John WOOD to Victoria Louise of Prussia

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

Alfonso XIII, King of Spain

Birth: 1886
Death: 1941, Portugal
Father: Alfonso XII, King of Spain
Mother: Maria Cristina of Austria, Queen of Spain

Family: Victoria Eugenie "Ena", Queen of Spain

Marriage: 1906, Church of, San Jeronimo, Madrid, Spain

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.

Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz

Birth: 1776
Death: 1810

Family: Frederick William III, King of Prussia

Daughter Stillborn
Frederick William IV, King of Prussia
Emperor William I of Germany
Princess Charlotte of Prussia
Frederica
Charles
Alexandrine
Ferdinand
Louisa of Prussia
Prince Albert of Prussia

Frederick William IV, King of Prussia

Birth: 15 OCT 1795, Berlin, Germany
Death: 2 JAN 1861
Father: Frederick William III, King of Prussia
Mother: Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz

Family: Elizabeth (twin) of Bavaria WITTELSBACH

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.

Emperor William I of Germany

Birth: 22 MAR 1797, Berlin, Germany
Death: 9 MAR 1888, Berlin, Germany
Father: Frederick William III, King of Prussia
Mother: Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz

Family: Augusta of Saxe-Weimar

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.