Isabella II of Spain

Isabella II
Queen of Spain
Reign 29 September 1833 – 30 September 1868
Predecessor Ferdinand VII
Successor Amadeus
Regent Queen Maria Christina
Baldomero Espartero, Prince of Vergara
Spouse Francis, Duke of Cádiz
Issue
Isabella, Princess of Asturias
Alfonso XII of Spain
Infanta María de la Paz
Infanta Eulalia, Duchess of Galliera
House House of Bourbon
Father Ferdinand VII of Spain
Mother Maria Christina of the Two Sicilies
Born 10 October 1830
Madrid, Spain
Died 10 April 1904(1904-04-10) (aged 73)
Paris, France
Burial El Escorial, Spain

Isabella II (Spanish: Isabel II; 10 October 1830 – 10 April 1904) was the first and so far only Queen regnant of Spain. She came to the throne as an infant, but her succession was disputed by the Carlists, who refused to recognise a female sovereign, leading to the Carlist Wars. After a troubled reign, she was deposed in the Spanish Revolution of 1868, and formally abdicated in 1870, but her son Alfonso XII became king in 1874.

Contents

Birth and regency

Isabella was born in Madrid in 1830, the eldest daughter of King Ferdinand VII of Spain, and of his fourth wife and niece, Maria Cristina, who was a Neapolitan Bourbon and also a grandniece of Marie Antoinette. Maria Cristina became regent on 29 September 1833, when her daughter Isabella, at the age of three years, was proclaimed queen-regent on the death of the king.

Isabella succeeded to the throne because Ferdinand VII induced the Cortes 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 those of his 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 maintained only through the support of the army. The Cortes and the Moderate Liberals and Progressives reestablished constitutional and parliamentary government, dissolved the religious orders and confiscated their property (including that of Jesuits), and tried to restore order to Spain's finances. After the Carlist war, the queen-regent, Maria Cristina, resigned to make way for Baldomero Espartero, Prince of Vergara, the most successful and most popular Isabelline general, a Progressive who remained regent for only two years.

Marriage

He was turned out in 1843 by a military and political pronunciamiento led by Generals Leopoldo O'Donnell and Ramón María Narváez, 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 Moderate Party (or Castilian Conservatives) made their sixteen-year-old queen marry her double-first cousin Francisco de Asís de Borbón (1822–1902), the same day (10 October 1846) that her younger sister, Infanta Luisa Fernanda, married Antoine d'Orléans, Duke of Montpensier.

Isabella II and Francis

These marriages suited France and Louis Philippe, King of the French, who nearly quarrelled in consequence with Britain. But the marriages were not happy; persistent rumour had it that few if any of the Spanish Queen Regnant's children were fathered by her king-consort, rumoured to be a homosexual. For instance, the Carlist party asserted that the heir to the throne, who later became Alfonso XII, had been fathered by a captain of the guard, Enrique Puig y Moltó.

Isabella had twelve children, but only five reached adulthood:

  • Ferdinand (1850)
  • Maria Isabel (1851–1931), Princess of Asturias, who married her mother's and father's first cousin Prince Gaetan, Count of Girgenti.
  • Maria Cristina (1854)
  • Alfonso XII (1857–1885)
  • Maria de la Concepcion (1859–1861)
  • Maria del Pilar (1861–1879)
  • María de la Paz (1862–1946), who married her cousin Prince Ludwig Ferdinand of Bavaria.
  • Francisco de Asis (1863)
  • Eulalia de Asis de la Piedad (1864–1958), who married her cousin Infante Antonio, Duke of Galliera.

Reign

Isabella directly reigned from 1843 to 1868, a period of palace intrigues, back-stairs and antechamber influences, barracks 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 Progressives, thus sowing the seeds for the revolution of 1868.

At this time, Queen 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 was otherwise occupied achieving a monarchical revenge against Mexico, supporting, jointly with France, the Habsburg–Orléans Empire using the royal figures of Maximilian of Habsburg and Charlotte of Belgium, as Maximilian I and Carlota of Mexico. Other events of her reign were the war against Morocco (1859), which ended in a 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.

Exile and abdication

Main articles: Franco-Prussian War and German Unification
Queen Isabella II of Spain in exile in Paris

At the end of September 1868, Isabella went into exile, after her Moderado generals had made a slight show of resistance that was crushed at the battle of Alcolea by Marshals Serrano and Prim.

