Alfonso XII 1857-85
King of Spain

The son of Isabella II, he was born in Madrid and educated in Vienna and England. After a period of republican rule following the overthrow of his mother (1868), he was formally proclaimed king (1874) and in 1876 he suppressed the last opposition of the Carlists (supporters of the Spanish pretender Don Carlos de Bourbon, 1788-1855, and his successors). Tactful and judicious, if politically inexperienced, he summoned the Cortes (parliament) to provide a new constitution, and under the influence of his Prime Minister, Antonio C�novas del Castillo, his reign was a time of peace and relative prosperity. In 1879 he married Maria Christina (1858-1929), daughter of Archduke Charles Ferdinand of Austria. His premature death from tuberculosis dashed the hopes of those supporters of a developing constitutional monarchy. He was succeeded by his posthumously-born son, Alfonso XIII.