But the great regent counted without the enmity of the feudal nobility, headed by his own half-brother, the Count of Barcellos, who was created by the young king Duke of Braganza. This nobleman had always been jealous of the legitimate sons of John I., and in spite of the kind treatment of Dom Pedro, he hated the regent. This hatred he instilled into the mind of Affonso V., who was rather restive under his uncle’s control, and he eventually persuaded the young king that his uncle and father-in-law had poisoned both his father, King Edward, and his mother, Donna Leonora. Affonso V. believed these libels, and ordered the great regent to leave the Court. Dom Pedro obeyed; but the vengeance of the Duke of Braganza was not yet satisfied, and he gladly led an army to arrest the Duke of Coimbra on his estates. Dom Pedro, deserted by all his old friends and sycophants, except the Lord High Admiral, yet determined to fight, and he defeated the Duke of Braganza at Penella. Affonso V. then declared his former guardian a traitor, and summoned the feudal nobility to his side. The nobles were only too happy to aid him, and in the hotly-contested battle of Alfarrobeira the friends of the regent were defeated, and Dom Pedro, Dom Jaymé, his only son, and the Lord High Admiral, were slain, on May 21, 1449. Affonso V., at the beginning of his personal government, yielded to the influence of the Duke of Braganza and his sons, who humoured his desire for knightly fame and his dream of sitting on the throne of Castile, and who obtained vast grants of royal property for themselves. Among them they secured the lordships of the old royal city of Guimaraens, the birthplace of Affonso Henriques, and even of Oporto, the second city of the kingdom; but they never got possession of the latter, owing to the fierce resistance of the citizens. The young king’s main idea at this time was to win fame as a knight and a crusader, and unfortunately this whim led him towards the country which was to be the tomb of his dynasty. It was to raise funds for the expeditions which won him the title of “the African” that Affonso first issued the beautiful coins known as _crusados_, and with money raised by this means he paid the expenses of his three expeditions. In the first of these adventures, in 1458, he took Alcazar es Seghir, or Alcacer Seguier; in the second, in 1464, he failed; and in the third, in 1471, he took Anafe, Tangier, and Arzila. It was in these expeditions that he uselessly exhausted the strength of his people, but nevertheless the works of maritime exploration went on apace, though with less energy after the death of Dom Henry “the Navigator” in 1460.