Infanta María de las Mercedes of Spain (María de las Mercedes Isabel Teresa Cristina Alfonsa Jacinta) (Madrid, 11 September 1880 – Madrid, 17 October 1904), Princess of the Asturias, for all 24 years of her life the Heiress Presumptive of the Spanish Royal Crown, was born as Doña María de las Mercedes de Borbón y Habsburgo-Lorena, eldest daughter of King Alfonso XII of Spain and his second wife Queen Maria Christina of Austria.
For a period from ...
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Infanta María de las Mercedes of Spain (María de las Mercedes Isabel Teresa Cristina Alfonsa Jacinta) (Madrid, 11 September 1880 – Madrid, 17 October 1904), Princess of the Asturias, for all 24 years of her life the Heiress Presumptive of the Spanish Royal Crown, was born as Doña María de las Mercedes de Borbón y Habsburgo-Lorena, eldest daughter of King Alfonso XII of Spain and his second wife Queen Maria Christina of Austria.
For a period from 25 November 1885 to 17 May 1886, she was the extant Head of the State of Spain. Had her younger sibling, unborn at the death of Alfonso XII, been a daughter, Maria Mercedes would have become Queen Regnant of Spain. The sibling proved to be a boy, Alfonso XIII of Spain, and on his birth in 1886, Maria Mercedes lost her latent Queenship. She returned to the position of heiress presumptive of Spain, which she held until her own death, and was succeeded in it by her own infant son Alfonso, Alfonso XIII having not yet fathered a child.
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