Infanta Maria de las Mercedes of Spain
From Freepedia
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Infanta doña Maria de las Mercedes of Spain (1880–1904), Princess of the Asturias, for all 24 years of her life the Heiress Presumptive of the Spanish royal crown, and for a period 1885–1886, the extant Head of the State of Spain, was born as 'Dona Maria de las Mercedes de Borbon y Asburgo-Lorena', eldest daughter of King Alfonso XII of Spain (Don Alfonso de Borbon de Cadiz y Borbon de Espana) and his second wife Maria Christina of Austria, Archduchess, Queen 'Doña Maria Cristina de Asburgo-Lorena y de Asburgo-Lorena', queen consort 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, Her Catholic Majesty, etc. 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.
Infanta Maria Mercedes married in 1901 her kinsman Prince Carlos de Borbon of Sicily, a nephew of the King of the then defunct Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, who was elevated to the titles of Infante of Spain and Royal Prince. She died young, when her children were still infants. Her son Alfonso (1901–1964) who was heir presumptive of Spain 1904–1908, married Alice of Bourbon (the daughter of the Duke of Parma) in 1936, and became in 1960 the Pretender of the crown of Two Sicilies and assumed the traditional title of Duke of Calabria.
