Alfonso The Battler - Death - Succession

Succession

The testament of Alfonso leaving his kingdom to the three holy orders was dismissed out of hand by the nobility of his kingdoms, and possible successors were sought. Alfonso's only brother, Ramiro, had been a Benedictine monk since childhood, and his commitment to the church, his temperament and vow of celibacy made him ill-suited to rule a kingdom under constant military threat and in need of a stable line of succession. The step-son of the deceased king, Alfonso VII of León, as reigning monarch and legitimate descendant of Sancho III of Navarre, put himself forward but garnered no local support. The nobility of Navarre aligned behind Peter of Atarés, the grandson of Alfonso's illegitimate uncle, while the Aragonese nobility rallied around the abbot-bishop Ramiro. A convention was called at Borja to develop a consensus, but there Peter so alienated his own partisans with perceived arrogance that they abandoned him, yet were unwilling to accept Ramiro. The convention broke up without arriving at a compromise and the two regional factions then acted independently.

The choice of the Navarrese lords fell on García Ramírez, Lord of Monzón, descendant of an illegitimate son of García Sánchez III and protégé of Alfonso VII to be their king. The Aragonese took Ramiro out of a monastery and made him king, marrying him without papal dispensation to Agnes, sister of the Duke of Aquitaine, then betrothing their newborn daughter to Ramon Berenguer IV, Count of Barcelona, who was then named Ramiro's heir. "The result of the crisis produced by the result of Alfonso I's will was a major reorientation of the peninsula's kingdoms: the separation of Aragon and Navarre, the union of Aragon and Catalonia and— a moot point but stressed particularly by some Castilian historians— the affirmation of 'Castilian hegemony' in Spain" by the rendering of homage for Zaragoza by Alfonso's eventual heir, Ramon Berenguer IV of Barcelona.

Family tree
Candidates for the crowns of Navarre and Aragon in 1134
Marriage and legitimate descent
Liaison and illegitimate descent
Mayor of
Castile		 Sancho III
of Navarre		 Sancha
of Aybar
Stephanie
of
Barcelona		 García
Sánchez III
of Navarre		 (mistress)

 Ferdinand I
of León
and Castile		 Garsendis
of Foix
 Ramiro I
of
Aragon		 Amuña
Sancho IV
of
Navarre		 Sancho
Garcés of
Uncastillo		 Alfonso VI
of León
and Castile		 Felicia
of
Roucy
 Sancho
Ramírez
of Navarre
and Aragon		 Isabella
of
Urgell
 Sancho
Ramírez
Count of
Ribagorza
Ramiro
Sánchez
of Monzón		 Urraca
of León
and Castile		 Alfonso
the
Battler
 Ramiro II
of
Aragon
 Peter I
of Navarre
and Aragon		 García
Sánchez
of Atarés
García
Ramírez
of Navarre		 Alfonso VII
of León
and Castile		 Petronilla
of
Aragon
 Ramon
Berenguer IV
Count of
Barcelona		 Peter
of
Atarés

Read more about this topic:  Alfonso The Battler, Death

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