Opera fan, builder of dream palaces, spendthrift, deposed monarch and likely murder victim, Ludwig II was a prototypical “mad king” who may not have been mad at all. Carlota lived on another six decades, never regaining her sanity and remaining sequestered in her family’s 14th-century castle in Belgium. The reinstated Benito Juarez ordered Maximilian’s execution in 1867. When she failed at this she suffered a mental breakdown and was institutionalized. Carlota was sent to Europe to regain support from the French and the pope. ![]() After the French withdrew their troops in 1866, Maximilian and Carlota’s empire was left teetering. In doing so, though, they lost their conservative backers. For three years the royal couple did their best to win over the Mexican people, enthusiastically speaking Spanish as they promoted liberal agendas including land reform and better policies towards the country’s native communities. Maximilian and Carlota arrived in Veracruz, backed by French troops and conservative supporters, and made their way to Mexico City. In 1864 a group of Mexican archconservatives colluded with France’s Napoleon III to depose the liberal president Benito Juaraz and appoint Maximilian emperor of Mexico. At a young age she was married to Maximilian, then the archduke of Austria, and went to live with him in a castle in Italy. Born Charlotte of Belgium, she was the daughter of King Leopold I and the first cousin of Queen Victoria. It would be hard to imagine a stranger life than the one led by Carlota, the first and only Habsburg empress of Mexico. A group of rebels freed Joanna in 1520 and pronounced her sane and fit to rule-but changed their minds after she refused to support them instead of her son and sometime tormentor Charles. When he was concerned that she might try to flee during a plague outbreak, Charles arranged for fake funeral processions to pass by her lodgings, convincing her to stay put. From then on it was Charles who kept his mother imprisoned, creating a fictional world to keep her in isolation. After Ferdinand’s death in 1516, Joanna and her teenage son Charles were made co-monarchs. After Philip’s death in 1506, Joanna’s confinement continued for another decade of her father’s regency. ![]() When a series of deaths made her heir apparent to Isabella’s throne, her husband kept her confined after her mother’s death in an attempt to press his claim (over Ferdinand’s) for the Castilian throne. Born fourth in line to the throne of her parents Ferdinand and Isabella, Joanna was married off to Philip “the Handsome” of Burgundy at age 16. Few queens’ stories are sadder than that of “Juana la Loca,” whose family and rivals colluded to keep her confined in asylums.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |