In the mean time the request of Queen Berenguela had been granted by her late husband, the King of Leon, and her son Fernando hastened to meet her. The meeting took place at the castle of Otiella, and happy was the anxious mother once more to embrace her son. At her command the cavaliers in her train elevated him on the trunk of an elm-tree for a throne, and hailed him king with great acclamations. They now proceeded to Valladolid, which at that time was a great and wealthy town. Here the nobility and chivalry of Estremadura and other parts hastened to pay homage to the queen. A stage was erected in the market-place, where the assembled states acknowledged her for queen and swore fealty to her. She immediately, in presence of her nobles, prelates, and people, renounced the crown in favor of her son. The air rang with the shouts of “Long live Fernando, King of Castile!” The bishops and clergy then conducted the king in state to the church. This was on the 31st of August, 1217, and about three months from the death of King Enrique. Fernando was at this time about eighteen years of age, an accomplished cavalier, having been instructed in everything befitting a prince and a warrior. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER II. King Alfonso of Leon ravages Castile.—Captivity of Don Alvar.—Death of the Laras. King Alfonso of Leon was exceedingly exasperated at the furtive manner in which his son Fernando had left him, without informing him of King Henry’s death. He considered, and perhaps with reason, the transfer of the crown of Castile by Berenguela to her son, as a manœuvre to evade any rights or claims which he, King Alfonso, might have over her, notwithstanding their divorce; and he believed that both mother and son had conspired to deceive and outwit him; and, what was especially provoking, they had succeeded. It was natural for King Alfonso to have become by this time exceedingly irritable and sensitive; he had been repeatedly thwarted in his dearest concerns; excommunicated out of two wives by the Pope, and now, as he conceived, cajoled out of a kingdom. In his wrath he flew to arms,—a prompt and customary recourse of kings in those days when they had no will to consult but their own; and notwithstanding the earnest expostulations and entreaties of holy men, he entered Castile with an army, ravaging the legitimate inheritance of his son, as if it had been the territory of an enemy. He was seconded in his outrages by Count Alvar Nuñez de Lara and his two bellicose brothers, who hoped still to retain power by rallying under his standard.