count of Barcelona, and of Petronilla, niece of Alphonso the Battler, and daughter of Ramiro surnamed the Monk. He succeeded to the county of Barcelona in 1162 on the death of his father, at the age of eleven, and in 1164 his mother renounced her rights in Aragon in his favour. Though christened Ramon (Raymond), the favourite name of his line, he reigned as Alphonso out of a wish to please his Aragonese subjects, to whom the memory of the Battler was dear. As king of Aragon he took a share in the work of the reconquest, by helping his cousin Alphonso VIII. of Castile to conquer Cuenca, and to suppress one Pero Ruiz de Azagra, who was endeavouring to carve out a kingdom for himself in the debatable land between Christian and Mahommedan. But his double position as ruler both north and south of the eastern Pyrenees distracted his policy. In character and interests he was rather Provençal than Spanish, a favourer of the troubadours, no enemy of the Albigensian heretics, and himself a poet in the southern French dialect. Alphonso III. of Aragon (1285–1291), the insignificant son of the notable Peter III., succeeded to the Spanish and Provençal possessions of his father, but his short reign did not give him time even to marry. His inability to resist the demands of his nobles left a heritage of trouble in Aragon. By recognising their right to rebel in the articles called the Union he helped to make anarchy permanent. Alphonso IV. of Aragon (1327–1336) was a weak man whose reign was insignificant. Alphonso V. of Aragon (1416–1458), surnamed the Magnanimous, who represented the old line of the counts of Barcelona only through women, and was on his father’s side descended from the Castilian house of Trastamara, is one of the most conspicuous figures of the early Renaissance. No man of his time had a larger share of the quality called by the Italians of the day “virtue.” By hereditary right king of Sicily, by the will of Joanna II. and his own sword king of Naples, he fought and triumphed amid the exuberant development of individuality which accompanied the revival of learning and the birth of the modern world. When a prisoner in the hands of Filipo Maria Visconti, duke of Milan, in 1435, Alphonso persuaded his ferocious and crafty captor to let him go by making it plain that it was the interest of Milan not to prevent the victory of the Aragonese party in Naples. Like a true prince of the Renaissance he favoured men of letters whom he trusted to preserve his reputation to posterity. His devotion to the classics was exceptional even in that time. He halted his army in pious respect before the birthplace of a Latin writer, carried Livy or Caesar on his campaigns with him, and his panegyrist Panormita did not think it an incredible lie to say that the king was cured of an illness by having a few pages of Quintus Curtius read to him. The classics had not refined his taste, for he was amused by setting the wandering scholars, who swarmed to his court, to abuse one another in the indescribably filthy Latin scolding matches which were then the fashion. Alphonso founded nothing, and after his conquest of Naples in 1442 ruled by his mercenary soldiers, and no less mercenary men of letters. His Spanish possessions were ruled for him by his brother John. He left his conquest of Naples to his bastard son Ferdinand; his inherited lands, Sicily and Sardinia, going to his brother John who survived him.]
