This is another portrait by Franz Xaver Winterhalter. Isabella was Queen of Spain during the American Civil War. Born in 1830, she acceded to the throne as a baby. The second queen regnant of Spain (ruling in her own right), the other being Isabella of Castile, of Christopher Columbus fame, Isabella had a bone to pick with America, and had since the beginning of her reign.
If you've watched the movie Amistad, then you already know where I'm going with this. Those who want more detail than I'm going to give here, can read more in depth here or here. But very long story short, the Amistad was a ship that was illegally transporting slaves from Africa. In 1839 the slaves upon the Amistad mutinied (if you want to call it that) and took over the ship, and were then picked up near Long Island by an American ship. Isabella claimed the (human) cargo as her own, the naval officers claimed them as salvage property, and if it could be proven that they were born in Africa and not in Cuba as had been put forth by the ship's owner, then they were free.
The case went to the Supreme Court, and it was decided that the slaves were indeed free, and they went home in 1842. Isabella took sharp exception to this decision (keep in mind that she was 11 when this verdict happened), and by the time the American Civil War rolled around she was still demanding compensation from the American government for the loss of this cargo. She was never paid.
Isabella's reign, and really her whole life, was not a happy one. A political pawn since the day she was born, her reign was rife with conflict, corruption and scandal, and she held very little actual power, the bulk of it being in the hands of various regents and officials. When she did attempt to exert control, it was ferociously resented. Deeply unpopular both with her officials and the populace at large, she became the object of scorn and ridicule.
Isabella married at sixteen to her cousin-twice-over, the very effeminate (and the rumors were flying about who he took to his bed...do the math, you'll get it) Francisco of Bourbon, who was a French prince. She protested the marriage mightily, letting few people not know that she couldn't stand the guy. Their marriage was, predictably enough, miserable. Of their twelve children, five reached adulthood, and even in motherhood she couldn't get away from the rumors, this time speculating on who gave her those children, since many insisted it couldn't have been Francisco. If we're being frank here, there was grist for that particular mill. She didn't make a lot of effort to hide her liaisons with various courtiers and political players sympathetic to her regime. But in the end, it did nothing for her image, and she did feel the consequences of it.
She even became the butt of fat jokes, which voluminous clothing didn't hide. When compared side by side to her relatively diminutive husband, it was even worse.
But in 1868, rebellion came calling in the form of Juan Prim and Francisco Serrano, who cut her off from the military that had been the only thing standing between her and chaos. She was forced off the throne, and two years later formally abdicated in favor of her son Alfonso. Gathering up what dignity she had left, she left Spain in what amounted to exile, spending the rest of her days in Paris.
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