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Afonso II of Portugal | Table of Content | short description, Reign, Marriage and descendants, See also, References, Bibliography |
Afonso III of Portugal | Short description | Afonso IIIrare English alternatives: Alphonzo or Alphonse, or Affonso (Archaic Portuguese), Alfonso or Alphonso (Portuguese-Galician) or Alphonsus (Latin). (; 5 May 121016 February 1279), called the Boulonnais (Port. o Bolonhês), was King of Portugal and the first to use the title King of Portugal and the Algarve, from 1249. He was the second son of King Afonso II of Portugal and his wife, Urraca of Castile; he succeeded his brother, King Sancho II of Portugal, who died on 4 January 1248. |
Afonso III of Portugal | Early life | Early life
Afonso was born in Coimbra. As the second son of King Afonso II of Portugal, he was not expected to inherit the throne, which was destined to go to his elder brother Sancho.
He lived mostly in France, where he married Countess Matilda II of Boulogne in 1238, thereby becoming count of Boulogne, Mortain, Aumale and Dammartin-en-Goële jure uxoris. |
Afonso III of Portugal | Reign | Reign
thumb|A statue of Afonso in Faro, Portugal
In 1245, conflicts between his brother, the king, and the church became unbearable. Pope Innocent IV ordered Sancho II to be removed from the throne and to be replaced by the Count of Boulogne. Afonso did not refuse the papal order and consequently marched to Portugal. Since Sancho was not a popular king the order was not hard to enforce, and he fled into exile to Toledo, Castile, where he died on 4 January 1248. Until his brother's death and his own eventual coronation, Afonso retained and used the title of Visitador, Curador e Defensor do Reino (Overseer, Curator and Defender of the Kingdom).
In order to ascend the throne Afonso abdicated his rights to the county of Boulogne in 1248. In 1253, he divorced Matilda in order to marry Beatrice of Castile, illegitimate daughter of Alfonso X, King of Castile, and Mayor Guillén de Guzmán.
Determined not to make the same mistakes as his brother, Afonso III paid special attention to what the middle class, composed of merchants and small land owners, had to say. In 1254, in the city of Leiria, he held the first session of the Cortes, a general assembly comprising the nobility, the middle class and representatives of all municipalities. He also made laws intended to restrain the upper classes from abusing the least favored part of the population. Remembered as a notable administrator, Afonso III founded several towns, granted the title of city to many others and reorganized public administration.
Afonso showed extraordinary vision for the time. Progressive measures taken during his kingship include: representatives of the commons, besides the nobility and clergy, were involved in governance; the end of preventive arrests such that henceforward all arrests had to be first presented to a judge to determine the detention measure; and fiscal innovation, such as negotiating extraordinary taxes with the mercantile classes and direct taxation of the Church, rather than debasement of the coinage. These may have led to his excommunication by the Holy See and possibly precipitated his death, and his son Denis's premature rise to the throne at only 18 years old.
Secure on the throne, Afonso III then proceeded to make war with the Muslim communities that still thrived in the south. In his reign the Algarve became part of the kingdom, following the capture of Faro. |
Afonso III of Portugal | Final years and death | Final years and death
Following his success against the Moors, Afonso III had to deal with a political situation concerning the country's borders with Castile. The neighbouring kingdom considered that the newly acquired lands of the Algarve should be Castilian, not Portuguese, which led to a series of wars between the two kingdoms. Finally, in 1267, the Treaty of Badajoz was signed in Badajoz, determining that the southern border between Castile and Portugal should be the River Guadiana, as it is today.
Afonso died in Alcobaça, Coimbra or Lisbon, aged 68. |
Afonso III of Portugal | Marriages and descendants | Marriages and descendants
Afonso's first wife was Matilda II, Countess of Boulogne, daughter of Renaud, Count of Dammartin, and Ida, Countess of Boulogne. They had no surviving children. He divorced Matilda in 1253 and, in the same year, married Beatrice of Castile, illegitimate daughter of Alfonso X, King of Castile, and Mayor Guillén de Guzmán.
NameBirthDeathNotesBy Matilda II of Boulogne (–1262; married in 1238)By Beatrice of Castile (1242–1303; married in 1253)Blanche 25 February 1259 17 April 1321Lady of Las HuelgasDenis 9 October 1261 7 January 1325Succeeded him as Denis, 6th King of Portugal. Married Infanta Elizabeth of Aragon.Afonso 8 February 1263 2 November 1312Lord of Portalegre. Married Infanta Violante Manuel (daughter of Manuel of Castile).Sancha 2 February 1264 Maria 1265 Vicente12681268 Fernando12691269 By Madragana (Mor Afonso) (-?)Martim Afonso Chichorroa. 1313Natural son; Married to Inês Lourenço de Valadares.Urraca Afonso?Natural daughter. Married twice: 1st to Pedro Anes de Riba Vizela, 2nd to João Mendes de Briteiros.By Maria Peres de Enxara (?-?)Afonso Dinisa. 1310Natural son; Married to D. Maria Pais Ribeira, Lady of the House of Sousa.By Elvira Esteves (?-?)Leonor Afonso (nun)?1259Natural daughter; Nun in the Monastery of Santa Clara of Santarém.Other natural offspringFernando Afonso??Natural son; Knight of the Order of the hospital.Gil Afonso1250 31 December 1346Natural son; Knight of the Order of the hospital.Rodrigo Afonso1258about 12 May 1272Natural son; Prior of the city of Santarém.Leonor Afonso1291Natural daughter. Married twice: 1st to D. Estevão Anes de Sousa (without issue), 2nd to D. Gonçalo Garcia de Sousa, Count of Neiva (without issue).Urraca Afonso (nun)1250 4 November 1281Natural daughter; Nun in the Monastery of Lorvão. |
Afonso III of Portugal | Notes | Notes |
Afonso III of Portugal | See also | See also
Timeline of Portuguese history (First Dynasty)
Portugal in the Middle Ages
Portugal in the Reconquista |
Afonso III of Portugal | References | References
Category:Portuguese Roman Catholics
Category:Portuguese infantes
Category:House of Burgundy-Portugal
Category:People of the Reconquista
Category:1210 births
Category:1279 deaths
Category:People from Coimbra
Category:13th-century Portuguese monarchs
Category:Jure uxoris counts
Category:Counts of Mortain
Category:Counts of Aumale
Category:Counts of Dammartin
Category:Counts of Boulogne
Category:Remarried jure uxoris officeholders |
Afonso III of Portugal | Table of Content | Short description, Early life, Reign, Final years and death, Marriages and descendants, Notes, See also, References |
Afonso IV of Portugal | Short description | Afonso IVEnglish: Alphonzo or Alphonse, or Affonso (Archaic Portuguese), Alfonso or Alphonso (Portuguese-Galician) or Alphonsus (Latin). (; 8 February 129128 May 1357), called the Brave (), was King of Portugal from 1325 until his death in 1357. He was the only legitimate son of King Denis of Portugal and Elizabeth of Aragon. |
Afonso IV of Portugal | Early life | Early life
Afonso, born in Lisbon, was the rightful heir to the Portuguese throne. However, he was not Denis' favourite son, even nearly beginning conflict against him. Instead, the old king preferred his illegitimate son, Afonso Sanches. The notorious rivalry between the half-brothers led to civil war several times. On 7 January 1325, Afonso IV's father died and he became king, whereupon he exiled his rival, Afonso Sanches, to Castile, and stripped him of all the lands and fiefdom given by their father. From Castile, Afonso Sanches orchestrated a series of attempts to usurp the crown. After a few failed attempts at invasion, the brothers signed a peace treaty, arranged by Afonso IV's mother, Elizabeth.Spain and Portugal, Graeme Mercer Adam ed., J. D. Morris, 1906
In 1309, Afonso married Beatrice of Castile, daughter of King Sancho IV of Castile and María de Molina. The first-born of this union was a daughter, Maria of Portugal. |
Afonso IV of Portugal | King of Portugal and Algarve | King of Portugal and Algarve
In 1325 Alfonso XI of Castile entered a child-marriage with Constanza Manuel of Castile, the daughter of one of his regents. Two years later, he had the marriage annulled so he could marry Afonso's daughter, Maria of Portugal. Maria became Queen of Castile in 1328 upon her marriage to Alfonso XI, who soon became involved publicly with a mistress. Constanza was imprisoned in a castle in Toro while her father, Don Juan Manuel, waged war against Alfonso XI until 1329. Eventually, the two reached a peaceful accord after mediation by Juan del Campo, Bishop of Oviedo; this secured Constanza's release from prison.
The public humiliation of his daughter led Afonso IV to have his son and heir, Peter I of Portugal, marry the no less aggrieved Castilian infanta, Constanza. Afonso subsequently started a war against Castile, peace arriving four years later, through the intervention of the infanta Maria herself. A year after the peace treaty was signed in Seville, Portuguese troops played an important role in defeating the Moors at the Battle of Río Salado in October 1340. |
Afonso IV of Portugal | Later life | Later life
Political intrigue marked the last part of Afonso IV's reign, although Castille was torn by civil war after Alfonso XI died. Henry of Trastámara challenged the new King Peter of Castile, who sent many Castilian nobles into exile in Portugal. Afonso's son Peter fell in love with his new wife's lady-in-waiting, Inês de Castro. Inês was the daughter of an important noble family from Galicia, with links (albeit illegitimate) to both the royal houses of Castile and Portugal. Her brothers were aligned with the Trastamara faction, and became favorites of Peter, much to the dismay of others at the Portuguese court, who considered them Castilian upstarts. When Constanza died weeks after giving birth to their third child, Peter began living openly with Inês, recognized all her children as his and refused to marry anyone other than Inês herself. His father refused to go to war again against Castile, hoping the heir apparent's infatuation would end, and tried to arrange another dynastic marriage for him.
The situation became worse as the years passed and the aging Afonso lost control over his court. His grandson and Peter's only legitimate son, Ferdinand I of Portugal, was a sickly child, while Inês' illegitimate children thrived. Worried about his legitimate grandson's life, and the growing power of Castile within Portugal's borders, Afonso ordered Inês de Castro first imprisoned in his mother's old convent in Coimbra, and then murdered in 1355. He expected his son to give in and marry a princess, but Peter became enraged upon learning of his wife's decapitation in front of their young children. Peter put himself at the head of an army and devastated the country between the Douro and the Minho rivers before he was reconciled to his father in early 1357. Afonso died almost immediately after, in Lisbon in May.
