The Two Wives of King Alfonso XII of Spain
Maria de las Mercedes d'Orleans and Maria Cristina of Austria
Jul 24, 2009
King Alfonso XII of Spain (1857-1885) came to power after a period of political instability in Spain. His mother, the unpopular Queen Isabel II, had been deposed in 1868, and Spain had suffered through a period of various pretenders to the throne and the three-year reign of King Amadeo I, an Italian prince of Savoy. Alfonso was invited back to Spain to become king when he was seventeen, but in order to be a lasting success he would have to strengthen the Borbon dynasty, and to do that he needed to marry and have heirs.
Princess Maria de las Mercedes d’Orleans (1860-1878)
Alfonso’s first marriage, to his cousin Maria de las Mercedes, was for love. Although she was dynastically appropriate, politically she was a controversial choice. She was the daughter of Alfonso’s maternal aunt, Luisa Fernanda, and her husband, Antoine d’Orleans, the Duke of Montpensier, the son of King Louis Philippe of the French. Luisa Fernanda and Antoine had fought Isabel for power and had tried to take the throne after she was deposed. Alfonso’s advisors and his mother thought that Maria de las Mercedes would be heavily influenced by her politically unpopular and distrusted parents. But the king had been in love with his cousin since childhood and insisted on following his heart.
The couple married on January 23, 1878, in Madrid, and had a very happy but tragically short marriage. Although Alfonso’s mother didn’t like Maria, his sisters did, and the popular, pretty queen created a happy home for the young king. But after miscarrying their first child, the young queen’s health worsened. Two days after her eighteenth birthday, Maria died of a gastric illness, after a mere five months of marriage.
Alfonso was devastated by the death of his beloved queen, but he knew it was his duty to marry again so he could have children. He contemplated marrying Maria’s sister Maria Cristina, but she soon died too, and he lost interest in finding himself a wife. Instead, he entrusted the matter to his advisors: whomever they deemed appropriate, he would marry.
Archduchess Maria Cristina of Austria (1858-1929)
The Austrian Archduchess Maria Cristina was an interesting choice for the Spanish king. She was a niece of the powerful Austrian Emperor Franz Josef, and was a Habsburg, one of the oldest and most respected royal houses in Europe. The government approved of her because she was politically acceptable and her upbringing had prepared her to be a good queen. So on November 29, 1879, a year after the death of his first wife, Alfonso married Maria Cristina.
Unfortunately, the marriage was not happy. Although Maria Cristina loved her husband, Alfonso did not love her. He quickly grew bored of her and had many affairs. The Queen wasn’t very popular with the Spanish people, either, who found her natural shyness and Germanic self-discipline to be cold and aloof. And although she quickly had children, she gave birth to two daughters, Maria de las Mercedes and Maria Teresa, not the desired male heir.
The Desired Heir King Alfonso
The marriage ended when Alfonso died on November 25, 1885, three days before his twenty-eighth birthday. But Maria Cristina was three months pregnant, so for six months the country waited for the birth of one of the few babies ever to be born a king, Alfonso XIII. Maria Cristina acted as his regent until he was sixteen, and her intelligence, discipline, and political conservatism kept the Borbon dynasty stable for her son.
Sources:
Bergamini, John D. The Spanish Bourbons. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1974.
Brown, Peter. “King Alfonso XII of Spain & the Women in His Life.” The European Royal History Journal 56 (2007): 3-12.
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