[4] Although the defeat left Moorish Andalusia extremely vulnerable, the Christian kingdoms did not press their advantage and gave the Moors time to rebuild their forces.

[5] In August 1342, Alfonso XI laid siege to the strategic port of Algeciras on the western side of the Bay of Gibraltar with a Castilian naval force blockading the city's access to the sea.

This gave Alfonso XI the opportunity to declare to the Castilian Cortes in December 1348 that he would march against Gibraltar, which was by now a Moorish enclave within Castilian-held territory.

He raised money through three extraordinary levies, obtaining shares of ecclesiastical income granted by the Pope (who had endorsed Alfonso's campaigns as crusades), selling royal lands and having the crown jewels melted down and sold.

The generals, nobles and ladies of the royal household begged Alfonso to call off the siege, but the king refused; according to the Castilian chroniclers, he drew his sword and declared that he would not leave until Gibraltar was under Christian rule again.

[8] As the Chronica de Alfonso XI puts it, He replied to the Lords and Knights who so advised and counselled him, that he asked them to voice no such advice [to leave]; for he had that town and noble fortress on the point of surrendering to him, and he minded that it would soon be his; the Moors had won it and the Christians had lost it in his time, and it would be a greatly shameful thing if because of fear of death he left it as it was.

The Chronica records that "it was the will of God that the King fell ill and had the swellings, and he died on Good Friday, 27 March of the year of our Lord Jesus Christ 1350."

[13] The Moors recognised that they had had a narrow escape; as the Arab historian Al-Khatib later put it, "King Alfonso was within reach of obtaining the whole Spanish peninsula, ... yet as he besieged Gibraltar, Allah in His great wisdom favoured the Faithful in their extremity.