Afonso IV's nickname the Brave alludes to his martial exploits. However, his most important accomplishments were the relative peace enjoyed by the country during his long reign and the support he gave to the Portuguese Navy. Afonso granted public funding to raise a proper commercial fleet and ordered the first Portuguese maritime explorations. The conflict with Pedro, and the explorations he initiated, eventually became the foundation of the Portuguese national epic, Os Lusíadas by Luís de Camões.
The dramatic circumstances of the relationship between father, son and Inês was used as the basis for the plot of more than twenty operas and ballets. The story with its tragic dénouement is immortalized in several plays and poems in Portuguese, such as Os Lusíadas by Luís de Camões (canto iii, stanzas 118–135), and in Spanish, including Nise lastimosa and Nise laureada (1577) by Jerónimo Bermúdez, Reinar despues de morir by Luis Vélez de Guevara, as well as a play by French playwright Henry de Montherlant called La Reine morte (The Dead Queen). Mary Russell Mitford also wrote a drama based on the story entitled Inez de Castro. Inês de Castro is a novel by Maria Pilar Queralt del Hierro in Spanish and Portuguese. |
Afonso IV of Portugal | Marriage and descendants | Marriage and descendants
On 12 September 1309, Afonso married Beatrice of Castile, daughter of Sancho IV of Castile, and María de Molina, and had four sons and three daughters. Afonso broke the tradition of previous kings and did not have any children out of wedlock.
Maria of Portugal, Queen of Castile (131318 January 1357), was the wife of Alfonso XI of Castile, and mother of the future King Peter of Castile. Due to the affair of her husband with his mistress Eleanor de Guzmán "it was an unfortunate union from the start, contributing to dampening the relations of both kingdoms";
Afonso (1315–1317), died in his infancy. Buried at the disappeared Convento das Donas of the Dominican Order in Santarém;
Denis (born 12 February 1317), died a few months after his birth, and was buried in Alcobaça Monastery;
Peter I of Portugal (8 April 132018 January 1367), the first surviving male offspring, he succeeded his father. When his wife Constanza died in 1345, Beatrice took care of the education of the two orphans, the infantes Maria and Ferdinand, who later reigned as King Ferdinand I of Portugal;
Isabel (21 December 132411 July 1326), buried at the Monastery of Santa Clara-a-Velha in Coimbra;
John (23 September 132621 June 1327), buried at the Monastery of São Dinis de Odivelas;
Eleanor of Portugal, Queen of Aragon (1328–1348), born in the same year as her sister Maria's wedding, she married King Peter IV of Aragon in November 1347 and died a year after her marriage, succumbing to the Black Death. |
Afonso IV of Portugal | Notes | Notes |
Afonso IV of Portugal | References | References |
Afonso IV of Portugal | Bibliography | Bibliography
Category:Portuguese infantes
Category:Portuguese Roman Catholics
Category:House of Burgundy-Portugal
Category:1291 births
Category:1357 deaths
Category:Nobility from Lisbon
Category:People of the Reconquista
Category:14th-century Portuguese monarchs |
Afonso IV of Portugal | Table of Content | Short description, Early life, King of Portugal and Algarve, Later life, Marriage and descendants, Notes, References, Bibliography |
Afonso V of Portugal | Short description | Afonso V (; 15 January 1432 – 28 August 1481), known by the sobriquet the African (), was King of Portugal from 1438 until his death in 1481, with a brief interruption in 1477. His sobriquet refers to his military conquests in Northern Africa. He later became embroiled in the War of the Castilian Succession but lost and instead accepted Portuguese hegemony in the Atlantic south of the Canary Islands in exchange. |
Afonso V of Portugal | Early life | Early life
Born in Sintra on 15 January 1432, Afonso was the second son of King Edward of Portugal by his wife Eleanor of Aragon. Following the death of his older brother, Infante João (1429–1433), Afonso acceded to the position of heir apparent and was made the first Prince of Portugal by his father, who sought to emulate the English court's custom of a dynastic title that distinguished the heir apparent from the other children of the monarch. He was only six years old when he succeeded his father in 1438.
During his minority, Afonso was placed under the regency of his mother, Eleanor, in accordance with the will left by his late father. As both a foreigner and a woman, the queen was not a popular choice for regent. When the met in late 1438, a law was passed requiring a joint regency consisting of Eleanor and Pedro, Duke of Coimbra, the younger brother of the late king. The dual regency was a failure and in 1439, the named Pedro "protector and guardian" of the king and "ruler and defender" of the kingdom. Eleanor attempted to resist, but without support in Portugal she fled to Castile.
Pedro's regency was characterized by political unrest and weakened authority caused by strife with Afonso, Count of Barcelos, his half-brother and political enemy. In 1441, Afonso's V betrothal to Pedro's eldest daughter, Isabella, was arranged. The engagement caused a conflict between Pedro and the Count of Barcelos, who had wished for the monarch to marry his granddaughter.
Afonso reached the age of majority in 1446, but Pedro retained administrative power and the title of regent. Afonso and Isabella were formally married on 6 May 1447, seemingly strengthening Pedro's power at court. However, the Count of Barcelos began to wield more influence over the young king and persuaded him to dispense Pedro in July 1448. On 15 September of the same year, Afonso V nullified all the laws and edicts approved under the regency. Tensions escalated and in early 1449 Pedro marched his ducal army towards Lisbon, igniting a brief civil war. Pedro was eventually defeated and killed by Afonso V's royal forces in the Battle of Alfarrobeira in May 1449. |
Afonso V of Portugal | Rule | Rule |
Afonso V of Portugal | Administration | Administration
thumb|upright|Throne of Afonso V
Afonso financially supported the exploration of the Atlantic Ocean led by his uncle Prince Henry the Navigator. In February 1449, he granted Henry monopoly over navigation in the African Atlantic between Capes Cantin and Bojador. The grant caused conflict with John II of Castile, who asserted that conquest of Barbary and Guinea were reserved for the Castilian crown. John II was also angered by Henry's conduct in the Canary Islands and repeatedly wrote to Afonso complaining about displays of hostility, such as attacks on Castilian shipping. Tensions finally deescalated with the marriage of Afonso's youngest sister, Joan, to John II's heir, Henry, in 1455.
In 1452, Pope Nicholas V issued the papal bull , which granted Afonso V the right to reduce "Saracens, pagans and any other unbelievers" to hereditary slavery. This was reaffirmed and extended in the bull of 1455 (also by Nicholas V). These papal bulls came to be seen by some as a justification for the subsequent era of slave trade and European colonialism.
After Henry's death in 1460, his nephew Ferdinand inherited his titles and rights but the monopoly over trade reverted to the crown. In 1469, Afonso V granted Fernão Gomes the monopoly of trade in the Gulf of Guinea. |
Afonso V of Portugal | Invasion of Morocco | Invasion of Morocco
thumb|300px|Conquest of Arzila in 1471
Afonso V's interest in Africa was sparked by a desire to support Papal efforts against Islam, especially after the fall of Constantinople in 1453. A large crusade was desired but the Papacy struggled to rally the necessary forces and Afonso, having already made war preparations in Portugal, saw an opportunity to pursue military campaigns in Africa.
In 1458, Afonso V, leading an expeditionary force of 25,000 men, assaulted and captured the town of Alcácer Ceguer. After the conquest, he gave himself the title "king of Portugal and the Algarves", where the plural form of Algarve was meant to refer to both the original Kingdom of the Algarve in southern Portuguese as well as the new territories in Africa. For the next two decades, the Portuguese nobility and crown concentrated their efforts primarily on Morocco. Between November 1463 and April 1464, Afonso made multiple unsuccessful attempts to seize Tangiers from the Marinids. In August 1471, he launched another campaign with the intention of capturing the city, but his fleet was diverted by a storm to the port of Arzila. After a fierce battle, Arzila was captured. Subsequently, the nearby population of Tangiers fled and the city fell into Portuguese control. His victories earned the king the nickname of the African or . |
Afonso V of Portugal | War with Castile | War with Castile
thumb|right|A copy of the Fra Mauro map was commissioned by Afonso V in 1457. Finished on 24 April 1459, it was sent to Portugal with a letter to Prince Henry the Navigator, Afonso's uncle, encouraging further funding of exploration trips. Although the copy has been lost, the Andrea Bianco original is preserved at the Biblioteca Marciana in Venice.
Following his campaigns in Africa, Afonso V found new grounds for battle in neighboring Castile. On 11 December 1474 King Henry IV of Castile died without a male heir, leaving just one daughter, Joanna. However, her paternity was questioned; it was rumored that his wife, Queen Joan of Portugal (Afonso's sister) had an affair with a nobleman named Beltrán de La Cueva. The death of Henry ignited a war of succession, with one faction supporting Joanna and the other supporting Isabella, Henry's half-sister. Afonso V was persuaded to intervene on behalf of Joanna, his niece.
On 12 May 1475 Afonso entered Castile with an army of 5,600 cavalry and 14,000 foot soldiers. He met Joanna in Palencia and the two were betrothed and proclaimed sovereigns of Castile on 25 May. The formal marriage was delayed because their close blood-relationship necessitated a papal dispensation.
In March 1476, after several skirmishes and much maneuvering, the 8,000 men of Afonso and Prince John, faced a Castilian force of similar size in the Battle of Toro. The Castilians were led by Isabella's husband, Prince Ferdinand II of Aragon, Cardinal Mendoza and the Duke of Alba. The fight was fierce and confusing but the result was a stalemate: while the forces of Cardinal Mendoza and the Duke of Alba won over their opponents led by the Portuguese king—who left the battlefield to take refuge in Castronuño—the troops commanded by Prince John defeated and persecuted the troops of the Castilian right wing and recovered the Portuguese royal standard, remaining ordered in the battlefield where they collected the fugitives of Afonso. Both sides claimed victory, but Afonso's prospects for obtaining the Castilian crown were severely damaged.
After the battle, Afonso sailed to France hoping to obtain the assistance of King Louis XI in his fight against Castile. In September 1477, disheartened that his efforts to secure support had proved fruitless, Afonso abdicated the throne and embarked on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. He was eventually persuaded to return to Portugal, where he arrived in November 1477. Prince John had been proclaimed king days prior to Afonso's arrival, but relinquished his new title and insisted that his father reassume the crown.
