Finally Diniz, who was the greatest poet of the first four centuries of Portugal, founded to his honour the Estudaria de Santo Eloy in Lisbon, and also the university, causing general enthusiasm; and by spreading the love of letters and study in the country, laid the foundations of secular and public instruction and opened to the Portuguese people the gates of science, and consequently those of civilisation and liberty.
After the work of Alfonso Henriques, that of Diniz is the most important which Portuguese history records to us: the first was the founder of the military nation; the second, that of the cultured people. The union of those two works gave to Portugal centuries later the possibility of realising, in the long evolution of mankind, her glorious mission of enlarging the known world.[k]
Alfonso IV, surnamed the Brave, had scarcely grasped the reins of sovereignty, when he exhibited, in a manner little becoming royalty, his vindictive feelings towards his illegitimate brother, Alfonso Henriques, who, to escape his wrath, had just fled into Castile. Having collected some troops, and been joined by a prince of Castile, he entered Portugal, laid waste the frontiers, and put to the sword every living being that fell in his way. The king now took the field in person, and laid waste the neighbouring territories of Castile. These harassing though indecisive hostilities might have continued for years, had not St. Isabella left her retreat in the convent of St. Clair, which she had founded, and prevailed on her son to permit the return of the exile.
Another defect of the new king gave great offence to the people—his neglect of public business, and his addiction to the chase. The first twelve years of Alfonso’s reign were distracted by hostilities with his namesake of Castile, the husband of his daughter. Though these hostilities were chiefly owing to the perversity of the infante Don Juan Manuel, it cannot be denied that the Portuguese king had abundant reason for dissatisfaction with his son-in-law. The usage experienced by the Castilian queen at the hands of her husband; her mortification at seeing a mistress, Leonora de Guzman, not only preferred to herself, but the sole depository of the royal favour; the studied insults to which she was daily exposed both from her husband and his minion, at length exhausted her patience, and drew forth some complaints to her father. The influence, too, which Don Juan Manuel obtained in the Portuguese court through the marriage of his repudiated daughter Constanza with Pedro, son and heir of the Portuguese king, was uniformly exerted to embroil the two crowns. Alfonso of Portugal at length sent a herald at arms to defy his son-in-law, on the ground both of the unjust treatment of the queen, whom her husband was suspected of seeking to repudiate, and of the continued detention of Constanza. His next step was to enter Castile and ravage the country as far as the vicinity of Seville.
The war was now as destructive as it was indecisive and even inglorious: it was one of mutual ravage, of shameless rapine, and unblushing cruelty. Instead of meeting each other on a fair field, they seemed intent on nothing but laying waste each other’s territory, and collecting as much booty as they could carry away: sometimes, however, the contest was decided on the deep, but with little success to either party. At length, through the efforts of the pope, the two princes agreed to a truce, and to the opening of negotiations for peace. But one of the conditions was the removal of Leonora de Guzman—a condition which Alfonso of Castile, who was entirely governed by that lady, was in no disposition to execute, but the preparations of the Mohammedans, which he knew were chiefly directed against himself, and the loud complaints of his own subjects, forced him to promise at least that it should be conceded. To the departure of Constanza, the restitution of some insignificant fortresses which had been reduced, and even to the return of his queen, the Castilian felt no repugnance; but though he consented for Leonora to leave the court, he recalled her immediately after the conclusion of peace. To his queen, however, he no longer exhibited a marked neglect: on the contrary, he treated her with all the outward respect due to her character and station; and the good understanding was confirmed by her admirable moderation.
In the wars which the Castilian had to sustain against the Mohammedans, the Portuguese—so nobly did he forget his wrongs when the interests of Christendom were at stake—was no inefficient ally. He was present at the great battle on the banks of the Salado, in which the barbaric power was so signally humbled. This aid he continued readily to supply, until the death of Alfonso of Castile, by the plague, before Gibraltar, in 1350.
THE ROMANCE OF IÑES DE CASTRO
[1340-1357 A.D.]
The tragedies represented in Castile by Pedro the Cruel, successor of Alfonso XI, were fully equalled by one in Portugal. Soon after his marriage with Constanza, Pedro, the infante of Portugal, had become passionately smitten with one of her attendants, Doña Iñes de Castro, a lady of surpassing beauty, and frail as beautiful. That he made love to her, and that his criminal suit was favourably received, is indubitable, both from the deep grief which preyed on the spirits of Constanza, and from the anxiety of the king, lest this new favourite should be the cause of the same disturbance in Portugal, as Leonora de Guzman had occasioned in Castile. To prevent the possibility of a marriage between the two lovers, Alfonso caused Iñes to hold over the baptismal font a child of Pedro’s—in other words, to contract a near spiritual affinity. But the man whom the sacred bond of wedlock could not restrain was not likely to be deterred from his purpose by an imaginary bar. After Constanza’s death in childbed, 1345, he privately married the seductive favourite. How soon after the death of the first wife this second union was contracted, whether immediately, or after Iñes had borne him three children, has been matter of much dispute. It appears that the marriage was celebrated on the 1st day of January, 1354, when Iñes must have borne him four children, of which three survived. It also appears that a papal dispensation was obtained for it, and that it took place at Braganza, in presence of a Portuguese prelate and his own chamberlain. However secret this step, it was suspected by some courtiers, who, partly through envy at the rising favour of the Castros, and partly through dread of the consequences which might ensue, endeavoured to prevail on the king to interfere in behalf of young Ferdinand, the son of Pedro and Constanza, and the lawful heir to the monarchy. From the boundless influence possessed over the mind of Pedro by Doña Iñes, it was feared that the true heir would be set aside from the succession in favour of her offspring. In the end, they wrung from him a reluctant consent to her death. The king, hearing that his son had departed on a hunting excursion for a few days, hastily left Monte-mor, and proceeded to the convent of St. Clair, at Coimbra, where Iñes then was. On learning his approach, she at once apprehended his object. Her only resource was an appeal to his pity. Taking her three children by the hand, she issued from the convent to meet him, prostrated herself at his feet, and in the most pathetic terms begged for mercy. Her beauty, her youth, her deep emotion, and the sight of her offspring—his own grandchildren—so affected him that, after a struggle between policy and nature, the latter triumphed, and he retired. No sooner, however, was he in private with his confidants, than they censured his compassion, though natural in itself, as ruinous in its consequences to his family and kingdom, and obtaining his consent hastened to the convent. The unfortunate, guilty Iñes fell beneath their daggers. The fate of this lady has called forth the deepest commiseration of novelists and poets, and has given rise to some vigorous effusions of the tragic muse.
When Pedro returned from the chase, and found his wife so barbarously murdered, his grief was surpassed, if possible, by his thirst for revenge. He leagued himself with the kindred of Iñes; and though he could not fall on the murderers, who were protected by the king, he laid waste the provinces of Entre-Douro-e-Minho, and Tras-os-Montes, where their possessions chiefly lay. King Alfonso was in consternation at the unexpected fury of his son. In the end he proposed, as the price of reconciliation, that the obnoxious nobles should be banished, and his son admitted to the chief share of the administration. Pedro accepted it, laid down his arms, and proceeded to court where he was received with an affection truly paternal, and where he engaged, though with a fixed resolution of breaking the engagement, never to seek revenge on the assassins of Doña Iñes.