Notes |
- REMARKS:
lived in Catalonia
- BIOGRAPHY
Alvaro was born in Burgos in March 1239, the son of Pons de Cabrera, conde de Urgel, and Maria Girón. Called Alvar el Castellà ('the Castilian') in Catalan, he was the count of Urgel and viscount of Ager from 1243. He succeeded his brother Ermengol IX within a year of their father's death.
Upon inheriting the county of Urgel, he exchanged his birth name, Rodrigo, for Alvaro. About 1253, on the orders of Jaime I 'the Conqueror', king of Aragón, Alvaro married Constanca de Montcada i d'Abarca, heiress of Seròs e Mequinensa, daughter of Pere de Montcada i d'Arago, senyor d'Aitona, and Sibila de Abarca, a relative of the ruling family of Béarn. About 1254 they had a daughter Elionor who would have progeny, marrying Sancho, baron de Antillón.
Alvaro detested this marriage and had it annulled, and in January 1256 he married Cécile de Foix, daughter of Roger Bernard II 'le Grand', comte de Foix, vicomte de Castelbon, and Ermengarde de Narbonne. Their son Ermengol X married but did not have progeny. Alvaro's actions in putting aside Constanca and marrying Cécile was to be the source of great enmity and conflict between the houses of Béarn and Foix. The house of Barcelona supported the Béarnese.
In 1259 Alvaro breached his feudal obligations to the king of Aragón and brought down the royal wrath on his principality: the seneschal Pere de Montcada invaded and occupied the town of Ponts. In 1267 the king of Aragón intervened again, this time in the legal dispute between Alvaro's two wives. Alvaro was forced to flee with Cécile, leaving Urgel in the hands of his son Ermengol X.
Alvaro died in Foix soon after. His successor Ermengol X was a strong supporter of Jaime's son Pedro III 'the Great', king of Aragón, and an advisor to his sons Alfonso III and Jaime II. Before dying at La Llitera without descendants in 1314, he named the second son of Jaime II, Alfonso IV 'the Debonair', as his heir on the condition that he should marry his great-niece, Teresa de Entenza, condesa de Urgel, his legal heir. With Ermengol's death, the house of Cabrera came to an end.
|