King Enrique reached Braga and, as it was a large and poorly protected place, with no more than a single tower and even that in a place where it was of little avail, it would be easy to capture. Before the King of Castile arrived, Lope Gómez de Lira had moved swiftly into the city with ten horsemen and thirty foot soldiers, as he knew that there were very few troops in the city and that even those few were very poorly armed for the purpose of defending it. King Enrique began to lay siege to the city, but despite the walls being low and those inside them being so poorly armed he was unable to take it. Having confronted the city for days, on the eve of Saint Bartholomew's Day he gave orders for it to be attacked [once more] by setting a siege tower against it. This attack caused the death of forty-eight of the soldiers inside, owing to their lack of defensive arms, yet even so the king did not succeed in capturing the city. At this point, those inside the city, realizing that they could defend it no longer, agreed to surrender after a truce of a few days in which they could inform King Fernando, who was in Coimbra. In view of this, on a night before the deadline, Lopo Gómez left and went his way.

Help did not reach the city within the period of the truce, and therefore it surrendered to King Enrique, who entered the city with all his forces. The inhabitants had placed everything that they could carry in the Cathedral, where it would not be taken from them. After King Enrique had been in the city for six days and when he recognized how difficult it was to stock it with supplies and in addition how the land around it was also bereft of such supplies, his men set fire to it and left for Guimarães, which lies 3 leagues away.

On learning that Braga had surrendered, King Fernando complained bitterly about its inhabitants, claiming that they could have held out longer if they had tried, especially as he had been getting ready to go to their aid. He particularly blamed Gonçalo Pais de Braga, the schoolmaster Martim Domingues and a number of others, stating that they were only too ready and obliging in surrendering the city to King Enrique.