Chapter 462: Under the Crown of Spain

The three great kingdoms of Castile, León and Garcia were all previously owned by the Asturian dynasty De. The House of Cumbria ruled, while the Jimena family, who later ruled Spain, ruled only the remote kingdom of Navarre.

History records the rise of a powerful aristocrat named Jimeno to the center of power, probably from a branch of the Arista family. Around 905, Simeno's grandson Sancho replaced the third monarch of the Arista dynasty, Foton Gasses (Sancho I. c.905-925), and founded the second dynasty of the Navarre kingdom: the Jimena dynasty, named after his grandfather.

Soon after Sancho I ascended the throne, war broke out between the once-closely rivaled families of Navarre and Cassie.

In 907, when Lub ibn Muhammad, the leader of the Banu Khasi, led an army against Pamplona, Sancho I used the Basque man's skill to defeat the invading enemy in one fell swoop.

Ruble himself was killed, and the Cassie family began to decline completely and slowly faded out of the historical stage, which caused the town to temporarily lose its absolute leadership, and the Navarre Kingdom, which had been hiding in the mountains for more than a hundred years, also had to follow the example of the Kingdom of Asturias and explore the world below the mountain.

At this time, Zaragoza, the center of the upper town controlled by the Tuguibi family, and the surrounding plains of the middle Ebro River were still a formidable force for Sancho I to dare to move, but the river was tracing up into the upper Ebro valley, which was sandwiched between Pamplona and Castile of the Kingdom of León, and became the preferred target of attack for the two newly allied Christian regimes.

After 907, with the cooperation of King O'Donio of León, Sancho I launched attacks on the area year after year, and although there were setbacks such as the defeat of the Hounquilla Valley, the overall momentum of expansion remained slow.

In 924, the kingdom of Navarre finally found its first pot of gold since the founding of the country and occupied the important town of Nahla in the river valley.

Another important event during Sancho I's tenure was that he married his daughter Sancha to King O'Donio II of León, the first marriage to the Kingdom of León, and after his death, his other daughter Urarca married O'Donio's son, the military genius Ramiro II.

Since then, Navarre has learned the second skill of marriage, and has opened the way to victory in bed a hundred years later.

Sancho I died of illness in 925. His younger son, García I (931-970), was regent by his uncle and mother, the latter of whom was the Queen Mother of Toda, who helped restore Sancho the Fat of León, to the throne of the Fat King.

The de facto ruler of the kingdom, the Empress Dowager Toda, was not only pragmatic, but also discerning, and during the imprisonment of Count Fernand of Castia, it was probably because she saw the prospect of Castia's future rise that not only did not embarrass Fernand, but also established a marriage relationship with his family.

Since then, Navarre's influence has permeated Castia, and the weapon of marriage has been used by the Empress Dowager Toda to expand Navarre in another direction.

In 940, García I married the daughter of Galindo II (893-922), Count of Aragon, a titular vassal east of Navarre. Galindo II had no heirs, so García I and his sister-in-law Sancho II (970-994), born to the Queen of Aragon, succeeded to the Count of Aragon and united Aragon and Navarre after him, the throne of Navarre.

By the beginning of the 11th century, the kingdom of Navarre had not only survived the storm of jihad, but her bloodline had taken root within several other Christian regimes.

In 1004, Sancho III (1004-1035) succeeded his father García II as the new king of Navarre, known as the "Great", one of the leading conspirators of the Middle Ages who took Navarre's traditional marriage skills to the extreme. Before he ascended to the throne, his ancestors had laid a huge net for him, and he himself became the most successful monarch of the Iberian Peninsula of his time.

In 1011, Sancho III, who had just come of age, and his carefully chosen bride, Munia Dona, were married. The bride was the daughter of Sancho García, then Count of Casstilla, second in line of succession after her brother García Sánchez (1017-1028), and her great-grandfather, Count of Castile Sancho García, Ramon II (955-970).

