Speaker 1: Oh my goodness, Oh my goodness, what are you in
Speaker 1: Irish washing? No, actually, it's oh my goodness. Is a
Speaker 1: sound effect that I have in the library somewhere. If
Speaker 1: I need an elderly woman to sound shocked, then you hear,
Speaker 1: oh my goodness. There it is. There, it is, Isn't
Speaker 1: it great? I don't get to use it that often,
Speaker 1: but I try to every chance. I guess, well, this
Speaker 1: is exciting. If you are seeing this, that means you're
Speaker 1: catching us on video for the first time. I don't
Speaker 1: remember where to look. Han't even has forgotten what a
Speaker 1: camera even looks like. We've been so long since we've
Speaker 1: been on camera. Welcome to the Particulous Rommance on video.
Speaker 1: We're hoping to be putting out some nice clips to
Speaker 1: this show this year, maybe even full episodes. We'll see
Speaker 1: what happens. No promises, no promises, We are just experimenting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we have a crazy story today that I'm very excited
Speaker 1: about because it was just full of I mean just full.
Speaker 1: It was just full. And what better episode to start
Speaker 1: our video with. I think our faces will tell a
Speaker 1: tale of their own as we go through this, because
Speaker 1: today we're talking about Ferdinand the seventh who was the
Speaker 1: King of Spain, and he had a big, old weird
Speaker 1: dick and everyone knew it. Uh. I mean, normally this
Speaker 1: wouldn't really matter about somebody. It would just be like
Speaker 1: a just for fun footnote in his life story. And
Speaker 1: sizes exactly sure, you know some some people have small ones,
Speaker 1: some of the big ones, and girthie and so on
Speaker 1: and so forth, and doesn't really matter. No, But in
Speaker 1: Ferdinand's case, his dick caused a succession problem and eventually
Speaker 1: that would change the course of Spanish history when Ferdinand,
Speaker 1: lacking a male heir, had to allow his daughter to
Speaker 1: inherit the throne. So kind of an important dick in history. Surprisingly,
Speaker 1: So let's hear about Ferdinand the seventh weird dick and
Speaker 1: the four Maria's who had to deal with it. All right,
Speaker 1: let's go, hey the French comlution. Well, Elia and Diana
Speaker 1: got some stories to tell. There's no matchmaking a romantic tips.
Speaker 1: It's just about ridiculous relationships. I love. It might be
Speaker 1: any type of person at all, and abstract cons are
Speaker 1: a concrete wall. But if there's a story with the
Speaker 1: second clinch, ridiculous rolenance a production of I heart radio. Okay,
Speaker 1: I want to start with like just a real quick
Speaker 1: rundown on Ferdinand the seventh um, so we can just
Speaker 1: enjoy the wife stories and not have to get into
Speaker 1: all the politics the whole way through. He was heir
Speaker 1: to the throne of Spain in the early nineteenth century.
Speaker 1: He forced his father to abdicate to him and reigned
Speaker 1: for a few months in eighteen o eight, but then
Speaker 1: was himself forced to abdicate by Napoleon Bonaparte. That that
Speaker 1: old hound dog. He imprisoned Ferdinand and his family in
Speaker 1: France and put his older brother, Joseph Bonaparte on the throne. Okay,
Speaker 1: so that's like three kings in a month exactly. The
Speaker 1: Spanish people were just like, okay, who's on the money now,
Speaker 1: or like, what's going on? I just finished signing my checks,
Speaker 1: King Ferdinand, and now I gotta switch at the Napoleon.
Speaker 1: So but by eighteen thirteen, Napoleon had suffered quite a
Speaker 1: lot of setbacks, and he decided to recognize Ferdinand as
Speaker 1: the King of Spain. But Ferdinand realized Spain was a
Speaker 1: little different than when he had left. Joseph Bonaparte had
Speaker 1: instituted a liberal constitution and changed the whole situation into
Speaker 1: kind of a constitutional monarchy instead of a traditional absolute monarchy,
Speaker 1: and so Ferdinand kind of had to promise the Spanish
Speaker 1: liberals that he would uphold that constitution as king before
Speaker 1: they would take him back. So he's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, sure,
Speaker 1: thank guys, absolutely whatever you say. Yeah, whole new constitution.
Speaker 1: Love it. Can't wait to be king under all these
Speaker 1: new rules you set while I was gone. Exact gives gives,
Speaker 1: gives me less power, delightful, I'm totally into it. Booms
Speaker 1: amongst us would not take this deal, so his people
Speaker 1: called him Ferdinand the Desired, and he came back to
Speaker 1: Spain with great finds there and popularity and everyone's into ing.
Speaker 1: But once he was re established, he said forget about
Speaker 1: all that and completely restored absolute monarchy, never gave the
Speaker 1: Spanish people a parliament. They discovered also that he had,
Speaker 1: according to ABC Espana quote, a tacky and vengeful character,
Speaker 1: and so after that they started calling him the Felon King.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, you went from Ferdinand the Desired to the
Speaker 1: Felon King like kind of fast. Well, he spent his
Speaker 1: reign doing some pretty terrible things, including bringing back something
Speaker 1: I never expected the Spanish inquisition. They have to, you
Speaker 1: have to. He would also squash liberal revolt. He clamped
Speaker 1: down on the free press. He jailed a lot of
Speaker 1: writers and publishers. He even arrested liberal ministers himself, which
Speaker 1: made the Austrian diplomat Friedrich von Gentz right that he
Speaker 1: quote had so debased himself that he has become no
Speaker 1: more than the leading police agent and the prison warden
Speaker 1: of his own country. In eighteen twenty, another liberal insurrection
Speaker 1: forced him to restore the liberal constitution that he had
Speaker 1: spurned so quickly when he became king. But ironically, Ferdinand
Speaker 1: turned to France for help, and King Louis the eighteenth
Speaker 1: sent troops to suppress this revolution, which obviously, of course
Speaker 1: France had just locked him up. So I mean strange
Speaker 1: bedfellows girls. Sigro p Roussier writes in an article on
Speaker 1: publications dot com that Ferdinand even ordered that only French
Speaker 1: troops could be his bodyguards because he suspected all the
Speaker 1: Spanish soldiers of having liberal sympathies. Gills writes quote as
Speaker 1: a paradox, some were former grunts of Napoleon and had
Speaker 1: fought him ten years before. Thus, thanks to the help
Speaker 1: of the French, whom he had hated so much, his
Speaker 1: power was firmly established. The last part of his reign
Speaker 1: is known as the Ominous Decade, when he really brought
Speaker 1: back absolutism. Spain during his reign lost pretty much all
Speaker 1: of its territories in South America of course, Mexico we
Speaker 1: have talked before in our Maxi in Carlotta episode. They
Speaker 1: won their independence in one. So sorry, Spain, you lost out.
Speaker 1: Many historians consider him to be shortsighted and despotic, and
Speaker 1: some articles simply call him the worst King of Spain ever.
Speaker 1: But even though he lived through this period of like
Speaker 1: really intense political turmoil, there's multiple wars going on, from
Speaker 1: the Peninsular War to the wars in America of eighteen twelve,
Speaker 1: Bonapartes and Bourbons running all around and conspiring and conspire, chaos,
Speaker 1: all kinds of stuff happening. It's still his romantic life
Speaker 1: that really kind of defines Ferdinand. He was married four times.
