NOTES: The Marchioness of Carisbrooke; Cremated at Golders Green
Crematorium. Ashes deposited in the Battenberg Chapel at Whippingham Church,
Isle of Wight. Dau of 2nd Earl of Londesborough
NOTES: Their wedding in 1906 had been attended by an ominous portent when
an anarchist threw a bomb at the royal couple's coach as they were returning
from the church of San Jeronimo in Madrid to the Palacia Real. The explosion
killed twelve spectators and injured over a hundred more, and the shaken Queen
stepped out of the carriage with her shoes and the train of her dress stained with
blood. The royal show went on, however, and the Prince of Wales (the future George
V) proposed his cousins' health at the ensuing luncheon though later admitting that
"it was not easy after the emotions caused by this terrible affair". By 1930
Alfonso's reign had become discredited by its close association with the dictatorship
of General Primo de Rivers whom the king once proudly introduced as "my Mussolini". In
1931 Alfonso was forced to agree to democratic elections in the municipalities and to
the Cortes. Early returns from the municipal elections showed sweeping successes for
republican candidates and soon crowds were in the street demanding Alfonso's abdication.
The King was obliged to leave Spain, though prudently refusing to abdicate or renounce his
rights. The Spanish royal family scattered to different parts of Europe and America and
Alfonso and Ena separated. Though the ensuing Republic was destroyed by Franco's Fascist
rebellion in the civil war of 1936-9, the Generalissimo chose not to restore the monarchy, but
ruled in its place. King Alphonso was killed in an automobile accident in 1941 in Portugal.
NOTES: Reign: 1840-61; After suffering two strokes of paralysis in 1857,
Frederick William became mentally unfit to rule. In 1858 a regency was
established under his brother William, who succeeded to the throne when
Frederick William died.
NOTES: Full name: Wilhelm Friedrich Ludwig, Emperor of Germany (1871-88)
and King of Prussia (1861-88). Upon the accession of his childless brother,
Frederick William IV in 1840, William became heir presumptive to the Prussian
throne. In 1858, after the king was declared insane, William became regent, and
three years later he succeeded to the throne. A firm believer in the divine right
of kings, he declared at his coronation that he "ruled by favor of God, and of no
one else." In 1862 William appointed the Prussian statesman Otto von Bismarck his
chief minister. Subsequently they embarked upon a program of unifying the German
states under Prussian leadership. William was proclaimed German emperor in the palace
at Versailles on Jan. 18, 1871, while his troops were laying siege to the city of
Paris. During his reign William firmly supported the militarism espoused by Bismarck as
well as the latter's antidemocratic and anti-Catholic policies. Two attempts to
assassinate the emperor were made in 1878; on the second occasion he was seriously
wounded.
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