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[279] _The queen beheld her power, her honours lost. _--Possessed of
great beauty and great abilities, this bad woman was a disgrace to her
sex, and a curse to the age and country which gave her birth. Her
sister, Donna Maria, a lady of unblemished virtue, had been secretly
married to the infant, Don Juan, the king's brother, who was
passionately attached to her. Donna Maria had formerly endeavoured to
dissuade her sister from the adulterous marriage with the king. In
revenge of this, the queen, Leonora, persuaded Don Juan that her sister
was unfaithful to his bed. The enraged husband hastened to his wife,
and, without enquiry or expostulation, says Mariana, dispatched her with
two strokes of his dagger. He was afterwards convinced of her innocence.
Having sacrificed her honour, and her first husband, to a king, (says
Faria), Leonora soon sacrificed that king to a wicked gallant, a
Castilian nobleman, named Don Juan Fernandez de Andeyro. An unjust war
with Castile, wherein the Portuguese were defeated by sea and land, was
the first fruits of the policy of the new favourite. Andeyro one day
being in a great perspiration, by some military exercise, the queen tore
her veil, and publicly gave it him to wipe his face. The grand master of
Avis, the king's illegitimate brother, afterwards John I. , and some
others, expostulated with her on the indecency of this behaviour. She
dissembled her resentment, but, soon after, they were seized and
committed to the castle of Evora, where a forged order for their
execution was sent; but the governor suspecting some fraud, showed it to
the king. Yet, such was her ascendancy over Fernando, that though
convinced of her guilt, he ordered his brother to kiss the queen's hand,
and thank her for his life. Soon after, Fernando died, but not till he
was fully convinced of the queen's conjugal infidelity, and had given an
order for the assassination of the gallant.
Not long after the death of
the king, the favourite Andeyro was stabbed in the palace by the
grandmaster of Avis, and Don Ruy de Pereyra. The queen expressed all the
transport of grief and rage, and declared she would undergo the
trial-ordeal in vindication of his, and her, innocence. But this she
never performed: in her vows of revenge, however, she was more punctual.
Don Juan, king of Castile, who had married her only daughter and
heiress, at her earnest entreaties invaded Portugal, and was proclaimed
king. Don John, grand master of Avis, was proclaimed by the people
protector and regent. A desperate war ensued. Queen Leonora, treated
with indifference by her daughter and son-in-law, resolved on the murder
of the latter, but the plot was discovered, and she was sent prisoner to
Castile. The regent was besieged in Lisbon, and the city reduced to the
utmost extremities, when an epidemic broke out in the Castilian army,
and made such devastation, that the king suddenly raised the siege, and
abandoned his views on Portugal. The happy inhabitants ascribed their
deliverance to the valour and vigilance of the regent. The regent
reproved their ardour, exhorted them to repair to their churches, and
return thanks to God, to whose interposition he solely ascribed their
safety. This behaviour increased the admiration of the people; the
nobility of the first rank joined the regent's party, and many garrisons
in the interest of the king of Castile opened their gates to him. An
assembly of the states met at Coimbra, where it was proposed to invest
the regent with the regal dignity. This he pretended to decline. Don
John, son of Pedro the Just and the beautiful Inez de Castro, was by the
people esteemed their lawful sovereign, but was, and had been long,
detained a prisoner by the King of Castile. If the states would declare
the infant, Don John, their king, the regent professed his willingness
to swear allegiance to him, that he would continue to expose himself to
every danger, and act as regent, till Providence restored to Portugal
her lawful sovereign. The states, however, saw the necessity that the
nation should have a head.