TION AND PUNISHMENT OF THE CONSPIRATORS AT LISBON.

While he serenely enjoyed the blessings of prosperity, his neighbour the
king of Portugal was engrossed by a species of employment, which, of
all others, must be the most disagreeable to a prince of sentiment,
who loves his people; namely, the trial and punishment of those
conspirators, by whose atrocious attempt his life had been so much
endangered. Among these were numbered some of the first noblemen of the
kingdom, irritated by disappointed ambition, inflamed by bigotry,
and exasperated by revenge. The principal conspirator, don Joseph
Mascarenhas and Lencastre, duke de Aveiro, marquis of Torres Novas,
and conde of Santa Cruz, was hereditary lord-steward of the king's
household, and president of the palace-court, or last tribunal of appeal
in the kingdom, so that he possessed the first office at the palace, and
the second of the realm. Francisco de Assiz, marquis of Tavora, conde
of St. John and Alvor, was general of the horse, and head of the third
noble house of the Tavoras, the most illustrious family in the kingdom,
deriving their original from the ancient kings of Leon: he married his
kinswoman, who was marchioness of Tavora in her own right, and by this
marriage acquired the marquisate. Louis Bernardo de Tavora was their
eldest son, who, by virtue of a dispensation from the pope, had espoused
his own aunt, donna Theresa de Tavora. Joseph Maria de Tavora, his
youngest brother, was also involved in the guilt of his parents.
The third principal concerned was don Jeronymo de Attaide, conde of
Attouguia, himself a relation, and married to the eldest daughter of
the marquis of Tavora. The characters of all these personages were
unblemished and respectable, until this machination was detected. In the
course of investigating this dark affair, it appeared that the duke de
Aveiro had conceived a personal hatred to the king, who had disappointed
him in a projected match between his son and a sister of the duke de
Cadaval, a minor, and prevented his obtaining some commanderies which
the late duke de Aveiro had possessed; that this nobleman, being
determined to gratify his revenge against the person of his sovereign,
had exerted all his art and address in securing the participation of the
malecontents; that with this view he reconciled himself to the Jesuits,
with whom he had been formerly at variance, knowing they were at this
time implacably incensed against the king, who