61 - Concerning which townships King João went on to seize from those which had declared for Castile, and how the Castilian fleet raised its blockade of Lisbon and left

Summary

We now return to relating the activities of King João, whom we left in Santarém. During this period of time, events occurred to him in the following manner: just as Almighty God bestowed on the Portuguese the courage and daring necessary to defend themselves from their enemies and to await them with noble valour on the day of the great battle [of Aljubarrota], He correspondingly struck many of their adversaries with fear and alarm, causing them to abandon the towns and villages which they held on behalf of Castile in this realm [of Portugal], without anybody forcing or constraining them to do so. The outcome was that in a few days King João regained the majority of them. That was because the troops who occupied them, not daring to defend them, sent messages to the king, begging him to give them safe conduct, for which they would hand these places over to him. The king was pleased to do this, and thus these towns and villages were freely left to him.

The Pope in Rome, Boniface IX, had previously issued a proclamation stating that, inasmuch as Queen Leonor, the mother of Queen Beatriz, her son-in-law and all persons linked to them had been publicly condemned by his predecessor, Urban VI, as children of perdition for being schismatic heretics, all those who wished to reject them were, therefore, absolved by him from all solemn promises, oaths and fealty which they had sworn, under whatever circumstances, to the above-named monarchs. Nevertheless, not a single Portuguese handed over to King João a township or a castle on the basis of that advice. But now the Castilians were leaving them to him and offering them of their own free will.

It is possible that such townships, if they chose to defend themselves, would have been very difficult to capture and would have brought much travail and danger to the [king’s] troops. An example was the town of Santarém, which Rodrigo Álvarez de Santoyo did not dare to defend, as you have already heard, not to mention the Alcáçova, perched as it was on such a defensible hill, which was abandoned by Gómez Pérez de Valderrábano.