The kings of León and Castile were trying to re-annex the country and the Roman Catholic Church was late in giving its blessing and approval.

To secure the agreement, Sancho married Dulce,[9][10] younger sister of King Alfonso II of Aragon, in 1174.

Coimbra was the centre of his kingdom; Sancho terminated the exhausting and generally pointless wars against his neighbours for control of the Galician borderlands.

With the help of some soldiers on their way to join the Third Crusade, he sacked Alvor and took Silves in 1189, an event recounted in detail by an eyewitness in De itinere navali.

At the time he also styled himself "By the Grace of God, King of Portugal and Silves (Dei Gratiæ, Rex Portugalliæ et Silbis)".

[25] That is contested nowadays by the Portuguese historian António de Resende Oliveira, who claims this cantiga was composed by Alfonso X of Castile or perhaps Sancho II of Portugal.