Mercedes, Princess of Asturias

Noble person

1880 – 1904

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Who was Mercedes, Princess of Asturias?

María de las Mercedes, Princess of Asturias, was the eldest daughter of King Alfonso XII of Spain and his second wife, Maria Christina of Austria. She was for all 24 years of her life, Princess of Asturias, the heiress presumptive to the Crown of Spain.

For a period from 25 November 1885 to 17 May 1886, she was the extant Head of the State of Spain. Had her younger sibling, unborn at the death of Alfonso XII, been a daughter, Mercedes would have become queen regnant of Spain. The sibling proved to be a boy, Alfonso XIII of Spain, and on his birth in 1886, Mercedes lost her latent queenship. She returned to the position of heiress presumptive of Spain, which she held until her own death, and was succeeded in it by her own infant son Alfonso, Alfonso XIII having not yet fathered a child.

Princess Mercedes married in Madrid on 14 February 1901, her second cousin, Prince Carlos of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, a nephew of the King of the then-defunct Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, who was elevated to the rank of Infante of Spain. The marriage was highly controversial due to the Prince's father ties with the Carlist.

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Born
Sep 11, 1880
Madrid
Parents
Spouses
Children
Religion
  • Catholicism
Nationality
  • Spain
Died
Oct 17, 1904
Madrid

Submitted
on July 23, 2013

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