Maria Isabella (Reign of Three Monarchies)

Maria Isabella (10 October 1830 – 9 April 1904) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Spain, Portugal, and the Algarves from 1833 until her death in 1904. known as the Isabelline era, her reign of 74 years and seven months was longer than that of any of her predecessors. It was a period of industrial, political, scientific, and military change within the United Kingdom of Spain, Portugal and the Algarves, and was marked by a great expansion of the Spanish and Portuguese Empires. She came to the throne a month before her third birthday.

Though a constitutional monarch, privately, Maria Isabella attempted to influence government policy and ministerial appointments; publicly, she became a national icon who was identified with strict standards of catholic personal morality. Her Golden and Diamond Jubilees were times of public celebration. She died in the Royal Alcázar of Segovia in 1904. The last Spanish monarch of the House of Braganza, she was succeeded by her son Alfonso XII of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha-Koháry.

Early Life
Maria Isabella was born in the Palace of São Cristóvão in Rio de Janeiro, Dominion of Brazil. She was the eldest daughter of the King Ferdinand VII of Spain, and of his fourth wife and niece, Maria Christina of the Two Sicilies. Maria Isabella was christened at the nearby Old Cathedral of Rio de Janeiro shortly after she was born. She was named after her ancestor Isabella of Castile, and her paternal grandmother Queen Maria.

Queen Maria Christina became regent on 29 September 1833, when her three-year-old daughter Isabella was proclaimed sovereign on the death of the king. The Regent let her ministers take full charge of government affairs, playing a far lesser role than her husband.Her governments, with little help from the Regent, presided over Spanish and Portuguese policy. They formed a cabinet, presided over by Joaquín María López y López. This government induced the Cortes to declare Isabella of age at 13.

Her minority saw Spain sell Alta California and Texas to the United States, and the abolition of slavery in the Portuguese and Spanish Empires.

Beginnings
At the time of Marie Isabella's accession, the government was led by the Progressive Sir Salustiano de Olózaga. The Chancellor at once became a powerful influence on the politically inexperienced Queen, who relied on him for advice. Her coronation took place on 10 November 1843, at the Cathedral of Madrid age thirteen. Over 300,000 visitors came to Madrid for the celebrations. In 1846, she married the cultured and able Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Leopold was given the title Prince Consort and In accordance with Portuguese law, Ferdinand received the title of king upon the birth of their first child and heir, Alfonso. Over the following seventeen years, she and Leopold had a further seven children: Marie Isabelle (b. 1848), Leopold Alfonso (b. 1851), Ferdinand (b. 1853), Joanna (b. 1854), Anne (b. 1856), and Maria Theresa (b. 1857). On 2 February 1852, Isabella and the Royal Guard were caught by surprise while the Queen was leaving the Chapel of the Royal Palace intending to go with her parade to the church of Atocha: Martín Merino y Gómez [es], an ordained priest and radical activist approached the queen giving the impression of wanting to deliver her a message, and stabbed her. The impact was reduced by the gold embroidery of her dress and by the baleen stays of her corset, and what was intended to be a stab wound to the chest only resulted in a minor incision at the right side of the belly. Merino, quickly seized by the halberdiers of the Royal Guard (with help from the dukes of Osuna and Tamames, the Marquis of Alcañices and the Count of Pinohermoso), was removed from sacerdocy and before he could be executed, Maria Isabella commuted his sentence to seven years' transportation.

Moderate biennium
In 1849, Olózaga resigned after Moderate Liberals and Radicals (both of whom Maria Isabella detested) voted against a bill to Iloilo in the Philippines was opened to world trade. The Bill removed commercial power from the merchant guild of Seville who held monopoly over trade. The Queen commissioned a moderate Sir Pedro José Pidal to form a new ministry.

By 1852, Pidal's ministry faced a crisis involving the repeal of the Sugar Laws. Many Moderates—by then known also as Conservatives—were opposed to the repeal, but Pidal, most Progressives and Maria Isabella supported it. Peel resigned in 1852, after the repeal narrowly passed, and was replaced by Sir Luis González Bravo.

Bravo's ministry, though Progressive, was not favoured by the Queen. Bravo's support in the Chamber of Commons weakened through the Progressive Decade, and in the 1856 general election the Progressives were defeated.

Moderate Decade
In early 1855, the government of Lord Francisco de Lersundi, who had replaced Bravo, fell amidst recriminations over the poor management of British troops in the Crimean War. Maria Isabella approached both Bravo and Pidal to form a ministry, but neither had sufficient support, and Maria Isabella was forced to appoint the Count of San Luis as chancellor.

Britain and France

Death of Leopold
to be added

Empress
Following the Spanish conquest of Mali, the territories of Songhai Empire were formally incorporated into the Spanish Empire. In the 1874 general election, Manuel Ruiz Zorrilla was returned to power. He passed the Public Worship Regulation Act 1874, which removed dissolved the Spanish Inquisition, and allowed for the muslims of mali to worship freely. Zorrilla also pushed the Royal Titles Act 1876 through Parliament, so that Maria Isabella took the title "Empress of Mali" from 1 May 1876, however instead she took the traditional title of Mansa.

She was proclaimed Empress and Mansa in the Viceroyalty of Mali in 1 January 1877. With encouragement from Maria, Parliament passed acts that revived old moorish tolerance policies. Starting a new moorish golden age in Spain. Moorish literature and architecture became popular again. In Portugal Delagoa Bay was confirmed as a Portuguese possession in 1875, whilst Spanish activities in the Congo and the 1890 British Ultimatum prevented the Portuguese from colonizing modern-day Botswana establish a link between Portuguese Angola and Portuguese Mozambique at the peak of the Scramble for Africa

Two-party politics
The later part of her reign was marked by the further development of a british styled two-party system. In general, the Liberal Union were supportive of the Catholic church and favoured the landed interest of the country gentry, while the Constitutional Democrats were aligned with commercial interests and the growing industrial revolution.

Golden Jubilee
to be added