Alfonso XII of Spain
Alfonso XII ruled Spain from 1874 to 1885 and restored the Bourbon monarchy after six years of revolution, republic and civil war. Born in Madrid in 1857, he was the son of Isabella II, and questions about his paternity circulated throughout his life. He went into exile with his mother in 1868 when she was deposed, and was educated in Paris, Vienna and at Sandhurst. His mother abdicated her claim in his favour in 1870. The politician Antonio Cánovas del Castillo managed the restoration, drafting the Sandhurst Manifesto in December 1874 in which the young prince presented himself as constitutional, Catholic and liberal. Before it could take effect, General Martínez Campos proclaimed him king at Sagunto, and the First Republic collapsed. He returned in January 1875 at seventeen. He went to the northern front in person and the Third Carlist War was ended in 1876, and the long Cuban insurrection was settled by the Peace of Zanjón in 1878, earning him the title the Peacemaker. The constitution of 1876 established the system Cánovas designed: two parties, Conservative and Liberal, alternating in power by agreement, with elections managed through local bosses. It gave Spain unusual political stability and hollowed out its representative institutions. He married his cousin María de las Mercedes in January 1878 for love; she died of typhoid five months later. He remarried Maria Christina of Austria that November. He visited Murcia during floods and Aranjuez during a cholera epidemic against advice, which made him popular. He died of tuberculosis in November 1885, aged twenty-seven, with his son born posthumously.
- Lived: 1857 CE – 1885 CE
- Nationality: Spanish
- Roles: king, head_of_state