Speaker 1: All his wives were named Maria, and all of them
Speaker 1: kind of hated him and his weird dick. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: who's what episode was it before where everyone in Spain
Speaker 1: had the same name. Yes, it was the Royal mistress Mayhem.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, Peter of Castile, like Peter in Portugal. Right,
Speaker 1: they were both Peter the first Yes, and then like
Speaker 1: both their wives were Isabelle or something. It was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, forget them, focus on Ferdinand and his
Speaker 1: four Maria's for this one. And there's more Maria's than
Speaker 1: just them. Everyone is named Maria. Got to it. What's
Speaker 1: the problem with Maria everyone's name? How do you solve
Speaker 1: a problem like everyone being named Maria? Okay, all right,
Speaker 1: we keep talking about this weird dick. So what is
Speaker 1: the deal with this thing? First of all, it was
Speaker 1: a very big dick, which today it's not necessarily something
Speaker 1: people a dislike, but at the time, ancient Greece was
Speaker 1: still seen as like the pinnacle of humanity, and that
Speaker 1: meant that big dicks were kind of unappreciated. True intellectual
Speaker 1: and moral leaders had a nice, polite, small, manageable penises. Polite,
Speaker 1: that's right, deferential, respectful. I'm not trying to steal the
Speaker 1: spotlight or get in anyone's way. The brain is important.
Speaker 1: I'm just down here to do one little job. There's
Speaker 1: a little perfunctory penis right, okay, but it's not just
Speaker 1: the size that makes Ferdinand's dick so unusual. In the
Speaker 1: words of the famous French historian Prosper Maramy, it was
Speaker 1: quote as thin as a stick of ceiling wax at
Speaker 1: its base and thick as a fist at its extremity.
Speaker 1: Also as long as a billiard cue. So it's like
Speaker 1: tapers out. I'm seeing like a like an upside down metronome.
Speaker 1: And also because he says this, it makes me feel
Speaker 1: like it's kind of like weird mushroom dick. Right when
Speaker 1: you the Here's I'm gonna tell you a story. It's
Speaker 1: the only good thing I ever heard Adam Carolla say.
Speaker 1: And it was back when on Love Line they made
Speaker 1: some gross reference to a food in in reference to
Speaker 1: sex organ or a discharge or something, and Adam Corolla said,
Speaker 1: stopped that when you make it a food, I have
Speaker 1: to eat it. And that's how I feel about what
Speaker 1: you just said. I mean, mushrooms are already gross. Well,
Speaker 1: who's going to eat the mushrooms off your plate? Next time?
Speaker 1: You're gonna be stuck with unbelievably all right, let's get
Speaker 1: off of this mushroom dick. That's what all the wives said. Now,
Speaker 1: apparently either the king himself or perhaps one of his wives,
Speaker 1: developed a special cushion that was made to allow them
Speaker 1: to have sex more easily. The website The Making of
Speaker 1: Madrid dot com says it's supported the narrow base quote,
Speaker 1: leaving only the bulbous tips bobbing around for his poor
Speaker 1: mate to straddle evocative. It's evocative. The same website also
Speaker 1: calls him quote a guy with a massive dick who
Speaker 1: was a massive chick. This cushion has been described as
Speaker 1: like thick pads with a perforation in the middle for
Speaker 1: his dick to come through, like some kind of weird
Speaker 1: sex donut. Okay, people, you know what, people like all
Speaker 1: kinds of things people like, and people have to do
Speaker 1: different people have to do different things in order to
Speaker 1: comfortably have sex. And that's very true. And you know what,
Speaker 1: it's not his fault that he was born with a
Speaker 1: strange penis. It just seems like something that would be
Speaker 1: painful to have sex with, possibly possibly possibly and certainly
Speaker 1: disconcerting if that was your only experience with a penis,
Speaker 1: and like many of these women to discuss. And again,
Speaker 1: on top of that, he's a bad person. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: like he's kind of super nice. There has been a
Speaker 1: lot of conversation lately about, you know, if it's body
Speaker 1: shaming to call someone small dick or say something weird
Speaker 1: about their penis or something like that, and I think
Speaker 1: to some degree there is, but also you want to
Speaker 1: cut that person deep, especially these hyper masculine dudes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that are all about their their dick energy. Well, then
Speaker 1: that's what I'm going to come for, right, It's where
Speaker 1: I can hit you weird hurts. Okay. So, now that
Speaker 1: we have a nice, clear, maybe too clear, a picture
Speaker 1: of what exactly these four Maria's had to deal with, um,
Speaker 1: let's find out about them. So Maria number one was
Speaker 1: Ferdinand's first cousin, Maria Antonia of Naples and Sicily. She
Speaker 1: was the daughter of King Ferdinand of Italy and his
Speaker 1: Austrian wife Maria Carolina, and she married Ferdinand the seventh
Speaker 1: and eighteen o two when he was still just the
Speaker 1: Prince of Asturias and not yet the King of Spain.
Speaker 1: He's still prints at this point. They're just trying to
Speaker 1: get his future worked out, to get married off to
Speaker 1: your cousin, and he's not even the king yet. I know, right,
Speaker 1: but they're like, you got one job carry and that's
Speaker 1: too Mary, cousin, spread your steed amongst a very select people.
Speaker 1: Keep it in the family, of course, was the motto
Speaker 1: back then. This family tree is really just a shrub,
Speaker 1: and you will see that more and more as we
Speaker 1: go through. It's like those Banyan trees that are really
Speaker 1: just the same tree, you know, all growing down into
Speaker 1: the ground, just one giant organism. That makes sense. It
Speaker 1: makes sense. That makes it sound cooler than a shrub.
Speaker 1: Maybe it shouldn't sound cool. That's why I kind of
Speaker 1: like it, but I get I get ever saying all right.
Speaker 1: Maria Antonia is described in The Duchess of a Brontese
Speaker 1: Memoirs as being a little serious, with a majestic air.
Speaker 1: But when she smiled quote, her whole face lit up sweetly.
Speaker 1: But she wasn't excited about her cousinly groom Um. National
Speaker 1: World News in Spain writes that when she first saw
Speaker 1: him in person, she was upset by how little he
Speaker 1: resembled the portrait she'd seen of him, saying, quote, in
Speaker 1: the picture he looked ugly well compared to the original.
Speaker 1: It's an adonist out Wow, that's I mean, pretty ice cold. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's still true today. I mean you see someone's profile
Speaker 1: picture and they look a little different in real life.
Speaker 1: You can't really complain obviously. Yeah, that's not not just
Speaker 1: a modern problem. I always wonder that about portraits about
Speaker 1: royals because I'm like, how hard to be the painter
Speaker 1: where you're like, I'm supposed to make this look like you,
Speaker 1: but like also maybe your idealized version of who you
Speaker 1: think you are and what you think you look like,
Speaker 1: like a reverse caricature artist. Yes, let me shrink your
Speaker 1: forehead down. Well, it wasn't just Prince Ferdinand's looks. He
Speaker 1: also did not treat Maria with a lot of respect. Also,
Speaker 1: apparently it took quite a while to introduce her to
Speaker 1: his weird metronome dick. Maria Antonia's mother, Maria Carolina, was
Speaker 1: in close contact with her daughter, and she wrote in
Speaker 1: her diary, quote, my daughter is desperate. Her husband is
Speaker 1: a complete idiot, not even a physical husband, and moreover,
Speaker 1: a rowdy who does nothing and doesn't leave his room.
Speaker 1: A few days later, she bemoans that he quote is
Speaker 1: a fool who neither hunts nor fishes. He does not
Speaker 1: move to the room of his unhappy wife. He cares nothing.
