His initiation into public life began at the age of fourteen, when he was taken by his tutor and guardian to Zamora to receive the honour of knighthood, in the cathedral from his cousin, Alfonso VII. It was at the feast of Pentecost, in 1125, that he thus devoted his life to chivalry, and he made his vows and watched his arms throughout the night in the cathedral with all the ardour of his age and temperament. He was to fight in many a war with the cousin who then made him a knight; but neither of them, though failing to lead moral lives, ever failed to acquit himself as a chivalrous knight. Affonso returned to Guimaraens with Egas Moniz, and many of the Portuguese nobility at once proposed that he should assume the government of his county in person and deprive his mother of the regency. He was trained to this idea by Archbishop Paio Mendes and his party, and when Donna Theresa and Egas Moniz promised for him that he would submit to Alfonso VII. he refused to ratify their promises, and declared himself of age in 1128. He speedily defeated his mother at the battle of S. Mamede, and then became the real ruler of his county. In his conduct after this behaviour of his ward and pupil, old Egas Moniz showed how fit he was to have been the tutor of a hero. When the old nobleman understood that Affonso would not make the submission to the King of Castile, Leon, and Gallicia, which he had promised in the young count’s name, he went to Toledo with his wife and children, and, surrendered himself to Alfonso VII. The young king honoured the old man’s loyalty to his word, and, instead of punishing him, pointed him out to his courtiers as a model to be imitated, and said aloud, “What great things will not the pupil of such a noble knight be able to perform!” The reign of Affonso Henriques may be divided into four clearly marked periods--the regency of Donna Theresa; the wars of dismemberment, by which the independence of Portugal was established; the wars of acquisition against the Moors, by which the southern frontier of the country was extended; and the period of partial decline after the defeat and imprisonment of the king in 1166. Of these four periods the first has been described, but each of the others deserves a close examination, for each of them possesses a distinct importance in Portuguese history.