Maria Cristina of Bourbon and Maria Cristina of Habsburg: Two regents between the aristocratic and bourgeois ways

Abstract

In the nineteenth century, the primary political function of the queens was to contribute to the stability and perpetuation of the dynasty and the crown, as kings’ wives and mothers of future kings. They maintained the proper functioning of the political system as regents and, as queen mothers they gave back credibility to the monarchy giving way to the new kings. Maria Cristina of Bourbon and Maria Cristina of Habsburg were two women, two queens, who saw their personal life conditioned by being regents and their political career by being women. As the nineteenth century progressed, the royal families were presented as bourgeois families, to contribute to a close and modern image of the crown. However, the differences between the two queens are remarkable because gender models changed throughout the century. Moreover, they represent two very different stages of nineteenth-century monarchy: the starting point – an absolute monarchy – and the arrival point – a constitutional monarchy –. Maria Cristina of Bourbon, with personal anguish and panic to the revolution, lived the final transition between the Old Regime and the Liberal Regime, while Maria Cristina of Habsburg became queen in the golden age of the liberal Restoration, but her regency had to face an important crisis at the end of the century.