The Unofficial British Royal Family Pages

Monday 31 May 2004

Britain's Queen of Spain

It’s lucky for the newly wed Prince and Princess of Asturias that their wedding took place in this century; otherwise, it might not have been so prestigiously hailed as Spain’s “Wedding of the Century”. That honor in the 20^th century is reserved for the last Spanish royal wedding to take place in Madrid – one that held many more distinctions and precedents during its time than that of Felipe and Letizia’s recent nuptials. 

On May 31^st, 1906, the late Queen Victoria’s youngest granddaughter, Princess Victoria Eug�nie of Battenberg, married King Alfonso XIII of Spain in a lavish ceremony in Madrid. The new queen consort of Spain may not have been a divorced commoner like Letizia, but Alfonso was no less pioneering in his choice of a bride.  

King since birth, Alfonso began ruling in his own right in 1902 at the age of 16. By 19, he was searching for a suitable bride, and accepted help from Britain’s King Edward VII in the form of a dinner party in London. By visiting Britain that June of 1905, Alfonso became the first king of Spain to set foot in England since Philip II’s last visit in 1557. At the dinner party, Princess Patricia of Connaught, another of Queen Victoria’s granddaughters, went virtually unnoticed by Alfonso, but Princess Victoria Eug�nie – or Ena, as she was known to her family – was another matter entirely.  

By most accounts, Alfonso was instantly attracted to the lovely, fair-haired 17-year-old princess and she to him. The sparks flew and the couple was officially engaged by January 1906, despite objections and even a caution by King Edward himself. Aware that the female descendants of Queen Victoria were all possible carriers of hemophilia, the British king warned his Spanish counterpart of the potential dangers and the likelihood of passing the disease on to his future heirs, but the admonition was ignored.  

On the Spanish side, Alfonso’s mother, Queen Maria Cristina – born an archduchess of Austria – took exception to Ena’s relatively low royal status. Although Ena’s mother, HRH Princess Beatrice, was Queen Victoria’s youngest daughter, her father, Prince Henry of Battenberg, was the product of a morganatic marriage and a mere “Serene Highness” – a style that was passed on to Ena and her brothers. Despite their elevation by Queen Victoria to the level of “Highness” in Britain, they were still considered lesser royalty. To further complicate matters, Ena, who was raised at her grandmother’s court, was a Protestant – baptized in the Church of Scotland and took communion in the Church of England. 

But if love conquers all, it certainly conquered the impediments faced by Alfonso and Ena in their bid to marry. On April 3, 1906, Edward VII granted Ena the style of Royal Highness, effectively giving her equal rank with her fianc�. For her part, Ena took instruction in the Roman Catholic Church and was re-baptized a Catholic two days before her wedding. Hurdles overcome, the wedding took place at St. Jer�nimo church in Madrid, but not without incident. 

After making the groom wait for more than half an hour, Princess Ena finally arrived at the church to the sound of the British national anthem, looking resplendent in a magnificent gown and a tiara that is now the most valuable jewel in the Spanish royal family’s collection. Her arrival hailed the ushering in of a new era for the Spanish Court, widely considered at that time to be among the dullest in Europe. The Spanish people called her “La Reina Hermosa” – The Beautiful Queen. Ena also had the unique honor of making history in her own time, as she was only the second queen of Spain to come from the British Isles, the first being Queen Mary of England, who married the future King Philip II of Spain in 1554. 

Following the ceremony, the King and Queen were leading the royal procession to the palace when an anarchist threw a bomb hidden in a bouquet of flowers directly at their carriage. The bomb bounced off the carriage and exploded nearby, but, miraculously, neither Alfonso nor Ena was hurt, although certain accounts state that Ena’s dress was splattered with the blood of a guard riding next to the carriage. Some 28 people died as a result of the explosion and many considered the event a bad omen for both the marriage and the country. Sadly, it wouldn’t take long for the prediction to come to fruition. 

But before that could happen, Ena did much to change the face of the Spanish monarchy and culture. In addition to infusing the Court with much needed youth and vitality, she introduced Spain to customs like the Christmas tree, golf and horse racing. She was also the first queen of Spain to openly wear cosmetics, smoke, and swim in the less modest, fitted bathing suits beginning to make an appearance. She worked tirelessly for charitable causes and helped organize the Spanish Red Cross. Most importantly, barely a year after the wedding, she fulfilled her primary duty as queen – she produced the vital male heir to the throne, Prince Alfonso. Ironically, this happy moment was the beginning of the end for both her happiness and her marriage. 

During his circumcision, the infant prince’s excessive bleeding led doctors to diagnose him with the dreaded hemophilia. Despite his previous dismissal of Edward VII’s warning, King Alfonso openly blamed his wife and took the view that she had deceived him. He began a long career of infidelities and the marriage deteriorated further when a second son born in 1908 became deaf, a third was stillborn in 1910, and a fifth in 1914 was also discovered to be a hemophiliac. Only their fourth son, Juan – who eventually became heir to the throne – and two daughters were healthy.   

Perhaps marred by personal disappointments, King Alfonso’s political choices proved to be disastrous for both the monarchy, weakened by the specter of hemophilia, and the country, which was already on the path to revolution. Matters came to a head in 1931 when the Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed and the royal family went into voluntary exile. To be precise, Alfonso left Spain for Paris, leaving Ena behind because her two hemophiliac sons were too weak to be moved. Virtually alone with her children in a palace surrounded by an angry mob attempting to force their way in, Ena barely managed to escape with her children and her life. 

The exiled family was reunited in Paris and later lived in Italy, although the marriage was effectively over and Alfonso and Ena ultimately went their own ways. Alfonso died in Rome in 1941, but not before assigning the right of succession to the Spanish throne to his son Juan – father of Spain’s current king, Juan Carlos I. Ena eventually settled permanently in Switzerland, where she died, aged 81, in 1969. The couple was reunited in death in 1985, when Ena’s remains were re-interred in Spain at the Royal Vault at El Escorial. 

One of Ena’s last acts before she died was to return to Spain in 1968 for the baptism of her great-grandson, Prince Felipe, for whom she stood as godmother. It is perhaps fitting that one of the key figures in Spain’s “Wedding of the 20^th Century” played this symbolic role in the life of one of the key figures in the 21^st century version. For those of us fascinated with the British royal family, it is certainly gratifying to know that a member of that family left such an important and lasting impression on the modern Spanish monarchy.

Until next week,

- Tori Van Orden