Don Henry and his twin brother Don Frederic and their next brother Don Tello fled from the court. They were justly suspicious of the designs of their brother Pedro who was now king and of the queen-mother. Leonora was more confiding. She suffered herself to be drawn within the power of Dona Maria, and was seized and put to death; and soon after, the same fate overtook the younger children of Leonora.
These assassinations caused of course a deadly feud between the two branches of the family; and Don Henry and his brothers raised the standard of revolt. They were defeated. Don Frederic fell in battle. Henry and Tello fled to France where they entered the service of king John II., and fought under the famous captain Bertrand Du Guesclin at the battle of Poictiers. They were still unfortunate. The French were routed at Poictiers by the English and Gascons under Edward Prince of Wales called the Black Prince.
Pedro had been affianced to a sister of the Black Prince, Joanna Plantagenet daughter of Edward III. but she had died. Pedro then married Blanche de Bourbon of the younger branch of the blood royal of France. He lived with her, the chronicles say, just three days. His affections too had gone astray. He had had the good sense to keep in his service his father’s prime minister, Albuquerque who it seems was an able statesman. Albuquerque had a beautiful cousin known in history as Maria de Padilla. Pedro fell in love with her, and his passion was as lasting as it was sudden. Indeed the only redeeming trait in that man’s character seems to have been his undying fondness for a woman he had no right to love.
Before going further let us finish the story of queen Blanche. Some years afterwards she died in prison at Medina Sidonia. The average historian despatches her by poison given by her husband’s orders; but there really seems to be no other reason to believe he poisoned her than the habit he had fallen into of dismissing in that manner those of whom he was weary. All that is certain is that she fell sick and a physician was called in. That of itself commonly sufficed in those days. Even later, in the reign of Philip III. we are told by Le Sage that whenever the fashionable physician of Valladolid was seen to enter a house, the family undertaker immediately arranged the obsequies without further notice. And the same conscientious historian relates as corroborative, that Don Alphonzo de Leyva was once taken ill at a remote country tavern. His attendants scoured the neighborhood in every direction to find a doctor but without success. The consequence was Don Alphonzo de Leyva in a day or two got well and pursued his journey.
There were assassinations enough to lay at the door of Pedro without that one, and it is bad economy to put there more than are needed.
While Blanche was still living Pedro took it into his head to have another wife. He forced one of his bishops to marry him to Dona Joanna de Castro daughter of a noble Castilian. He had lived with Blanche three days; he lived with Joanna one, and then went back to Maria de Padilla.
It was in this same family of De Castro that had happened a few years previous, a tragic event which has ever since been the theme of song and story.
The father of Joanna for some offence real or pretended, had been obliged to take refuge in Portugal. He took with him his daughter Iñez half sister of Joanna. Portugal was then under the rule of Alphonzo IV. a severe master. His son and heir Pedro of Portugal was a prince of marked capacity. He was married and lived in peace if not in happiness, with his wife Constance who was valetudinary and petulant. Iñez de Castro was beautiful and to her beauty was added grace of manner and the accomplishments of that age. Pedro was attracted by her and she was drawn towards him. Their intimacy however did not go beyond the limits of friendship: the chronicles agree that the rights of Constance were respected. She was nevertheless jealous and suspicious; she was haunted with the idea that Pedro was only waiting for her to die in order to marry Iñez, and she resolved to prevent it. She obtained from the old king an order commanding Iñez to stand god-mother to one of her children. This, according to the canons of the Church, was an effectual bar to a marriage between Iñez and the father of the child. That matter arranged to her satisfaction, Constance died.
The real barrier between Pedro and Iñez being thus removed they made short work of the artificial one. Pedro induced the bishop of Guarda to marry them privately. Iñez was established at Coimbra on the banks of the Mondego where she become the mother of children. As the marriage was not known her reputation of course suffered.
King Alphonzo was tolerant enough of this liaison such as he imagined it to be; but the enemies of Pedro and of the de Castros penetrated the secret, and betrayed it to the king. He was furious, the more so that it was whispered in his ear that Iñez was practising against the life of Ferdinand son of Constance, so as to make way to the throne for her own son.