Ordono IV of Leon

Background

He was the son of Alfonso IV of León and his queen, Oneca Sánchez of Pamplona, and nephew of Ramiro II of León and of García Sánchez I of Pamplona.

Career

The Leonese nobles, as well as the disaffected Galician and Castilian ones, had grown sick of the obese Sancho. However, count Fernán was defeated through a Navarrese and Umayyad alliance on Sancho"s behalf in 960, and Ordoño was forced out. This lost him the support of Fernán González, who allied himself with García Sánchez I of Pamplona.

The Castilian count sent Ordoño to Ghalib al-Nasiri, commander of the "Middle Frontier" in Medinaceli, from whom he was passed on to the court of the caliph of Córdoba.

There he submitted and made plea for aid. The caliph at first offered him help, but this led his rival Sancho likewise to offer his submission, thereby neutralizing any benefit to the caliph helping Ordoño, who died in Cordoba, still dethroned.

After Ordoño IV abandoned her, she would remarry to Sancho II of Pamplona. According to chronicler Sampiro, she bore Ordoño IV two children, but their identity is not known with certainty.

Likewise, a minority of modern scholars consider Vermudo II of León to have been son of Ordoño IV by Urraca rather than Ordoño III of León.

Achievements

• In 958, two years into the reign of Sancho I of León, he benefited from a rebellion of the nobility that would succeed in briefly placing him on the throne.