[5] Constance was closely related to the French royal family and the influential Burgundian abbot Hugh of Cluny was her maternal uncle.

[5] As Constance was also related to her husband's first wife, Agnes of Aquitaine, Pope Gregory VII only confirmed their marriage after Alfonso agreed to replace the traditional Mozarabic liturgy in his realms with the Roman Rite.

[9] A late source, Rodrigo Jiménez de Rada, claims that the powerful aristocrat Pedro Ansúrez and his wife Elo Alfónsez raised Urraca in their household, but no contemporaneous document confirms this report.

[8] Historians Ángel Gordo Molina and Diego Melo Carrasco propose that Raymond wed Urraca likely before early 1090 when royal diplomas first present them as rulers of the "Land of Saint James", or Galicia.

[16] The power base of Raymond and Urraca weakened even more when Alfonso granted the "Land of Portugal" to his illegitimate daughter Theresa and her husband Henry of Burgundy around 1094.

[18] Sancho Alfónsez was regularly mentioned in royal diplomas from 1103, showing that Alfonso VI regarded his only son as his heir, although most clerics opposed the succession of an illegitimate child.

Her earliest extant diploma, issued in favour of the León Cathedral a day after her father's funeral, referred to her as "queen of whole Spain".

Prominent Leonese, Castilian and Galician aristocrats and twelve bishops witnessed the document, showing that her realm's elite acknowledged her as lawful monarch.

They were reportedly convinced that a female monarch would be unable to rule and defend the kingdom against the Almoravids and forced Urraca to marry to "the bloodthirsty and cruel Aragonese tyrant" against her will.

[29] Gordo Molina and Melo Carrasc propose that both reports could be reliable, because the selection of a suitable husband for his daughter and heir was the elderly King's most important task before his death.

[32] The Galician aristocrats' traditional desire for independence awakened and they used the defense of Alfonso Raimúndez's right to rule Galicia and succeed his mother as a pretext for a rebellion.

After their leader Pedro Fróilaz de Traba announced that Urraca had lost her claim to rule Galicia when remarrying, they proclaimed Alfonso Raimúndez king.

[33] Alfonso I and Urraca invaded Galicia and seized the important castle of Monterroso, but reports of the cruelty of the Aragonese troops outraged the Leonese aristocrats.

She disdained her husband for his superstitious nature, in particular for his fear of ravens and crows, and he killed a Galician noble who had sought Urraca's protection in Monterroso during their campaign in Galicia.

[34] Urraca's letter of grant to the Abbey of Santo Domingo de Silos is the earliest attestation to her will to get rid of her husband's tutelage.

[36] The marriage of Urraca and Alfonso almost immediately sparked rebellions in Galicia[37] and scheming by her illegitimate half-sister Theresa and brother-in-law Henry, the countess and count of Portugal.

From the start, the Galician faction was divided in two tendencies: one headed by Archbishop Diego Gelmírez of Santiago de Compostela (who defended the position of Alfonso Raimúndez as Urraca's successor) and another led by Count Pedro Fróilaz de Traba, tutor of the young prince (who was inclined to the complete independence of Galicia under the rule of Alfonso).

In response to the Galician rebellion, Alfonso I of Aragon marched with his army to Galicia and in 1110, reestablished the order there after defeating the local troops in Monterroso Castle.

The Galician rebellion against the royal power was only the beginning of a series of political and military conflicts which, with the complete opposite personalities of Urraca and Alfonso I and their mutual dislike, gave rise to a continuous civil war in the Hispanic kingdoms over the following years.

An alliance between Alfonso of Aragon and Henry of Portugal culminated in the 1111 Battle of Candespina in which Urraca's lover and chief supporter Gómez González was killed.

According to Reilly, the chronicle also attributes her failings to "the weakness and changeability of women, feminine perversity", and calls her a Jezebel for her liaisons with her leading magnates, with at least one relationship producing an illegitimate son.

[40] Modern historians have given a more critical outlook to these observations, with Reilly noting that the queen was nevertheless in control of events,[41] in contrast with earlier writers who had described her suitors as the real rulers.