Kingdom of Navarre: Encyclopedia II - Kingdom of Navarre - Kingdom

Kingdom of Navarre - Kingdom

The first historic king of Navarre was his son Sancho II Garces, nicknamed Abarca, who ruled from Pamplona as king of Navarre and count of Aragon from 970 to 994. The valley of Aragon he had inherited from his mother. The Historia General de Navarra by Jaime del Burgo says that on the occasion of the donation of the villa of Alastue by the king of Pamplona to the monastery of San Juan de la Peña in 987, he titled himself "King of Navarre," the first time that title had been used. In many places he appears as the first King of Navarre and in others the third; however, he was at least the sixth king of Pamplona, and possibly the ninth.

Under Sancho and his immediate successors, Navarre reached the height of its power and its extension. Sancho III the Great (reigned 1000-1035) married the heiress of the county of Castile. The realm reached its zenith under Sancho III, who ruled over nearly all of Christian Spain. Under the sway of Sancho el Mayor, the country attained the greatest prosperity in its history. He seized the country of the Pisuerga and the Cea, which belonged to the Kingdom of Leon, conquered Castile, and ruled the north of Iberia from the boundaries of Galicia to those of the count of Barcelona.

On his death Sancho divided his possessions among his four sons. Sancho the Great's realm was never again united (until Ferdinand the Catholic): Castile was permanently joined to Leon, whereas Aragon enlarged its territory, joining Catalonia through a marriage.

Of Sancho's sons, Garcia of Najera received Navarre, Guipuzcoa, Vizcaya, and small portions of Béarn and Bigorre north of the Pyrenees; Castile and the lands between the Pisuerga and the Cea went to the eldest, Fernando; to Gonzalo were given Sobrarbe and Ribagorza; the County of Aragon was allotted to the bastard son Ramiro. The realm was divided thus once more, into Navarre, Aragón, and Castile. The eldest legitimate son, Ferdinand I ruled as high king having Castile as his seat, and he enlarged his realm by various means. His Navarrese line ruled as kings of Castile and Leon.

The bastard son of Sancho III, Ramiro de Aragon, founded the Navarrese line of Aragon.

Garcia de Najera, the younger legitimate son of Sancho III, founded a new line of rulers of Navarre. The kingdom of Navarre then comprised the present province of Navarre, the Basque Provinces (which were later lost to Castile), and, north of the Pyrenees, the district called Lower Navarre, now a part of France. At its greatest extent the Kingdom of Navarre included all the modern Spanish province; the northern slope of the western Pyrenees called by the Spaniards the ultra puertos ("country beyond the mountain passes") or French Navarre; the Basque provinces of Spain and France; the Bureba, the valley between the Basque mountains and the Montes de Oca to the north of Burgos; the Rioja and Tarazona in the upper valley of the Ebro.

In this period of independence, the ecclesiastical affairs of the country reached a high state of development. Sancho the Great was brought up at Leyra, which was also for a short time the capital of the Diocese of Pamplona. Beside this see, there existed the Bishopric of Oca, which was united in 1079 to that of Burgos. In 1035 Sancho the Great re-established the See of Palencia, which had been laid waste at the time of the Moorish invasion. When, in 1045, the city of Calahorra was wrested from the Moors, under whose dominion it had been for more than three hundred years, a see was also founded here, which in the same year absorbed that of Najera and, in 1088, that of Alava, the jurisdiction of which covered about the same ground as that of the present diocese of Vitoria. To Sancho the Great, also, the See of Pamplona owed its re-establishment, the king having, for this purpose, convoked a synod at Leyra in 1022 and one at Pamplona in 1023. These synods likewise instituted a reform of ecclesiastical life with the above-named convent, as a centre.

The small Navarre could no longer extend its dominions, and became in a measure dependent upon its powerful neighbours. Garcia V (1035-54) was succeeded by Sancho IV (1054-76), who was murdered by his brothers. The then king of Aragon, successor of the bastard Ramiro, took much of the Navarrese lands and its royal title. King of Castile took some of the western lands. In the 12th century the kings of Castile gradually annexed the Rioja and Alava. As long as Navarre was united to Aragon (I076 – 1234) it was free from aggression on the east, but never recovered the western territory taken by Castile. About the year 1200 Alfonso VIII of Castile annexed the other two Basque provinces, Biscay (Vizcaya) and Guipúzcoa. Tarazona remained in possession of Aragon even after Navarre had regained its independence in around 1134. The Basque lordship of soberano of Vizcaya retained its near-independence even under Castilian overlordship, thus its Princes were called as Lords Sovereigns of Biscaye.

