h was full of possibilities for
Spain's future welfare. Alfonso, in his long reign, which had lasted for
forty-three years, had given such a great impetus to the movement of
reconquest directed against the Moors, that a strong and capable
successor could have completed his work and hastened the final Christian
victory by some four hundred years. Alfonso was far-seeing enough to
know the possibilities ahead, and it is easy to understand and
sympathize with his rage at the mere thought of the dapper, silken
Candespina. So the rebellious Urraca, with her heart full of love for
Count Gomez, was married, and just before her father's death in 1109, to
King Alfonso I., called _el batallador_ [the battler], and known as the
Emperor of Aragon. This union of Castile, Leon, and Aragon would have
promised much for the future, if the rulers of this united kingdom could
have lived in peace and harmony together. They were so unlike in every
way, however, that it was easy to predict trouble. The Battler was a
youth of great military skill and great ambition, but he was not a
courtier in any sense of the word and could not be compared in Urraca's
eyes with her carpet knight, Don Gomez. So she was loath to change her
mode of life, and he was in a state of constant irritation at her
worldliness; and as a natural consequence of it all, after a year of
turmoil and confusion, the two separated.

Content to lose his wife, Alfonso was quite unwilling to lose her broad
domain, and consequently Aragonese garrisons were installed in some of
the principal Castilian fortresses, while Urraca, a prisoner, was
confined in the fortress of Castelar. This was too much for the
Castilians to endure; so they at once took up arms in their queen's
defence and, furthermore, demanded a divorce on the ground that Urraca
and Alfonso were within the proscribed limits of consanguinity, 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,