1. Veediya Bandara was quick to organize his army. He joined the Portuguese forces and attacked the Sitawaka army, mercilessly. King Mayadunne had to bear a great loss as a result of this war, as he was badly defeated. There was a change of positions of the Portuguese in Colombo as well. Nune Prayer de Andrado, who held the position of the officer-in-charge of the stores, left his position.

2. Prero Vast took his place. He happened to be a stubborn character, who did not even respect King Buwanekabahu. This made King Buwanekabahu go against Prero Vast, to the commander, Migel Pereira. The commander entertained the complaint and started making inquiries. A few Portuguese too gave evidence to support the king. The head of the clergy, at the time, too gave evidence against Prero Vast.

3. Migel Pereira who entertained all these complaints sacked Prero from his post. By this time, King Buwanekabahu was rather old and wished to select an heir to the throne. If he did not act in this connection, he knew that it would lead to the ruin of the kingdom of Kotte. He thought King Mayadunne would definitely annex it to his kingdom. King Buwnekabahu had Prince Dharmapala in mind, as the heir to the throne.

4. He was the grandson of the king. In physical appearance, he looked very much like his grandfather. He was obedient and well-mannered. King Buwanekabahu's second queen also had two sons and they too had a claim to the throne. However, from the very outset, the king did not like them as they were rebellious and never listened to the king. So he decided to hand over the kingdom to Prince Dharmapala.

5. One more reason as to why the king favoured Prince Dharmapala, was that he was brought up by the king himself. But the king knew that his younger brother, Mayadunne, would strongly object to this choice. As such, he expected to provide Portuguese support, for his grandson. The King of Portugal at the time was King John III. King Buwanekabahu sent a letter to him.

6. The message contained in the letter was, "The next King of Kotte will be Prince Dharmapala. But King Mayadunne is opposed to him. Therefore, this prince needs your protection." King John took the message quite seriously and he in turn sent a message to the Viceroy of Goa. In that he had inquired after the custom in the East regarding the ascendancy to the throne. The Viceroy replied describing the custom that prevailed in the Malabar region. That was quite different from the custom in Sri Lanka.

7. In those kingdoms, kingship does not come down to sons or grandsons. It goes to the king's brother or the sister's son. But he added that it should not be followed in Sri Lanka as King Buwanekabahu's brother, Mayadunne was their erstwhile enemy, who always created trouble. So he suggested that for the survival of Portuguese power, this custom should be broken and support should be extended to make Prince Dharmapala the next king.

8. He added that when support was extended to this prince, it would be easy to get him to the side of the Portuguese. This reply reached the Viceroy. In the meantime, the palace in Kotte had an important task to perform. King Buwanekabahu had to select envoys to be sent to the city of Lisbon.