Speaker 1: He is not even her husband in animal form. Wow,
Speaker 1: She's like, I don't even care if like, you're not
Speaker 1: a nice husband, but you won't even have sex with her?
Speaker 1: Right and how weird? Like imagine the correspondence between Maria
Speaker 1: Antonia and her mother being like, damn um today, still
Speaker 1: not fucked. I don't know what it is. So anyway,
Speaker 1: love your daughter. And then a year after the wedding,
Speaker 1: her mother wrote in a letter quote, the husband is
Speaker 1: not yet a husband and does not seem to have
Speaker 1: the desire or ability, which worries me greatly. Now this
Speaker 1: apparently was just a problem that he only had with
Speaker 1: Maria Antonia because he was well known to enjoy the
Speaker 1: company of prostitutes. National World News says that the Marquis
Speaker 1: of via Urutia wrote that Ferdinand quote did not like
Speaker 1: to spend time with the ladies of his court, preferring
Speaker 1: to go out and disguise at night in the company
Speaker 1: of the Duke of Algon, to engage in some games
Speaker 1: outside the palace, which Muslims practiced within the harem. The
Speaker 1: hell does that mean? I don't I was like, I
Speaker 1: mean some of them just like folded clothes and ship
Speaker 1: like the harem is so misunderstood. Sounds a little racist, yeah, exactly. Um,
Speaker 1: but that's not all that poor Maria Antonia had to
Speaker 1: deal with because her mother, Maria Carolina, when she wasn't
Speaker 1: complaining about Ferdinand, was complaining about the French. Maria Carolina
Speaker 1: had named Maria Antonia for her favorite sister, Marie Antoinette,
Speaker 1: and we all know what happened to her. After the
Speaker 1: French revolted and chopped her head off. Maria Carolina decided
Speaker 1: she didn't care for the French that was my sister, exactly,
Speaker 1: got a little piste off, and rumors started to spread
Speaker 1: that Maria Carolina was encouraging her daughter to poison the
Speaker 1: Queen of Spain, who was descended from the French, as
Speaker 1: well as her prime minister and probably lover, Manuel good Doy.
Speaker 1: Now these were just rumors and highly unlikely to be
Speaker 1: true because these Maria's Carolina and her daughter Antonia, they
Speaker 1: were very devout Catholics, so it's unlikely that they would go,
Speaker 1: you know, murder regent because God chose the regents and
Speaker 1: all that stuff. Yeah, and it's not like Spain's ties
Speaker 1: to France for any greater than anyone else's. So what
Speaker 1: would be the point of killing the Queen of Spain.
Speaker 1: But this queen that they were supposedly trying to poison.
Speaker 1: Maria Luisa did not like Maria Antonia, who was her
Speaker 1: daughter in law, so she decided that she would feed
Speaker 1: these rumors. She would inspect Maria Antonia's papers and belongings
Speaker 1: to search for evidence. Stuff like that. Just be like,
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure we need to keep a close eye
Speaker 1: on my daughter in law because she and her mother
Speaker 1: are trying to poison me. Can't trust her. So this
Speaker 1: lent credence to the rumors and just kind of made
Speaker 1: Maria Antonia's life even more uncomfortable, which it must have
Speaker 1: gotten because eventually Ferdinand did make it to her bed
Speaker 1: to consummate their marriage. Maria Antonia was pregnant twice, but
Speaker 1: both ended in miscarriages. In eighteen oh six, Maria Antonia
Speaker 1: succumbed to tuberculosis and she died at the age of
Speaker 1: twenty one. Rumors exploded again, of course, that she had
Speaker 1: actually been poisoned by her mother in law, The Queen
Speaker 1: Maria Luisa end her Prime Minister Manuel Goodoy the very
Speaker 1: people they had been accused of trying to poison. Prime
Speaker 1: Minister Goodoy was not only having an affair with the queen,
Speaker 1: but he was like best buds with the current heir
Speaker 1: to the throne, Ferdinand's little brother, Carlos the Fourth. Maria Carolina,
Speaker 1: Maria Antonia's real mother, believed these rumors, but there is
Speaker 1: no evidence to back them up. And people really did
Speaker 1: love poisoning rumors back then, so you know, we can
Speaker 1: probably dismiss that one too. She died of tuberculosis, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: She she had a very bad disease. So, right, poison
Speaker 1: is not required, right, right, right. But I think one
Speaker 1: of the main things to take away from that is
Speaker 1: that there is Carlos the Fourth who's in line for
Speaker 1: the throne. If Ferdinand does not produce an air, that's right, right,
Speaker 1: So if he doesn't have a son, then his little brother,
Speaker 1: Carlos is going to end up king. If Ferdinand, you know,
Speaker 1: should come to the worst, if the worst should happen,
Speaker 1: or the best, depending on your point of Ferdinand. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it depends on your opinion of Ferdinand. So Maria Antonio
Speaker 1: was dead, and this was a problem because Ferdinand, you know,
Speaker 1: didn't have his own air to carry on the succession,
Speaker 1: but eventually he was King of Spain and he's like,
Speaker 1: I want this absolute monarchy, and so that meant it
Speaker 1: was really important to get working on a baby again.
Speaker 1: And that brings us to Maria number two, and we
Speaker 1: will hear all about her right after this commercial break.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the show, everybody. So, Maria number two
Speaker 1: was Ferdinand's niece, Maria Isabel in fronta of Portugal. Maria
Speaker 1: Isabel's mother, Carlotta of Spain, was Ferdinand's sister. She had
Speaker 1: married King John the sixth of Portugal, but they had
Speaker 1: a very unhappy marriage. Carlotta made John's life basically hell
Speaker 1: on earth because she was constantly conspiring against him, either
Speaker 1: to advance her own interests or to who advanced the
Speaker 1: interests of her native Spain over Portugal, where she now
Speaker 1: lived and ruled. She even tried to have John deemed
Speaker 1: insane and unfit to rule. So just a chaotic household
Speaker 1: for Maria Isabel to grow up in. But Maria Isabel
Speaker 1: was smart. She was a well educated woman. She knew
Speaker 1: several languages, and she and King Ferdinand married in eighteen sixteen,
Speaker 1: when she was nineteen years old and he was thirty two. Now.
Speaker 1: He took less time to get to her bedroom than
Speaker 1: he had with his first wife, Maria, and she got
Speaker 1: pregnant pretty quickly, giving birth to a baby girl, but
Speaker 1: she sadly died only four to five months after being born.
Speaker 1: Maria Isabel got pregnant again in eighteen eighteen, but this
Speaker 1: delivery turned really tragic. The baby was in breach, which
Speaker 1: means that it was being born bottom first rather than
Speaker 1: head first, which makes the delivery much riskier. At one point,
Speaker 1: doctors thought that Maria Isabel had died she wasn't breathing,
Speaker 1: but her sister Maria Francisca, who was married to Ferdinand's
Speaker 1: brother Carlos. Again, this tree is a shrub. She kept
Speaker 1: insisting that her sister was still alive, but Ferdinand and
Speaker 1: the doctors didn't believe her, and Ferdinand ordered them to
Speaker 1: perform a Cesarean section to remove the baby. Halfway through
Speaker 1: the operation, Maria Isabel woke up screaming from the pain
Speaker 1: and bleeding profusely. Fernando Gonzalez Doria, in his book Las
Speaker 1: Arenas wrote, quote, the mother gave such a cry that
Speaker 1: she was not dead yet as the doctors believed, which
Speaker 1: made it a dreadful butchery. God, this is this was
Speaker 1: literally like the House of the Dragon. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: this exact story kicked off that show exactly the same.
