Isabella II
Queen of Spain from 1833 to 1868
Isabella II (Spanish: Isabel II, María Isabel Luisa de Borbón y Borbón-Dos Sicilias; 10 October 1830 – 9 April 1904) was Queen of Spain from 1833 until her deposition in 1868. She is the only queen regnant in the history of unified Spain.
Isabella was the elder daughter of King Ferdinand VII and Queen Maria Christina. Shortly before Isabella's birth, her father issued the Pragmatic Sanction to revert the Salic Law and ensure the succession of his firstborn daughter, due to his lack of a son. She came to the throne a month before her third birthday, but her succession was disputed by her uncle, Infante Carlos (founder of the Carlist movement), whose refusal to recognize a female sovereign led to the Carlist Wars. Under the regency of her mother, Spain transitioned from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy, adopting the Royal Statute of 1834 and Constitution of 1837.
In 1843, Isabella was declared of age and began her personal rule. Her reign was a period marked by palace intrigues, back-stairs and antechamber influences, barracks conspiracies, and military pronunciamientos. Her marriage to Francisco de Asís, Duke of Cádiz was an unhappy one, and her personal conduct as well as recurrent rumours of extramarital affairs damaged her reputation. In September 1868, a naval mutiny began in Cádiz, marking the beginning of the Glorious Revolution.
The public source identifies “Isabella II” as queen of Spain from 1833 to 1868. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Isabella, Queen and Spain.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q183085. VIAF identifies the subject as 87748802. The Library of Congress control number is n79065868. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1830, 1904, 1833 and 1868.
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This entry incorporates text from “Isabella II” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.