Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XI.djvu/171

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

MARIA CHRISTINA MARIA II. DA GLORIA 159 ling, appeared in 1819. The second revised edition (Berlin, 1827) was adapted to the He- gelian philosophy. His most important his- torical work is the GescJiichte der deutschen Reformation (4 vols., Berlin, 1816-'34), which Bproduces many documentary records. In his Christliche Symbolik (3 vols., Heidelberg, 1810-'14), and his Institutiones Symbolic^ (3d ed., 1830), he took a historical and comparative rather than dogmatic view of the principal hristian creeds. The practical results of his iim to demonstrate the unity and harmony of the Scriptures, the church, and the reason ap- pear in his Entwurf der praktischen Theologie (Berlin, 1837). He published several volumes of minor writings and sermons, was one of the editors of the works of Hegel, and was prom- lent in the controversies excited by the Sym- ililc of Mohler, and the mystical tendencies " Gorres, both of whom he opposed. MARIA CHRISTINA, former queen dowager of Spain, born in Naples, April 27, 1806. Her fa- ther was Francis I., king of the Two Sicilies, and her mother Maria Isabella, daughter of Charles IV. of Spain. She became the fourth wife of Ferdinand VII. of Spain, Dec. 11, 1829, to the consternation of the Carlists, whose hope that the childlessness of the king would secure to his brother Don Carlos the succession to the throne was prostrated by the restoration on March 29, 1830, of the law by which the crown was made heritable by the female line. Maria Christina gave birth to a daughter, afterward Isabella II., on Oct. 10, 1830. In October, 1832, Maria Christina, at the request of the king, took the reins of government into her own hands, and courted popularity by promulgating a general amnesty two weeks afterward. The king resumed the conduct of affairs in Decem- ber, but died Sept. 29, 1833. In his will he appointed Maria Christina regent and guar- dian of Isabella, and of a second daughter, Maria Louisa Fernanda, that she had borne to him in 1832, and who afterward became the wife of Antoine, duke of Montpensier, the youngest son of Louis Philippe. Maria Chris- tina assumed the regency Oct. 2, 1833. Hav- ing conceived a violent passion for Ferdinand Munoz, a private soldier in the royal body guard, whose parents had a tobacco shop at Tarancon, where he was born, she married him secretly, Dec. 28, 1833. Meanwhile she lost >und with the people, partly on account of ler subserviency to the moderado party and to "ranee, to which policy she was instigated by ministers Martinez de la Rosa and Toreno, it chiefly owing to her clandestine relations rith Mufioz. The new charter granted by her ras far from giving satisfaction to the prov- ices, which revolted. In the night of Aug. L3, 1836, a detachment of the provincial mili- led by exaltados, entered her palace of La rranja near Madrid, and after being joined by corps of the guards stationed in the palace, ley compelled the queen regent to dismiss her linisters and swear to the constitution of 532 VOL. xi. 11 1812 ; and a new constitution was promulgated in June, 1837. Her position, however, con- tinued precarious. The ministers, Zea Bermu- dez, Toreno, Martinez de la Rosa, and Isturiz, who were successively at the head of affairs, were unable to restore her popularity. This received the greatest blow from her decree, issued June 15, 1840, in obedience to French influence, which put an end to the old mu- nicipal liberties of Spain. The people rushed to arms, and she abdicated on Oct. 12 in favor of Espartero as regent, and repaired to Paris. After the downfall of Espartero, she returned to Madrid in 1844, and on Oct. 13 she cele- brated her marriage with Mufioz in public, on which occasion she created him duke of Rian- zares. Though Isabella had been declared of age, she continued to intermeddle in public affairs till 1854, when she was expelled from Spain by a new revolutionary movement. She retired with her husband and their ten children to France, where she had purchased the chateau of La Malmaison, which she sold to Napoleon III. in 1861. She then removed to Paris, though residing part of the time at Beaumont lodge, near Windsor, England, which she subsequently sold to the Jesuits to be used as a college. In September, 1864, she returned to Madrid, where she remained till she was driven out with Isabella by the revo- lution of September, 1868, when she went back to Paris, where she now resides. Her hus- band Mufioz died near Havre, Sept. 12, 1873. MARIA II. DA GLORIA, queen of Portugal, born in Rio Janeiro, April 4, 1819, died in Lis- bon, Nov. 15, 1853. Her mother, a daught'er of the emperor Francis I. of Austria, and her grand- father, John VI. of Portugal, both died in 1826, when her father succeeded as Pedro IV. ; but having been made emperor of Brazil in 1822 as Pedro I., he ceded the Portuguese throne to his infant daughter (May 2, 1826), whom he wished to marry his brother Dom Miguel. But the latter, having succeeded (Feb. 26, 1828) his sister the princess Maria as regent duwng his niece's minority, usurped the crown four months afterward, before the queen's arrival in Portugal. Her rights were not established un- til after his final overthrow through a protract- ed civil war, and she was formally recognized as queen in September, 1834. In January, 1835, she married Duke Augustus of Leuchten- berg, who died two months afterward. In the following year she became the wife of Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, to whom she bore three sons (the late king Pedro V., the pres- ent king Louis I., and Prince Augustus) and two daughters. At the instigation of her dic- tatorial prime minister Costa-Cabral, she sub- stituted in 1842 the reactionary charter of 1826 for the liberal constitution of 1820, which she had formally adopted in 1838 ; but Costa- Cabral and his brother were driven from pow- er by an insurrection in 1846, and the deposi- tion of Maria was prevented only by foreign intervention. She discarded Saldanha in 1849'