n, but to be
absorbed by Castile and Leon was more than could be endured. So a great
Cortes was held at Coimbra, and Dom Joao, grand master of the Order of
Aviz, and the son of Dom Pedro and Dona Thereza Lourenco, was elected
king. The new king at once led his people against the invaders, and
after twice defeating them met them for the final struggle at
Aljubarrota, near Alcobaca, on 14th August 1385. The battle raged all
day till at last the Castilian king fled with all his army, leaving his
tent with its rich furniture and all his baggage. Before the enemy had
been driven from the little town of Aljubarrota, the wife of the village
baker made herself famous by killing nine Spaniards with her wooden
baking shovel--a shovel which may still be seen on the town arms. When
all was over Dom Joao dedicated the spoil he had taken in the Castilian
king's tent to Our Lady of the Olive Tree at Guimaraes where may still
be seen, with many other treasures, a large silver-gilt triptych of the
Nativity and one of the silver angels from off the royal altar.[75]
Besides this, he had promised if victorious to rebuild the church at
Guimaraes and to found where the victory had been won a monastery as a
thankoffering for his success.

[Sidenote: Batalha.]

This vow was fulfilled two years later in 1387 by building the great
convent of Sta. Maria da Victoria or Batalha, that is Battle, at a place
then called Pinhal[76] in a narrow valley some nine or ten miles north
of Aljubarrota and seven south of Leiria. Meanwhile John of Gaunt had
landed in Galicia with a large army to try and win Castile and Leon,
which he claimed for his wife Constance, elder daughter of Pedro the
Cruel; marching through Galicia he met Dom Joao at Oporto in February
1387, and then the Treaty of Windsor, which had been signed the year
before and which had declared the closest union of friendship and
alliance to exist between England and Portugal, was further strengthened
by the marriage of King Joao to Philippa, the daughter of John of Gaunt
and of his first wife, Blanche of Lancaster. Soon after, the peace of
the Peninsula was assured by the marriage of Catherine, the only child
of John of Gaunt and of Constance of Castile, to Enrique, Prince of the
Asturias and heir to the throne of Castile.

[Illustration: PLAN OF BATALHA]

But it is time now to turn from the history of the foundation of Batalha
to the buildings themselves, and surely no more puzzling building