In looking over the many various and bulky documents before us, from which we are compiling this history, we see an account of a personage who played a conspicuous part in the scenes we are about to describe. Dom Joseph Mascarenhas and Lancastre, Duke of Aveiro, was descended from Dom George, a natural son of John the Second, King of Portugal, called the Perfect. He was hereditary grand master of the house of the King of Portugal, president of the court of the palace, and one of the high lords of the kingdom. He was not born to this high rank, owing it more to a caprice of fortune than to any good qualities he possessed. His elder brother, the Marquis of Gouvea, having fallen in love with the wife of a fidalgo of the first order, and won her affection in return, which was discovered by the husband; as the only way of enjoying their criminal passion, he fled with her to a foreign country. Such, according to the laws of Portugal, is considered a capital crime, and punished by perpetual banishment, which sentence being carried into effect against the marquis, his younger brother succeeded to his title and estates. An uncle of the Gouveas, Father Gaspar de Incarnacao, one of the many priests by whom the old king, John the Fifth, was surrounded, being soon after nominated Prime Minister, through his interest, the dukedom of Aveiro, which had previously become extinct, was bestowed on Dom Joseph. During the reign of that imbecile and fanatical sovereign, he had enjoyed considerable influence at Court, when he had made a deadly and personal enemy of Sebastiao Joze de Carvalho, then a young and daring adventurer, without power or influence, who had presumed to lift his eyes towards a lady of his family, whose affections his handsome figure and gallant manners had won. The duke, highly indignant at the daring presumption of one whom he designated as a low-born plebeian, strenuously opposed the match, threatening vengeance on the head of the lover if he presumed to persevere, at the same time insulting him with every term of opprobrium. But the man who was destined to curb and break the haughty spirits of the whole body of a potent nobility, was not likely to be deterred from his purpose by the threats of a single family; and, in spite of all their care, he bore the lady off from the seclusion in which they had immured her to keep her out of his way. In consequence of this insult to the honour of his family, the duke had sworn the most deadly vengeance against Carvalho, taking every means to thwart his aspiring aims; and thus did the blackest hatred rankle in the breasts of both, each seeking the first opportunity to destroy the other. His duchess, by whom he had one son, the Marquis of Gouvea, yet a child, was sister to the Marchioness of Tavora, but devoid of her pride and ambition, and devoted entirely to her domestic duties.