From 1477 to 1481, Afonso V and Prince John were "practically corulers." Afonso made preparations for a second invasion of Castile in winter 1478, but was deterred by Castilian Hermandad forces. The Treaty of Alcáçovas was finally negotiated in 1479, wherein Afonso renounced his claim to the Castilian throne in exchange for Portuguese hegemony in the Atlantic south of the Canary Islands. Although the treaty was advantageous for Portugal, the king was deeply unhappy with the provision that forced his bride and niece, Joanna, into a convent. Withdrawn and melancholic, he announced his intention to abdicate for a second time and retired to a monastery in Sintra. He died of fever shortly after, on 28 August 1481. |
Afonso V of Portugal | Marriages and descendants | Marriages and descendants
Afonso married, firstly, in 1447, his first cousin Isabella of Coimbra, with whom he had three children:
John, Prince of Portugal (29 January 1451)
Joan, Princess of Portugal (6 February 1452 – 12 May 1490) – known as Saint Joan of Portugal, or Saint Joan Princes
John II of Portugal (3 March 1455 – 25 October 1495) – succeeded his father as 13th King of Portugal
After the death of his wife in 1455, he had at least one child out of wedlock with Maria Soares da Cunha, daughter of Afonso's major valet, Fernao de Sa Alcoforado:
Álvaro Soares da Cunha (1466–1557), Noble of the Royal House, Lord of the House of Quintas in Sao Vicente de Pinheiro, Porto and Chief Guard of Pestilence in Porto |
Afonso V of Portugal | Ancestry | Ancestry |
Afonso V of Portugal | Notes | Notes |
Afonso V of Portugal | References | References |
Afonso V of Portugal | Citations | Citations |
Afonso V of Portugal | Sources | Sources
Category:1432 births
Category:1481 deaths
Category:15th-century Portuguese monarchs
Category:House of Aviz
Category:Knights of the Garter
Category:People from Sintra
Category:Portuguese exploration in the Age of Discovery
Category:Portuguese infantes
Category:Portuguese people of English descent
Category:Princes of Portugal
Category:Sons of kings |
Afonso V of Portugal | Table of Content | Short description, Early life, Rule, Administration, Invasion of Morocco, War with Castile, Marriages and descendants, Ancestry, Notes, References, Citations, Sources |
Afonso VI of Portugal | Short description | Dom Afonso VI (; 21 August 164312 September 1683), known as "the Victorious" (), was the second king of Portugal of the House of Braganza from 1656 until his death. He was initially under the regency of his mother, Luisa de Guzmán, until 1662, when he removed her to a convent and took power with the help of his favourite, D. Luís de Vasconcelos e Sousa, 3rd Count of Castelo Melhor.
Afonso's reign saw the end of the Restoration War (1640–68) and Spain's recognition of Portugal's independence. He also negotiated a French alliance through his marriage. In 1668, his brother Pedro II conspired to have him declared incapable of ruling, and took supreme de facto power as regent, although nominally Afonso was still sovereign. Queen Maria Francisca, Afonso's wife, received an annulment and subsequently married Pedro. Afonso spent the rest of his life and reign practically a prisoner.Helpful up-to-date information is available in |
Afonso VI of Portugal | Early life | Early life
Afonso was the second of three sons born to King John IV and Queen Luisa. At the age of three, he experienced an illness that resulted in paralysis on the right side of his body. The condition was believed to have also affected his intellectual abilities. His father created him 10th Duke of Braganza.Genealogy of the Dukes of Braganza in Portuguese
After the death of his eldest brother Teodósio, Prince of Brazil in 1653, Afonso became the heir apparent to the throne of the kingdom. He also received the crown-princely title 2nd Prince of Brazil. |
Afonso VI of Portugal | Reign | Reign
thumb|right|upright 1.30|Portrait of Infante D. Afonso with a Black page, by José de Avelar Rebelo, 1653
He succeeded his father, John IV, in 1656 at the age of thirteen. His mother, Luisa de Guzmán, was named regent in his father's will.
Luisa's regency continued even after Afonso came of age because he was considered mentally unfit for governing. In addition to lacking intellect, the king exhibited wild and disruptive behavior. In 1662, after Afonso terrorized Lisbon at night alongside his favorites, Luisa and her council responded by banishing some of the king's companions that were associated with the raids. Angered, Afonso took power with the help of Castelo Melhor and Luisa's regency came to an end.For overview, with bibliography, in English, see She subsequently retired to a convent,. where she died in 1666.
Afonso appointed Castelo Melhor as his private secretary (escrivão da puridade). He proved to be a competent minister. His astute military organization and sensible general appointments resulted in decisive military victories over the Spanish at Elvas (14 January 1659), Ameixial (8 June 1663) and Montes Claros (17 June 1665), culminating in the final Spanish recognition of sovereignty of Portugal's new ruling dynasty, the House of Braganza, on 13 February 1668 in the Treaty of Lisbon. |
Afonso VI of Portugal | Colonial affairs | Colonial affairs
Colonial affairs saw the Dutch conquest of Jaffna, Portugal's last colony in Portuguese Ceylon (1658), and the cession of Bombay and Tangier to England (23 June 1661) as dowry for Afonso's sister, Infanta Catherine of Braganza, who had married King Charles II of England. |
Afonso VI of Portugal | Marriage | Marriage
Melhor successfully arranged for Afonso to marry Maria Francisca of Savoy, a relative of the Duke of Savoy, in 1666, but the marriage was short-lived. Maria Francisca filed for an annulment in 1667 based on the impotence of the king. The church granted her the annulment, and she married Afonso's brother, Peter II, Duke of Beja. |
Afonso VI of Portugal | Downfall | Downfall
thumb|right|King Afonso VI imprisoned in the Palace of Sintra, by Alfredo Roque Gameiro
Also in 1667, Pedro managed to gain enough support to force Afonso to relinquish control of the government to him, and he became prince regent in 1668. While Pedro never formally usurped the throne, Afonso was king in name only for the rest of his life.The proceedings which the annulment of Afonso's marriage involved formed the basis of João Mário Grilo's 1989 film, The King's Trial. For seven years after Peter's coup, Afonso was kept on the island of Terceira in the Azores. His health broken by this captivity, he was eventually permitted to return to the Portuguese mainland, but he remained powerless and kept under guard. At Sintra he died in 1683.
The room where he was imprisoned is preserved at Sintra National Palace. |
Afonso VI of Portugal | Ancestry | Ancestry |
Afonso VI of Portugal | References | References |
Afonso VI of Portugal | Sources | Sources
Category:Portuguese infantes
Category:Dukes of Braganza
Category:Child monarchs from Europe
Category:1643 births
Category:1683 deaths
Category:Portuguese people with disabilities
Category:Princes of Brazil
Category:House of Braganza
Category:17th-century Portuguese monarchs
Category:Nobility from Lisbon
Category:Royalty and nobility with disabilities
Category:Burials at the Monastery of São Vicente de Fora
Category:Royal reburials |
Afonso VI of Portugal | Table of Content | Short description, Early life, Reign, Colonial affairs, Marriage, Downfall, Ancestry, References, Sources |
Alphonso I of Spain | There has not been a monarch known as | There has not been a monarch known as Alphonso or Alfonso I of Spain, the first king of that name of the unified Spain being Alfonso XII (1857–1885). Several precursor kingdoms have had an Alfonso I, including:
Alfonso I of Asturias (–757)
Alfonso I of Aragon and Navarre (–1134), known as the Battler
Alfonso II of Aragon, also known as Alfons I, Count of Barcelona (1157–1196), called the Chaste or the Troubadour |
Alphonso I of Spain | Table of Content | There has not been a monarch known as |
Alfonso II of Asturias | Short description | thumb|Alfonso II in the twelfth-century Libro de los Testamentos.
Alfonso II of Asturias (842), nicknamed the Chaste (), was the king of Asturias during two different periods: first in the year 783 and later from 791 until his death in 842. Upon his death, Nepotian, a family member of undetermined relation, attempted to usurp the crown in place of the future Ramiro I.
During his reign, which covered a span of 51 years, Alfonso discovered the supposed tomb of St. James the Great (called in Spanish) in the town of Compostela, which later became known as the city of Santiago de Compostela. He was the son of Fruela I and Munia, a Basque woman captured and brought back to Asturias by the former following a military campaign. |
Alfonso II of Asturias | Early life | Early life
He was born in Oviedo in 759 or 760. He was put under the guardianship of his aunt Adosinda after his father's death, but one tradition relates his being put in the Monastery of San Xulián de Samos. He was the governor of the palace during the reign of Adosinda's husband Silo. On Silo's death, he was elected king by Adosinda's allies, but the magnates raised his uncle Mauregatus to the throne instead. Alfonso fled to Álava where he found shelter with his maternal relatives. Mauregatus was succeeded by Bermudo I, Alfonso's cousin, who abdicated after his defeat at the Battle of the Burbia River. |
Alfonso II of Asturias | Alfonso proclaimed king | Alfonso proclaimed king
Alfonso was subsequently elected king on 14 September 791. Poets of a later generation invented the story of the secret marriage between his sister Ximena and Sancho, count of Saldana, and the feats of their son Bernardo del Carpio. Bernardo is the hero of a written to please the anarchical spirit of the nobles.
Alfonso moved the capital from Pravia, where Silo had located it, to Oviedo, the city of his father's founding and his birth. There he constructed churches and a palace. He built the churches of San Tirso,García de Castro Valdés, César (2008). «San Tirso (Oviedo)». Arte Prerrománico en Asturias. Ménsula Ediciones, S. L. pp. 28-30. ISBN 978-84-612-4085-2. where he is buried, and of San Julián de los Prados (aka Santullano), high above overlooking the nascent city. |
Alfonso II of Asturias | Andalusian raids into Asturias | Andalusian raids into Asturias
On accession to the throne, Hisham I, son of Abd al-Rahman I, commenced a string of military campaigns in the eastern Pyrenees and to the north-west. In 794, a raid spearheaded by Abd al-Karim dealt a major military blow to Alfonso II on the eastern fringes of the Kingdom of Asturias (Cantabria and Castile). The Asturian king asked for the assistance of the Basque Frankish vassal Belasco, master of Álava and bordering regions at the time. Abd al-Karim advanced deeper west into Asturias and pillaged the region, while his brother Abd al-Malik ventured into the western Asturian lands. |
Alfonso II of Asturias | Relations with Charlemagne and the Papacy | Relations with Charlemagne and the Papacy
Under pressure from his enemies, Alfonso II reached out to Charlemagne, sending delegations to Toulouse and Aix-la-Chapelle in 796, 797, and 798. These diplomatic efforts, proffered by Froia and later Basiliscus, may have aimed to strengthen his legitimacy and the Asturian government against ongoing internal unrest——viz., troubles in Galicia——and external attacks of the Ibn Mugait brothers, the generals Abd al-Karim and Abd al-Malik.Martínez Díez, Gonzalo (2002). «Articulación político-administrativa y las relaciones exteriores en el reinado de Alfonso II». Poder y Sociedad en la Baja Edad Media hispánica: Estudios y homenaje al profesor Luis Vicente Díaz Martín II. Coordinador, Carlos Manuel Reglero de la Fuente. Valladolid: Universidad de Valladolid. pp. 724-725. ISBN 84-8448-172-7.