Alphonso XII. (1857–1885), king of modern Spain, son of Isabella II. and Maria Fernando Francisco de Assisi, eldest son of the duke of Cadiz, was born on the 28th of November 1857. When Queen Isabella and her husband were forced to leave Spain by the revolution of 1868 he accompanied them to Paris, and from thence he was sent to the Theresianum at Vienna to continue his studies. On the 25th of June 1870 he was recalled to Paris, where his mother abdicated in his favour, in the presence of a number of Spanish nobles who had followed the fortunes of the exiled queen. He assumed the title of Alphonso XII.; for although no king of united Spain had previously borne the name, the Spanish monarchy was regarded as continuous with the more ancient monarchy, represented by the eleven kings of Leon and Castile already referred to. Shortly afterwards he proceeded to Sandhurst to continue his military studies, and while there he issued, on the 1st of December 1874, in reply to a birthday greeting from his followers, a manifesto proclaiming himself the sole representative of the Spanish monarchy. At the end of the year, when Marshal Serrano left Madrid to take command of the northern army, General Martinez Campos, who had long been working more or less openly for the king, carried off some battalions of the central army to Sagunto, rallied to his own flag the troops sent against him, and entered Valencia in the king’s name. Thereupon the president of the council resigned, and the power was transferred to the king’s plenipotentiary and adviser, Canovas del Castillo. In the course of a few days the king arrived at Madrid, passing through Barcelona and Valencia, and was received everywhere with acclamation (1875). In 1876 a vigorous campaign against the Carlists, in which the young king took part, resulted in the defeat of Don Carlos and his abandonment of the struggle. Early in 1878 Alphonso married his cousin, Princess Maria de las Mercedes, daughter of the duc de Montpensier, but she died within six months of her marriage. Towards the end of the same year a young workman of Tarragona, Oliva Marcousi, fired at the king in Madrid. On the 29th of November 1879 he married a princess of Austria, Maria Christina, daughter of the Archduke Charles Ferdinand. During the honeymoon a pastrycook named Otero fired at the young sovereigns as they were driving in Madrid. The children of this marriage were Maria de las Mercedes, titular queen from the death of her father until the birth of her brother, born on the 11th of September 1880, married on the 14th of February 1901 to Prince Carlos of Bourbon, died on the 17th of October 1904; Maria Teresa, born on the 12th of November 1882, married to Prince Ferdinand of Bavaria on the 12th of January 1906; and Alphonso (see below). In 1881 the king refused to sanction the law by which the ministers were to remain in office for a fixed term of eighteen months, and upon the consequent resignation of Canovas del Castillo, he summoned Sagasta, the Liberal leader, to form a cabinet. Alphonso died of phthisis on the 24th of November 1885. Coming to the throne at such an early age, he had served no apprenticeship in the art of ruling, but he possessed great natural tact and a sound judgment ripened by the trials of exile. Benevolent and sympathetic in disposition, he won the affection of his people by fearlessly visiting the districts ravaged by cholera or devastated by earthquake in 1885. His capacity for dealing with men was considerable, and he never allowed himself to become the instrument of any particular party. In his short reign peace was established both at home and abroad, the finances were well regulated, and the various administrative services were placed on a basis that afterwards enabled Spain to pass through the disastrous war with the United States without even the threat of a revolution.
Alphonso XIII. (1886–), king of Spain, son of Alphonso XII., was born, after his father’s death, on the 17th of May 1886. His mother, Queen Maria Christina, was appointed regent during his minority (see Spain: History). In 1902, on attaining his 16th year, the king assumed control of the government. On the 31st of May 1906 he married Princess Victoria Eugénie Julia Ena Maria Christina of Battenberg, niece of Edward VII. of England. As the king and queen were returning from the wedding they narrowly escaped assassination in a bomb explosion, which killed and injured many bystanders and members of the royal procession. An heir to the throne was born on the 10th of May 1907, and received the name of Alphonso.
Authorities.—The lives of all the early kings of Spain will be found in the general histories (see the article Spain: Authorities), of which the most trustworthy is the Anales de la Corona de Aragon, by Geronimo Zurita (Saragossa, 1610). See also the Chronicles of the Kings of Castile in the Biblioteca de Autores Españoles de Rivadeneyra (Madrid, 1846–1880, vols. 66, 68, 70). (D. H.)
ALPHONSUS A SANCTA MARIA, or Alphonso de Cartagena (1396–1456), Spanish historian, was born at Carthagena, and succeeded his father, Paulus, as bishop of Burgos. In 1431 he was deputed by John II., king of Castile, to attend the council of Basel, in which he made himself conspicuous by his learning. He was the author of several works, the principal of which is entitled Rerum Hispanorum Romanorum imperatorum, summorum pontificum, nec non regum Francorum anacephaleosis.
