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García II (c. 1042 – March 22, 1090 AD), King of Galicia and Portugal,[1] was the youngest of the three sons and heirs of Ferdinand I, King of Castile and León, and Sancha of León, whose Leonese inheritance included the lands García would be given.

In the 1065 division of his father's estates, García was given the Galicia, including the County of Portugal, as well as the right to parias from the Taifas of Badajoz and Seville. Calling himself 'King of Galicia and Portugal', he thus becoming the first to use the title King of Portugal. His power in the south of his polity was somewhat limited until 1071, when he defeated rebel Portuguese Count Nuno Mendes in the Battle of Pedroso. However, shortly after this victory, his brothers united against him and forced García to flee to Seville, partitioned his kingdom between them.

Sancho then annexed the remainder of what had been García's kingdom along with the rest of Alfonso's Kingdom of León but was assassinated in 1072. The reunited kingdom of their father passed to Alfonso, and García then returned from his exile. It is unclear if he hoped to reestablish himself in his kingdom or had been misled by promises of safety from Alfonso, but García was immediately imprisoned in a monastery where he remained until his death sometime around 1090.

Dona Elvira ( 1038/9 - 15 November 1101) was a Leonese infanta and the Lady of Toro. She was a daughter of Ferdinand I of León and wife Sancha. She made an important donation of lands to the monastery of San Salvador de Oña in the year 1087. She received the city of Toro on the death of her father, while her sister Urraca received Zamora, and her brothers Sancho II, Alfonso VI and García received the kingdoms of Castile, León, and Galicia respectively.

Urraca (1033/4 – 1101) was a Leonese infanta, one of the five children of Ferdinand I the Great, who received the city of Zamora as her inheritance and exercised palatine authority in it. Her story was romanticized in the cantar de gesta called the Cantar de Mio Cid, and Robert Southey's Chronicle of the Cid.
Before his death in 1065, Ferdinand divided his widespread conquests in central Spain between his five children, charging them to live at peace with one another. Ferdinand's oldest son Sancho II of Castile (the Strong); received Castile and the tribute from Zaragoza; Alfonso VI (the Brave) received León and the tribute from Toledo; and García received Galicia. His daughters, Elvira and Urraca, received Toro and Zamora respectively.

Sancho however resolved to rule over his father's entire kingdom and made war on his siblings. By 1072, Sancho had overthrown his youngest brother Garcia, and forced his other brother Alfonso to flee to his Moorish vassal city of Toledo. Toro, the city of Sancho's sister Elvira, fell easily. But in a siege of Urraca's better-defended city of Zamora, King Sancho was stalled, and was then mysteriously assassinated on 7 October 1072. It was widely suspected that the assassination was a result of a pact between Alfonso and Urraca. The Chronicle of the Cid, purportedly written by one of the Cid's followers, states that the assassin was a nobleman of Zamora, who then received sanctuary in the city. The chronicle is careful not to place any direct blame on Alfonso or Urraca, just as it takes pains to stress that the participation of the Cid at the siege of Zamora was involuntary and supposedly forced on him by King Sancho.

The Castilian nobility, however, were highly suspicious of both Urraca and Alfonso, and maintained the siege of Zamora for a period after Sancho's death. In the absence of Sancho, however, their siege was pointless. According to the chronicle, the guilt of Zamora was decided by a trial by combat, which proved inconclusive. Urraca sent summonses to the nobles of Sancho's dominions, calling on them to gather, and Alfonso was grudgingly acknowledged as heir to all of the Castilian realm as well as León. Suspicion, however, remained and, led by the Cid and a dozen "oath-helpers," the nobles forced Alfonso to swear to his innocence publicly in front of St. Gadea's Church in Burgos. From this incident dated Alfonso's later antagonism to the Cid.

The Chronicle of the Cid states that in his early years as King, Alfonso followed Urraca's advice in all respects. There were even rumors of an incestuous relationship between the pair. Urraca maintained her rule over Zamora following Alfonso's succession to the Castilian throne. In her later years she gradually gave up her governing duties, finally retiring to a monastery in Leon, where she died in 1101. She is interred in the Chapel of the Kings at the Basílica of San Isidoro of León.

Following the death of his son, Sancho, fighting Muslim forces, Alfonso VI was eventually succeeded by his daughter, Queen Urraca of León.
[edit] Literature and film
Urraca of Zamora, nineteenth-century romanticized depiction.

In the poetic legend, Dona Urraca is the wronged infanta, watching Sancho and the Cid despoil her lands from the battlements of her castle shortly before Sancho is murdered. Her brother Alfonso is her loyal and chivalrous defender.

The Hollywood film El Cid largely follows the narrative of the Chronicle and the poetic epics, adding to the character of the Infanta a spurned woman role scheming against the Cid, once she seems rejected by him; however it omits the story that Urraca and Rodrigo grew up as close companions in Zamora and maybe more is behind omitted. And it stretches the psychological card that as older and provoking sister she plays between her brothers Alfonso and Sancho's quarrels for her city and herself. Later in the film, after the death of the haughty older brother Sancho, she focuses her favours to extract from Alfonso compensation to her own grudges with Roy Diaz. For some reason the film wrongly makes Urraca the ruler of Calahorra, rather than Zamora. Urraca is portrayed by the French actress Geneviève Page.