Now Sancho III's grand plan is to open the bow left and right, first east and then west, to eat these two lands.

In 1028, the young new king of León, Bermudo III, had just ascended the throne, and in order to win the support of Castile, the two decided to marry each other, and the newly adult García Sánchez went to León to marry Bermudo's sister Sancha.

Sancho III, as the brother-in-law of the bridegroom, "volunteered" to send troops to "escort", but in the city of León, Garcia, who had just grown fur on his lips, was assassinated, Sancho III expressed his grief and regret, and calmly pointed out that his wife is now the first in line to the throne of Countia.

After many marriages with the royal family of Navarre, many nobles in the county of Castile have long had an ambiguous relationship with Navarre, so Sancho III elected his youngest son Fernando to succeed him as Count of Castile without resistance, and the actual control of Castile also fell into the hands of Sancho.

In 1032, Fernando continued the unfinished business of his predecessor, Count García Sánchez, and married Sancha, Princess of León, all by his father, Sancho, of course.

So far, not once has Sancho III's territorial expansion been achieved on the battlefield, but his kingdom of Navarre has leapt from the weakest of the Christian regimes to the first power, expanding its size by four to five times like a balloon.

In 1033, on behalf of his son Fernando, Sancho III asked Belmudo III, King of León, to cede land to Castile, but was flatly refused, and the King of Navarre, who had always been behind the scenes, decided to come to the stage and have a good time.

However, the obsessive-compulsive disorder of the strategist still prompted him to beat the nobles and counts of the Kingdom of Leon early before the start of the fight, but when the battle really started, Bermudo III found that few of his nobles did not respond to the mobilization to follow him, and most of them defected to the side of Navarre, and Bermudo could only follow the footsteps of his ancestors, climb the mountains to the west, and hide in Galicia.

Sancho III came to León without much resistance, and Sancho III reached the pinnacle of his life. In the charter he left behind that year, Sancho III proudly referred to himself as: "King Sancho Gasses, ruler of Aragon, Castile and León, Vega Zamora to Barcelona, and all of Gasconi." ”

Perhaps Sancho III himself had a clear idea of the future prospects of the "empire" he had built, and he personally arranged for the division of the territory after his death.

When Sancho III died of illness in 1035, his kingdom was divided between his four sons: García the eldest (1035-1054) received Navarre proper, who continued to be King of Navarre, the second Gonzalo (1035-1043) received the easternmost counties of Ribagosa and Sobrabe, the illegitimate son Ramiro (1035-1063) received Aragon, and the youngest son Fernando continued to rule Castia. However, part of the northern part of Castile and the Arava region had to be ceded to the eldest brother and annexed to Navarre.

After the death of Sancho III, the short-lived "empire" of Navarre was divided among the four princes. The two most powerful of these were García III (1035-1054), the eldest son of Navarre, and the youngest son of Castile (Fernando I (1037-1065).

After the death of Sancho III in 1035, the former king of León, Bermudo III, who had retreated in a corner of Galicia, took the opportunity to return to León and regain the throne. As a traditional vassal of León, Count of Castile, Fernando chose to temporarily recognise Belmudo's suzerainty, but Bermudo continued to pressure to reclaim the Campos region that had been ceded to Castile, which was met with Fernando's head-on.

In the Battle of Tamaron, which broke out on 4 September 1037, Fernando, with the help of Navarre reinforcements from his eldest brother García, decisively defeated Bermudo, who was killed in a heavy cavalry charge. Beginning with Alfonso I, the last monarch of the Alfonso-Astouré dynasty, which lasted for almost three hundred years, ended the history of this dynasty with such a tragic end.

In 1038, the four brothers of Jimena gathered in León and proclaimed Fernando king of León. Fernando even took the throne of León as the Count of Castile, and since he began, Castile was officially promoted from the county to a kingdom equal to Leon, and Fernando's title has since become the King of Leon-Castia, he is William's father-in-law, and his father Sancho III is known as the great monarch of the "Great".