This year 1388 came to an end, and the year 1389 arrived, in which the king departed from Medina del Campo to go to the lands of Toledo, which was a warmer province. There it was agreed that the king should meet the duke between Bayonne and Fuenterrabía. The king departed from Alcalá de Henares, and his cousin the duchess with him; they both went to the city of Burgos to make ready the things that were suitable for such meetings. While the king was in Burgos during Lent, he fell ill; after he began to feel better, he left there for Vitoria to take the road for Fuenterrabía. From Burgos the duchess his cousin left for Bayonne in English territory, where her husband the duke was staying. When the king arrived in Vitoria, the pain he had felt in Burgos returned. The physicians told him not to leave there, because the terrain he would have to traverse was rough, with poor roads.

Then the king sent the Bishop of Osma, Pero López de Ayala, and Friar Fernando de Illescas, his confessor, to the duke. Through them he informed him that he had arrived in Vitoria, 24 leagues from Bayonne, intending to come and see him as they had agreed; but that, on arrival there, he did not feel well, and so his physicians advised him not to undertake the difficulties of such a journey. He begged the duke's pardon for this.

When the ambassadors came before the duke and told him of the king's plight, he was not content with what they were telling him, nor did he wish to believe the excuses that were given to him. He spoke with them of many things, which he had intended to discuss with the king. More specifically, he said that since the King of Castile and the King of England no longer had any grounds for war, except for his own claim that was now at an end (according to which he had called himself King of Castile, by the right of the duchess, his wife, the daughter of King Pedro), it seemed to him that the King of Castile should be friends with the King of England. If the king were agreeable to this, the duke had sufficient authority from the King of England, his nephew and liege lord, to conclude the agreement fittingly.