Soon King Fernando was in the saddle again, riding away toward the south, leading a great host of knights, and one Moorish town after another fell into their hands. While besieging Jaen, Fernando learned of his father's death, which had occurred suddenly. Berenguela summoned her son to return with all possible speed, but without waiting for his arrival she set out at once for Leon, thinking that there might be work to do. Nor was she wrong. Alfonso of Leon, jealous of his wife's great renown and his son's growing success, and knowing that the union of Castile and Leon was her most cherished project, deliberately left Leon to his two daughters, Sancha and Dulce, children of his first marriage, with Teresa of Portugal, perfectly sure that their claims could not find adequate legal support, as these children had never been legitimized after the pope's annulment of this marriage, but contented at the thought that he had probably left an inheritance of dispute and possible warfare which might be sufficient to make Bereuguela's plans miscarry. But in this he reckoned without his host. Berenguela conducted her affairs with the utmost discretion, conciliated the Leonese nobility, caused her son to be proclaimed king, and brought about a permanent union of the two countries without the loss of a single drop of blood. Having accomplished this task, her next care was to provide in some suitable way for Alfonso's two daughters. This she was under no obligation to do, but her sense of justice left no other course of conduct open to her. She arranged a meeting with their mother Teresa, who had long since retired to a convent, and, journeying to the Portuguese frontier, at Valencia de Alcantara in Galicia, these two women, each the unwedded wife of the same man, came together to settle the claims of their children to their dead husband's throne. The whole matter was discussed in the most friendly way, and Berenguela was able to carry her point that there should be no attempt to unseat Fernando from the throne of Leon, and at the same time she made a proposition, by way of indemnity, which Teresa, speaking for her daughters, was quite ready to accept. The infantas were given by Fernando a pension of fifteen thousand gold doubloons, in return for which they formally agreed to abandon all claim to Leon, and this pension, under Berenguela's direction, was paid in all faith and honor. In November of the year 1246 this great queen died, and, according to her own direction, she was buried at Burgos "in plain and humble fashion."