(Redirected from Garcia II of Galicia)'García II' (c.
1040–c.
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 Leon 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.
See also
★
History of Galicia
★
Timeline of Portuguese history
★
History of Portugal