García II of Galicia and Portugal
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García II (c. 1042 – March 22, 1090) was the youngest of the three sons and heirs of Ferdinand I, king of Castile and León and Sancha of León. His maternal grandparents were Alfonso V of León by Elvira Mendes.
He was allotted Galicia in the partition of his father's kingdom and in 1065 proclaimed the independence of the Kingdom of Galicia and Portugal, taking advantage of the internal tension caused by the civil war between his brothers, Sancho and Alfonso. García thus became the first to use the title King of Portugal, in 1071, when he defeated Count Nuno Mendes, last count of Portugal of the House of Vímara Peres in the Battle of Pedroso. His brothers soon united against him and partitioned his kingdom between them.
In 1072, his kingdom was forcibly reannexed by his brother Sancho and subsequently by Alfonso, who recalled the exiled García from Seville, where he had fled, and put him in a monastery, where he remained until his death sometime around 1090. From that time, Galicia remained part of the kingdom of Castile and León, although under differing degrees of self-government. Although it did not last for very long, the kingdom set the stage for future Portuguese nationalism under Henry of Burgundy. He ordered his prison chains to be carved on his tombstone.
| Preceded by Ferdinand I |
King of Galicia 1065 – 1072 |
Succeeded by Alfonso VI |
| Preceded by Nuno Mendes |
King of Portugal 1071–1072 |
Succeeded by Sancho II |
[edit] See also
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