[25] [Previously to this he waged “the war of the Three Sanchos,” so called from the fact that he, Sancho of Castile, attacked his cousin Sancho of Navarre, who called in the aid of Sancho of Aragon; and together the latter Sanchos defeated the Castilian, in 1068.]
[26] [It is a curious fact that this warrior is known to the Spaniards by his Arab name of Cid or Saïd, that is, lord or leader, while to the Arabs he is known by his Spanish name of Campeador or “Challenger.”]
[27] [Burke[g] explains the inconsistent enumerations of the kings of this period as follows:
The curious confusion arising from a twofold or threefold system of numeration of the Alfonsos of Castile and Leon in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries seems to call for some special notice. Dunham[h], Romey[s] and other foreign historians and chronologists, among whom the count de Mas-Latrie[t] must ever be spoken of with the greatest respect, call Alfonso el Batallador, of Aragon, Alfonso VII of Leon and Castile, as in right of his wife Urraca; and thus call Alfonso el Imperador number VIII; and keep Alfonso III of Castile out of the Leonese or Junto numeration altogether. Thus and in other ways confusion has been introduced, and by imperfect explanation still worse confounded.
The following, it is to be hoped, is plain:
Alfonso VI of Leon was the first of the name to reign in Castile; and, as in the course of the next hundred and fifty years the two kingdoms were sometimes under the same king, though not formally united, and sometimes each with a king of its own, the plan has been generally adopted by modern Spanish writers of numbering the Alfonsos of Leon and of Castile consecutively, without regard to the kingdoms over which they reigned, taking no account of the Alfonsos of Aragon. Thus Alfonso el Sabio was Alfonso IV of Castile, and Alfonso IX of Leon, but Alfonso X of the consecutive Alfonsos, by which title he is always known. And it is by this numeration that the late king of Spain was Alfonso XII, and his present majesty is Alfonso XIII.]
[28] [His ambitious assumption of the title of “emperor of Spain” was scarcely justified by his uncertain conquests from the Almoravids and was made ridiculous by his failure to subdue his Christian neighbours in Leon and Castile.[g]]
[29] [Burke[g] says, “The union of Catalonia with Aragon by the marriage of Queen Petronilla with Raymond Berengar of Barcelona in 1150, was the foundation of the greatness of Spain.”]
