Sancho I of Portugal

Born Martinho in Coimbra in 1154, he was the second son of Portugal's founder Afonso I and Matilda of Savoy - second-born but the only legitimate male heir to survive. He took the crown at 31 on 9 December 1185 and immediately set about the work that would define him: filling the newly won territories with people. For two years he styled himself King of Silves after taking that southern stronghold in 1189, but the Almohads snapped it back in 1191. He spent the next two decades anchoring what his father had seized, planting towns and charter after charter across a kingdom still more frontier than state. He died in March 1211, having ruled for 26 years - long enough to turn conquest into something like a country.