Antso IV of Navarre

Antso IV
Antso IV depicted in the 12th century
King of Navarre
Reign	1 September 1054 - 21 July 1104
Predecessor	Gartzia III
Successor	Fernando I
King of Aragon
Reign	27 May 1073 - 21 July 1104
Predecessor	Inès
Successor	Fernando I
Born	1039 Pamplona, Kingdom of Pamplona
Died	21 July 1104 (aged 65) Zaragoza, Kingdom of Aragon
Burial	Santa María la Real de Nájera
Consort	Adelhaid of Hungary (m. 1066; d. 1080) Estefania Jimena (m. 1096; d. 1098)
Issue	Fernando I of Navarre Ramiro Antsez, duke of Murcia Gartzia de Noboa
House	Jimena
Father	Gartzia III of Navarre
Mother	Estefania de Foix

Antso IV (Castilian: Sancho IV), known as Antso the Quarreller (Sancho el Peleador; c. 1039 - 21 July 1104), was king of Navarre from 1054 and king of Aragon from 1073 until his death. Reigning for fifty years, he expanded the weak and reduced kingdom of Pamplona inherited from his father into a strong kingdom of Navarre. Antso's campaigns to absorb the crown of Aragon and duchy of Barcelona left him a reputation as one of the greatest Navarrese kings.

Early life and reign

Antso was born probably in 1039, the eldest legitimate son of Gartzia III, king of Pamplona. On 1 September 1054 his father was killed at the battle of Atapuerca fighting Fernando the Great, king of Castile and León. Antso, who had accompanied the campaign, was proclaimed king of Pamplona by his father's defeated soldiers in camp. His accession was approved by Fernando of Castile who could have easily conquered Pamplona had he chosen to do so. It was a humiliating start to his reign; after the death of Gartzia III the kingdom had been left much diminished. Until his eighteenth birthday in 1057 the young king was heavily under the influence of his mother Estefania de Foix. In the late 1050s he applied pressure on the Hudid emir of Zaragoza in concert with his uncle Ramiro, king of Aragon.

On 26 December 1062 the legacy of Gartzia III's reign was crystallized by a treaty between kings Antso and Fernando that saw the former's kingdom reduced to a small strip of land in Navarra and Nájera. Fernando's death in 1065 removed the threat he posed to Antso's weak and diminished kingdom. His three kingdoms, Castile, and Galicia, were split between his three sons. In 1066 Antso, sensing opportunity, concluded an alliance with his cousin Alfonso VI, the new king of León. Their pact was finalized with Alfonso's marriage to Antso's half-niece Estefania on 15 January 1069.

Expansion

In 1067 kings Antso and Alfonso invaded the Hudid emirate in concert with their cousin Sancho, king of Aragon. By the treaty of Teruel, signed in November 1067, Antso's lordship over the entire emirate was recognized. He had reversed the territorial losses of his father's reign, and from this point onwards began to style himself "king of Navarre" rather than king of Pamplona. In 1070 Antso conquered the sheikhdom of Larida. In 1078 Antso confronted and defeated a major Dhunnunid invasion. At a battle at Piedra in October 1078 the king was victorious against the Muslims but his brother Prince Ramiro Gartzez was slain.

The year 1069 brought the death of two kings, Sancho of Castile and Sancho of Aragon. Alfonso VI of León inherited Castile while the infant princess Inès Sanchez became queen of Aragon. In 1071 Pope Alexander II granted Antso the right to claim the crown of Aragon. In 1072-73 Antso invaded Aragon and conquered it after a difficult campaign. On 27 May 1073 he was crowned king of Aragon at Barbastro. To finance the ceremony Antso expelled the Jews from Navarre and seized their assets. In 1076-77 Antso waged a successful war to absorb the duchy of Barcelona and force the submission of its duke, Ramon-Berenguer de Barcelona.

El Peleador

Antso's wife Adelhaid of Hungary was assassinated in the spring of 1080. The king blamed Duke Ramon-Berenguer for her death, and from 1080-83 a civil war raged between the Navarrese crown and the duchy of Barcelona. Antso captured Barcelona in March 1081 but was unable to force the duke's surrender. Finally in 1083 he was brought to heel, amidst a Dhunnunid attack on his exposed duchy. Antso removed the de Barcelona family from power and installed his brother Prince Fernando Gartzez as duke of Barcelona, but he died unexpectedly in 1084. After this the duchy was ruled by the king's nephew Obeko Fernandez.

