Page:A Dictionary of Saintly Women Volume 1.djvu/441

427 ST. JANE 427 The king gave her the town of Aveiro and some lands adjoining as a dowry. The convent was a poor honse, but its best rooms were given to Jnana. She had a small honse bnilt for herself in the garden, so that she coold go to ohapel without disturbing the sisters. Her brother, Prince John, often came to see her, and never ceased telling her that he and the nobles would never consent to her taking the veil. She lived for nearly three years in her own apartments before receiving the religious habit of a novice, which she did, without the con- sent of her father, on Jan. 25, 1475. Her beautiful hair was cut off, and with her secular dress she gave up the only ornaments she possessed — an emerald ring, a golden cross, and an Agnus Dei^ containing a piece of the true cross of Christ; this had belonged to her mother, and hacd worked miracles. After this ceremony, she insisted on living like the humblest of novices, and would allow no distinction of rank. She was called Sister Infanta Juana, as the prioress said that God had called her to be a princess first and then a nun. When it was known throughout the kingdom that the princess had really taken the veil, the people were indignant, but the prioress said should the time come when they could prove that it was necessary for the welfare of the kingdom that Juana should marry and provide heirs to the throne, she should have full permission to leave the convent. Prince John was furious, and went at once to Aveiro, first to entreat and then to threaten his sister. In time the rigorous fasts which Jnana observed and the use of coarse woollen clothes instead of linen, so affected her health that she became a prey to disease, and was threatened with leprosy ; and when the time came for her to take per- petual vows, it was decided that her health rendered her quite unfit to become a nun. She submitted, seeing that it was evidently the will of God that she should bear this disappointment ; and reverently took off her religious garb, kissed it, and laid it on the altar of her oratory, saying that, as she was not a nun, she had no right to wear it. King Alfonso died in 1481. Prince John had two sons : one of them legiti- mate. His second son he sent, with permission of the Pope and the Master of the Dominicans, to be brought up in the convent by his aunt Juana, who devoted herself to his training and education, and arranged that he should be no trouble to the nuns. Many proposals of marriage were made for her, some of them accompanied by threats of war in case of refusal. The king urged her strongly to marry the King of France, saying that she would be a traitress to her king and country if she would not do what they so much desired. At last, she said she would consent, provided King Louis XI. were still alive. Eight days afterwards, mes- sengers arrived to announce his death (1483). About this time a pestilence broke out at Aveiro, and raged there with such violence that the king ordered the Prioress l^trice Leitona to take Jnana and his little son to Oporto. Beatrice was taken ill on the way, and died, and was buried at Abrantes. Juana pro- ceeded to Oporto, accompanied (by special permission of the Pope) by two nuns from Aveiro — Clara and Catherine do Silva. Besides her two old servants, she had two Moorish maidens, whom she had brought up from their infancy, to wait on her, and a negress to cook for her. While at Oporto, Juana was summoned by her brother to meet him and her aunt Filippa, at Alcobaza, as he had an affair of much importance to discuss with her. On their journey, Juana and her nuns travelled in litters, in which they remained when they came to inns, so that they should not be looked at, but preserve as far as possible, the privacy of the convent. King John's project was to entreat Juana to marry the King of England, Bichard III. : an alliance desirable for her family and country. On her refusal, he flew into a rage, and threatened to send her by force to England. Jnana was much perplexed and distressed, but that night she was comforted by a vision, in which her Lord appeared and said,