Ramiro II, who ascended the throne in 930, is chiefly distinguished for his wars with the misbelievers. He gained a considerable advantage over Abd ar-Rahman III at Simancas. Like most of his predecessors, Ramiro had also to struggle with internal discord. The dependent count of Castile, Fernan Gonsalez, and one Diego Nuñez, a count also in the same province, for reasons with which history (however communicative romance may be) does not acquaint us, revolted against him. The king marched against them, seized their persons, and confined them in two separate fortresses. His displeasure was not of long duration: he suffered the counts to resume their offices on their taking the usual oaths of obedience; and he even married his eldest son, Ordoño, to Urraca, daughter of Fernan Gonsalez. To that son, on the vigil of the Epiphany, in the year 950, he resigned the crown: his growing illness convinced him that he had not long to live; he therefore assumed the penitential garb, and passed his few remaining days in religious retirement.
[950-967 A.D.]
Ordoño III had scarcely ascended the throne before he was troubled by the ambitious projects of his younger brother, Don Sancho. That prince, wishing to share the sweets of power, modestly requested that the government of one or two provinces might be confided to him; and on the refusal of the king, he persuaded Garcia of Navarre and the count of Castile to espouse his interests. That Fernan Gonsalez, the father-in-law of the rightful sovereign, whose forfeited life had been spared by the generosity of that sovereign’s father, should thus conspire against Ordoño, proves the infamy of his character; neither gratitude nor oaths had any influence over this unprincipled governor. But on this occasion treason and perjury met with deserved failure: Sancho and the count, at the head of the Castilians and Navarrese, in vain invaded the territories of Leon; they found Ordoño so well prepared to receive them that they retreated without risking a single battle. Incensed at this conduct of his vassal, the king repudiated his wife Urraca, and immediately married Elvira, a lady connected with the chief families of Leon. Fernan Gonsalez was now compelled to bow the knee before him. With equal success he triumphed over the Galicians, who rebelled. He died in 955.
Sancho I, surnamed from his corpulency the Fat, now arrived at the summit of his ambition. But by the retributive justice of heaven he was doomed to bear, and in a still heavier degree, the burden of anxiety which he had laid on his brother and predecessor. Aided by the restless count of Castile, whose daughter, the divorced Urraca, he had married, Ordoño, son of Alfonso IV, aspired to the throne. Despairing of success by open arms, the two rebels artfully seduced the troops of Sancho from their allegiance, and persuaded them to join the intruder. This unexpected event deprived the king of the means of resistance, compelled him to flee secretly for his life, and raised Ordoño IV to a precarious dignity. The exiled Sancho sought the aid of his maternal uncle, the king of Navarre. But instead of an army to regain his rightful possessions, he received the consoling admonition that he ought to submit with patience to the dispensations of heaven; and that if he could not regain his kingdom, he might at least rid himself of his excessive corpulency, with which he appears to have been seriously inconvenienced. As no Christian leech could be found skilful enough to effect the change, and as the physicians of Cordova were renowned over all Europe, he wrote to Abd ar-Rahman III for permission to visit that capital. It was readily granted: Sancho was courteously received and magnificently entertained by the caliph; by the juice of certain herbs in a short time he was effectually rid of his cumbrous mass of flesh, and restored to his former lightness and agility.[24]
But this was not the only advantage which Sancho derived from his residence in the court of the caliph. He so won the favour of Abd ar-Rahman and the Moslem chiefs that they wished to restore him. At the head of his new allies the king returned to Leon, and was everywhere received with open arms. The tyranny of the intruder had rendered him obnoxious; his cowardice made him contemptible to the people. In utter hopelessness of aid from any of his former subjects, he retired into the Mohammedan territories, where he ended his days in misery. The restored king did not long survive his good fortune. In an expedition against Gonsalo Sanchez, count of Galicia, who aspired to render that government independent of Leon, he was poisoned under the mask of hospitality by that perfidious rebel, after a troubled reign of twelve years.
As Ramiro III was only five years of age on the death of his father, his education fell to the care of his aunt, Doña Elvira, abbess of the convent of San Salvador, who also appears to have been regent of the kingdom. His minority offers little that is interesting, if we except a predatory irruption of the Normans, in 968. As Ramiro grew in years, the qualities which he exhibited augured anything but good to his people. He became so odious to the nation that the counts of Castile, Leon, and Galicia threw off their allegiance to him, and proclaimed in Compostella Prince Bermudo, grandson of Fruela II. Ramiro immediately assembled an army, and marched against his rival, whom he encountered near Monterroso in Galicia, in 982. The contest, though long and bloody, was indecisive; so that both kings, afraid of renewing it, retired to their respective courts—Ramiro to Leon, and Bermudo to Santiago. The calamities arising from this civil strife were increased by the hostile inroads of Almansor, the celebrated hajib of Hisham II, who now began a career of unrivalled military splendour, and who was destined to prove the most formidable enemy the Christians had experienced since the time of Tarik and Musa. Fortunately, however, for the distracted state, Ramiro did not long survive his return to Leon: his death again consolidated the regal power.
In the reign of this prince (in 970) died the famous Fernan Gonsalez, count of Castile, whose fruitless efforts after independence have been already noticed. His fame arises not so much from the real as from the romantic exploits with which the fertility of fiction has invested him.
As mention has been frequently made of the counts of Castile, and as that government is about to form a conspicuous portion of Spanish history, the subject may be properly introduced here.
ORIGIN OF CASTILE
[760-1010 A.D.]