After the murder of Sancho IV (1076), king Alfonso VI of Castile, and Sancho Ramirez of Aragon, ruled jointly in Navarre; the towns south of the Ebro together with the Basque Provinces fell to Castile, the remainder to Aragon, which retained them until 1134. The three Aragonese rulers, Sancho Ramirez (1076-94) and his son Pedro Sanchez (1094-1104) conquered Huesca; Alfonso el Batallador (the Fighter, 1104-1134), brother of Pedro Sanchez, secured for the country its greatest territorial expansion. He wrested Tudela from the Moors (1114), re-conquered the entire country of Bureba, which Navarre had lost in 1042, and advanced into the Province of Burgos; in addition, Roja, Najera, Logrono, Calahorra, and Alfaro were subject to him, and, for a short time, Bayonne, while his ships-of-war lay in the harbour of Guipuzeoa. As he died without issue (1134), Navarre and Aragon separated. In Aragon, Alfonso's ecclesiastic brother Ramiro became king.

In Navarre, Garcia Ramirez, lord of Monzon, a grandson of Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, El Cid, and a descendant in an illegitimate line of Garcia V of Navarre, a son of Sancho the Great, wrested the kingship from his bastard-line Aragonese cousins in 1134.

He was obliged to surrender Rioja to Castile in 1136, and Taragona to Aragon in 1157, and to declare himself a vassal of King Alfonso VII of Castile. He was utterly incompetent, and at various times was dependent upon the revenues of churches and convents. His son, Sancho Garcia el Sabio (the Wise -- 1150-94), a patron of learning, as well as an accomplished statesman, fortified Navarre within and without, gave charters (fueros) to a number of towns, and was never defeated in battle.

The rich dowry of Berengaria, the daughter of Sancho VI the Wise, and Blanche of Castile, made her a desirable catch for Richard I of England. His aged mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, crossed the passes to escort Berengaria to Sicily, eventually to wed Richard in Cyprus, May 12, 1191. She is the only Queen of England who never set foot in England.

The reign of Sancho the Wise's successor, the last king of the male line of Sancho the Great and of kings of Pamplona, king Sancho VII the Strong (Sancho el Fuerte) (1194-1234), was more troubled. He appropriated the revenues of churches and convents, granting them instead important privileges; in 1198 he presented to the See of Pamplona his palaces and possessions in that city, this gift being confirmed by Pope Innocent III on 29 January, 1199. While he was absent in Africa, whither he had been induced to go on an adventurous expedition, the Kings of Castile and Aragon invaded Navarre, and as a consequence, the Provinces of Alava and Guipuzcoa were lost. The greatest glory of Sancho el Fuerte was the part he took in the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa (1212), where, through his valour, the victory of the Christians over the Calif En-Nasir was made decisive. He retired and in 1234 he died in el Encerrado. His elder sister Berengaria, Queen of England, had died some years earlier childless. His deceased younger sister Blanca, countess of Champagne, had left a son, Thibault de Champagne.

Thus the Kingdom of Navarre, though the crown yet was claimed by the kings of Aragon, passed by marriage to a succession of French lords, firstly to the heirs of Blanca, who simultaneously were counts of Champagne and Brie. They had the support of the Navarrese nobles

Thibault, as Teobaldo I, from 1234 to 1253, made of his Court a centre where the poetry of the Troubadours that had developed at the court of the counts of Champagne was welcomed and fostered; his reign was peaceful. His son, Theobald II of Navarre (1253-70), married Isabel, the second daughter of Louis IX of France and accompanied his saintly father-in-law upon his crusade to Tunis. On the homeward journey, he died at Trapani in Sicily, and was succeeded by his brother, Henry I of Navarre, who had already assumed the reins of government during his absence, but reigned only three years (1271-74). His daughter Joanna I of Navarre not yet being of age, the country was once more invaded from all sides, and the queen mother, Blanca, with her daughter sought refuge at the court of Philip the Bold of France, whose son, Philip the Fair, had become engaged to the daughter and married Joanna in 1284. In 1276, at the time of the negotiations for this marriage, Navarre effectively passed under French dominion.

