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Affonso V., the African, had died and been succeeded by his son João II. in 1487. Enriched by the confiscation of his victims' possessions, the king was enabled to do without the help of the Cortes, and so to establish himself as a despotic ruler.
Of the cathedral, begun three years later, in 1150, little but the plan of the nave and transept has survived. Much injured by an earthquake in 1344, the whole choir was rebuilt on a French model by Affonso IV. only to be again destroyed in 1755.
Affonso Henriques passed swiftly from incredulity to anger; then almost as swiftly came to a resolve, which was as mad and harebrained as could have been expected from a lad in his eighteenth year who held the reins of power. Yet by its very directness and its superb ignoring of all obstacles, legal and canonical, it was invested with a certain wild sanity.
"Listen to that voice," Emigio answered him, and waved a hand to the open window. "How else will you silence it?" Affonso Henriques sat down on the edge of the bed, and took his head in his hands. He was checkmated and yet.... He rose and beat his hands together, summoning chamberlain and pages to help him dress and arm. "Where is the legate lodged?" he asked Moniz.
She died in 1336, when the palace returned to the Order of Christ which had meanwhile been formed out of the suppressed Order of the Temple only to be granted to Dona Beatriz, the wife of D. Affonso IV., in exchange for her possessions at Ega and at Torre de Murta.
The inside is less interesting, the pointed arches are rather thin and the capitals poor, the only thing much worthy of notice being the font, belonging to the time of change from Gothic to Renaissance, and given in 1512. Of the other buildings of the time of Dom Affonso IV. who succeeded his father Diniz in 1328 the most important
Inside the vaulting of the apsidal chapels was first finished; all the vaults are elaborate, have well-moulded ribs, and bosses, some carved with crosses of the Order of Christ, some with armillary spheres, others with a cross and the words 'In hoc signo vinces, or with a sphere and the words 'Espera in Domino. Where Dom João II. was to be buried is a pelican vulning herself for that was his device and in that intended for his father Dom Affonso V. a 'rodisio' or mill-wheel.
The first architect, Affonso Domingues, perhaps a grandson of the Domingo Domingues who built the cloister at Alcobaça, is said to have been born at Lisbon and so, as might have been expected, his plan shows no trace at all of foreign influence.
This leader explored the country in the neighbourhood of the Bay of Bahia. After this he proceeded southwards, and landed men in order to establish a small colony. The first really important attempt at colonizing the country was undertaken by Martin Affonso de Souza. This navigator set out from Portugal in command of many ships and men.
On the floor stand three large royal tombs and two smaller for royal children, and in deep recesses in the north and south walls, four others. Only the three larger standing clear of the walls call for notice; and of these one is that of Dona Beatriz, the wife of Dom Affonso III., who died in 1279, the same lady who married Dom Affonso while his wife the countess of Boulogne was still alive.
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