Alfonso did not long survive this forced reconciliation with his son. His death, which happened at the beginning of 1357, is said to have been hastened by remorse for the tragical deed of which he had been the occasion. That he exhibited great repentance is certain; but his character was unamiable. He had been a disobedient son, an unjust brother, and a harsh father. The rebellion of his son was but fit retribution for his own conduct to the royal Diniz. His justice too often degenerated into blind vengeance. During his reign (in 1348) Portugal was afflicted with the plague, which spread throughout most of Europe, but which raged with more violence in that kingdom than anywhere else. Whole towns are said to have been left desolate, and some priests to have abandoned their flocks to the care of the monks.[h]
If we consider Alfonso IV—not isolated, nor in the light of our present-day views and social conditions as a son or as a father (even in this character we can bring forward the virtuous and exemplary spouse), but principally as leader and as king, in the moment when he assumed and exercised his power—we must confess, in face of the numerous documents relating to his external policy and his enormous legislation, that he is one of the most important figures, and that his government was one of the most advantageous, the most brilliant, and the most able of the intelligent and energetic governments which presided over the national formation of Portugal. In the character of this king there is a certain harmonious stamp of austerity which gives him a decided and characteristic originality in the midst of the free customs, and, we may say, of the traditional moral license of the kings of his time. Dom Diniz, the father of King Alfonso IV, in spite of the perfect devotion of his wife, was the easy prey of adulterous loves, and far from disguising them, flagrantly and heedlessly published them by the generosity of his gifts, calling to himself his bastard children and lavishing favours upon them, and confessing even by public documents the rewards conferred on his mistresses.
As to Dom Pedro, the Romeo of Iñes de Castro, we know that he was not so absorbed by this fatal passion but that the nation’s history owes to him the bastard progenitor of the second dynasty. In this instance Dom Alfonso presents a totally distinct character from that of his son; an exemplary husband, he made every effort to raise by royal authority the moral tone in the relation between the sexes, and to check the dissolute customs of the times. He made severe laws against those who availed themselves of such usages and customs up to that time in vogue, which seduced by endearments, or other means, various virgins and widows leading honest lives to make use of them for their evil purposes; he denounced “any man or woman guilty of panderage, and keeping in their houses for this purpose virgins, married women, religious, or widows.” At the exact moment that he was publishing some of his most severe laws upon this matter his son gave cause of scandal by his real or apparent cohabitation with Doña Iñes de Castro. Finally he left the kingdom to his successor in perfect internal and external peace, and it would be cruel injustice to deny that under his government the work of the political consolidation of Portuguese society made important progress.[k]
PEDRO THE SEVERE
[1357-1361 A.D.]
Pedro I was scarcely established on the throne before he gave way to his uncontrollable desire for vengeance on the murderers of Doña Iñes. Knowing that they had sought protection in Castile, and how eager his namesake of that country was for the surrender of several Castilians, who, in like manner, had obtained an asylum in Portugal, he paid court to that monarch, with whom he entered into a close alliance, and to whom he despatched ten of his galleys to serve in the war against Aragon. Having declared the fugitive nobles, who were three in number, Pedro Coelho, Alvaro Gonsalves, and Diogo Lopes Pacheco, traitors to their country, and confiscated all their possessions, he either proposed or received the proposal—there is some doubt from which of the two monarchs it originally came, or whether it may not be equally attributed to both—for the arrest of their personal enemies. On a given day the obnoxious Castilians were arrested in Portugal, the Portuguese in Castile, and were surrendered to their respective executioners. Of the three Portuguese, however, Pacheco escaped.
The escape of even one victim was gall to the Portuguese king; but he resolved to satiate his rage on the two who were placed in his reach. Both were thrown into a deep dungeon, put to the torture, with the view of eliciting whether others were implicated in the same crime. They withstood the acute torments they were made to endure with a firmness truly admirable—a circumstance that increased beyond measure the rage of Pedro, who was present at the hellish scene. With Coelho in particular, whom not a word, not a groan had escaped, he was so exasperated that he seized a whip and struck him on the face. This indignity affected the high-spirited knight far more than his present sufferings. Regarding the king with eyes full of fury, he loaded him not merely with the keenest reproaches, but with a torrent of abuse. The latter foamed at the mouth, and ordered his victims to be transferred from the dungeon to a scaffold erected in front of his palace. There he appeared at the window, expressing a savage delight at the new torments they sustained. At length the living hearts of both were plucked from their bodies; hearts and bodies were next consigned to the flames; and when consumed, the ashes were scattered by the winds.
