Integridad: Council Member

Urraca was the eldest surviving child of Alfonso VI of León with his second wife Constance of Burgundy, and as eldest legitimate child of her father was heiress presumptive from her birth until 1107, when Alfonso recognized his illegitimate son Sancho as his heir. Urraca became heiress presumptive again after Sancho’s death the following year, when he was killed after the Battle of Uclés.

Urraca’s place in the line of succession made her the focus of dynastic politics, and she became a child bride at age eight to Raymond of Burgundy, a mercenary adventurer. Author Bernard F. Reilly suggests that, rather than a betrothal, the eight-year-old Urraca was fully wedded to Raymond of Burgundy, as he almost immediately appears in protocol documents as Alfonso VI’s son-in-law, a distinction that would not have been made without the marriage. Reilly doubts that the marriage was consummated until Urraca was 13, as she was placed under the protective guardianship of a trusted magnate. Her pregnancy and stillbirth at age 14 suggest that the marriage was indeed consummated when she was 13 or 14 years old.

Urraca’s marriage to Raymond was part of Alfonso VI’s diplomatic strategy to attract cross-Pyrenees alliances, and in 1105 she gave birth to a son, who would become Alfonso VII. However, after Raymond died in 1107, Urraca’s father contracted with Alfonso I of Aragon, known as the Battler, for a dynastic marriage with Urraca, opening the opportunity for uniting León-Castile with Aragon.

The marriage of Urraca and Alfonso I almost immediately sparked rebellions in Galicia and scheming by her illegitimate half-sister Theresa and brother-in-law Henry, the Countess and Count of Portugal.

As their relationship soured, Urraca accused Alfonso of physical abuse, and by May 1110 Urraca separated from Alfonso. In addition to her objections to Alfonso’s handling of rebels, the couple had a falling-out over his execution of one of the rebels who had surrendered to the queen, to whom the queen was inclined to be merciful. Additionally, as Urraca was married to someone many in the kingdom objected to, the queen’s son and heir became a rallying point for opponents to the marriage.

Estrangement between husband and wife escalated from discrete and simmering hostilities into open armed warfare between the Leonese-Castilians and the Aragonese. An alliance between Alfonso of Aragon and Henry of Portugal culminated in the 1111 Battle of Candespina in which Urraca’s lover and chief supporter Gómez González was killed. He was soon replaced in both roles by another count, Pedro González de Lara, who took up the fight and would father two of Urraca’s children. By the fall of 1112 a truce was brokered between Urraca and Alfonso with their marriage annulled. Though Urraca recovered Asturias, Leon, and Galicia, Alfonso occupied a significant portion of Castile (where Urraca enjoyed large support), while her half-sister Theresa and her husband Count Henry of Portugal occupied Zamora and Extremadura. Recovering these regions and expanding into Muslim lands would occupy much of Urraca’s foreign policy.

According to author Bernard F. Reilly, the measure of success for Urraca’s rule was her ability to restore and protect the integrity of her inheritance – that is, the kingdom of her father – and transmit that inheritance in full to her own heir. Policies and events pursued by Alfonso VI – namely legitimizing her brother and thereby providing an opportunity for her illegitimate half-sister to claim a portion of the patrimony, as well as the forced marriage with Alfonso I of Aragon – contributed in large part to the challenges Urraca faced upon her succession. Additionally, the circumstance of Urraca’s gender added a distinctive role-reversal dimension to diplomacy and politics, which Urraca used to her advantage.

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It was during this time she met Rodrigo, they became lovers and when he told her about who he really was and the truth about Vampires, she agreed to be Turned and they were soon Mated. Though it had meant giving up her reign.

Integridad: Second-in-Command

As we have moved to May’s Calendar highlight Integridad Kin Clan – we will be introducing a few of the new characters that were added to the Clan.

El Cid – also known as Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar was born circa 1043 AD in Vivar, also known as Castillona de Bivar, a small town about six miles north of Burgos, the capital of Castile. His father, Diego Laínez, was a courtier, bureaucrat, and cavalryman who had fought in several battles. Despite the fact that El Cid’s mother’s family was aristocratic, in later years the peasants would consider him one of their own. However, his relatives were not major court officials; documents show that El Cid’s paternal grandfather, Lain, confirmed only five documents of Ferdinand I’s, his maternal grandfather, Rodrigo Alvarez, certified only two of Sancho II’s, and El Cid’s own father confirmed only one.

As a young man in 1057, Rodrigo fought against the Moorish stronghold of Zaragoza, making its emir al-Muqtadir a vassal of Sancho. In the spring of 1063, Rodrigo fought in the Battle of Graus, where Ferdinand’s half-brother, Ramiro I of Aragon, was laying siege to the Moorish town of Cinca which was in Zaragozan lands. Al-Muqtadir, accompanied by Castilian troops including El Cid, fought against the Aragonese. The party would emerge victorious; Ramiro I was killed and the Aragonese fled the field. One legend has said that during the conflict, El Cid killed an Aragonese knight in single combat, thereby receiving the honorific title Campeador.

When Ferdinand died, Sancho continued to enlarge his territory, conquering both Christian and the Moorish cities of Zamora and Badajoz. When Sancho learned that Alfonso was planning on overthrowing him in order to gain his territory, Sancho sent Cid to bring Alfonso back so that Sancho could speak to him.

Sancho was assassinated in 1072, as the result of a pact between his brother Alfonso and his sister Urraca. Since Sancho died unmarried and childless, all of his power passed to his brother Alfonso.

Almost immediately, Alfonso returned from exile in Toledo and took his seat as king of Castile and León. He was deeply suspected in Castile, probably correctly, of having been involved in Sancho’s murder. According to the epic of El Cid, the Castilian nobility led by El Cid and a dozen “oath-helpers” forced Alfonso to swear publicly in front of Santa Gadea (Saint Agatha) Church in Burgos on holy relics multiple times that he did not participate in the plot to kill his brother. This is widely reported as truth, but contemporary documents on the lives of both Rodrigo Diaz and Alfonso VI of Castile and León do not mention any such event. Rodrigo’s position as armiger regis was taken away and given to Rodrigo’s enemy, Count García Ordóñez.

In 1079 Rodrigo was sent by Alfonso VI to Seville to the court of al-Mutamid to collect the parias owed by that taifa to León–Castile. While he was there Granada, assisted by other Castilean knights, attacked Seville, and Rodrigo and his forces repulsed the Christian and Grenadine attackers at the Battle of Cabra, in the (probably mistaken) belief that he was defending the king’s tributary. The Count García Ordóñez and the other Castilian leaders were taken captive and held for three days before being released.

While in Exile, and his ability to combine the Muslim and Christians together in one army, he caught the attention of Azeem. The Vampire traveled to see him and talk to him about a new opportunity.

El Cid took it without hesitation.

For More Information Contact the Vampire Council Library