Alfonso was acknowledged as a king by Charlemagne and the Pope, and Asturias as a kingdom for the first time in the Royal Frankish Annals. The king showed an interest in the Frankish cult of Saint Martin of Tours, and he encouraged Carolingian Church influence in Asturias.
Alfonso's envoys to Charlemagne's courts may have also dealt with the adoptionist controversy, which had brought Bermudo's kingdom into Charlemagne's view. It seems that Carolingian support did much to spur his raid into Andalusian territory up to Lisbon, which was captured and sacked by his troops in 798. |
Alfonso II of Asturias | Later events | Later events
thumb|right|Asturias in 850
Also, during Alfonso's reign, the alleged resting place of St. James was revealed.Rucquoi, Adeline (2017). «Los reyes de Asturias y los orígenes del culto a la tumba del apóstol Santiago». Los reyes de Asturias y los orígenes del culto a la tumba del apóstol Santiago. Francisco Javier Fernández Conde, Raquel Alonso Álvarez (coord.). Oviedo: Trea. pp. 17-36. ISBN 978-84-17140-03-8. Tradition relates that in 814, the body of Saint James was discovered in Compostela and that Alfonso was the first pilgrim to the shrine at Libredón.
In 825, he defeated Saracen forces at Narón (near Ferrol) and also in year 825 Anceo (in the hills equidistant from Pontevedra and Vigo),Aramburu y Zuloaga, Félix (1996). «Alfonso II, el Casto». Asturianos Universales. Tomo VII. Madrid: Ediciones Páramo, S.A. ISBN 84-87253-26-1. and, thanks to these victories, the "repopulation" of parts of Galicia, León, and Castile was started— with charters confirming the possession of the territories.
The Crónica Sebastianense records his death in 842, saying:
tras haber llevado por 52 años casta, sobria, inmaculada, piadosa y gloriosamente el gobierno del reino
[after having held for 52 years chastely, soberly, immaculately, piously, and gloriously the government of the realm] |
Alfonso II of Asturias | References | References
Category:8th-century births
Category:842 deaths
Category:Astur-Leonese dynasty
Category:8th-century Asturian monarchs
Category:9th-century Asturian monarchs |
Alfonso II of Asturias | Table of Content | Short description, Early life, Alfonso proclaimed king, Andalusian raids into Asturias, Relations with Charlemagne and the Papacy, Later events, References |
Amarasimha | Short description | thumb|Cover of a modern copy of Amara kosha
Amarasimha (IAST: , ) was a Sanskrit grammarian and poet from ancient India, of whose personal history hardly anything is known. He is said to have been "one of the nine gems that adorned the throne of Vikramaditya," and according to the evidence of Xuanzang, this is the Chandragupta Vikramaditya (Chandragupta II) who flourished about CE 375.Amarakosha compiled by B. L. Rice, edited by N. Balasubramanya, 1970, page X Other sources describe him as belonging to the period of Vikramaditya of 7th century."Amara-Simha" in Chambers's Encyclopædia. London: George Newnes, 1961, Vol. 1, p. 311. Most of Amarasiṃha's works were lost, with the exception of the celebrated Amara-Kosha (IAST: ) (Treasury of Amara). The first reliable mention of the Amarakosha is in the Amoghavritti of Shakatayana composed during the reign of Amoghavarsha (814-867 CE)
The Amarakosha is a lexicon of Sanskrit words in three books, and hence is sometimes called the Trikāṇḍī or the "Tripartite". It is also known as "Namalinganushasana". The Amarakosha contains 10,000 words, and is arranged, like other works of its class, in metre, to aid the memory.
The first chapter of the Kosha was printed at Rome in Tamil character in 1798. An edition of the entire work, with English notes and an index by Henry Thomas Colebrooke appeared at Serampore in 1808. The Sanskrit text was printed at Calcutta in 1831. A French translation by ALA Loiseleur-Deslongchamps was published at Paris in 1839. B. L. Rice compiled the text in Kannada script with meanings in English and Kannada in 1927. |
Amarasimha | References | References
Attribution:
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Amarasimha | External links | External links
Amarakosha Sanskrit text
Category:Indian Buddhists
Category:Indian male poets
Category:4th-century Indian poets
Category:Year of birth unknown
Category:Year of death unknown
Category:Sanskrit writers |
Amarasimha | Table of Content | Short description, References, External links |
Alfonso XII | short description | Alfonso XII (Alfonso Francisco de Asís Fernando Pío Juan María de la Concepción Gregorio Pelayo de Borbón y Borbón; 28 November 185725 November 1885), also known as El Pacificador (Spanish: the Peacemaker), was King of Spain from 29 December 1874 to his death in 1885.
After the Glorious Revolution of 1868 deposed his mother Isabella II from the throne, Alfonso studied in Austria and France. His mother abdicated in his favour in 1870, and he returned to Spain as king in 1874 following a military coup against the First Spanish Republic. Alfonso died aged 27 in 1885, leaving his pregnant widow, Maria Christina of Austria, as regent of Spain. Their son, Alfonso XIII, became king upon his birth the following year. Maria Christina continued as regent until Alfonso XIII came of age in 1902. |
Alfonso XII | Paternity, early life, and exile | Paternity, early life, and exile
Alfonso was born in Madrid as the eldest son of the reigning Queen Isabella II on 28 November 1857. His official father, Isabella's husband Francisco de Asís, has been generally viewed as effeminate, impotent or homosexual, leading writers to question his biological paternity. There is speculation that Alfonso's biological father may have been Enrique Puigmoltó y Mayans, a captain of the guard.Juan Sisinio Pérez Garzón, Isabel II: Los Espejos de la Reina (2004) Others have assigned the fatherhood to Federico Puig Romero, a colonel who was murdered under unclear circumstances in 1866. The relationship of the queen with Puigmoltó was so much of a public hearsay at the time that Francisco de Asís initially refused to attend the baptism ceremony of Alfonso (the heir apparent), though he was eventually forced to do so.
These rumours were used as political propaganda against Alfonso by the Carlists, and he came to be widely nicknamed "Puigmoltejo" in reference to his supposed father.Burgo Tajadura, Jaime Ignacio del (2008). Boletín de la Real Academia de la Historia, p. 242: "A few months later, on the night of November 28 at 10:15, the queen gave birth to a child, who in time would be Alfonso XII, to whom the tongues, more or less deridingly, gave the name of Puigmoltejo". . His mother's accession had created a second cause of instability, the Carlist Wars, where the supporters of Don Carlos, Count of Molina as King of Spain rose to have him enthroned.
In addition, within the context of the post-Napoleonic restorations and revolutions which engulfed Europe and the Americas, both the Carlistas and the Isabelino conservatives were opposed to the new Napoleonic constitutional system. Much like in Britain, which subtracted itself from the liberal constitutional process, Spanish conservatives wanted to continue with the traditional Organic Laws, such as the Fuero Juzgo, the Novísima Recopilación and the Partidas of Alfonso X. This led to a third cause of instability, the independence of most of the American possessions, recognized between 1823 and 1850.
When Queen Isabella II and her husband were forced to leave Spain by the Revolution of 1868, Alfonso accompanied them to Paris. From there, he was sent to the Theresianum in Vienna to continue his studies. On 25 June 1870, he was recalled to Paris, where his mother abdicated in his favour, in the presence of a number of Spanish nobles who had tied their fortunes to those of the exiled queen. He assumed the name Alfonso XII, for although no king of united Spain had borne the name "Alfonso", the Spanish monarchy was regarded as continuous with the more ancient monarchy represented by the 11 kings of Asturias, León and Castile also named Alfonso. |
Alfonso XII | The Republic | The Republic
thumb|left|upright|A young Alfonso with his mentor, the Duke of Sesto
After the revolution, the Cortes decided to set up a new dynasty on the throne. Prince Amadeo of Savoy, the younger son of King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy and a distant cousin of Alfonso by common descent from Charles III, was recognized as King of Spain in November 1870. During a tumultuous reign, Amadeo was targeted by assassination attempts and struggled with opposition from both Carlists and republicans while his own faction split. After the Carlists revolted and the Third Carlist War broke out, he abdicated and returned to Italy in early 1873.
Following Amadeo's abandonment, the First Spanish Republic was established, including the territories of Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Pacific Archipelagos. The first act of President Estanislao Figueras was to extend the abolition of slavery to Puerto Rico; Cuban slaves would have to wait until 1889. The republicans were not in agreement either, and they had to contend with a war in Cuba and Muslim uprisings in Spanish Morocco. In the midst of these crises, the Carlist War continued and the Carlist party made itself strong in areas with claims over their national and institutional specificity such as Catalonia and the Basque Country. This unrest led to the creation of a group in favour of the Bourbon Restoration, led by the moderate conservative Antonio Cánovas del Castillo.
Alfonso was well-educated and cultured, especially compared to his mother. His tutors took great care to have him educated in good schools and to familiarize him with different cultures, languages and government models throughout Europe. During the Franco-Prussian War, Alfonso relocated from Paris to Geneva with his family, and then continued his studies at the Theresianum in Vienna in 1872. Cánovas began to take responsibility for Alfonso's education with the goal of shaping him into the ideal king for the planned Bourbon Restoration, and next sent him to the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, in England. The training he received there was severe but more cosmopolitan than it would have been in Spain, given its atmosphere at the time.
On 1 December 1874, Alfonso issued the Sandhurst Manifesto, where he set the ideological basis of the Bourbon Restoration. It was drafted in reply to a birthday greeting from his followers, a manifesto proclaiming himself the sole representative of the Spanish monarchy. At the end of 1874, Brigadier Martínez Campos, who had long been working more or less openly for the king, led some battalions of the central army to Sagunto, rallied the troops sent against him to his own flag, and entered Valencia in the king's name. Thereupon the President resigned, and his power was transferred to the king's plenipotentiary and adviser, Cánovas. With Cánovas disapproval (he detested the intervention of the military in politics), the 29 December 1875 pronunciamento of Gen. Martínez Campos in Sagunto ended the failed republic and meant the rise of the young Prince Alfonso. |
Alfonso XII | Reign | Reign
thumb|5 Peseta of Alfonso XII
Within a few days after Cánovas del Castillo took power as Premier, the new king, proclaimed on 29 December 1874, arrived at Madrid, passing through Barcelona and Valencia and was acclaimed everywhere (1875). In 1876, a vigorous campaign against the Carlists, in which the young king took part, resulted in the defeat of Don Carlos and the Duke's abandonment of the struggle.
