Sky Eclat
JF-Expert Member
- Oct 17, 2012
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December 6, 1803: Maria Josepha Amalia of Saxony, Queen of Spain, was born in Dresden to Prince Maximilian of Saxony and Princess Carolina of Parma. Their youngest daughter, she lost her mother when she was only a few months old, and she was convent-raised, sparking in her in a fierce Catholic faith. She married King Fernando VII of Spain in 1819 as his third wife, and though he fell in love with her sweet temper, it took a personal letter from the Pope to convince her to conjugate their marriage.
A Lady of Many Names: Maria Josepha Amalia of Saxony
Glorious Georgian dispatches from the long 18th century...
When Maria Josepha Amalia was just a few months old her mother, Caroline of Parma, died and her father, Maximilian, Crown Prince of Saxony, sent the little girl off to be raised in a convent. Here she developed a piety and faith that never left her, even when she left the convent behind to enter the world.
Elsewhere, our old friend Ferdinand VII of Spain was on the hunt for a bride, having been left a widower with no heirs by the death of his second wife, Maria Isabel of Portugal. Prince Maximilian suggested that he might know of just the girl and the match was made, with 25 year old Ferdinand marrying 16 year old Maria Josepha Amalia on 20th October 1819 in Madrid.
The king was enraptured by his new wife's poised and demure demeanour, not to mention her considerable beauty but the young last found life as a bride something of a culture shock. As she struggled to adapt to this new existence the court waited on tenterhooks for an heir to arrive.
And waited.
With two childless marriages behind him, Ferdinand's latest match continued to be fruitless as the queen refused to grant her husband access to her bed, so devout was her faith. Finally Pope Pius VII himself prevailed upon her to at least try for an heir but it was not to be. Rarely seen in public, the young queen died of a fever at home in Aranjuez, leaving her husband bereft.
