Queen Isabella II of Spain Was a Controversial Ruler
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Queen Isabella II came to the throne of Spain despite opposition simply because she was a woman. Her attitudes contributed to her eventual deposing.
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Background

Isabella, who lived during troubled times for the Spanish monarchy, was the daughter of Ferdinand VII of Spain (1784 - 1833), a Bourbon ruler, by his fourth wife, Maria of the Two Sicilies (1806 - 1878). She was born October 10, 1830.

Her Father's Reign

Ferdinand VII became king of Spain in 1808 when his father, Charles IV, abdicated. He abdicated about two months later, and Napoleon installed Joseph Bonaparte, his brother, as the Spanish king. The decision was unpopular, and within months Ferdinand VII was again established as king, though he was in France under Napoleon's control until 1813. When he returned, it was as a constitutional, not absolute, monarch.

His reign was marked by quite a bit of unrest, but there was relative stability by the 1820s, other than having no living children to pass his title to. His first wife died after two miscarriages. His two daughters from his earlier marriage to Maria Isabel of Portugal (his niece) also did not survive infancy. He had no children by his third wife.

He married his fourth wife, Maria of the Two Sicilies, in 1829. They had first one daughter, the future Isabella II, in 1830, then another daughter, Luisa, younger than Isabella II, who lived from 1832 to 1897, and married Antoine, Duke of Monpensier. This fourth wife, Isabella II's mother, was another niece, daughter of his younger sister Maria Isabella of Spain. Thus, Charles IV of Spain and his wife, Maria Luisa of Parma, were Isabella's paternal grandparents and maternal great-grandparents.

Isabella Becomes Queen

Isabella succeeded to the Spanish throne on the death of her father, September 29, 1833, when she was just three years old. He had left directions that Salic Law would be set aside so that his daughter, rather than his brother, would succeed him. Maria of the Two Sicilies, Isabella's mother, supposedly had persuaded him to take that action.

Ferdinand's brother and Isabella's uncle, Don Carlos, disputed her right to succeed. The Bourbon family, of which she was a part, had until this time avoided female inheritance of rulership. This disagreement about succession led to the First Carlist War, 1833-1839, while her mother, and then General Baldomero Espartero, served as regents for the underage Isabella. The military finally established her rule in 1843.

Early Uprisings

In a series of diplomatic turns, called the Affair of the Spanish Marriages, Isabella and her sister married Spanish and French nobles. Isabella had been expected to marry a relative of Prince Albert of England. Her change in marriage plans helped alienate England, empower the conservative faction in Spain, and bring Louis-Philippe of France closer to the conservative faction. This helped lead to the liberal uprisings of 1848 and to Louis-Philippe's defeat.

Isabella was rumored to have chosen her Bourbon cousin, Francisco de Assis, as a husband because he was impotent, and they largely lived apart, though they did have children. Her mother's pressure has also been credited with Isabella's choice.

Rule Ended by Revolution

Her authoritarianism, her religious fanaticism, her alliance with the military and the chaos of her reign — sixty different governments — helped bring about the Revolution of 1868 that exiled her to Paris. She abdicated on June 25, 1870, in favor of her son, Alfonso XII, who ruled beginning in December 1874, after the First Spanish Republic collapsed.

Even though Isabella occasionally returned to Spain, she lived most of her later years in Paris, and she never again exerted much political power or influence. Her title after abdication was "Her Majesty Queen Isabella II of Spain." Her husband died in 1902. Isabella died April 9 or 10, 1904.

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