Speaker 1: I know, I was like the same. The Game of
Speaker 1: Thrones period must have been hot, highly up in Spanish snobility. Sure,
Speaker 1: George R. Martin traveled forward in time, listened to our
Speaker 1: show and then went back and wrote Game of Thrones
Speaker 1: and all of its as Larry material based on these
Speaker 1: stories that we're telling. You're welcome, George, so very sadly,
Speaker 1: Maria Isabel died a few hours later in great pain,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't even worth it, really because the baby
Speaker 1: also had died before they even were cutting it out,
Speaker 1: so killed or really for no reason. But she had
Speaker 1: used her time as queen very wisely. She was a
Speaker 1: huge fan of the fine arts, and she started collecting
Speaker 1: paintings and sculpture to open a national museum, and this
Speaker 1: museum would become the Prado Museum in Madrid, which is
Speaker 1: considered to be one of the finest museums in Europe
Speaker 1: and basically the only good part of Ferdinand's legacy. But
Speaker 1: fortunately Maria Isabel's posthumous portrait by Bernardo Lopez Picure clearly
Speaker 1: names her as the founder of the museum, so she
Speaker 1: gets all her due credit, even though it's part of
Speaker 1: his legacy. Right Still, like we almost died that. So
Speaker 1: now Ferdinand is thirty five years old and he's twice widowed.
Speaker 1: Still he has no heirs, and that brings us to
Speaker 1: Maria number three, Maria josepha Amalia of Saxony. Yes, for
Speaker 1: once Ferdinand found a bride that was not directly related
Speaker 1: to him. Hooray, really really accomplished something special there, Ferdinand,
Speaker 1: you did it. Now. Her father, the crown Prince Maximilian
Speaker 1: of Saxony, knew that Ferdinand was looking for a fertile,
Speaker 1: young bride, and he suggests that his younger daughter could
Speaker 1: be the answer to his problems. She was sixteen years old,
Speaker 1: and after her mother died when she was only a
Speaker 1: few months old, she had been sent to a convent
Speaker 1: to be raised by nuts. So this girl was naive
Speaker 1: and shy and very sweet and very very religious. Ferdinand
Speaker 1: met her and he was quote and thralled by her.
Speaker 1: So they got married in October of eighteen nineteen. Apparently
Speaker 1: he just really fell in love with her because she
Speaker 1: had such a kind demeanor. But their wedding night was
Speaker 1: a disaster because, like we said, Maria Josepha was raised
Speaker 1: in a convent. She had not been told one single
Speaker 1: youthful thing about sex or reproduction. They don't do sex
Speaker 1: out at the convent, not so much. And I mean
Speaker 1: even if they had, who could have prepared her for
Speaker 1: a sex pillow, you know, like a weird sex donut. So,
Speaker 1: you know, at this time is pretty common, of course
Speaker 1: for your mother or a married sister, or a married
Speaker 1: sister in law even to kind of have the birds
Speaker 1: and bees talk with a new bride. She's like, here's
Speaker 1: how to put a condom on on a banana, but
Speaker 1: for him, let's use an upside down summer squash. I know, here,
Speaker 1: I am making it a food. I know, why don't
Speaker 1: you just you just yelled at me. Well anyway, so yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, your mom, your sister, whatever. But of course
Speaker 1: Maria Joseph didn't have a mother, and her sister in
Speaker 1: law was be a Francisca who was probably still pretty
Speaker 1: piste off about her sister getting cut up and just
Speaker 1: refused to talk to Maria Josepha. She was the one
Speaker 1: who said, no, she's still alive, exactly right. So she
Speaker 1: was just kind of like, I'm not I'm not helping
Speaker 1: y'all out with ship. Yeah, this family sucks exactly. So
Speaker 1: poor Maria Josepha was alone in a lot of ways
Speaker 1: when Ferdinand, lacking any finesse whatsoever, entered her bed chamber
Speaker 1: completely naked. Now we know what monstrous dick this poor
Speaker 1: girl was confronted with. So maybe it does not surprise
Speaker 1: you to learn that she ran screaming from her room
Speaker 1: in terror. Oh god, but you could just see like
Speaker 1: one of the poor palace guards, like just hanging out
Speaker 1: on a dark holliway at night, you know, and all
Speaker 1: of a sudden the queen comes birthday robe flying and
Speaker 1: running down the hall. Okay, of course that really piste
Speaker 1: off Ferdinand. He did not like that, even though it
Speaker 1: really feels like it cannot the first time that that's happened.
Speaker 1: So anyway, he wasn't happy about this. Everybody's like, we
Speaker 1: got to fix this. So Maria Francisco, the sister in law,
Speaker 1: was like fine, and she sat Maria Josepha down and
Speaker 1: she's like, girl, it is not a sin to fuck
Speaker 1: your husband. Okay. In fact, that's kind of why you're here,
Speaker 1: all right, So why don't you just lie back and
Speaker 1: think of Spain or whatever they were telling these four
Speaker 1: queens back in the day. Well, Maria Josepha was like, okay,
Speaker 1: all right, give me another shot. I got this, plumb,
Speaker 1: mean coach, I got this. She went back to her
Speaker 1: bed chamber where Ferdinand was, you know, presumably still just
Speaker 1: sitting their pants off. This weird dick. They're waiting for her,
Speaker 1: and they tried again, but this time she was still
Speaker 1: so terrified that when he approached her with this dick
Speaker 1: swinging around, she freaked out so hard that she pissed
Speaker 1: and shipped herself in fear. Oh my god, it's like
Speaker 1: not funny, But it's not. It's you're a terrible person.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, so sorry, because I'm like, I really have
Speaker 1: a lot of sympathy. She's only six. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: it's horrible. Once told her a word and how she
Speaker 1: has the weirdest penis you can conceive of in front
Speaker 1: of her, and she's like, the funk am I supposed
Speaker 1: to do with this? But it is funny to think
Speaker 1: of this amorous king trying to get it on and
Speaker 1: she's it's loney tune's logic for sure. Well, obviously this
Speaker 1: kind of killed the mood. Fernand still really angry, and
Speaker 1: he just stormed out of the room. And after that
Speaker 1: she refused to have sex with him for a long time.
Speaker 1: She said, quote, what the king wants from me is
Speaker 1: a mortal sin. Poor girl. It took the Pope himself,
Speaker 1: Pious the Seventh, to get her to agree. He wrote
Speaker 1: her a personal letter promising her that it was not
Speaker 1: against the Christian really jen to have sex with her husband.