Initially led by Cánovas del Castillo as moderate prime minister, what was thought at one time as a coup aimed at placing the military in the political-administrative positions of power, in reality ushered in a civilian regime that lasted until Primo de Rivera's 1923 coup d'état. Cánovas was the real architect of the new regime of the Restoration.
In 1881 Alfonso refused to sanction a law by which the ministers were to remain in office for a fixed term of 18 months. Upon the consequent resignation of Cánovas del Castillo, he summoned Práxedes Mateo Sagasta, the Liberal leader, to form a new cabinet.
thumb|left|Alfonso surrounded by his relative European monarchs and their spouses at Homburg Castle in 1883. Edward VII, Wilhelm I and Carlos I can be seen amongst others
In order to eliminate one of the problems of the reign of Isabel II, the single party and its destabilizing consequences, the Liberal Party was allowed to incorporate and participate in national politics, and the 'turnismo' or alternation was to become the new system. Turnismo would be endorsed in the Constitution of 1876 and the Pact of El Pardo (1885). It meant that liberal and conservative prime ministers would succeed each other ending thus the troubles.
This led to the end of the Carlist revolts and the victory over the New York-backed Cuban revolutionaries, and led to a huge backing both by insular and peninsular Spaniards of Alfonso.Ancede, M. (2020). The Spanish explorer who desecrated graves in the name of science. El Pais.
thumb|right|Photograph of Alfonso XII,
Alfonso's short reign established the foundations for the final socioeconomic recuperation of Spain, bringing an end to the political instability that had dominated Spain for the past two-thirds of a century (see History of Spain (1808–1874)). Both Europe (the coastal regions, such as the Basque Country, Catalonia, and Asturias) and the colonies in the Antilles and Pacific were able to grow steadily. Cuba and Puerto Rico prospered to the point that Spain's first train was not in Spain proper but between Havana and Güines in Cuba, and the first telegraph in Latin America was in Puerto Rico, established by Samuel Morse, whose daughter and son-in-law lived there. Upon the American invasion of Puerto Rico, ten US dollars were needed to buy one Puerto Rican peso. |
Alfonso XII | Marriages | Marriages
On 23 January 1878 at the Basilica of Atocha in Madrid, Alfonso married his first cousin, Princess María de las Mercedes, but she died, aged only 18, of typhoid fever, their marriage only lasting five months and three days.
thumb|right|King Alfonso XII and Queen Maria Christina with their daughter Mercedes in 1880
On 29 November 1879 at the Basilica of Atocha in Madrid, Alfonso married his double third cousin, Archduchess Maria Christina of Austria. During the honeymoon, a pastry cook named Otero fired at the young sovereign and his wife as they were driving in Madrid.
The children of this marriage were:
María de las Mercedes, Princess of Asturias, (11 September 188017 October 1904), married on 14 February 1901 to Prince Carlos of Bourbon-Two Sicilies. She was titular heir to the throne of Spain from the death of her father until the posthumous birth of her brother.
María Teresa, (12 November 188223 September 1912), married to Prince Ferdinand of Bavaria on 12 January 1906
Alfonso XIII (17 May 188628 February 1941). Born posthumously. He married Princess Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg
Alfonso had two sons by Elena Armanda Nicolasa Sanz y Martínez de Arizala (15 December 1849, in Castellón de la Plana – 24 December 1898, in Paris):
Alfonso Sanz y Martínez de Arizala (28 January 1880, in Madrid19 March 1970, in Paris), married in 1922 to María de Guadalupe de Limantour y Mariscal
Fernando Sanz y Martínez de Arizala (28 February 1881, in Madrid8 January 1925, in Pau, France), unmarried and without issue |
Alfonso XII | Death and impact | Death and impact
thumb|right|Death of Alfonso XII or The last kiss, by
In November 1885, Alfonso died aged 27 at the Royal Palace of El Pardo near Madrid. He had been suffering from tuberculosis, but the immediate cause of his death was a recurrence of dysentery."Death of the King of Spain", The Times (26 November 1885): 7.
In 1902, his widow Maria Cristina initiated a national contest to build a monument in memory of Alfonso. The winning design, by José Grases Riera, was constructed in an artificial lake in Madrid's Parque del Buen Retiro in 1922.
Coming to the throne at such an early age, Alfonso had served no apprenticeship in the art of ruling. Benevolent and sympathetic in disposition, he won the affection of his people by fearlessly visiting districts ravaged by cholera or devastated by the 1884 Andalusian earthquake. His capacity for dealing with men was considerable, and he never allowed himself to become the instrument of any particular party. During his short reign, peace was established both at home and abroad, finances were well regulated, and the various administrative services were placed on a basis that afterwards enabled Spain to pass through the disastrous war with the United States without the threat of a revolution. |
Alfonso XII | Honours | Honours
Spain: Knight of the Golden Fleece, 1857
: Grand Cross of the Tower and Sword, 1861 Retrieved 22 September 2018.
French Empire: Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour, March 1863
: Knight of St. Hubert, 1865
: Grand Cross of St. Charles, 7 September 1865Journal de Monaco
: Grand Cordon of the Order of Leopold (civil), 20 February 1866
: Grand Cross of St. Stephen, 1875"A Szent István Rend tagjai"
: Grand Cross of the White Falcon, 1875Staatshandbuch für das Großherzogtum Sachsen / Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach (1885), "Großherzogliche Hausorden" p. 14
Kingdom of Prussia: Knight of the Black Eagle, 13 June 1875
Sweden-Norway: Knight of the Seraphim, 23 October 1877
: Knight of the Elephant, 8 January 1878
: Knight of the Annunciation, 4 February 1878
: Grand Cordon of the Order of the Chrysanthemum, 11 September 1879
: Stranger Knight Companion of the Garter, 24 October 1881Shaw, Wm. A. (1906) The Knights of England, I, London, p. 62
: Knight of the Rue Crown, 1883 |
Alfonso XII | Ancestry | Ancestry |
Alfonso XII | See also | See also
Monument to Alfonso XII
Reign of Alfonso XII
Regency of Maria Christina of Austria |
Alfonso XII | Explanatory notes | Explanatory notes |
Alfonso XII | References | References |
Alfonso XII | External links | External links
Historiaantiqua. Alfonso XII; (Spanish) (2008)
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Alfonso XII | Table of Content | short description, Paternity, early life, and exile, The Republic, Reign, Marriages, Death and impact, Honours, Ancestry, See also, Explanatory notes, References, External links |
Alfonso XIII | Short description | Alfonso XIII (Spanish: Alfonso León Fernando María Jaime Isidro Pascual Antonio de Borbón y Habsburgo-Lorena; French: Alphonse Léon Ferdinand Marie Jacques Isidore Pascal Antoine de Bourbon; 17 May 1886 – 28 February 1941), also known as El Africano or the African for his Africanist views, was King of Spain from his birth until 14 April 1931, when the Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed. He became a monarch at birth as his father, Alfonso XII, had died the previous year. Alfonso's mother, Maria Christina of Austria, served as regent until he assumed full powers on his sixteenth birthday in 1902.
Alfonso XIII's upbringing and public image were closely linked to the military estate; he often presented himself as a soldier-king. His effective reign started four years after the Spanish–American War, when various social milieus projected their expectations of national regeneration onto him. Like other European monarchs of his time he played a political role, entailing a controversial use of his constitutional executive powers. His wedding to Princess Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg in 1906 was marred by an attempt at regicide; he was unharmed.
With public opinion divided over World War I, and moreover a split between pro-German and pro-Entente sympathizers, Alfonso XIII used his relations with other European royal families to help preserve a stance of neutrality, as espoused by his government; however, several factors weakened the monarch's constitutional legitimacy: the rupture of the system, the deepening of the Restoration system crisis in the 1910s, a trio of crises in 1917, the spiral of violence in Morocco, and especially the lead-up to the 1923 installment of the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera, an event that succeeded by means of both military coup d'état and the king's acquiescence. Over the course of his reign, the monarch ended up favouring an authoritarian solution rather than constitutional liberalism.
Upon the political failure of the dictatorship, Alfonso XIII removed support from Primo de Rivera (who was thereby forced to resign in 1930) and favoured (during the dictablanda) an attempted return to the pre-1923 state of affairs. Nevertheless, he had lost most of his political capital along the way. He left Spain voluntarily after the municipal elections of April 1931 – which was understood as a plebiscite on maintaining the monarchy or declaring a republic – the result of which led to the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic on 14 April 1931.
For his efforts with the European War Office during World War I, he earned a nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1917, which was ultimately won by the Red Cross. To date, he remains the only monarch known to have been nominated for a Nobel Prize. |
Alfonso XIII | Reign | Reign |
Alfonso XIII | Early life and education | Early life and education
thumb|left|Alfonso XIII as a cadet; by Manuel García Hispaleto
Alfonso XIII was born at the Royal Palace of Madrid on 17 May 1886. He was the posthumous son of Alfonso XII of Spain, who had died in November 1885, and became king upon his birth. Just after he was born, he was carried naked to the prime minister Práxedes Mateo Sagasta on a silver tray.
Five days later, he was carried in a solemn court procession with a Golden Fleece around his neck and was baptised with water specially brought from the River Jordan in Palestine.Magnificent Monarchs (Fact Attack series) p. 21 by Ian Locke; published by Macmillan in 1999; The French newspaper described the young king in 1889 as "the happiest and best-loved of all the rulers of the earth"."The Happiest Living Monarch", The New York Times. 14 August 1889. His mother, Maria Christina of Austria, served as his regent until his sixteenth birthday. During the regency, in 1898, Spain lost its colonial rule over Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines to the United States as a result of the Spanish–American War.
Alfonso became seriously ill during the 1889–1890 pandemic.Kempińska-Mirosławska, B., & Woźniak-Kosek, A. (2013). The influenza epidemic of 1889–90 in selected European citiesa picture based on the reports of two Poznań daily newspapers from the second half of the nineteenth century. Medical Science Monitor, 19, 1131–1141. His health deteriorated around 10 January 1890, and doctors reported his condition as the flu attacked his nervous system leaving the young king in a state of indolence. He eventually recovered.
