Though Juan and his new queen were, in fact, excluded by the treaty accompanying their union, he no less eagerly claimed the crown in her own right; and several of the Portuguese nobles admitted the justice of that claim. Even the widowed queen, Leonora, caused her daughter to be proclaimed in the capital; but the bulk of the towns and prelates refused to acknowledge her, and declared Don João bastard brother of Ferdinand, regent of Portugal. The latter prepared to vindicate his right; when Urban VI, whom he had refused to recognise, raised up against him his old enemy, the duke of Lancaster, who was persuaded by that pope again to invade Castile. The usurper Juan was no less anxious to secure the co-operation of the Plantagenet, whose departure to claim the crown of Castile he began to urge with success. To frustrate the double object of this alliance, the Castilian, in 1384, entered the kingdom, received the homage of his adherents, and proceeded to invest the capital: but his troops were ignobly defeated by those of his rival; even the queen-mother scorned to favour his pretensions; and he was constrained to abandon the siege, and return into his dominions. In 1385, the states of Coimbra proclaimed his rival king; who began vigorously to invest the places which held for him. [Sidenote: [1385-1387 A.D.]] Fortune attended the arms of the Portuguese, who successively obtained possession of the chief fortified places, and, in several partial engagements, was hailed as victor. A greater and a decisive action was now at hand. Though he had but ten thousand men, he marched against the Castilian king, who met him with an army of at least thirty-four thousand; in which were two thousand French knights. The two armies met near Aljubarrota, a village in Portuguese Estremadura; where, by the advice of the English knights who served in his army, the Portuguese intrenched his followers in a position of some strength. As the troops of the Castilian were wearied by their march, some of his officers, especially the chronicler Pedro López de Ayala,[b] in a council of war assembled to decide on the subject, endeavoured to dissuade him from the battle; but the greater number, among whom were the French knights, confiding in their overwhelming numerical superiority and in their own ardour, inclined him to risk it. The action commenced towards sunset, on a fine summer evening (August 14th), and was, for a short time, maintained with great spirit on both sides. In the end, the Portuguese obtained a splendid victory, most of the Castilian chivalry and ten thousand of the infantry being left dead on the field: the king himself with difficulty effected his escape. The loss was so heavy that he ordered his subjects to mourn for a whole year; while the victors annually commemorated their triumph. The French allies, who bore the brunt of the battle, suffered severely on this occasion. JOHN OF GAUNT IN SPAIN