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The Aragon of 1035 was created at the death of Sancho III Garces, King of Navarre, Emperor of Spain. Navarre, the patrimony, was passed to his eldest son Garcia, Castile (acquired as a county through Sancho's wife) went to Fernando (the favorite, who through his marriage to the heiress of Leon/Asturias became king of the biggest chunk), teen age Gonzalo got the counties of Sorbrabe and Ribagorza (the claim to which also came to Sancho through Castile), while his bastard Ramiro was given Aragon, which had it's origins in a County of Aragon dating to the 9th century which came to Navarre through the marriage of Sancho's great-grandfather. Ramiro was to be vassal of Garcia, but in a series of squabbles in the following
years, he first threw off his brother's overlordship, and the absorbed Gonzalo's territories (Gonzalo having died under mysterious circumstances). In the following generation, Sancho Ramirez was able to take control of the Kingdom of Navarre following the murder of its king, Sancho IV Garces, (the western portion of that kingdom falling to the King of Castile, cousin Sancho Fernandez, hence Menendez Pidal's 'War of the Three Sanchos'). This was held by two sons of Sancho Ramirez, but was lost when both died without surviving issue, and a third brother, Ramiro
II was reluctantly recalled from a monastery. He married, had a daughter Petronilla, and engaged the infant to the adult Count of Barcelona, immediately returning to the monastic life. Petronilla's son Alfonso II inherited both territories. Thus the Aragon of 1035 was little more than the mountain county of the 9th century, and it was an
agressive policy of the first several generations which brought about the kingdom of status.