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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.
Before this wedding, Berenguela decided that her son must be received into the order of knighthood. There was the customary period of courtly ceremony, with games and gay festivals and much feasting, which lasted for several days, and then came the sacred, final rites, which ended with the accolade.
In that same old monastery at Las Huelgas where the youth Fernando had kept his lonely vigil before he had been knighted by his noble mother, Queen Berenguela, the English prince now kept his watch; and when the morning came and he stood, tall and fair, clothed in a robe of white, ready to receive the accolade, before a company of chosen knights and ladies, the scene must have been wonderfully impressive.
No better eulogy of her life and labors can ever be written than that which is found in Burke's history of Spain, and no excuse is needed for giving it in its entirety: Berenguela was one of those rare beings who seems to have been born to do right and to have done it.
Rebellious under this harsh decree because of its manifest injustice, Alfonso and Berenguela endeavored to hold out against the pontiff, and for seven years they lived together as man and wife, making their home in Leon. Their life was to some degree a happy one together, children were born to them, but ever about their path was the shadow of doubt that was cast by the pope's decree.
Fortunately for Berenguela, the marriage was postponed until she had attained her majority; and when that day of partial freedom came, she boldly declared that she would not marry the German prince, that she did not know him and did not love him, and that nothing could force her to such a bargain of herself.
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.
The invitation was innocent enough, to all appearances, and the request was granted, but no sooner was the young prince safe within the boundaries of Castile than Berenguela called a meeting of the States-General of her kingdom, and there, after having received the homage of her nobles, in the midst of a most brilliant gathering, she announced her intention of abdicating in favor of her son, the heir to Leon.
It appears that the emperor not only consented to this marriage between his son and Eleanor's daughter, but was much in favor of the project and more than anxious to see the consummation of it all, as Eleanor had brought Gascony to her husband as a marriage portion, and the prospective inheritance of Berenguela was a goodly one.
Through some whim of fate it happened that the young king was accidentally killed one morning as he was at play in the courtyard of the palace, and Berenguela, as the only lawful heir, became the Queen of Castile in her own right. In this trying moment, clear-headed as usual, she gave further proof of her astuteness.
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