Page:Lisbon and Cintra, Inchbold, 1907.djvu/74

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Lisbon and Cintra

which had been turned into stables or praças dos touros, and in which these sarcophagi had been used as receptacles for old saddles, for farrier's benches or for drinking troughs.

Relics of the Roman epoch are displayed in the first chapel. In the fourth chapel to the right of the central one the sinister relics of the Inquisition in Lisbon excite peculiar horror. Here, too, is a mausoleum in wood, a copy of the marble one—destroyed in the earthquake—which contained the mortal remains of the great founder of the Carmo, D. Nuno Alvares Pereira, one of the most distinguished names in Portuguese history.

It was to his strong support that the Grand Master of Aviz, D. João, owed his crown, and in great measure the success of the famous Battle of Aljubarrota. D. João I had already created him Constable, by which title he is chiefly known; in fulfilment of a vow made when he commanded the vanguard of the King's army at Aljubarrota he founded the Church of the Carmo. The Constable was endowed with all the property that had belonged to the Conde de Ourem who was stabbed in the Limeiro palace, but later, when the King discovered that his liberality to his partisans had impoverished the crown, he revoked many of his gifts and the Constable, in resentment, quitted the court. King João I must have possessed great personal influence, judging from the results of his diplomacy at home and abroad; he contrived to disarm Pereira's indignation, and received signal services from his generalship in the wars with Spain and later in Africa. The conquest of Ceuta in 1415 was accounted the greatest feat of arms in the reign of D. João I. The great Constable warrior, who with his martial prowess possessed the ascetic tendency of many famous soldiers, took the sudden resolution shortly afterwards of quitting public life. He

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