Speaker 1: In fact, it was her duty to provide an air
Speaker 1: and secure the succession. So back she went to the
Speaker 1: bedroom of Ferdinand and they did finally consummate the marriage,
Speaker 1: although according to author jose and Donio vindal Salis, she
Speaker 1: quote always trembled with anguish and fear when she went
Speaker 1: into his room to have sex. Sad. Yeah. She also
Speaker 1: apparently made it a requirement that they pray the Rosary
Speaker 1: first each and every time that they did it, and
Speaker 1: Vidale Salis wrote quote, in ten years of marriage like this,
Speaker 1: Ferdinand would have prayed more than he had in his
Speaker 1: entire damn life. Oh this poor girl. I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't know if she was like trembling with anguish and fear,
Speaker 1: just because she clearly was not interested in sex it
Speaker 1: sounded terrifying to her. Or if it was like bad,
Speaker 1: like if he was doing bad things, or if it
Speaker 1: was uncomfortable, like painful, just to just even if he
Speaker 1: was as tender as you would wish, just might be
Speaker 1: one of those things. It's just you're not compatible on
Speaker 1: that way. Um. I love the pope was like, girl,
Speaker 1: how many he's like? I can't wait to be pope
Speaker 1: and dedicate myself to the Bible and God. Actually I
Speaker 1: spent most of my time convincing royals to have sex
Speaker 1: with each other. Well, even despite all of this very
Speaker 1: bad beginning with their wedding night and how much she
Speaker 1: made him pray before they had sex and everything else,
Speaker 1: Ferdinand really seems to have loved her. In his eighteen
Speaker 1: twenty four memoirs Uh, he wrote that she was quote
Speaker 1: distinguished no less by the gracefulness of her person than
Speaker 1: by the elevation of her mind, and appears determined not
Speaker 1: to take any part in public affairs, which I guess
Speaker 1: he appreciated. And yeah, in fact, she mostly withdrew from
Speaker 1: public life altogether when she died as the result of
Speaker 1: a fever in May eighty nine. Ferdinand was heartbroken. But
Speaker 1: Maria Josepha, even though she's swallowed her fears and took
Speaker 1: the king to bed with her, never did get pregnant
Speaker 1: in all those ten years they were together. So Ferdinand
Speaker 1: had to find another bride and fast, because he's now
Speaker 1: forty five, he's only getting older. And that brings us
Speaker 1: to Maria number four, and we will tell you all
Speaker 1: about her right after these words. Welcome back, everybody. So
Speaker 1: Ferdinand is thrice widowed now and still has no heirs.
Speaker 1: He's getting old, and he was also kind of ill
Speaker 1: at this point in his life. So there was a
Speaker 1: serious succession crisis well on its way between Ferdinand's brother
Speaker 1: Carlos and his wife Maria Francisca, who started squaring off
Speaker 1: with Ferdinand's other brother Francisco to Paula and his wife
Speaker 1: Luisa Carlotta about which one of the two of them
Speaker 1: would eventually take the throne. Is it going to be
Speaker 1: Stennis or is it going to be uh friendly? Whichat yeah,
Speaker 1: exactly right? Which brothers coming up to power next? Well,
Speaker 1: Ferdinand assembled the Council of Castile, which tasked him with
Speaker 1: remarrying and having a baby this time. Damn it. It
Speaker 1: was like, I'm putting a whole council together just to
Speaker 1: get me laid so I can hopefully have a son. Seriously,
Speaker 1: like the Pope and everyone else is involved in this
Speaker 1: guy getting some because he's got no babies at this point.
Speaker 1: Zero not. I mean, obviously they want a son, but
Speaker 1: he hadn't even had any surviving daughters at this well,
Speaker 1: Luisa Carlotta, remember who's the wife of Ferdinand's brother Francisco.
Speaker 1: To Paula, she suggested Ferdinand's own niece, who was also
Speaker 1: her sister, Maria Cristina. Of the two sisterlies. It's such
Speaker 1: a tangled web of relations. I'm like, can I have
Speaker 1: we met before? Oh? Yes, I'm your brother's wife and
Speaker 1: your sister, and I'm also your niece and your aunt.
Speaker 1: Like it's getting married full shrub family shrubs just can't
Speaker 1: keep up, all right, It's it's chaos. I mean. Luisa
Speaker 1: Carlotta herself was married to her uncle ferdinand brother. So
Speaker 1: Ferdinand is her great uncle, her uncle. Yeah, oh my god,
Speaker 1: she's married to one uncle. She's trying to help the
Speaker 1: other one out by marrying him. Off to her sister,
Speaker 1: his niece. Just assume they're like, whatever relation you think
Speaker 1: is between two people, it probably is this niece who
Speaker 1: was suggested to him. Maria Christina is described by Irish
Speaker 1: author Marguerite Gardner, the Countess of Blessington, who met her
Speaker 1: on her grand tour, as being lively and cheerful, with
Speaker 1: flawless facial features, beautiful teeth, expressive eyes, and a charming smile.
Speaker 1: Ferdinand was like, all right, good, that works, Let's do this.
Speaker 1: Sign me up, Let's make a baby, and only a
Speaker 1: few months after Maria Josepha died, he married Maria Christina
Speaker 1: in December of eighteen twenty nine. Apparently, the Spanish liberals
Speaker 1: like identified with her immediately. They loved her. She was there, uh,
Speaker 1: lady Gaga there like, yes, we stand ma. She arrived
Speaker 1: in Spain in a blue cloak, and the liberals immediately
Speaker 1: made that their official color. She might be the one
Speaker 1: who created the sex doughnut pillow to enable her to
Speaker 1: have sex with him and conceive children. That's right. They're
Speaker 1: both great stories. In one, Ferdinand consults with his physicians
Speaker 1: because he's like, look at this, what do I do?
Speaker 1: And they're like let's figure this out. In another one,
Speaker 1: Maria Christina is informed of her approaching nuptials with her uncle,
Speaker 1: and she's heard all about his weird dick, and she
Speaker 1: decides to undertake a project to make her life a
Speaker 1: little simpler. Either way, I love it. Now, let's not
Speaker 1: forget that Ferdinand the seventh was a bit of a dog. Um.
Speaker 1: We talked a little earlier about how he preferred prostitutes
Speaker 1: over his wife's company and took a year to consummate
Speaker 1: his first marriage, But even his love for Maria Josepha
Speaker 1: apparently didn't stop him from continuing his outings to brothels
Speaker 1: and even bringing prostitutes back to the palace, which just
Speaker 1: really human aided his wives. Um. The website Seville for
Speaker 1: real dot com or probably Seville for Real even claims
Speaker 1: that he quote bragged about the virgins he brought to
Speaker 1: the palace and collected rags that testified to his deflowering. Gross,
Speaker 1: which is just gross. Like, even if it's not a
Speaker 1: bloody rag, sex trophy is just a sucking gross. I mean,
Speaker 1: any rag around sex is a gross rag. I must
Speaker 1: say any sex rag gross. Yeah, I don't care what's
Speaker 1: on it, it's not I don't want it to keep
Speaker 1: it away from me. Well, yeah, a good point, an
Speaker 1: excellent point. Oh so, anyway, this time he's married to
Speaker 1: Maria Christina, and I don't know, maybe he had his
Speaker 1: past terrible wedding nights in mind because this one he
Speaker 1: decided to ruin all by himself. There's not a lot
Speaker 1: of detail about this or anything, but Fidel Salis wrote
Speaker 1: that the wedding night was quote unfortunate because of Ferdinand
Speaker 1: the seventh impatience to satisfy his sensual hunger, and he
Speaker 1: likens Maria Christina's experience that night to rape. He He's like,
Speaker 1: she was raped, Like he just straight up says it
Speaker 1: um that it was kind of violent and aggressive, and
Speaker 1: Maria Christina like never forgot how shitty he was to
Speaker 1: her that night. As much as their relations improved, she
Speaker 1: was like, fuck this guy. Unfortunately she did not have
Speaker 1: to deal with him for too long because in eighteen
Speaker 1: thirty she had their first child, Isabella the Second, and
Speaker 1: in eighteen thirty two she gave birth to their second daughter,
Speaker 1: Maria Luisa Fernanda. At the time, Spain was under Salic law,
Speaker 1: which was instituted by the French King of Spain Philip
Speaker 1: the Fifth, and that meant only males could inherit. This
Speaker 1: was probably a way to keep Spain under French control
Speaker 1: with only French airs. It must be noted that Carlos,
Speaker 1: remember him, Ferdinand's brother who was fighting for, you know,
Speaker 1: his own succession to the throne. He felt that the
Speaker 1: right to rule was God given, and so he had
Speaker 1: refused to give up his rights to Napoleon like his
Speaker 1: father and brother had. But now that his brother was
Speaker 1: on the throne, there's no way he would have actually
Speaker 1: taken up arms against him because he's like, brother, God
Speaker 1: picked you. I'm not here to mess with that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he didn't have a lot of personal desire for the
Speaker 1: throne or anything like that. He was just like, it's
Speaker 1: ordained from above, so if it falls to me, I
Speaker 1: have to, you know. But Ferdinand decided to ratify his
Speaker 1: father's pragmatic sanctioned decree in eighteen thirty, and this decree
Speaker 1: was something his father put into place but was never
Speaker 1: actually made into law, and this would allow his daughter
Speaker 1: to ascend to the throne. Honestly, Ferdinand just wanted an
Speaker 1: air of his own siring to become the monarch, no
Speaker 1: matter what gender they were he was. He was like,
Speaker 1: I don't care boys, girls, anybody can be a regent.
