Jorge de Lencastre was born in Abrantes on 21 August 1481 and raised by his aunt, the king's sister, Joanna of Portugal, in the Convent of Jesus in Aveiro.

[3] After the death of the royal heir Prince Afonso in July 1491, King John II was left with no legitimate sons and no daughters he could marry off.

Only a few days later, Jorge's tutor, Diogo Fernandes de Almeida, was appointed Prior of Crato (head of the Portuguese branch of the knights of St. John Hospitaller).

Meanwhile, Queen Eleanor set about knitting a rival campaign, in conjunction with the Order of Christ, to prevent Jorge's advancement and protect the position of Manuel (her brother) as heir.

[5] In 1494, John II dispatched an embassy to Rome, headed by two members of the Almeida clan, to petition Pope Alexander VI to legitimize Jorge de Lencastre.

Manuel only partly fulfilled this in 1500 by betrothing Jorge to Beatriz de Vilhena, the daughter of Álvaro of Braganza, not an infanta but nonetheless a princess of royal blood.

But far from the lazy and dissolute picture painted by the royal scribes, the chroniclers of the Order of Santiago seem to have regarded Jorge de Lencastre as a particularly diligent leader and administrator.

They formed the 'pragmatic' party, insisting, like John II had, that the India expeditions were a commercial venture, a means for the enrichment of the treasury, a 'Renaissance' focus on wealth and power.

Manuel's party had a more 'messianic' outlook, seeing the overseas expeditions through the Medieval goggles of Holy War and religious mission, coming up with schemes for two-pronged invasions of Egypt, marches on Mecca and the reconquest of Jerusalem.

However, Jorge continued to resist, and made a point of punishing knights who left without permission (for example, seizing the Sesimbra commenda of João de Menezes, Count of Tarouca, for having taken up the position of Prior of Crato without his consent).

In 1516, the humiliation was complete when Manuel secured from Pope Leo X the authority to appoint Jorge's successors as grand masters of the orders of Santiago and Aviz.

In the late 1520s, João led the opposition to the marriage of King John III's brother, Infante Ferdinand, to Dona Guiomar Coutinho, a prominent noble heiress to the great feudal estates of Marialva and Loulé, on the grounds that he had already secretly married her.

Jorge himself produced a notable scandal late in life when, at the age of 67, he pursued (and married) a 16-year-old girl, Maria Manuela (daughter of Dom Fernando de Lima).

[8] When Jorge de Lencastre finally died in late July 1550, John III moved quickly to seize control of the military orders.

The real reason was probably that the king was eager to erase a title that had been borne by two notable challengers of royal power, a name that might still have a magical pull on the imagination of the next bearer.