Page "Alfonso the Battler" Paragraph 19

The testament of Alfonso leaving his kingdom to the three holy orders was dismissed out of hand by the nobility of his kingdoms, and possible successors were sought.

Alfonso's only brother, Ramiro, had been a Benedictine monk since childhood, and his commitment to the church, his temperament and vow of celibacy made him ill-suited to rule a kingdom under constant military threat and in need of a stable line of succession.

The step-son of the deceased king, Alfonso VII of León, as reigning monarch and legitimate descendant of Sancho III of Navarre, put himself forward but garnered no local support.

The nobility of Navarre aligned behind Peter of Atarés, the grandson of Alfonso's illegitimate uncle, while the Aragonese nobility rallied around the abbot-bishop Ramiro.

A convention was called at Borja to develop a consensus, but there Peter so alienated his own partisans with perceived arrogance that they abandoned him, yet were unwilling to accept Ramiro.

The convention broke up without arriving at a compromise and the two regional factions then acted independently.