Her exile helped cause the Franco-Prussian War, as Napoleon III could not accept the possibility that a German, Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, might replace Isabella, a dynast of the Spanish Bourbons and great-great-granddaughter of the French-born Philip V of Spain.

Isabella was induced to abdicate in Paris on 25 June 1870, in favour of her son, Alfonso XII, and the cause of the restoration was furthered. She had left her husband 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 10 April 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 centuries-old feudal, symbolic, long titulary that included both extant and extinct titles and claims: 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 Jaén, 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.

In English: Lady Isabella II, by the grace of God Queen of Castille, León, Aragon, the Two Sicilies, Jerusalem, Navarre, Granada, Toledo, Valencia, Galicia, Majorca, Seville, Sardinia, Córdoba, Corsica, Murcia, Minorca, Jaén, Algarve, Gibraltar, the Canary Islands, the Eastern and Western Indies, the Islands and Lands of the Ocean; Archduchess of Austria; Duchess of Burgundy, Brabant and Milan; Countess of Habsburg, Flanders, Tirol and Barcelona; Lady of Biscay and Molina, etc etc.

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).

Queen Isabella II in popular culture

- In the 1997 film Amistad, she was portrayed, as a child, by Anna Paquin.

- In the 1998 film The Mask of Zorro she is referred to by Alejandro (pretending to be a wealthy Spanish nobleman), at Don Rafael Montero's party.

Ancestry

Ancestors of Isabella II of Spain
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 16. Philip V of Spain
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 8. Charles III of Spain
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 17. Princess Elisabeth Farnese of Parma
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 4. Charles IV of Spain
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 18. Augustus III of Poland
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 9. Princess Maria Amalia of Saxony
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 19. Archduchess Josepha of Austria
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 2. Ferdinand VII of Spain
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 20. Philip V of Spain (= 16)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 10. Philip, Duke of Parma
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 21. Princess Elisabeth Farnese of Parma (= 17)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 5. Princess Maria Luisa of Parma
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 22. Louis XV of France
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 11. Princess Louise Élisabeth of France
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 23. Princess Marie Leszczyńska
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1. Isabella II of Spain
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 24. Charles III of Spain (= 8)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 12. Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 25. Princess Maria Amalia of Saxony (= 9)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 6. Francis I of the Two Sicilies
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 26. Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 13. Archduchess Marie Caroline of Austria
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 27. Maria Theresa of Austria
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 3. Princess Maria Christina of the Two Sicilies
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 28. Charles III of Spain (= 8)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 14. Charles IV of Spain (= 4)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 29. Princess Maria Amalia of Saxony (= 9)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 7. Infanta Maria Isabella of Spain
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 30. Philip, Duke of Parma (= 10)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 15. Princess Maria Luisa of Parma (= 5)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 31. Princess Louise Élisabeth of France (= 11)
 
 
 
 
 
 

See also

See also

Further reading

Isabella II of Spain
Cadet branch of the Capetian dynasty
Born: 10 October 1830 Died: 10 April 1904
Regnal titles
Preceded by
Ferdinand VII		 Queen of Spain
29 September 1833 – 30 September 1868 (1840 – 1843)		 Vacant
Bourbon dynasty deposed
Title next held by
Amadeo
Spanish royalty
Preceded by
Infante Carlos		 Heir to the Throne
as heiress presumptive
10 October 1830 – 29 September 1833		 Succeeded by
Infanta Luisa Fernanda
Spanish nobility
Vacant
Title last held by
Infante Ferdinand
later became King Ferdinad VII		 Princess of Asturias
14 October 1830 – 29 September 1833		 Succeeded by
Infanta Isabella
Titles in pretence
Loss of title
Spanish Glorious Revolution
 — TITULAR —
Queen of Spain
30 September 1868 – 25 June 1870		 Succeeded by
Alfonso, Prince of Asturias
later became King Alfonso XII
Monarchs of Spain
House of Trastámara (1479–1555)
House of Habsburg (1516–1700)
House of Bourbon (1700–1808)
House of Bonaparte (1808–1813)
House of Bourbon (1813–1868)
Ferdinand VII · Isabella II
House of Savoy (1868–1873)
Amadeo
House of Bourbon (1874–1931)
House of Bourbon (since 1975)
The Bourbons of Spain
Escudo de Carlos III de España Toisón y su Orden variante leones de gules.svg
*also a Prince or Princess of the Two Sicilies
**also an Archduchess of Austria
***both