But she did not hold it long. The whole Portuguese people detested her, and their spirit of nationality was outraged by the contemplated union of their crown with that of Castile. Dom John “the Bastard,” the Master of the Order of Aviz shared both their personal hatred for the queen, who had tried to take his life, and their political desire for independence; and on December 6th, he headed an insurrection in Lisbon and slew the queen’s lover, Andeiro, Count of Ourem, with his own hands in the palace itself. The people everywhere applauded his action, and attacked the friends of the queen; in Lisbon the Archbishop Martinho and the Abbot of Guimaraens were killed upon the same day, and the example was followed in the provinces, where among other notable murders, the abbess of the Benedictine nuns was killed at Evora, and the Lord High Admiral, Lançarote Pessanha, at Beja. Leonor among whose faults want of courage could not be reckoned, fled to Santarem, and not only summoned her son-in-law, John of Castile to her help, but began to raise an army from among the vassals of her own adherents. At this news, Dom John felt a momentary movement of weakness, and spoke of retiring to England, but the people of Lisbon, through the mouth of the popular leader, the cooper, Affonso Annes, so eloquently begged him not to desert them in their peril, but to stay and be their ruler, that he consented on December 16th, to remain, and named two of his wisest adherents, João das Regras and Nuno Alvares Pereira, to the offices of chancellor and constable.