The reign of Affonso II., “the Fat,” is chiefly important in the constitutional history of Portugal, and is only remarkable for one memorable feat of arms, the recapture of Alcacer do Sal. On his father’s death the young king, probably by the advice of the chancellor Julião, summoned a “Cortes” or parliament, consisting of the bishops, “fidalgoes” and “ricos homens” of the realm, which was the first regular assembly of notables ever held in Portugal, for the Cortes of Lamego, generally asserted to have met in 1143, is apocryphal. In the presence of this Cortes Affonso II. gave his solemn adhesion to the final compact which his father had made with the Church, and he then propounded a law of mortmain, drawn up by Julião, by which religious foundations could receive no more legacies of land, because they could not perform military service. The new king proved to be no such warrior as his father and grandfather had been, but he was very tenacious of the wealth and power of the Crown, and he refused to hand over to his brothers the large estates which King Sancho had bequeathed to them by his will. It was not until after a long civil war, in which Alfonso IX. of Leon, Alfonso VIII. of Castile, and Pope Innocent III. intervened, that he gave his sisters their legacies, at the same time taking care that they became nuns; but his brothers were forced to become exiles, and never received the estates bequeathed to them at all. Though Affonso himself was no soldier, the Portuguese infantry showed how free men could fight in the great battle of Navas de Tolosa in 1212, in which Mohammed En-Nāsir, the successor of Ya’kūb, was utterly defeated; and the Portuguese statesmen, bishops, and captains determined to take advantage of the weakness of the Almohades after this reverse to reconquer the Alemtejo. Fortunately for their purpose there arrived at Lisbon in July, 1217, a great fleet of English, Dutch, and German ships bearing crusaders to the Holy Land. The leaders of the English crusaders were the earls of Wight and Holland, both friends of the exiled prince, Dom Ferdinand, who had fled to his aunt, Donna Theresa, in Flanders. Sueiro, Bishop of Lisbon, made an effort to detain this powerful army, and succeeded in persuading the English division to stop, though the eighty Frisian ships sailed away. The English knights and men-at-arms disembarked at Lisbon, under their earls, and a Portuguese army, not raised by the royal summons or commanded by the royal officers, was led by Sueiro, Bishop of Lisbon, the Abbot of Alçobaça, Martinho, Commander of Palmella, and Pedro Alvitiz, Grand Master of the Portuguese Templars, to join them. The two armies formed the siege of Alcacer do Sal, the city which Affonso Henriques had won with so much difficulty, and which Sancho I. had been forced to surrender. The defence was most obstinate, and in September, 1217, a Mohammedan army of forty thousand infantry and fifteen thousand cavalry came up to relieve