1445, died the Queen Leonor, with suspicions of poison, diligently fostered by the malcontents. Next year (1446) Affonso, now fourteen, came of age, and his uncle proposed at once to resign all actual power and retire to his estates as Duke of Coimbra. But the King was either not yet prepared to part with him, or still felt some gratitude to his guardian, "the wisest head in Spain."
He begged him to keep the chief direction of affairs, thanked him for the past, and promised to help him in the future. More than this, he protested that he wished to be married to his cousin, Pedro's daughter Isabel. They had been formally betrothed four years; now Affonso called on his nobles and the deputies of Cortés to witness the marriage.