1383 The regent's privy council made the error of excluding any representation of the merchants of Lisbon. On the other hand, the popular classes of Lisbon, Beja, Porto, Évora, Estremoz, Portalegre and some other municipalities of the kingdom rose in favour of John (João), Grandmaster of Avis, seeing him as the national candidate (and the preferred national candidate). The first move was taken by the faction of the Grandmaster of Avis in December 1383. João Fernandes Andeiro, Count of Ourém, called Conde Andeiro, the detested lover of the dowager queen, was murdered by a group of conspirators led by the Grandmaster. Following this act, John, acclaimed "rector and defender of the realm" by the people of Lisbon, and also supported by the city's great merchants, was now the leader of the opposition to the pretensions of John I of Castile, who tried to be recognised as monarch
iure uxoris, against the
Treaty of Salvaterra.
1384 of
Jean Froissart The armed resistance met the Castilian army on April 6, 1384, in the
Battle of Atoleiros. General Nuno Álvares Pereira won the battle for the Avis party, but victory was not decisive. John I of Castile then retreated to Lisbon in May and
besieged the capital, with an auxiliary fleet blocking the city's port in the river
Tagus, in a severe drawback to the independence cause. Without the capital and its riches and commerce, little could be done to free the country from the Castilian king. On his side, John I of Castile needed Lisbon, not only for financial reasons, but also for political ones—neither he nor Beatrice had been crowned as monarchs of Portugal, and without a coronation in the capital he was only a designated king. Meanwhile, John of Avis had surrendered the military command of the resistance to Nuno Álvares Pereira. The general continued to attack cities loyal to the Castilians and to harass the invading army. John of Avis was now focused on diplomatic offensives. International politics played an important role in deciding Portuguese affairs. In 1384, the
Hundred Years' War was at its peak, with
English and
French forces in a struggle for the crown of France. The conflict spilled beyond the French borders, and influenced, for instance, the
Western Schism in a papacy only recently moved to Avignon from Rome. Castile was a traditional ally of France, so, looking for assistance in England was the natural option for John of Avis. In May, with Lisbon under siege, an embassy was sent to
Richard II of England to make a case for Portuguese independence. Richard was seventeen years old in 1384, and power lay with his uncle
John of Gaunt, 1st Duke of Lancaster and regent of England. Despite initial reluctance to concede men, John of Gaunt finally agreed to levy troops to reinforce the Portuguese army. Lisbon was struggling with
famine and feared defeat by the Castilian
siege. Blocked by land and by the river, the city had no hope of relief by the Avis army, which was too small to risk an intervention and was occupied subduing other cities. An attempt was made by a Portuguese fleet to relieve the Castilian blockade. On July 18 a group of ships led by captain Rui Pereira managed to
break the blockade and deliver precious supplies of food to Lisbon. The cost was high, since three of four boats were seized and Rui Pereira himself died in the naval combat. Despite this minor success, the siege held on; the city of
Almada on the south bank of the Tagus surrendered to Castile. But the siege was hard not only on the inhabitants of Lisbon: the army of Castile was also dealing with a shortage of food supplies, due to the harassment of Nuno Álvares Pereira, and the
bubonic plague. It was the outbreak of an epidemic in his ranks that forced John I of Castile to raise the siege on September 3 and retreat to Castile. Weeks later, the Castilian fleet also abandoned the Tagus, and Lisbon avoided conquest.
1385 In late 1384 and the early months of 1385, Nuno Álvares Pereira and John of Avis pursued the war, but they did not manage to subdue the majority of those Portuguese cities then in favour of the Castilian cause. Answering the call for help, English troops (an Anglo-Gascon contingent) landed in Portugal on
Easter Day. They were not a big contingent, around 600 men (of which about 100 would be present in Ajubarrota), but they were mainly veterans of the Hundred Years' War battles and thereby well schooled in successful English military tactics. Among them were a small number of
longbowmen who had already demonstrated their value against cavalry charges. At the same time, John of Avis organised a meeting in
Coimbra of the
Cortes, the assembly of the kingdom. There, on April 6, he was proclaimed the tenth king of Portugal, a clear act of defiance against the Castilian pretensions. John I of Portugal nominated Nuno Álvares Pereira
Constable of Portugal and went to subdue the resistance still surviving in the north. John I of Castile was not pleased. His first move was to send a
punitive expedition, but the forces were heavily defeated in the
Battle of Trancoso in May. From January, he began preparing his army to solve the problem definitively. The king himself led an enormous Castilian army that invaded Portugal in the second week of June through the central north, from
Celorico da Beira to
Coimbra and
Leiria. An allied contingent of French heavy cavalry travelled with them. The power of numbers was on their side—about 32,000 men on the Castilian side versus 6,500 on the Portuguese. They immediately headed to the region of Lisbon and Santarém, the country's major cities. Meanwhile, the armies of John I of Portugal and Nuno Álvares Pereira joined in the city of
Tomar. After some debate, a decision was made: the Castilians could not be allowed to besiege Lisbon once again, since the city would undoubtedly fall, so the Portuguese would intercept the enemy in the vicinity of
Leiria, near the village of Aljubarrota. On August 14, the Castilian army, very slow due to its huge numbers, finally met the Portuguese and English troops. The ensuing fight, the
Battle of Aljubarrota, was fought in the style of the Battles of
Crécy and
Poitiers. These tactics allowed a reduced infantry army to defeat cavalrymen with the use of longbowmen in the flanks and defensive structures (like
caltrops) in the front. The Castilian army was not only defeated, but annihilated. Their losses were so great that John I of Castile was prevented from attempting another invasion in the following years. ==Legacy==