On his father's death in 1124, Alfonso the Battler seized the Basque señoríos and the Rioja, annexing them to the Kingdom of Navarre.

He is recorded in the Chronica Adefonsi imperatoris (I, §7) among the eleven Castilian noblemen who swore fealty Alfonso VII upon his succession in 1126.

[9] After the death of Alfonso VII, Lope served Sancho as alférez between November 1157 and July 1158, although in December 1157 that post was briefly held by Pedro Fernández.

[1] In 1162 Sancho's son and successor, Alfonso VIII, granted Lope the Trasmiera, the Rioja, and Biscay to govern as tenencias.

The founding charter was drawn up by a scribe named John, a chaplain of Santa María la Real de Nájera, and the original survives.

Lope subscribed the document with his own hand and embellished his signature with a large cross, the rough features of which suggest the count's lack of familiarity with the pen.

She was widowed while her offspring were still young, and they rose to positions of importance in the León and Galicia, where they would have been considered foreigners if their mother was not a Leonese or Galician.

[14] In a document of 1182 recording a donation to San Prudencio de Monte Laturce that survives only in a Spanish translation by Gaspar Coronel, Aldonza calls herself a first cousin (consobrina) of Rodrigo Álvarez, son of Álvaro Rodríguez and Sancha Fernández de Traba.

[17] By June 1171, his widow had entered the convent at Cañas, where for over thirty years she acted as de facto abbess.