In 1305, Navarre passed to the guardianship of King Philip IV of France. Navarre stayed with the French crown until the death (1328) of Charles IV of France. As Charles died without male issue, when Philip of Valois became king of France, the Navarrese declared themselves independent and called to the throne Joanna II, daughter of Louis Hutin and senior niece of Charles, and her husband Philip of Evreux (1328-1343), called Philip the Wise. Joanna waived all claim to the throne of France and accepted as compensation for the counties of Champagne and Brie those of Angoulême, Longueville, and Mortain.

King-consort Philip III devoted himself to the improvement of the laws of the country, and joined King Alfonso XI of Castile in battle against the Moors (1343). After the death of his mother (1349), Charles II of Navarre assumed the reins of government (1349–87). He played an important part in the Hundred Years War and in the French civil unrest of the time, and on account of his deceit and cruelty he received the surname of the Wicked.

His eldest son, on the other hand, Charles III of Navarre, surnamed the Noble, gave the land once more a peaceful and happy government (1387-1425), exerted his strength to the utmost to lift the country from its degenerate condition, reformed the government, built canals, and made navigable the tributaries of the Ebro flowing through Navarre. As he outlived his legitimate sons, he was succeeded by his daughter Blanca (1425-42) and her husband John of Penafiel (1397-1479), son of king Ferdinand I of Aragon.

As king-consort John II ruled Aragon in the name of his brother, Alfonso V of Aragon. He left his son, Don Carlos (Charles) of Viana, in Navarre, only with the rank of governor, whereas Blanca had designed that Charles of Viana should be king. In 1450, John II himself regained to Navarre, and, urged on by his ambitious second wife, Juana Enriquez of the illegitimate Castile line, endeavoured to obtain the succession for their son Fernando (the future Ferdinand the Catholic). As a result a violent civil war broke out, in which the powerful party of the Agramontes supported the king and queen, and that of the Beaumonts, called after their leader, the chancellor, John of Beaumont, espoused the cause of Charles; the highlands were on the side of the prince, the plains on that of the king. The unhappy prince was defeated by his father at Aybar, in 1451, and held a prisoner for two years, during which he wrote his famous Chronicle of Navarre, the source of our present knowledge of this subject. After his release, he sought in vain the assistance of King Charles VII of France and of his uncle Alfonso V (who resided in Naples). In 1460 he was again imprisoned at the instigation of his step-mother, but the Catalonians rose in revolt at this injustice, and he was again liberated and named governor of Catalonia. He died in 1461, without having been able to reconquer his kingdom of Navarre; he named as his heir his next sister Blanca, who was, however, immediately imprisoned by John II, and died in 1464.

Her claim descended briefly to her sister Eleanor I of Navarre (Leonor), Countess of Foix and Béarn, who had been an ally of her father. After her death, which occurred very soon after that of John II, the claim to the throne of Navarre passed to her grandson, Francis Phoebus of Foix (who reigned over Navarre 1479-83). His sister Catherine I of Navarre, who, as a minor, remained under the guardianship of her mother, Madeleine of France, was sought by Ferdinand the Catholic as a bride for his eldest son; but she gave her hand (1494) to the French Jean d'Albret, count of Perigord, a man of vast possessions in the south of France.

Nevertheless, Ferdinand the Catholic did not relinquish his long-cherished designs on Navarre, and married secondly Germana, the daughter of Catherine's uncle who had attempted to claim Navarre over his deceased elder brother's under-age children. As Navarre refused to join the Holy League against France, declared itself neutral, and would have prevented the passage through the country of Ferdinand's troops, the latter sent his general Don Fabrique de Toledo to invade Navarre in 1512. Jean d'Albret fled, and Pamplona, Estella, Olita, Sanguessa, and Tudela were taken. As the royal House of Navarre and all opponents of the Holy League were under the ban of the Church, the Navarrese declared for Ferdinand, who took possession of the kingdom on 15 June, 1515. Lower Navarre—the part of the country lying north of the Pyrenees—he left to his enemies.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Kingdom", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki