[92] In his report of his conversation with King Sancho, when that monarch was on his death-bed, he says, “The King Alfonso and my father in his lifetime, and King Sancho and myself in his lifetime, always had our households together, and our officers were always the same.” Farther on, he says he was brought up by Don Sancho, who gave him the means of building the castle of Peñafiel, and calls God to witness that he was always true and loyal to Sancho, to Fernando, and to Alfonso XI., adding cautiously, “as far as this last king gave me opportunities to serve him.” Manuscript in the National Library at Madrid. [93] Crónica de Alfonso XI., ed. 1551, fol., c. 19-21. The affairs of the kingdom during the administration of Prince John seem to have been managed with talent and spirit; but at the end of the regency the young monarch was not sufficiently contented with the state of things to continue his grand-uncle in any considerable employment. Don John, however, was not of a temper to submit quietly to affront or neglect.[94] He left the court at Valladolid, and prepared himself, with all his great resources, for the armed opposition which the politics of the time regarded as a justifiable mode of obtaining redress. The king was alarmed, “for he saw,” says the old chronicler, “that they were the most powerful men in his kingdom, and that they could do grievous battle with him, and great mischief to the land.” He entered, therefore, into an arrangement with Prince John, who did not hesitate to abandon his friends, and go back to his allegiance, on the condition that the king should marry his daughter Constantia, then a mere child, and create him governor of the provinces bordering on the Moors, and commander-in-chief of the Moorish war; thus placing him, in fact, again at the head of the kingdom.[95] [94] Ibid., c. 46 and 48. [95] Crónica de Alfonso XI., c. 49.