PERHAPS the most curious funeral on record occurred just at the dawn of the Renaissance--that of the ill-fated Inez de Castro--"the Queen crowned after death"--who was murdered in the 14th Century by three assassins in her own apartment at Coimbra. "Being conveyed," says the Chronicle of Fray Jao das Reglas, "to the chapel of the neighbouring convent, her body was arrayed in spotless white and decked with roses. The nuns surrounded the bier, and the Queen-mother of Portugal, Brittes, sat in state--her crown upon her head and her royal robes flowing around her--as chief mourner, having given an order that the body should not be buried until after the return of her son Don Pedro. When he did come back, he was transported with grief and anger at the foul murder of his consort; and, throwing himself upon the corpse, clasped it to his heart, covered its pale lips, its hands, its feet with kisses, and, refusing all consolation, remained for thirty hours with the body clasped in his embrace! At last, being overcome with fatigue, the unhappy Prince was carried away senseless from the piteous remains of his most dear Inez, and they were consigned to the grave. It was his father who had instigated the murderers to commit their foul deed, and this determined Pedro to take up arms against him; and Portugal was desolated by civil war. Eventually the reasoning of the Queen (Brittes) prevailed, and peace was restored. Pedro, however, never spoke to his father again until the hour of his death, when he forgave the great wrong he had done him. He now ascended the throne, and his first act was to hunt down the three murderers, two of whom were put to death, with tortures too awful to describe, and the other escaped into France, where he died a beggar. After this retributive act, Don Pedro assembled the Cortes at Cantandes, and, in the presence of the Pope's Nuncio, solemnly swore that he had secretly married Inez de Castro at Braganza, in the presence of the bishop and of other witnesses." "Then occurred an event unique in history," continues this naive contemporary chronicle. "The body of Inez was lifted from the grave, placed on a magnificent throne, and crowned Queen of Portugal. The clergy, the nobility, and the people did homage to her corpse, and kissed the bones of her hands. There sat the dead Queen, with her yellow hair hanging like a veil round her ghastly form. One fleshless hand held the sceptre, and the other the orb of royalty. At night, after the coronation ceremony, a procession was formed of all the clergy and nobility, the religious orders and confraternities--which extended over many miles--each person holding a flaring torch in his hand, and thus walked from Coimbra to Alcobaça, escorting the crowned corpse to that royal abbey for interment. The dead Queen lay in her rich robes upon a chariot drawn by black mules and lighted up by hundreds of lights."