[1] He was with his father at the Battle of Alfarrobeira, on the side of King Afonso V. The sovereign, soon after making him Count, sent him on a mission to the Portuguese fortress of Ceuta, accompanied by Fernando I, 4th Count of Arraiolos and later 2nd Duke of Bragança (1403 - 1478), with the aim of convincing the King's brother, the Infante Dom Fernando, later Duke of Viseu, to return to Portugal (the Infante was planning to stay in Ceuta, in order to fight the Moors).

The mission was crowned with success and shortly afterwards Afonso V appointed one of the brothers of the Count of Atouguia, Dom Vasco de Ataíde, to the influential position of Prior do Crato (head of the Order of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem in Portugal), in succession to another of his brothers, Dom João de Ataíde, who had precociously passed away.

[4] In 1455, the monarch sent Dom Martinho (together with his mother, Dona Guiomar de Castro)[5] on a diplomatic mission to Castile, for which he received the hefty sum of 1355 dobras.

[8] In the years that elapsed between the death of the Infante Fernando, in 1470, and the end of the reign of Afonso V, in 1481, the Count of Atouguia often chose to stay away from the royal court, where he had been one of the most influential political figures.

And the fact that the only son of Dom Martinho decided to follow a religious life, taking the vow of novice at the age of 16, against his father's express wishes, was another complicating factor for the position of the House of Atouguia in the hierarchy of Portuguese counts, in the last quarter of the 15th century.

His second wife was Dona Filipa de Azevedo, daughter of Luís Gonçalves Malafaia,[1] Ambassador to Castille and to Rome and one of the legendary Twelve of England.