A year later, Manuel de Sousa Coutinho was ransomed, and landing on the coast of Aragon passed through Valencia, where he made the acquaintance of the poet Jaime Falcão, who seems to have inspired him with a taste for study and a quiet life.
According to an old writer, the motive for their act was the news, brought by a pilgrim from Palestine that Dona Magdalena's first husband had survived the battle of Alcácer Quibir, in which he was supposed to have fallen, and still lived; Almeida Garrett has immortalized the legend in his 1843 play Frei Luís de Sousa.
The story, however, deserves no credit, and a more natural explanation is that the pair took their resolution to leave the world for the cloister from motives of piety, though in the case of Manuel the captivity of his country and the loss of his daughter may have been contributory causes.
The Chronicle of St Dominic and the Life of the Archbishop have the defect of most monastic writings—they relate for the most part only the good, and exaggerate it without scruple, and they admit all sorts of prodigies, so long as these tend to increase devotion.
Their order and arrangement, however, are admirable, and the lucid, polished style, purity of diction, and simple, vivid descriptions, entitle Frei Luís de Sousa to rank as a great prose-writer.