anged since the
end of the fourteenth century, and because it is, as it were, the parent
of the splendid roofs in the Sala dos Cysnes and of the still more
wonderful one in the Sala dos Escudos.

The kitchen lies at the back of the chapel and at right angles to it. It
is a building about 58 feet long by 25 wide, and is divided into two
equal parts by a large arch. Each of these two parts is covered by a
huge conical chimney so that the inside is more like the nave of St.
Ours at Loches than anything else, while outside these chimneys rise
high above all the rest of the palace. It is lit by small two-light
Gothic windows, and has lately been lined with white tiles. Now the

[Illustration: FIG. 46.

PALACE CHAPEL ROOF.

CINTRA.]

chimneys serve only as ventilators, as ordinary iron ranges have been
put in. There seems to be nothing in the country at all like these
chimneys--for the kitchen at Alcobaca, although it has a stream running
through it, is but a poor affair compared with this one, nor is its
chimney in any way remarkable outside.[96]

The rest of the palace towards the west, between the west end of the
chapel and the great square tower in which is the Sala dos Escudos, was
probably also built about the time of Dom Joao I., but except for a few
windows there is little of interest left which belongs to his time.

The great tower of the Sala dos Escudos was built by Dom Manoel on the
top of an older building then called the Casa da Meca, in which Affonso
V. was born in 1432--the year before his grandfather Dom Joao died--and
where he himself died forty-nine years later. In another room on a
higher floor--where his feet, as he walked up and down day after day,
have quite worn away the tiles--Affonso VI. was imprisoned. Affonso had
by his wildness proved himself quite unable to govern, and had also made
himself hated by his queen, a French princess. She fell in love with his
brother, so Affonso was deposed, divorced, and banished to the Azores.
After some years it was found that he was there trying to form a party,
so he was brought to Cintra and imprisoned in this room from 1674 till
his death in 1683. These worn-out tiles are worthy of notice for their
own sake since tiles with Moorish patterns, as are these here and those
in the chapel, are very seldom used for flooring, and they are probably
among the oldest in the palace.

[Sidenote: Castles, Guimaraes and Barcellos.]

Such was the palace from the tim