Speaker 1: I'm an equal opportunity monarch. I don't know, I feel
Speaker 1: he was just like, it has it has to be exactly. Well.
Speaker 1: This changed everything for Carlos and his supporters. They were
Speaker 1: called Carlists, and they felt that this pragmatic sanction was
Speaker 1: impractical and illegal. They kept pushing for Carlos's claims to
Speaker 1: the throne, even though Carlos himself didn't really have an
Speaker 1: interest in ruling, but his wife, Maria Francisca and her
Speaker 1: sister Maria Teresa definitely did want him on the throne,
Speaker 1: so they were the ones who kept egging on the Carlists.
Speaker 1: That's right. And Maria Francisca actually would pass away in
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty four, and Carlos would marry her sister, Maria Teresa,
Speaker 1: which is why she cared so much. She wanted to
Speaker 1: be queen. I guess, and I assumed they were cousins
Speaker 1: or niece and nephews too. Well, that's her sister and
Speaker 1: oh yeah, so he that's her niece, that's his niece. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because he was already married to his niece and then
Speaker 1: she died and he married her sister's niece. Don't be
Speaker 1: a niece in Spain, I guess, don't be a niece.
Speaker 1: Then in eight thirty two, Ferdinand was badly injured in
Speaker 1: a carriage accident. Everyone thought he was going to die
Speaker 1: pretty soon. So all of a sudden, the succession crisis
Speaker 1: became a very real So Queen Maria Christina, Ferdinand's wife,
Speaker 1: found herself besieged on all sides, like even from her
Speaker 1: own priest and confessor, to convince the king to repeal
Speaker 1: the pragmatic sanction. They warned her that the country would
Speaker 1: be plunged into civil war if she didn't do this again,
Speaker 1: just like House of the Dragon. Yes, they're like, don't
Speaker 1: let your I know that We've already set it up
Speaker 1: for your daughter to inherit. But everyone's going to hate that,
Speaker 1: So please just convince your dying husband to repeal that law,
Speaker 1: so that George George R. Martin fully in the history
Speaker 1: wipe this whole story. So, you know, Maria Christina not
Speaker 1: really a governmental person. She didn't really care about that
Speaker 1: type of ship. So she's here in this and she's like,
Speaker 1: all right, I guess you know, y'all would know, not me.
Speaker 1: So she decided to seek the counsel of one of
Speaker 1: the king's advisers, a guy named Francisco Calomarde. But turns
Speaker 1: out Calamarte is not the guy to ask, because let
Speaker 1: me tell you about him. He was a born liar
Speaker 1: and flip flopper. He had gotten his position in the
Speaker 1: Ministry of Law by promising to marry the court physician's
Speaker 1: ugly niece. Once he got the job, he backtracked on
Speaker 1: that promise and was forced to go through with it
Speaker 1: after he was threatened with the galleys. So then he
Speaker 1: helped lead the mutiny that caused Ferdinand's father to abdicate
Speaker 1: in favor of Ferdinand back in eighteen o eight. But
Speaker 1: then he got banished to Toledo, Spain, not Ohio, after
Speaker 1: he faked the sale of an American diocese. So I
Speaker 1: don't know for sure if he faked that they bought
Speaker 1: it or they faked that they sold it, but either way,
Speaker 1: he was trying to skim some money somehow, and he
Speaker 1: got banished to Toledo for being a shady bitch. Then
Speaker 1: in eighteen twenty he joined the Liberals. With their support,
Speaker 1: he became the Secretary of Justice in and then spent
Speaker 1: eight years running the secret police and ruthlessly prosecuting the liberals.
Speaker 1: What total little fingers. He's only on his own side,
Speaker 1: fair weather friend. Exactly, you cannot Yeah, he is full
Speaker 1: of garbage card more like Calamerde. So the point is
Speaker 1: this guy cannot be trusted. And at this point he
Speaker 1: actually wanted to see Carlos on the throne. So he
Speaker 1: was a carlist. So when Maria Christina asked him for advice,
Speaker 1: I guess, not knowing he was a car list, he
Speaker 1: told her, oh, the Spanish people, they will rally around
Speaker 1: Carlos and that he is the best bet of staving
Speaker 1: off the civil war. So Queen Maria Christina went to
Speaker 1: her husband Ferdinance sick bed and asked him to repeal
Speaker 1: the sanction and issue a decree making her the regent
Speaker 1: with his brother Carlos as her chief adviser. But Carlos
Speaker 1: is actually the one who refused this proposal. He felt
Speaker 1: that it was his divine right to rule, and that
Speaker 1: was it. I don't want this, I don't want this
Speaker 1: advisor job. Yeah, and it seems like too he was
Speaker 1: just like, no one gives me the right to rule.
Speaker 1: I already have it, you know, so he just was
Speaker 1: very stuck on that kind of dogmatic. Well, Calamarde comes
Speaker 1: back in again and he tells her, you know, no,
Speaker 1: that's dire consequences if you can't convince the king to
Speaker 1: reinstate saleic law, and you've got to convince him not
Speaker 1: to let your own daughter be the heir so that
Speaker 1: we don't go into a civil war. But then it
Speaker 1: seemed that King Ferdinand had died, and so immediately Calamarde
Speaker 1: steps up publicly and says, well, actually the pragmatic sanction
Speaker 1: was repealed, so Isabella cannot inherit the throne. And then
Speaker 1: Calamarte was the first one to greet Carlos as the
Speaker 1: new king of Spain. Maria Christina was completely deserted by
Speaker 1: all of her courtiers. Man, it just went for it.
Speaker 1: But oops, CALAMARTI book, because Ferdinand wasn't dead yet, he
Speaker 1: like popped up like a daisy. It's just literally spoiler
Speaker 1: alerts for the entire first season of House of the Dragon.
