History

The hotel name refers to a historical event: the meeting that took place in 1196 at the request of Pope Celestine III between Alfonso VIII of Castile, Alfonso II “the Chaste” from Aragon’s Crown o, and Sancho VII “the Strong” from Navarre. According to legend, the meeting was held at a round table, with the three kings together and each in his own territory.

The Pope’s representative communicated the Pope’s wish that the three kingdoms should unite to make more effective the fight against the Muslims.

The three kings laid the foundations of unity: to establish marriage alliances in order to unite the three royal families to ensure to become a single kingdom and courts, respecting the particularities of each kingdom.

In the meantime, the seat of courts made up of representatives of the courts of the three kingdoms and a triumvirate formed by the three would be established at this meeting point. Sancho VII agreed if Castile would first return the usurped lands of La Rioja, Álava and La Bureba.

Alfonso VIII replied that it was all the same if they were to unite. The Navarrese king replied that before God and history these lands belonged to Navarre, but the Castilian king refused to return them.

Alfonso “the Chaste” tried to mediate by suggesting that he should at least return the Rioja as a pledge of goodwill, but the Navarrese wanted all three and the Castilian would return nothing.

Faced with this, the King of Navarre, after thanking the Aragonese for his mediation, left the meeting, moved to Cintruénigo and returned to Pamplona at dawn.

Celestine III repeatedly and unsuccessfully asked the Castilian king to at least return the Rioja, but in the face of Alfonso VIII’s refusal, they never met again. The worst affected was Navarre, which would end up being the victim of its neighbours, especially Castile. Both tried on numerous occasions to annex the Navarrese Ribera without success, but the Castilians took Guipúzcoa in 1200 and Vizcaya in 1379. In 1512, Spanish Navarre was occupied by Aragon and later incorporated into Castile.

The failure of the meeting did not prevent the kings from collaborating in the battle of Navas de Tolosa sixteen years later (Pedro “the Catholic”, son of Alfonso II, who had died, took part for Aragon).

The place of the meeting is located in Valverde (La Rioja), less than a league from the border with the present-day region of Navarre. A boundary marker marks the limits of the former kingdoms, now communities.

Unrelated to this history, the highest peak in Navarre is called the Mesa de los Tres Reyes (2,444 m), which here owes its name to being at the vertex where the kingdoms of Aragon, Navarre and the French Bearn converged.