Garcia Sanchez of Castile

García Sánchez (1009- May 13, 1029) was a count of Castile between 1017 and 1029 (his nephew and successor Fernando Sánchez, later Fernando I de León, would raise the county in 1037 to kingdom). He belonged to the lineage of Fernán González, who was his great-grandfather.

Life

He succeeded his father Sancho García when he was just a boy. The regency during the minority was exercised by various Castilian magnates and Urraca, his aunt, sister of his father and abbess of Covarrubias.

In 1028 he concluded the marriage pact to marry the ten-year-old Infanta Sancha, daughter of Alfonso V. On May 13, 1029, he was in León, where he had traveled to meet his fiancée, accompanied by Sancho III el Mayor, was assassinated next to the church of San Juan Bautista de León.

The Romanz del Infant García and subsequent chronicles tell us that this murder was perpetrated by members of the Vela family from whom Count Fernán González had seized the Álava domains. There are no historical data to justify the fact that this family was the cause of the murder.

After the assassination, King Sancho Garcés III of Pamplona took over the government of Castile by the right of his wife Muniadona de Castilla, the deceased's sister, and appointed her son Ferdinand as Count of Castile in 1029.