y, as they
were both descended from Sancho the Great, of Navarre. While there was
much in the queen's character which the Castilian people could not
admire, they had never approved of her marriage with the _batallador_,
and were only too happy to have this excuse for severing the ties which
bound the two countries together. Urraca was rescued from her captivity,
and proceeded without delay to annoy her husband in every manner
possible. Her honored father's prime minister was deposed and his
estates confiscated, Don Gomez was given this high post and treated as
an acknowledged favorite, and most shamelessly, and the whole country
was shocked. But matters of self-defence were now of first importance to
the Castilians, and so they were compelled to overlook her misconduct
for the moment and prepare to withstand the irate Alfonso's threatened
invasion. He invited Henry, Count of Portugal, the brother of Urraca's
first husband,--and her son's guardian,--to aid him in this attack, and
together they invaded Castile and inflicted a complete defeat upon
Urraca's army at the battle of Sepulveda in the year 1111. The pope,
Pascal II., sent a legate, who granted the divorce for which the
Castilians had clamored; and Urraca, again a free woman, was now the
centre of her own little court, where she soon gathered about her a
small company of nobles who were vying with each other to obtain her
royal favor. Two among them, Count Gomez of Candespina, and Pedro, a
member of the great and powerful Lara family, hoped to marry her, but
she coquetted with them all to such good purpose that she succeeded in
keeping their good will by leaving them all in uncertainty as to her
serious intentions.

At this moment a new element appeared in the settlement of public
affairs. For the first time in the history of Spain, the privileged
towns and cities, which had been granted special charters by the late
Alfonso, Urraca's father, rose in their might and declared that Urraca
should be deposed and that her youthful son, Alfonso Ramon, should be
crowned in her stead. Seeing this turn of affairs, Henry of Portugal,
the young Alfonso's guardian, decided that he might best serve his own
interests by siding with the Castilians against the Battler, and he lost
no time in making this transfer of his allegiance. Castile and Leon were
still harried by the divorced husband, who now had no legal claim upon
them, and there was a general consolidation of national int