To restore some measure of order recourse was at length had to a division of the governing power. Each was to rule where he had the greatest following, Juan in the north and west, Pedro in the south and east. At the same time the pope interfered to effect a reconciliation (1315). The rulers of the kingdom now undertook a campaign against Ismail, who had snatched the lordship of Granada from his uncle, Mulei Nazar, the ally of Castile, a Moorish commander who had been summoned from Fez to the aid of his co-religionists, and defeated Juan and Pedro in a battle at the river Venil, in which they lost their lives (1319). And now whilst the Saracens were profiting by their victory to make raids and conquests in the kingdom of Castile, four infantes laid claim to the regency and again filled the kingdom with civil wars and party rage. In vain did the states endeavour to bring about a settlement, in vain did the queen-mother Maria and the pope labour to effect a reconciliation; the strife continued for years, almost uninterruptedly; even when, at fifteen years old, the king was declared of age and took the reins of government into his own hand, the confusion was not ended. Alfonso XI had grown up amidst violence and party intrigues, and exhibited a harsh and savage temper. He enticed his cousin, Don Juan the younger, who had followed in his father’s footsteps, to the court at Toledo, had him murdered at a banquet, and seized from his family the patrimony of Biscay; he repudiated his betrothed, Constanza, daughter of the infante Juan Emmanuel (a nephew of Alfonso X), that he might marry a Portuguese princess, which so enraged the injured father that he again set up the standard of revolt (1328), and supported by the Castilian grandees and the king of Aragon, conducted a long war against Alfonso.