Ferdinand II., king of Leon (d. 1188),
was the son of Alfonso VII and of Berenguela, of the house of the counts
of Barcelona. On the division of the kingdoms which had obeyed his father,
he received León.
His reign of thirty years was one of strife marked by no signal success or reverse.
He had to contend with his unruly nobles, several of whom he put to death. During
the minority of his nephew Alfonso VIII. of Castile he
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endeavoured to impose himself on the kingdom as regent. On the west he was in
more or less constant strife with Portugal,
which was in process of becoming an independent kingdom. His relations to the
Portuguese house must have suffered by his repudiation of his wife Urraca, daughter
of Alphonso
I of Portugal. Though he took the king of Portugal prisoner in 1180,
he made no political use of his success. He extended his dominions southward
in Extremadura
at the expense of the Moors. Ferdinand, who died in 1188, left the reputation
of a good knight and hard fighter, but did not display political or organizing
faculty.