When Alfonso came of age in May 1902, the week of his majority was marked by festivities, bullfights, balls and receptions throughout Spain."Alfonso's Reign Begins on 17 May; He Will Take the Oath on That Day – Festivities to Last a Week," New York Times, 29 March 1902. He took his oath to the constitution before members of the Cortes on 17 May.
Alfonso received, to a large extent, a military education that imbued him with "a Spanish nationalism strengthened by his military vocation". Besides the clique of military tutors, Alfonso also received political teachings from a liberal, , and moral precepts from an integrist, José Fernández de la Montaña. |
Alfonso XIII | Engagement and marriage | Engagement and marriage
thumb|right|The Nine Sovereigns at Windsor for the funeral of King Edward VII, photographed on 20 May 1910. Standing, from left to right: Haakon VII of Norway, Ferdinand I of Bulgaria, Manuel II of Portugal, Wilhelm II of Germany, George I of Greece and Albert I of Belgium. Seated, from left to right: Alfonso XIII of Spain, George V of the United Kingdom and Frederick VIII of Denmark.By 1905, Alfonso was looking for a suitable consort. On a state visit to the United Kingdom, he stayed in London at Buckingham Palace with King Edward VII. There he met Princess Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg, the daughter of Edward's youngest sister Princess Beatrice, and a granddaughter of Queen Victoria. He found her attractive, and she returned his interest. There were obstacles to the marriage. Victoria was a Protestant, and would have to become a Catholic. Victoria's brother, Leopold, was a haemophiliac, so there was a 50 percent chance that Victoria was a carrier of the trait. Finally, Alfonso's mother Maria Christina wanted him to marry a member of her family, the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, or some other Catholic princess, as she considered the Battenbergs to be non-dynastic.
Victoria was willing to change her religion, and her being a haemophilia carrier was only a possibility. Maria Christina was eventually persuaded to drop her opposition. In January 1906 she wrote an official letter to Princess Beatrice proposing the match. Victoria met Maria Christina and Alfonso in Biarritz, France, later that month, and converted to Catholicism in San Sebastián in March.
thumb|left|200px|Photograph taken moments after the assassination attempt on Alfonso and Victoria Eugenie on their wedding day
In May, diplomats of both kingdoms officially executed the agreement of marriage. Alfonso and Victoria were married at the Royal Monastery of San Jerónimo in Madrid on 31 May 1906, with British royalty in attendance, including Victoria's cousins the Prince and Princess of Wales (later King George V and Queen Mary). The wedding was marked by an assassination attempt on Alfonso and Victoria by Catalan anarchist Mateu Morral. As the wedding procession returned to the palace, he threw a bomb from a window which killed 30 bystanders and members of the procession, while 100 others were wounded.
On 10 May 1907, the couple's first child, Alfonso, Prince of Asturias, was born. Victoria was in fact a haemophilia carrier, and Alfonso inherited the condition.
Neither of the two daughters born to the King and Queen were haemophilia carriers, but another of their sons, Gonzalo (1914–1934), had the condition. Alfonso distanced himself from his wife for transmitting the condition to their sons. From 1914 on, he had several mistresses, and fathered five illegitimate children. A sixth illegitimate child had been born before his marriage. |
Alfonso XIII | World War I | World War I
thumb|right|Alfonso XIII visiting Verdun in 1919
During World War I, because of his family connections with both sides and the division of popular opinion, Spain remained neutral.His wife was British, his mother Austrian, amongst other family relationships. The King established an office for assistance to prisoners of war on all sides. This office used the Spanish diplomatic and military network abroad to intercede for thousands of POWs – transmitting and receiving letters for them, and other services. The office was located in the Royal Palace.
Alfonso attempted to save the Russian Tsar Nicholas II and his family from the Bolsheviks who captured them, sending two telegrams offering the Russian imperial family refuge in Spain. He later learned of the execution of the Romanov family, but was mistaken in believing that only Nicholas II and his son Alexei had been killed. As such, he continued to push for the Tsarina Alexandra, a first cousin of Victoria Eugenie, and her four daughters to be brought to Spain, not having realized that they had also been murdered.
Alfonso became gravely ill during the 1918 flu pandemic. Spain was neutral and thus under no wartime censorship restrictions, so his illness and subsequent recovery were reported to the world, while flu outbreaks in the belligerent countries were concealed. This gave the misleading impression that Spain was the most affected area and led to the pandemic being dubbed "the Spanish Flu".Barry 171. |
Alfonso XIII | Cracking of the system and dictatorship | Cracking of the system and dictatorship
thumb|left|upright=0.9|Alfonso (left) with his dictatorial prime minister, Miguel Primo de Rivera
Following World War I, Spain entered the lengthy yet victorious Rif War (1920–1926) to preserve its colonial rule over northern Morocco. Critics of the monarchy thought the war was an unforgivable loss of money and lives, and nicknamed Alfonso el Africano ("the African"). Alfonso had not acted as a strict constitutional monarch, and supported the Africanists who wanted to conquer for Spain a new empire in Africa to compensate for the lost empire in the Americas and elsewhere.Perry, James Arrogant Armies Great Military Disasters and the Generals Behind Them, Edison: Castle Books, 2005 p. 274 The Rif War had starkly polarized Spanish society between the Africanists who wanted to conquer an empire in Africa vs. the abandonistas who wanted to abandon Morocco as not worth the blood and treasure.Perry, James Arrogant Armies Great Military Disasters and the Generals Behind Them, Edison: Castle Books, 2005 p. 286. Alfonso liked to play favourites with his generals, and one of his most favoured generals was Manuel Fernández Silvestre.Perry, James Arrogant Armies Great Military Disasters and the Generals Behind Them, Edison: Castle Books, 2005 p. 276 In 1921, when Silvestre advanced up into the Rif mountains of Morocco, Alfonso sent him a telegram whose first line read "Hurrah for real men!", urging Silvestre not to retreat at a time when Silvestre was experiencing major difficulties.Perry, James Arrogant Armies Great Military Disasters and the Generals Behind Them, Edison: Castle Books, 2005 p. 280. Silvestre stayed the course, leading his men into the Battle of Annual, one of Spain's worst defeats. Alfonso, who was on holiday in the south of France at the time, was informed of the "Disaster of the Annual" while he was playing golf. Reportedly, Alfonso's response to the news was to shrug his shoulders and say "Chicken meat is cheap", before resuming his game.Perry, James Arrogant Armies Great Military Disasters and the Generals Behind Them, Edison: Castle Books, 2005 p. 284. Alfonso remained in France and did not return to Spain to comfort the families of the soldiers lost in the battle, which many people at the time saw as a callous and cold act, a sign that the King was indifferent over the lives of his soldiers. In 1922, the Cortes started an investigation into the responsibility for the Annual disaster and soon discovered evidence that the King had been one of the main supporters of Silvestre's advance into the Rif mountains.
thumb|Alfonso in uniform of field marshal of the United Kingdom, 1928
After the "Disaster of the Annual", Spain's war in the Rif went from bad to worse, and as the Spanish were barely hanging on to Morocco, support for the abandonistas grew as many people could see no point to the war. In August 1923, Spanish soldiers embarking for Morocco mutinied, other soldiers in Málaga simply refused to board the ships that were to take them to Morocco, while in Barcelona huge crowds of left-wingers had staged anti-war protests at which Spanish flags were burned while the flag of the Rif Republic was waved about. With the Africanists comprising only a minority, it was clear that it was only a matter of time before the abandonistas forced the Spanish to give up on the Rif, which was part of the reason for the military coup d'état later in 1923.
On 13 September 1923, Miguel Primo de Rivera, Captain General of Catalonia, staged a military coup with the collaboration from a quad of Africanist generals based in Madrid (José Cavalcanti, Federico Berenguer, Leopoldo Saro and Antonio Dabán). These generals were associated with the innermost military clique of Alfonso XIII and wanted to prevent investigations about Annual from tarnishing the monarch, even if Primo de Rivera had embraced Abandonista positions prior to that point. Primo de Rivera ruled as a dictator with the king's support until January 1930.
During the dictatorship, the king increased his public presence, siding with a Catholic, anti-Catalanist, dictatorial and militarist brand of Spanish nationalism.
In 1925, Alfonso was the target of an assassination plot by Catalan separatists while in Barcelona. While the attempt was foiled, Miguel Primo de Rivera used the incident to further solidify his rule.
On 28 January 1930, amid economic problems, general unpopularity and a putschist plot led by General Manuel Goded in motion, of which Alfonso XIII was most probably aware, Miguel Primo de Rivera was forced to resign, exiling to Paris, only to die a few weeks later of the complications from diabetes in combination with the effects of a flu. Alfonso XIII appointed General Dámaso Berenguer as the new prime minister. Back in 1926, Alfonso XIII had appointed Berenguer as Chief of Staff of the Military House of the King, a post conventionally fit for burned-out generals in order to move them away from the spotlight for a time in a show of affection. The new period was nicknamed as dictablanda. The King was so closely associated with the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera that it was difficult for him to distance himself from the regime that he had supported for almost seven years. The enforced changes relied on the incorrect assumption that Spaniards would accept the notion that nothing had happened after 1923 and that going back to the prior state of things was possible. |
Alfonso XIII | Dethronement and politics in exile | Dethronement and politics in exile
thumb|13 April 1931 Heraldo de Madrid frontpage reporting the Republican victory
On 12 April, the Republican coalition, short of winning a majority of councillors overall, won a sweeping majority in major cities in the 1931 municipal elections, which were perceived as a plebiscite on monarchy. The results shocked the government, with foreign minister Romanones admitting to the press an "absolute monarchist defeat" and Civil Guard honcho José Sanjurjo reportedly telling government ministers that, given circumstances, the Armed Forces could not be "absolutely" relied upon for the sustainment of the monarchy. Alfonso XIII fled the country and the Second Spanish Republic was peacefully proclaimed on 14 April 1931.
