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Updated: June 13, 2025
The poor place was beautifully neat, and from his window he made us free of a sight of Seville, signally the cathedral and the Giralda, such as could not be bought for money in New York. Then we set out on our return, leaving unvisited to the left the church of San Isidore de Campo, with its tombs of Guzman the Good and that Better Lady Dona Urraca Osorio, whom Peter the Cruel had burned.
I say better, because I hold it nobler in Urraca to have rejected the love of a wicked king than in Guzman to have let the Moors slay his son rather than surrender a city to them.
While no one at the present time, unless he be some confirmed woman-hater, will be so ungallant as to attempt to maintain the truth of these sweeping statements, there must have been, at various times and places in the world, women of the kind indicated, as Queen Urraca of Castile, for example, or these things would never have been said.
Dona Urraca then said to the Cid, that he might speak his bidding safely.
In the midst of it all, Urraca continued to play the wanton, and soon so disgusted the Count of Portugal that he deserted her standard. This he did on the eve of the great battle of Espina, in the year 1112. Urraca still counted upon the devotion of her nobles, but Lara fled from the field, the prime favorite Candespina was killed, and the revengeful husband gained another victory.
The Franciscans had been introduced into Portugal by Dona Sancha, the daughter of Dom Sancho I., and houses were built for them by Dona Urraca, the wife of Dom Affonso II., at Lisbon and at Guimarães. Their church at Guimarães has been very much altered at different times, mostly in the eighteenth century, but the west door may very well belong to Dona Urraca's building.
Urraca was soon left a widow, with one son, Alfonso; and while she apparently felt some affection for this child, she was in no way weaned from her love of excitement, and was soon again the soul and centre of the court's gay revels. One among the throng of courtiers attracted her, the tall Count Gomez of Candespina, and she made no secret of her love for him.
Her mother was sorely tried by her waywardness, but did not live long enough to appreciate her real lack of moral instinct; and her father, in spite of his several marriages, which were almost as numerous as those of Henry VIII. of England, was chagrined to find Urraca as his sole heir, no other children having survived.
I go to my pupils every alternate day, so that I have four lessons a day and earn twelve francs, which is more than I require. When Urraca comes I shall make some Spanish exile happy by passing on to him my connection. I lodge in the Rue Hillerin-Bertin with a poor widow, who takes boarders. My room faces south and looks out on a little garden.
Urraca of Castile, daughter of Constance and King Alfonso VII., inherited little of her mother's devout nature; the world rather than the Church had attracted her, and she began to show at an early age a taste for gallantry and intrigue which became but more pronounced with her maturer years.
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