Speaker 1: I swear to God, beat for beat. It kind of yeah,
Speaker 1: you're you're so right. Uh yeah. So that the word
Speaker 1: about that kind of went around and people are like, okay,
Speaker 1: I guess Carlos is not king and we don't know
Speaker 1: what's going on yet. And the Council of Castile who
Speaker 1: did not want Carlos in charge, they were liberals. They
Speaker 1: wanted a constitutional monarchy instead of an absolute monarchy. Carlos
Speaker 1: would have done an absolute monarchy because of his dogmatic
Speaker 1: conviction that God gives you the right to rule and
Speaker 1: do whatever you want with everybody. So they're like, we
Speaker 1: don't want this guy. They decide, you know what, we
Speaker 1: need a stronger hand at the wheel than than old
Speaker 1: Maria Christina. You know, she's sweet, but she's kind of
Speaker 1: letting herself get all walked over. Meanwhile, her sister, Louisa Carlotta,
Speaker 1: was very famous for her determine ation and her very
Speaker 1: strong personality. So the Council of Castile sent for Louisa Carlotta.
Speaker 1: They were like, come help us out with this. And
Speaker 1: when Louisa Carlotta heard about all these shenanigans, she rode
Speaker 1: NonStop from Andalucia to the palace, marched right up to
Speaker 1: Maria Christina and scolded her for having a lack of spine.
Speaker 1: How could you let that push you around? And then
Speaker 1: she said, let me talk to his motherfucker Calimarte right quick.
Speaker 1: And legend has it that she actually grabbed the document
Speaker 1: prohibiting women from inheriting the throne and tried to throw
Speaker 1: it into the fire, and when Calamarte tried to grab
Speaker 1: it back, she slapped him in the face, and he
Speaker 1: allegedly responded, quote, madam white, hands don't offend which and
Speaker 1: he guesses it's like, you know, pure ladies hands. I
Speaker 1: think it's lady's hands. I think it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: what is that the fair foe is like when you
Speaker 1: have a a woman, right, yeah, it's like you're she's feminine. Yes, okay,
Speaker 1: So he's like, you hit like a girl and it
Speaker 1: don't hurt. He's like, you can slap me all you want,
Speaker 1: but you're just a woman. It means nothing. Yeah, alright, Well, anyway,
Speaker 1: this whole incident and the slap and everything is definitely
Speaker 1: considered an urban legend rather than fact. You know, if
Speaker 1: this happened, only the two of them could tell us
Speaker 1: that it went down. But whether she ever laid hands
Speaker 1: on him or not, Louisa Carlotta handled business. She got
Speaker 1: the pragmatic sanction reinstated and got Calamarte banished to his
Speaker 1: estates in Aragon, where he was supposed to be arrested,
Speaker 1: but that sneaky bitch escaped it to lose, and then
Speaker 1: he died there in two at the age of sixty nine.
Speaker 1: Not nice, No, I kind of wish he'd gotten, you know,
Speaker 1: bayonetted and left her dead the road somewhere. But he's
Speaker 1: like a cockroach, you know. He lived, made it through well.
Speaker 1: Ferdinand recovered enough to ensure that his daughter Isabella the
Speaker 1: Second inherited the throne, and he also gave his wife
Speaker 1: Maria Christina full regency powers. Luisa Carlotta stayed around to
Speaker 1: kind of help out. She was more active in the
Speaker 1: government than Maria Christina was. She met with more officials
Speaker 1: than she did. She was just doing a lot more work. Again,
Speaker 1: she was the go getter. And then Ferdinand the Seven
Speaker 1: died on September twenty nine of eighteen thirty three, for
Speaker 1: real this time. Right then, the three year old Isabella
Speaker 1: the Second was named queen and her mother, Maria Christina
Speaker 1: was named regent obviously because you know, the queen was
Speaker 1: three years old. But then only a couple of days later,
Speaker 1: on October one, Carlos Ferdinand's brother declared himself king. He
Speaker 1: was like, I'm not listening to all these ladies. It's me.
Speaker 1: I'm king. We already decided this fact is fact, ladies
Speaker 1: getting no divine rights. So you've got all the Carlos
Speaker 1: son one side, but then you've got Isabella the Second
Speaker 1: and Maria Christina's supporters, who were called Isabellino's and they
Speaker 1: all confronted each other, and the first Carlist War began,
Speaker 1: and it's considered by some to be the largest and
Speaker 1: most deadly civil war of the time. And this decided
Speaker 1: whether or not Spain would be a traditional monarchy like
Speaker 1: the Carlists wanted, or a constitutional monarchy like the Liberals wanted.
Speaker 1: So the Carlist Wars are raging, you know, throughout Isabella
Speaker 1: the second childhood. Meanwhile, Maria Christina had fallen in love
Speaker 1: while she was still married to Ferdinand. She had met
Speaker 1: a sergeant in the Royal Guard named Augustine Fernando Munio's
Speaker 1: and he was two years younger than her. He was handsome,
Speaker 1: well bred kind. He apparently attracted her attention by either
Speaker 1: stopping her runaway horses or merely picking up her handkerchief.
Speaker 1: Oh either way, a delightful meet. Yes, exactly right. It
Speaker 1: in to a podcast like hours. Well, whatever it was
Speaker 1: that he did for her, or however they met, they
Speaker 1: fell in love, and only three months after Ferdinand died,
Speaker 1: she and Augustine got married in a secret ceremony. It
Speaker 1: was important to keep this a secret because if she
Speaker 1: got married, she couldn't be regent anymore. Um, and she
Speaker 1: knew that, you know, nobody at court would like it.
Speaker 1: You know, She's like, this isn't gonna be a popular
Speaker 1: move of mine, um, because it's a organic or very
Speaker 1: unequal marriage between a royal and a not royal person.
Speaker 1: So a lot of people at court knew that they
Speaker 1: were having an affair and they were like, fine, whatever
Speaker 1: gets rockstock girl, you know what I mean. But they
Speaker 1: didn't know about the marriage, that it was a legal marriage. Well,
Speaker 1: eventually the news got out and the scandal was intense.
Speaker 1: Maria Christina instantly became deeply unpopular everywhere. Ministers and military
Speaker 1: leaders alike. We're like begging her to step aside, and
Speaker 1: in eighteen forty she did. She right, now, it's her
Speaker 1: regency and she and Augustine basically were exiled to France.
Speaker 1: They stopped on their way in Naples to get a
Speaker 1: papal dispensation for their marriage, and then in her place
Speaker 1: as regents, they put the most popular is Abellino, which
Speaker 1: was General Beldamero Espartero. Okay, he was very loyal to
Speaker 1: Isabelle and it was a good choice. He's the region now, Okay, Okay, Hey,
Speaker 1: I don't think we stopped in Naples to get a
Speaker 1: papal dispensation for our marriage, so I feel like we
Speaker 1: should go back to We should go back to Naples. YEA,
Speaker 1: be right there Naples. Has the pope even cared about
Speaker 1: our marriage once? Well? When Isabella in the second officially
Speaker 1: assumed the throne at the ripe old age of thirteen
Speaker 1: in eighteen forty four, she granted her mother permission to
Speaker 1: have a public marriage ceremony, and she made her stepdad,
Speaker 1: the Duke of Rian Saris. Maria Christina and Augustin had
Speaker 1: seven children together between eighteen thirty four. In eighteen forty three,
Speaker 1: Augustin became highly decorated in both Spain and France, and
Speaker 1: he got a lot of savvy business investments and that
Speaker 1: let them live pretty comfortably for the rest of their lives.
Speaker 1: It's cool dude. Honestly, it's a good second husband. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she did out just like, let me get this handsome
Speaker 1: sergeant had to handle himself. Also, they had seven kids.
Speaker 1: This suggested me off his fernand was definitely the problem
Speaker 1: and not the ladies, because isn't that so often the case?
