We have already described how, when the King of Castile reached Santarém, all his men were billeted throughout the town, lodging with people of high rank, those of medium standing and those of humble status, with the result that there was nobody in the town with whom they were not billeted.

At the very outset of their accommodation they began by behaving well towards their hosts but after a few days they started to lord it over them, submitting them to so many instances of unreasonable and outrageous behaviour that all the local people considered themselves to be deeply offended. That is because they wrested their very possessions from their owners; moreover, they would eject two or three inhabitants from their houses and make them lodge somewhere else, closeting them all together in one house, without allowing them to take anything out of their houses, not even bedclothes, but simply the clothes they were wearing at the time.

They flung other men out of their houses but kept back their wives and slept with them; in other cases, they did this before their very eyes, much to their anguish, announcing that everything that these men had was now theirs and that they possessed nothing; they insulted them with vile and foul taunts and a torrent of disreputable abuse. If any man tried to speak or answer back, they at once threatened him with death. Other men they bound hand and foot and left them like that all night. Yet others dared not leave their houses to go anywhere else without a pass, for otherwise they were arrested and ill-treated; to such an extent that many abandoned all they possessed and fled to Lisbon and other towns. This went so far that certain men from Santarém, as well as other Portuguese who were with the King of Castile, sent messages from time to time to Lisbon, urging the Master to sail there in barges to do battle with the King of Castile, adding that they would help him to do so.

The Master first discussed this matter with Nuno Álvares and then with other members of his council: they all agreed that it was a good idea to go ahead.