Everything about Isabel Ii Of Spain totally explained
» "Isabella II" redirects here. For the Queen of Jerusalem also known as Isabella II, see Yolande of Jerusalem.
Isabella II (
October 10 1830 –
April 10 1904),
Isabel II in Spanish, was
Queen regnant of Spain ("Queen of the Spains" officially from
August 13 1836, Isabella II the "queen of Castile, Leon, Aragon,...") She was Spain's first and so far only queen regnant, although she's sometimes considered the third Queen Regnant of Spain, as previous regents of Leon and Castile were counted as kings and queens of Spain.
Isabella was born in
Madrid in 1830, the eldest daughter of
Ferdinand VII, king of Spain, and of his fourth wife and niece,
Maria Christina, who was a
Neapolitan Bourbon and also the niece of
Marie Antoinette. Maria became queen-regent on
September 29 1833, when her daughter Isabella, at the age of three years, was proclaimed queen on the death of the king.
Isabella succeeded to the throne because Ferdinand VII induced the
Cortes Generales to help him set aside the
Salic law introduced by the Bourbons in the early 18th century, and to re-establish the older succession law of Spain. The first pretender, Ferdinand's brother
Carlos, fought seven years, during the minority of Isabella, to dispute her title. His supporters and descendants were known as
Carlists and the fight over the succession was the subject of a number of
Carlist Wars in the 19th century.
Isabella's throne was only maintained through the support of the army. The
Cortes and the Liberals and Progressives, who at the same time established constitutional and parliamentary government, dissolved the religious orders, confiscated their property (including that of
Jesuits), and tried to restore order in finances. After the Carlist war the queen-regent, Christina, resigned to make way for
Baldomero Espartero, Prince of Vergara, the most successful and most popular Isabelline general, who remained regent for only two years.
He was turned out in
1843 by a military and political
pronunciamiento led by Generals O'Donnell and Narvaez, who formed a cabinet, presided over by
Joaquin Maria Lopez, and this government induced the
Cortes to declare Isabella of age at 13. Three years later, the Moderado party or Castilian Conservatives made their queen aged 16 marry her cousin,
Prince Fernando I Francisco de Asis de Bourbon-Cadige (
1822–
1902), the same day (
October 10 1846) her younger sister married the duke of Montpensier.
These marriages suited
France and
Louis Philippe, who nearly quarrelled in consequence with
Britain. But the marriages were not happy; persistent rumor had it that few if any of the Spanish Queen regnant's children were conceived by her
king-consort, a
homosexual. For instance, the heir to the throne, who later became Alfonso XII, was widely believed to be conceived by a captain of the guard,
Enrique Puig y Moltó.
Isabella had twelve children, but only four reached adulthood:
Isabella reigned from
1843 to
1868, a period of palace intrigues, back-stairs and antechamber influences,
barrack conspiracies, military
pronunciamientos to further the ends of the political parties — Moderados who ruled from 1846 to 1854, Progressives from 1854 to 1856, Unión Liberal from 1856 to 1863. Moderados and Unión Liberals quickly succeeded each other and kept out the Progressists, thus sowing the seeds for the
revolution of 1868.
Isabella often interfered in politics in a wayward, unscrupulous way that made her very unpopular. She showed most favour to her reactionary generals and statesmen and to the Church and religious orders, and was constantly the tool of corrupt and profligate courtiers and favourites who gave her court a bad name. She went into exile at the end of September
1868, after her Moderado generals had made a slight show of resistance that was crushed at the
battle of Alcolea by Marshals
Serrano and
Prim. Other events of her reign were a
war against Morocco (1859), which ended in an treaty advantageous for Spain and cession of some Moroccan territory; the fruitless
Chincha Islands War against
Peru and
Chile;
tensions with the United States; independence revolts in
Cuba and
Puerto Rico; and some progress in public works, especially
railways, and a slight improvement in commerce and finance.
Her exile helped cause the
Franco-Prussian war, as
Napoleon III couldn't accept the possibility that a German,
Prince Leopold of
Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, may replace Isabella, who was a
Bourbon (a member of the old French royalty).
Isabella was induced to abdicate in
Paris on
June 25,
1870 in favour of her son,
Alfonso XII, and the cause of the restoration was furthered. She had separated from her husband in the previous March and continued to live in France after the restoration in 1874. On the occasion of one of her visits to Madrid during Alfonso XII's reign she began to intrigue with the politicians of the capital, and was peremptorily requested to go abroad again. She resided in Paris for the rest of her life, seldom traveling abroad except for a few visits to Spain. During her exile she grew closer to her husband, with whom she maintained an ambiguous friendship until his death in 1902. Her last days were marked by the matrimonial problems of her youngest daughter. She died on
April 10, 1904 and is entombed in
El Escorial.
Titulary
In 1837, Spain developed legislatively into a
constitutional monarchy. Before that date, the underage Isabella was still known by the feudal-like centuries-old, symbolic long titulary:
Doña Isabel II por la Gracia de Dios, Reina de Castilla, de León, de Aragón, de las Dos Sicilias, de Jerusalén, de Navarra, de Granada, de Toledo, de Valencia, de Galicia, de Mallorca, de Sevilla, de Cerdeña, de Córdoba, de Córcega, de Murcia, de Menorca, de Jaen, de los Algarbes, de Algeciras, de Gibraltar, de las Islas Canarias, de las Indias Orientales y Occidentales, Islas y Tierra firme del mar Océano; Archiduquesa de Austria; Duquesa de Borgoña, de Brabante y de Milan; Condesa de Aspurg, Flandes, Tirol y Barcelona; Señora de Vizcaya y de Molina &c. &c.
At the change, a new format of the titulary was taken into use for Isabella:
Por la gracia de Dios y la Constitución de la Monarquía española, Reina de las Españas (
By the grace of God and the Constitution of the Spanish monarchy, Queen of the Spains).
Ancestors
This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica.
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