[5] In the summer of 1295, when the Cortes of Valladolid were finished, the Dowager Queen and Henry of Castile met in Ciudad Rodrigo with King Denis of Portugal, to whom they delivered several localities located near the Portuguese border.

At the same time, Diego López V de Haro was confirmed the possession of the Lordship of Biscay, and John of Castile, who recognized (but only privately) Ferdinand IV as his sovereign, was momentarily restored his property.

In these Cortes Henry of Castile managed to obtain for his nephew Juan Manuel, Prince of Villena the Castle of Alarcón in compensation for having lose the town of Elche after being conquered by the Aragonese, despite the opposition of the Dowager Queen, who didn't want to established such precedents between Castilian nobles and magnates.

In 1296 the Dowager Queen María de Molina had threatened the Portuguese monarch with breaking the agreements of the previous year if his attacks on the Castilian territory persisted, before which King Denis of Portugal agreed to return with his troops to his domains.

The Castilian and Portuguese monarchs renounced their future mutual territorial claims and the prelates of the two kingdoms agreed on 13 September 1297 to support each other and defend themselves against the possible pretensions of other estates to deprive them of freedoms or privileges.

On the other hand, the Treaty of Alcañices contributed to secure the position of Ferdinand IV in the Castilian throne, who was insecure because of internal and external discords, and allowed Dowager Queen María de Molina to extend her freedom of movement in the absence of disputes with the Portuguese sovereign, who had come to support it in her fight against John of Castile, who, at that moment, was still controlling the territory of León.

While celebrating the Cortes of Medina del Campo in 1302, which was attended by a representation of the King of Castile, Sultan Muhammed II al-Faqih of Granada died and was succeeded by his son, Muhammad III, who attacked the Kingdoms of Castilla y León and conquered the municipality of Bedmar.

In the final months of 1302, the Dowager Queen, who was in Valladolid, was forced to appease the ricoshombres and members of the nobility, who planned to rise up in arms against Ferdinand IV, who spent the Christmas of 1302 in lands of the Kingdom of León, accompanied by the John of Castile and Juan Núñez II de Lara.

This plan, which would have meant the disintegration of the Kingdom of Castile and León, as well as the forced resignation of Ferdinand IV to the throne, was rejected by the Dowager Queen, who refused to support the project and to participate in the Meeting of Ariza.

In order to solve the inconveniences derived from the distribution of the Murcia territory, and to other minor questions, was agreed a meeting between Ferdinand IV and James II of Aragon in the Monastery of Santa María de Huerta, located in the Province of Soria.

Nevertheless, the transfer of the city of Cartagena to Castile was made on condition that Ferdinand IV respected the property of Juan Manuel of Villena on the Lordship de Alarcón, to which the Castilian monarch didn't oppose.

However, the Master didn't deliver the castles to the Dowager Queen, but offered them to the Infante Philip of Castile, brother of Ferdinand IV, to give them to him, with the condition that he asked the King in his name that he could attend the demands of the Templars to the prelates of his Kingdom.

Ferdinand IV tried to put order in the affairs of his domains, as well as to reach a budgetary balance and to reorganize the administration of the Court, while trying to reduce the attributions of John of Castile, aspect this last who proved to be impossible for the monarch.

Regarding the second subject discussed in the meetings of the sovereigns, Ferdinand IV gave to Alfonso de la Cerda 220,000 maravedíes that had not yet been received by him and in exchange he surrender to the king the cities of Deza, Serón and Alcalá.

The Castilian sovereign, who had the support of his brother, the Infante Peter, Diego López V de Haro, the Archbishop of Toledo and the Bishop of Zamora, agreed to start the war against the Kingdom of Granada on 24 June 1309 and promised, like the Aragonese monarch, not to sign a separate peace with the Granadine ruler.

On 24 April 1309, Pope Clement V, through the bull "Indesinentis cure", authorized the preaching of the Crusade in the dominions of King James II of Aragon, and granted to this fight the tithes that had been destined for conquest of Corsica and Sardinia.

Numerous magnates of the Kingdom, headed by John of Castile and Juan Manuel of Villena, opposed to the project of taking the city of Algeciras, preferring to carry out a campaign of plunder and devastation in Vega de Granada.

In addition, John of Castile was resentful to the King because of the latter's refusal to hand him the municipality of Ponferrada, and Juan Manuel of Villena, although he wished to wage war against the Kingdom of Granada from his lands in Murcia, was forced by Ferdinand IV to participate together with his troops at the siege of Algeciras.

For its part, King Denis of Portugal, father-in-law of Ferdinand IV, sent a contingent of 700 knights under the command of Martín Gil de Sousa, and James II of Aragon contributed to the expedition against Algeciras with 10 galleys.

This action, motivated by the fact that Ferdinand IV owed them certain sums of money for the payment of their soldiers, provoked the indignation of the European courts and the protest of James II of Aragon, who tried to persuade the deserters, though unsuccessfully, to return to the siege of Algeciras.

[20] The scarcity and poverty of means in the Christian camp became so alarming that Ferdinand IV was obliged to pawn the jewels and crowns of his wife Queen Constance in order to be able to pay the soldiers and the crews of the galleys.

Juan Núñez II de Lara was to inform the Pope about the causes that had motivated the lifting of the siege of Algeciras, and also had to petitioned, on behalf of Ferdinand IV, funds for the continuation of the war against the Kingdom of Granada.

Meanwhile, Dowager Queen María de Molina, who was in Valladolid, begged her son to join her there, so that the monarch might be present at the wedding of his sister, the Infanta Isabella with John, Viscount of Limoges and heir of the Duchy of Brittany.

On the way to Burgos, Ferdinand IV stopped in the city of Toledo and confessed to Juan Núñez II de Lara that he planned to arrest or assassinate John of Castile, because he thought that if he still live, he would harm and hinder him in all his purposes.

Ferdinand IV arrived in Burgos in January 1311, and after the marriage of his sister, he planned to assassinate John of Castile, as a revenge for his desertion during the siege of Algeciras and, at the same time, to subdue the nobility, who again rebelled against the royal authority.

Ferdinand IV, accompanied by his brother Infante Peter, Lope Díaz de Haro, and by the troops of the council of Burgos persecuted John of Castile and his supporters, who took refuge in the city of Saldaña.

With the desire to achieve peace in order to continue with the Reconquista, Ferdinand IV agreed to sign the Concord of Palencia on 28 October 1311 with John of Castile and the rest of the magnates, and whose clauses were ratified in the Cortes of Valladolid in 1312.

The King, after a short stay in the city of Jaén, went to the town of Martos, where he ordered the execution of the Carvajal brothers, accused of having murdered Juan Alonso de Benavides, private of Ferdinand IV, in Palencia.

As the day of the thirty-day period that the knights he killed placed him, he wanted to leave for Alcaudete, that his brother the infante Peter had taken the Moors, ate early, and lay down to sleep, which was in summer; and when they came to awaken him, they found him dead in bed, that no one should see him die.

The fame and the above-mentioned opinion, conceived in the minds of the common people, were increased by the death of two great princes who for the same reason died in the next two years: these were Philip the King of France and Pope Clement, both summoned by the Templars before the divine court while with fire and all kinds of torments sent them to punish and persecuted all that religion.