In 1085 Antso renewed his alliance with Alfonso VI of Castile and León after the latter seized the throne of Galicia. The alliance was immediately honored when a new Dhunnunid invasion of Aragon opened in 1086. On 29 May 1086 Antso was defeated heavily at Alpuente by a Muslim army and left without sufficient soldiers or money. Desperate, the king resorted to expedients such as razing the church of Calahorra for its gold, which drew condemnation from the church and the nobility. With these funds the king hired Catalan mercenaries and managed to assemble a new army of 7,000 men at Zaragoza. On 16 January 1087 Antso defeated the Dhunnunid emir at Alagón, winning the most spectacular victory of his reign and slaying over 4,000 of the infidel. Antso celebrated his victory with a great tournament at Pamplona, remembered for many years afterwards.

Later years

In 1089 Antso held a council of the nobles of Navarre and Aragon at which sixteen year-old Prince Fernando Antsez was acclaimed as heir apparent and dubbed a knight. In 1090 the king made a pilgrimage to Santiago along the Way of St. James. The 1090s were a decade of peace and prosperity for Antso's kingdoms. In his later years Antso became more religious and developed an interest in poetry and scripture. The king made frequent hunting trips to Albarracin in the company of his bastard son Count Gartzia de Noboa, chancellor of Navarre. In 1093 Antso agreed that the Jews could return to his realms and in 1096 he appointed a Jewish steward, Chelbo of Aden.

Statue of King Antso in Catalonia

In 1091 Prince Fernando married Patricia de Poitou, duchess of Gascony. In 1097 the couple inherited Poitou from Patricia's sister. In 1098 a rebellion in Gascony by Dodon de Rodez was put down by a Navarrese army sent to aid the Gascon lords. In 1099 Antso summoned the prince back to Navarre, where he would remain for the rest of the reign, although Navarrese forces remained in Gascony suppressing the resurgent Rodez until 1100. In 1097 the king's second son Prince Ramiro married the German princess Beatrix Salian.

The death of Alfonso VI of Castile, León, and Galicia in 1096 ended the longstanding alliance. In May 1096, after sixteen years as a widower, Antso married his own half-niece, the widowed queen Estefania. She was already ill at the time of their marriage and died in February 1098. The advantage of Antso's short-lived remarriage was that it renewed his bond with Castile in the person of the new king Alfonso VII, Estefania's daughter and Antso's own great-nephew. At a council at Pamplona in 1100 the king of Castile was declared "the greatest ally and friend" of Navarre.

Antso probably suffered his first seizure in 1092, when he collapsed in front of his councilors. In 1101 he paid nuns of the convent of Solsona for their ministrations to his health. In the autumn of 1102 the king was forced to retreat from the public gaze for a month due to ill-health and Gartzia de Noboa presided over the council in his absence. During 1103 a civil war in the duchy of Barcelona was ended by Antso's intervention in favor of his nephew Eneko Fernandez. The king defeated Eneko's enemies at Pallars in August, capturing and exiling his niece Urraca Ramirez.

Antso journeyed to Zaragoza in the summer of 1104 in poor health. On 21 July the king suffered a fatal seizure in the palace of Aljafería. He was buried beside his parents in the monastery of Santa María la Real de Nájera the following month; the ceremony was marked by much "doleful lamentation" as the people of Navarre buried the man who had been their king for fifty years. A Basque epitaph called him "Munduan errege izan duen errege handiena", the greatest king ever to reign in the world.

Issue

By his first wife Adelhaid of Hungary he had the following issue:

• Fernando I, king of Navarre, Aragon, and Valencia (18 August 1073 - 23 August 1127)
• Ramiro Antsez, duke of Murcia (1089 - 9 July 1111)

By unknown women he had the following illegitimate children:

• Gartzia de Noboa, duke of Valencia (1059-1111)
• Gartzia Cajal, lord of Tudela (d. 1096)
• Fernando the Jolly (d. 1114)
• Urraka (d. circa 1125)