In November 1931, the Constituent Republican Cortes held an impassionate debate about the political responsibilities of the former monarch. Some of the grievances against the actions of Alfonso XIII as a king included interference in state institutions to reinforce his personal power, bargaining personal support from the military clique with rewards and merits, his abuse of the power to dissolve the legislature, rendering the co-sovereignty between the Nation and the Crown a total fiction; that he had disproportionately fostered the Armed forces (often to contain internal protest), had used the armed forces abroad with imperialist aims alien to the interests of the nation but his own, that he had personally devised the military operation of Annual behind the back of the Council of Ministers, and that following the massacre of Annual that "cost the lives of thousands of Spanish lads", he had decided to launch a coup with the help of a few generals rather than facing scrutiny in the legislature. Other than Romanones, who exculpated the actions of the monarch, disconformity towards the Primo de Rivera dictatorship notwithstanding, no other legislator intervened in his favour, with the debate focusing on whether to label the monarch's actions as a military rebellion, lèse-majesté, high treason, or even condemning "a delinquent personality" or "a wholly punishable life". The debate ended with an eloquent speech by Prime Minister Manuel Azaña pleading for the unanimity of the house "to condemn and exclude D. Alfonso de Borbón from the law, proclaiming the majesty of our republic, the unbreakable will of our civism and the permanence of the Spanish glories framed by the institutions freely given by the Nation". The house passed the act brought forward by the Commission of Responsibilities, summarizing Alfonso de Borbón's responsibilities as being guilty of high treason.
thumb|The former king in London in 1932
Involved in anti-Republican plots from his exile, and keen to draw support from the Carlists in the context of the uneasy and competing relations between the Carlist and Alfonsist factions within the radicalised monarchist camp, in the aftermath of so-called Pact of Territet he issued a statement dated 23 January 1932 endorsing the manifesto launched by Carlist claimant Alfonso Carlos (in which the latter hinted at the cession of dynastic rights should the former king accept "those fundamental principles which in our traditional regime have been demanded of all Kings with precedence of personal rights"), with the dethroned king likewise accusing in the document the reformist Republic to be "inspired and sponsored by communism, freemasonry and judaism".
In 1933, his two eldest sons, Alfonso and Jaime, renounced their claims to the defunct throne on the same day, and in 1934 his youngest son Gonzalo died. This left his third son Juan his only male heir.
After the July 1936 attempted coup d'état against the democratically elected Republican governmentPaul Preston, History of the Spanish Civil War a war broke out in Spain. On 30 July 1936, Alfonso's son Juan took the initiative of leaving Cannes to go to Spain to join the rebel faction, with the former king (then in a hunting trip in Czechoslovakia) reportedly giving consent, so Juan de Borbón crossed the border set to join the front in Somosierra dressed in a blue jumpsuit and red beret under the fake name "Juan López". However, rebel general Emilio Mola, mastermind behind the putschist plot, was warned of the move and had Juan returned. The former king made it clear he favoured the rebel faction against the Republican government. In September 1936, the general who had emerged as leader of the rebel faction, Francisco Franco, declared that he would not restore Alfonso as king. |
Alfonso XIII | Death | Death
thumb|Ending part of the January 1941 renouncement manuscript
On 15 January 1941, Alfonso XIII renounced his rights to the defunct Spanish throne in favour of Juan. He died in Rome on 28 February that year following weeks in agony after a first severe attack of angina pectoris.
In Spain, dictator Francisco Franco ordered three days of national mourning."Mourning in Spain", The Times (3 March 1941): 3. The ex-king's funeral was held in Rome in the Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri. He was buried in the Church of Santa Maria in Monserrato degli Spagnoli, the Spanish national church in Rome, immediately below the tombs of Popes Callixtus III and Alexander VI."Italians to Mourn Death of Alfonso," The New York Times. 2 March 1931. In January 1980 his remains were transferred to El Escorial in Spain."21 Guns for Dead King's Homecoming", The Times (21 January 1980): 4. |
Alfonso XIII | Legacy | Legacy
Alfonso was a promoter of tourism in Spain. The need for the lodging of his wedding guests prompted the construction of the luxurious Hotel Palace in Madrid. He also supported the creation of a network of state-run lodges, Paradores, in historic buildings of Spain. His fondness for the sport of football led to the patronage of several "royal" ("real" in Spanish) football clubs, the first being Real Club Deportivo de La Coruña in 1907. Selected others include Real Madrid, Real Sociedad, Real Betis, Real Unión, Espanyol, Real Zaragoza and Real Racing Club.
An avenue in the northern Madrid neighbourhood of Chamartín, Avenida de Alfonso XIII, is named after him. A plaza or town centre in Iloilo City, Philippines (now Plaza Libertad) was named in his honour called Plaza Alfonso XIII. A street in Merthyr Tydfil, in Wales, was built especially to house Spanish immigrants in the mining industry and named Alphonso Street after Alfonso XIII.
Ratoncito Pérez first appeared as the Spanish equivalent to the Tooth Fairy in a 1894 tale written by Luis Coloma for King Alfonso XIII, who had just lost a milk tooth at the age of eight, with the King appearing in the tale as "King Buby". The tale has been adapted into further literary works and movies since then, with the character of King Buby appearing in some. The tradition of Ratoncito Pérez replacing the lost milk teeth with a small payment or gift while the child sleeps is almost universally followed today in Spain and Hispanic America. Alfonso XIII is also mentioned on the plaque that the City Council of Madrid dedicated in 2003 to Ratoncito Pérez on the second floor of number eight of , where the mouse was said to have lived. |
Alfonso XIII | Personal life | Personal life |
Alfonso XIII | Legitimate and illegitimate children | Legitimate and illegitimate children
thumb|King Alfonso XIII and Queen Victoria Eugenie with their children at Santander's Palacio de la Magdalena. Standing, from left to right: Infanta María Cristina, the Prince of Asturias and Infanta Beatriz. Seated, from left to right: Infante Jaime, the Queen, the King, Infante Gonzalo and Infante Juan seated on ground.
Alfonso and his wife Princess Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg (Ena) had seven children:
Alfonso, Prince of Asturias (10 May 1907 – 6 September 1938);
Infante Jaime, Duke of Segovia (23 May 1908 – 20 March 1975);
Infanta Beatriz (22 June 1909 – 22 November 2002);
Infante Fernando (stillborn 21 May 1910);
Infanta María Cristina (12 December 1911 – 23 December 1996);
Infante Juan, Count of Barcelona (20 June 1913 – 1 April 1993);
Infante Gonzalo (24 October 1914 – 13 August 1934).
Alfonso also had a number of reported illegitimate children that are known, including:
Roger Marie Vincent Philippe Lévêque de Vilmorin (1905–1980; by French aristocrat Mélanie de Gaufridy de Dortan, married to Philippe de Vilmorin); XII. Roger de Vilmorin, sur Dynastie capétienne, consulté le 9 September 2013 Jean-Fred Tourtchine (préf. Juan Balansó), Les manuscrits du C.E.D.R.E. – dictionnaire historique et généalogique, numéro 6: Le royaume d'Espagne, vol. 3, Cercle d'Études des Dynasties Royales Européennes, Paris, 1996, 213 p.
Juana Alfonsa Milán y Quiñones de León (1916–2005; by Alfonso's governess Béatrice Noon);
Anna María Teresa Ruiz y Moragas (1925–1965; by Spanish actress Carmen Ruiz Moragas)
(1929–2016; by Spanish actress Carmen Ruiz Moragas);
Carmen Gravina (1926–2006; by Carmen de Navascués). |
Alfonso XIII | Attitude towards Jews | Attitude towards Jews
Alfonso was known for his friendly attitude towards Jews and publicly praised them. He took several actions to offer them protection. In 1917, Alfonso instructed the Spanish consul in Jerusalem, Antonio de la Cierva y Lewita, Count of Ballobar, to help protect Palestinian Jews. On another occasion, after a high official in Tetuan had committed onslaughts against Jews, a delegation composed of Catholics, Jews, and Muslims appealed to Alfonso. The King then removed the Tetuan official from power, in spite of the fact that the official possessed the support of the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs. According to the Jewish Professor Abraham S.E. Yahuda, Alfonso told Yahuda in private conversations that he would issue no policies of discrimination towards Jews, believing all of his Spanish subjects to be entitled to equal rights and protection. In 1932 his attitude changed and he embraced the Judeo-Masonic-Communist conspiracy theory. |
Alfonso XIII | Pornographic cinema | Pornographic cinema
Alfonso is occasionally referred to as "the playboy king", due in part to his promotion and collection of Spanish pornographic films, as well as his extramarital affairs. As King, Alfonso commissioned pornographic films through the Barcelona production company Royal Films, with the Count of Romanones acting as an intermediary figure between him and the company. Between forty and seventy pornographic films are said to have been shot in total (three of which have been preserved) and were screened in Barcelona's Chinatown, as well as during Alfonso's private screenings. The films, while silent and in black and white, were nonetheless very explicit for the time, showing full nudity and sex scenes. These films featured content considered immoral and degenerate, including sexual relationships involving Catholic priests, lesbianism, and "women with enormous breasts" (the last of which is said to have been Alfonso's passion). Most of these films were later destroyed during Franco's regime.
This has led some to speculate that Alfonso may have possessed a sexual addiction. |
Alfonso XIII | Heraldry | Heraldry |
Alfonso XIII | Honours | Honours |
Alfonso XIII | Honorary appointments | Honorary appointments
General of the British Army, 17 May 1905
Field Marshal of the British Army, 3 June 1928 |
Alfonso XIII | Spanish honours | Spanish honours
1,072nd Knight of the Golden Fleece, 1886Collier, William Miller. (1912). At the Court of His Catholic Majesty, pp. 35–36; Order of the Golden Fleece.
Grand Cross of the Order of Charles III, with Collar, 1886Miller, pp. 37–38; Orden de Carlos III (in Spanish) .
Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic, with Collar, 1927
Order of SantiagoMiller, pp. 39–39; Order of Santiago .
Order of CalatravaMiller, pp. 39–39; Order of Calatrava .
Order of AlcántaraMiller, pp. 39–39; Order of Alcántara .
Order of MontesaMiller, pp. 39–39; Order of Montesa .
Maestranza de caballería (Royal Cavalry Armory) of Ronda, Sevilla, Granada, Valencia and Zaragoza
Founder of the Civil Order of Alfonso XII, 23 May 1902
Founder of the Order of Civil Merit, 25 June 1926Publication by Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, pages 117–119 |
Alfonso XIII | Foreign honours | Foreign honours
In the Royal Library of Madrid, there are books containing emblems of the Spanish monarch. |
Alfonso XIII | Ancestry | Ancestry
Alfonso XIII is a rare example of endogamy. In the eleventh generation he is assumed to only have 111 ancestors whereas in a standard situation one expects to identify 1024 of them, a situation of implex of 89%.Jean-Louis Beaucarnot, Quoi de neuf dans la Famille, Buchet-Chastel, 2021, page 97. The biological paternity of Alfonso's father Alfonso XII on the part of Francisco de Asís is however very much in doubt. |
Alfonso XIII | See also | See also
1902 Copa de la Coronación
List of covers of Time magazine (1920s), (1930s) |
Alfonso XIII | Notes | Notes |
Alfonso XIII | References | References |
Alfonso XIII | Bibliography | Bibliography
Churchill, Sir Winston. Great Contemporaries. London: T. Butterworth, 1937. Contains the most famous single account of Alfonso in the English language. The author, writing shortly after the Spanish Civil War began, retained considerable fondness for the ex-sovereign.
