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Updated: June 13, 2025
This king, accompanied by Queen Urraca and some of the grandees of the kingdom, came with the clergy to meet them, and had them placed with great pomp in the monastery of Regular Canons of the Holy Cross, at Coimbra, where they still are.
When the Infanta Dona Urraca heard this she was well pleased, and praised them greatly; and she turned to the Cid and said unto him, You were bred up with me in this town of Zamora, where Don Arias Gonzalo fostered you by command of the King my father, and through your help it was that the King my father gave it unto me to be my inheritance.
Thus assisted, that sovereign put the Egyptian commander to flight, and compelled him, soon afterward, to recross the Mediterranean. The grateful Alphonso gave his daughters as a recompense to the distinguished Frenchmen who had lent him the aid of their arms. The eldest, Urraca, espoused Raymond of Bourgogne, and their son afterward inherited the kingdom of Castile.
The pope, Pascal II., sent a legate, who granted the divorce for which the Castilians had clamored; and Urraca, again a free woman, was now the centre of her own little court, where she soon gathered about her a small company of nobles who were vying with each other to obtain her royal favor.
Then went he to his lodging and armed himself, and mounted his horse, and rode to the house of Don Arias Gonzalo, and cried with a loud voice, We all know the reason, Don Arias Gonzalo, why you will not let Dona Urraca exchange Zamora with her brother; it is because you deal with her as a harlot, like an old traitor.
And Don Arias said unto him, Son, go now and do battle with Diego Ordonez, to save Dona Urraca your Lady, and yourself, and the Council of Zamora; and if you do this, in happy hour were you born. Then Rodrigo Arias kissed his hand and answered, Father, I thank you much for what you have said, and be sure that I will save them, or take my death.
And the King persisted in requiring of him that he should go, insomuch that he was constrained to obey his will. And he took with him fifteen of his knights and rode towards Zamora, and when he drew nigh he called unto those who kept guard in the towers not to shoot their arrows at him, for he was Ruydiez of Bivar, who came to Dona Urraca with the bidding of her brother King Don Sancho.
He now kept out of his reach, but his mother, Doña Urraca de Osorio, fell into the hands of the monster, and was punished for being the mother of a rebel by being burned alive on the ramparts of Seville. These excesses of cruelty roused a rebellious sentiment throughout Castile, of which Henry, who had escaped to Aragon from the field of Najera, took advantage.
He whom you see at the head, is Brother Francis, whom you have longed so much to see; and the five who are more resplendent than the rest, are the martyrs of Morocco, who are honored in this church. Our Lord has sent us hither in order to pray for Queen Urraca, who is dead, and who had great affection for our Order; and he has willed that you should see all this, because you were her confessor."
His words, however, were useless. The king would listen to nothing, and the Cid rode forth to Zamora with a heavy heart. Silently he bore the reproaches of Doña Urraca, and returned in five days to tell Fernando that the citizens of Zamora had sworn in his presence, that the city would never be given up till they all lay dead upon her walls.
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