The next proceeding of Pedro was to honour alike the remains and memory of the unfortunate Iñes. He convoked the states of his kingdom at Castanedo, and, in their presence, made oath on the holy Gospels that, in the year 1354, he had married that lady. The witnesses of the fact, the bishop of Guarda and his own chamberlain, were likewise publicly sworn, and the bull of dispensation produced which Pope Innocent VI had granted for the celebration of the ceremony. No doubt was entertained by the assembled nobles and clergy that Iñes had been the lawful wife of their prince; and she was unanimously declared entitled to the honours usually paid to the Portuguese queens. That the legitimacy of her offspring might never be disputed, copies of the papal dispensation and of the oaths taken on this occasion were multiplied and dispersed throughout the kingdom. The validity of the marriage being thus established, Pedro now proceeded to show due honour to her remains. He ordered two magnificent tombs, both of white marble, to be constructed, one for himself, the other for that lady, and placed them in the monastery of Alcobaça. He then proceeded to the church of St. Clair at Coimbra, caused her corpse to be brought from the sepulchre, to be arrayed in royal ornaments, to be placed on a throne with a crown on the head and a sceptre in the hand, and there to receive the homage of his assembled courtiers. From that church it was conveyed on a magnificent car, accompanied by nobles and high-born dames, all clad in mourning, to the monastery of Alcobaça.[141]
[1361-1367 A.D.]
As the subsequent transactions of the Portuguese king with his namesake of Castile have been already related [in the history of Spain, Chapter III], nothing now remains but briefly to notice his internal administration. It is allowed to have been as rigorous as it was whimsical. With the view of correcting the extravagance which had long seized on the higher orders of his people, he made a law that whoever bought or sold on credit should be punished—if the first offence, by stripes; if the second, by death. In his own household he set the example of paying for everything in money the instant it was purchased. If he was thus severe against thoughtless imprudence, he could not be expected to be more lenient towards guilt. Of the vices which he visited with unpitying vengeance, fornication and adultery were the most obnoxious to him. That the lover of Iñes de Castro should thus hold in abhorrence those which he had so long practised might create surprise, were it not proved by general experience, not only that we are most forward to condemn in others imperfections to which ourselves are prone, but that kings are too often eager to plead exemption from obligations binding on the rest of mankind. Hearing that the bishop of Oporto lived in a state of concubinage, the royal moralist laid on him unmercifully with a whip. As he was one day proceeding along a street, he heard a woman call another by an opprobrious name. He speedily inquired into the affair; and, finding that the latter had been violated previous to her marriage by her husband, he consigned the offender to the executioner. Suspecting that the wife of a certain merchant was unfaithful to her conjugal duty, he caused her to be watched until he detected her in the actual crime; both lady and paramour were immediately committed to the flames. An old woman prostituted her daughter to a Portuguese admiral; the woman was burned, the admiral sentenced to lose his head—a sentence, however, which he escaped by flight. Other offences against the laws were punished, sometimes in proportion to their magnitude, but generally to his caprice. An inferior officer of the law one day complained that a gentleman on whom he had served a process had struck him and plucked him by the beard; Pedro turned to the presiding judge, and said, “I have been struck, and my beard has been plucked, by one of my subjects!” The judge, who understood the appeal, caused the culprit to be arrested and beheaded. Perceiving that causes were frequent, tedious, and expensive, and shrewdly divining the reason, he purged his courts of all advocates and proctors,—of all who had a manifest interest in litigation, and reduced all processes to a simple statement of the case by the parties concerned, and of the sentence by the judges, reserving, however, to himself the privilege of deciding appeals. If we add that Pedro was liberal of rewards, and fond of music and dancing, the character of the royal barbarian will be completed.