Collier, William Miller. At the Court of His Catholic Majesty. Chicago: McClurg, 1912. The author was American ambassador to Spain from 1905 to 1909.
Noel, Gerard. Ena: Spain's English Queen. London: Constable, 1984. Considerably more candid than Petrie about Alfonso, the private man, and about the miseries the royal family experienced because of their haemophiliac children.
Petrie, Sir Charles. King Alfonso XIII and His Age. London: Chapman & Hall, 1963. Written as it was during Queen Ena's lifetime, this book necessarily omits the King's extramarital affairs; but it remains a useful biography, not least because the author knew Alfonso quite well, interviewed him at considerable length, and relates him to the wider Spanish intellectual culture of his time.
Pilapil, Vicente R. Alfonso XIII. Twayne's rulers and statesmen of the world series 12. New York: Twayne, 1969.
Sencourt, Robert. King Alfonso: A Biography. London: Faber, 1942. |
Alfonso XIII | External links | External links
Historiaantiqua. Alfonso XIII; (2008)
Visit by Alphonso XIII to Deauville in 1922 (with images)
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Alfonso XIII | Table of Content | Short description, Reign, Early life and education, Engagement and marriage, World War I, Cracking of the system and dictatorship, Dethronement and politics in exile, Death, Legacy, Personal life, Legitimate and illegitimate children, Attitude towards Jews, Pornographic cinema, Heraldry, Honours, Honorary appointments, Spanish honours, Foreign honours, Ancestry, See also, Notes, References, Bibliography, External links |
Alfonso the Battler | Short description | Alfonso I (7 September 1134), called the Battler or the Warrior (), was King of Aragon and Navarre from 1104 until his death in 1134. He was the second son of King Sancho Ramírez and successor of his brother Peter I. With his marriage to Urraca, queen regnant of Castile, León and Galicia, in 1109, he began to use, with some justification, the grandiose title Emperor of Spain, formerly employed by his father-in-law, Alfonso VI. Alfonso the Battler earned his sobriquet in the Reconquista. He won his greatest military successes in the middle Ebro, where he conquered Zaragoza in 1118 and later took Ejea, Tudela, Calatayud, Borja, Tarazona, Daroca, and Monreal del Campo. He died in September 1134 after an unsuccessful battle with the Muslims at the Battle of Fraga.
Alfonso's nickname comes from the Aragonese version of the Chronicle of San Juan de la Peña (c. 1370), which says that "they called him lord Alfonso the battler because in Spain there wasn't as good a knight who won twenty-nine battles" (clamabanlo don Alfonso batallador porque en Espayna no ovo tan buen cavallero que veynte nueve batallas vençió).Carmen Orcástegui Gros (ed.), "Crónica de San Juan de la Peña (Versión aragonesa)", Cuadernos de Historia Jerónimo Zurita, 51–52 (Zaragoza, Institución «Fernando el Católico», 1985), p. 459. |
Alfonso the Battler | Early life | Early life
His earliest years were passed in the monastery of Siresa, learning to read and write and to practice the military arts under the tutelage of Lope Garcés the Pilgrim, who was repaid for his services by his former charge with the county of Pedrola when Alfonso came to the throne.
During his brother's reign, he participated in the taking of Huesca (the Battle of Alcoraz, 1096), which became the largest city in the kingdom and the new capital. He also joined El Cid's expeditions in Valencia. His father gave him the lordships of Biel, Luna, Ardenes, and Bailo.
A series of deaths put Alfonso directly in line for the throne. His brother's children, Isabella and Peter (who married María Rodríguez, daughter of El Cid), died in 1103 and 1104 respectively. |
Alfonso the Battler | Matrimonial conflicts | Matrimonial conflicts
A passionate fighting-man (he fought twenty-nine battles against Christian or Moor), he was married (when well over 30 years and a habitual bachelor) in 1109 to the ambitious Queen Urraca of León, a passionate woman unsuited for a subordinate role. The marriage had been arranged by her father Alfonso VI of León in 1106 to unite the two chief Christian states against the Almoravids, and to supply them with a capable military leader. But Urraca was tenacious of her right as queen regnant and had not learnt chastity in the polygamous household of her father. Husband and wife quarrelled with the brutality of the age and came to open war, even placing Urraca under siege at Astorga in 1112. Alfonso had the support of one section of the nobles who found their account in the confusion. Being a much better soldier than any of his opponents he won the Battle of Candespina and the Battle of Viadangos, but his only trustworthy supporters were his Aragonese, who were not numerous enough to keep Castile and León subjugated. The marriage of Alfonso and Urraca was declared null by the pope, as they were second cousins, in 1110, but he ignored the papal nuncio and clung to his liaison with Urraca until 1114. During his marriage, he had called himself "King and Emperor of Castile, Toledo, Aragón, Pamplona, Sobrarbe, and Ribagorza" in recognition of his rights as Urraca's husband; of his inheritance of the lands of his father, including the kingdom of his great-uncle Gonzalo; and his prerogative to conquer Andalusia from the Muslims. He inserted the title of imperator on the basis that he had three kingdoms under his rule. |
Alfonso the Battler | Church relations | Church relations
thumb|A denarius of Alfonso's, minted at Jaca, bearing his effigy and the inscription ANFUS-REX ARA-GON (Anfusus rex Aragonensium, King Alfonso of Aragon).
The king quarrelled with the church, and particularly the Cistercians, almost as violently as with his wife. As he defeated her, so he drove Archbishop Bernard into exile and replaced the abbot of Sahagún with his brother. He was finally compelled to give way in Castile and León to his stepson, Alfonso VII of Castile, son of Urraca and her first husband. The intervention of Pope Calixtus II brought about an arrangement between the old man and his young namesake.
In 1122 in Belchite, he founded a confraternity of knights to fight against the Almoravids. It was the start of the military orders in Aragon. Years later, he organised a branch of the Militia Christi of the Holy Land at Monreal del Campo. |
Alfonso the Battler | Military expansion | Military expansion
Alfonso spent his first four years as king in near-constant war with the Muslims. In 1105, he conquered Ejea and Tauste and refortified Castellar and Juslibol. In 1106, he defeated Ahmad II al-Musta'in of Zaragoza at Valtierra. In 1107, he took Tamarite de Litera and San Esteban de Litera.
Then followed a period dominated by his relations with Castile and León through his wife, Urraca. He resumed his conquests in 1117 with Fitero, Corella, Cintruénigo, Murchante, Monteagudo, and Cascante.
In 1118, the Council of Toulouse declared a crusade to assist in the conquest of Zaragoza. Many Frenchmen consequently joined Alfonso at Ayerbe. They took Almudévar, Gurrea de Gállego, and Zuera, besieging Zaragoza itself by the end of May. The city fell on 18 December, and the forces of Alfonso occupied the Azuda, the government tower. The great palace of the city was given to the monks of Bernard. Promptly, the city was made Alfonso's capital. Two years later, in 1120, he defeated a Muslim army intent on reconquering his new capital at the Battle of Cutanda. He promulgated the fuero of tortum per tortum, facilitating taking the law into one's own hands, which among others reassumed the Muslim right to dwell in the city and their right to keep their properties and practice their religion under their own jurisdiction as long as they maintained tax payment and relocated to the suburbs.
thumb|upright|Modern statue of Alfonso as a warrior in the Parque Grande José Antonio Labordeta, Zaragoza
In 1119, he retook Cervera, Tudejen, Castellón, Tarazona, Ágreda, Magallón, Borja, Alagón, Novillas, Mallén, Rueda, Épila and populated the region of Soria. He began the siege of Calatayud, but left to defeat the army at Cutanda trying to retake Zaragoza. When Calatayud fell, he took Bubierca, Alhama de Aragón, Ariza, and Daroca (1120). In 1123, he besieged Lleida, which was in the hands of the count of Barcelona. From the winter of 1124 to September 1125, he was on a risky expedition to Peña Cadiella deep in Andalusia.
In the great raid of 1125, he carried away a large part of the subject Christians from Granada, and in the south-west of France, he had rights as king of Navarre. From 1125 to 1126, he was on campaign against Granada, where he was trying to install a Christian prince, and Córdoba, where he got only as far as Motril. In 1127, he reconquered Longares, but simultaneously lost all his Castilian possessions to Alfonso VII. He confirmed a treaty with Castile the next year (1128) with the Peace of Támara, which fixed the boundaries of the two realms.
He conquered Molina de Aragón and populated Monzón in 1129, before besieging Valencia, which had fallen again upon the Cid's death.
He went north of the Pyrenées in October 1130 to protect the Val d'Aran. Early in 1131, he besieged Bayonne. It is said he ruled "from Belorado to Pallars and from Bayonne to Monreal."
At the siege of Bayonne in October 1131, three years before his death, he published a will leaving his kingdom to three autonomous religious orders based in Palestine and politically largely independent – the Knights Templars, the Hospitallers, and the Knights of the Holy Sepulchre, whose influences might have been expected to cancel one another out. The will has puzzled some historians, who have read it as an unusual gesture of extreme piety, though not out of line with his purported devotion for militant Christianity. Elena Lourie (1975) suggested instead that it was Alfonso's attempt to neutralize the papacy's interest in a disputed succession – Aragon had been a fief of the papacy since 1068 – and to fend off Urraca's son from her first marriage, Alfonso VII of Castile, for the papacy would be bound to press the terms of such a pious testament. Generous bequests to important churches and abbeys in Castile had the effect of making the noble churchmen there beneficiaries who would be encouraged by the will to act as a brake on Alfonso VII's ambitions to break it – and yet among the magnates witnessing the will in 1131 there was not a single cleric. In the event it was a will that his nobles refused to carry out – instead bringing his brother Ramiro from the monastery to assume royal powers – an eventuality that Lourie suggests was Alfonso's hidden intent.
His final campaigns were against Mequinenza (1133) and Fraga (1134), where García Ramírez, the future king of Navarre, and a mere 500 other knights fought with him. It fell on 17 July. He was dead by September. His tomb is in the monastery of San Pedro in Huesca. |
Alfonso the Battler | Death | Death |
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