Speaker 1: And then we I feel like science recently determined that
Speaker 1: men have more to do with the gender gender child,
Speaker 1: So it's typically you know, it wasn't like Henry the eighth.
Speaker 1: I know how many times you have to try before
Speaker 1: you realize it's you, buddy, me Hi and the problem.
Speaker 1: It's me only the Swifties have been around for King Henry,
Speaker 1: King Henry and the two problems. Well, even though her
Speaker 1: mom turned out okay in her marriage, Isabella was not
Speaker 1: so lucky. When she was sixteen, her minister's prevailed on
Speaker 1: her to marry her double first cousin. They were like,
Speaker 1: you know what, we're sick of people marrying their cousins.
Speaker 1: And everyone's like, oh thank god. They're like, you've now
Speaker 1: you've got to marry her double first cousin. What does
Speaker 1: that even mean? He's your cousin through two different lineages. Yea,
Speaker 1: because it was Luisa Carlotta's son Francisco to Aziz, the
Speaker 1: Duke of Cadiz. Isabella was apparently disgusted by him. She
Speaker 1: told one of her friends, quote, what shall I tell
Speaker 1: you about a man whom I saw wearing more lace
Speaker 1: than I was on our wedding night? Girl? So the
Speaker 1: rumor is that Francisco was either gay or impotent. So
Speaker 1: maybe Isabella the second was a little homophobic. A blog
Speaker 1: called Eurohistory Journal describes Isabella as a man eater with
Speaker 1: a voracious sexual appetite who would have preferred Francisco's younger brother.
Speaker 1: This manly swashbuckler to the feminine Francisco that she ended
Speaker 1: up having a marry like, can I at least pick
Speaker 1: the double first cousins and I having I'm marry? But
Speaker 1: they said, no, you get this one. Isabella was pregnant
Speaker 1: twelve times during their marriage, although only five lived to
Speaker 1: grow up. Each one of them probably actually had a
Speaker 1: different father because she had a ton of lovers throughout
Speaker 1: her reign, but Francisco recognized them all as his children.
Speaker 1: But he also blackmailed Isabella throughout her life to pay
Speaker 1: him for his silence. So a bunch of terrible people
Speaker 1: here just insane. It probably felt pretty chill even to her,
Speaker 1: because you just come in and be like, hey, I
Speaker 1: bought a horse or something, and she's like, damn it,
Speaker 1: we don't have the money for that ship. And he's like, oh,
Speaker 1: did you want me to tell people like that your
Speaker 1: heir has got nothing to do with me? Or do
Speaker 1: you want to buy the horse? And she's like, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: but this is exactly what happened in House of the Dragons.
Speaker 1: I know, I know, except that she was really understanding
Speaker 1: of his a little bit, but then he got a
Speaker 1: little he took advantage of it. No, he did. It's true.
Speaker 1: I just mean it's unlike Queen Isabella. She wasn't like
Speaker 1: this guy was too much late. No no, no, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: she was like I actually like the show that came out,
Speaker 1: so she had to be It's so true. Yeah, she
Speaker 1: had to be more more chill about that, or else
Speaker 1: you wouldn't like her. Well. Isabella became somewhat unpopular over
Speaker 1: the years of her reign with her very public affairs.
Speaker 1: People found her court to be corrupted and she's constantly
Speaker 1: these dudes around and stuff. She even survived an assassination
Speaker 1: attempt when a guy tried to stab her and he
Speaker 1: couldn't get through the elaborate embroidery and boning on her course,
Speaker 1: and he's like, white, hang on, hold still, I'm just
Speaker 1: going to try and go under the side here. Maybe
Speaker 1: I'll go. She's like, no, no, You've got to go
Speaker 1: up through the stitching. So sorry, you can't between. It
Speaker 1: takes like three maids to get me in this. There's
Speaker 1: no chance. I picture like just sticking out like a
Speaker 1: work in a stake or something, and she's like, what
Speaker 1: were you trying to do? Eventually, the Glorious Revolution in
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty eight deposed Isabella after thirty five years on
Speaker 1: the throne, so quite she it was her being unpopular,
Speaker 1: and like a lot of other things, you know how
Speaker 1: revolutions go, got a lot of reasons for them. So
Speaker 1: she and Francisco, her husband, had to hot footed to France,
Speaker 1: where they ended up living with her mother, Maria Christina
Speaker 1: and her stepdad until they got their own place in
Speaker 1: Paris on the Rue de Rivoli. She also renounced her
Speaker 1: rights to the throne in favor of her son Alfonso.
Speaker 1: Isabella and Francisco separated amicably in eighteen seventy and became friends.
Speaker 1: So maybe, like Lucy and Desi, they just shouldn't have
Speaker 1: been married. They could have done great if they weren't married.
Speaker 1: Um Augustine died in eighteen seventy three, Maria Christina in
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy eight, and Isabella in nineteen o four, and
Speaker 1: her great great great grandson, Philippe the Six is the
Speaker 1: current monarch of Spain. Wow, so that family really just
Speaker 1: kept failing up. They kept failing up, and Ferdinand got
Speaker 1: what he wanted. His bloodline is still exactly And I
Speaker 1: don't know anything about Philip the Six. He might be great,
Speaker 1: but just in terms of just like they were the worst,
Speaker 1: but they kept being the rulers right well, and then
Speaker 1: you look at other like you look at it and
Speaker 1: you're like, they're all the worst, Like whoever wanted to
Speaker 1: take over? Also sucks because if you want to be
Speaker 1: king or a queen, you know you're probably a bad person.
Speaker 1: I mean, are you willing to be a very bad
Speaker 1: villain to someone at some point in your life? Yeah?
Speaker 1: You got to do bad things? Very true, all right,
Speaker 1: very true. So that's the story of Ferdinand's weird dick
Speaker 1: and how it changed Spanish history. Hopefully the this Dick's
Speaker 1: twists and turns and weird names. Uh, you know, we're
Speaker 1: easy enough to follow. Next time we do a Spanish
Speaker 1: royal story, we're renaming everyone. It's gonna be like, this
Speaker 1: is Desmond, and that's Bob, and that's Joanna and that's Phyllis,
Speaker 1: so we can separate them a little bit. Dandy Bee, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'll be like, that's Ginger, and that's scary, and that's spicy.
Speaker 1: Spicy spice. Spicy spice. Harder than that. I knew spice
Speaker 1: was involved, but I couldn't reverse spe It's the last part.
Speaker 1: It's the second word, spicy spice. Who was spicy spice?
Speaker 1: There must have been one. It's like the fifth beetle.
Speaker 1: You know, there was a step seventh or sixth, So
Speaker 1: there was a sixth secret spice girl named spicy Spice.
Speaker 1: I'm telling you she was back there and your dreams.
Speaker 1: She was back there in my dreams. The spice girls.
Speaker 1: You know, there was a time when the spice girls
Speaker 1: were frequenters of my dreams. I'm sure. I'm so sure.
Speaker 1: Which was your favorite spice girl? Honestly my favorites, but
Speaker 1: you know who guess who my favorite spice girl was. Yeah,
Speaker 1: obviously I knew it. Yeah, of course you did, because
Speaker 1: you know me, and you know, at the end of
Speaker 1: the day, I just want to rich, tall, model looking, cold,
Speaker 1: icy person, right to be kind of mean to you,
Speaker 1: mean to me. Yeah, it's the dream for you. I
Speaker 1: am not tall, short sweetheart. It's I'm gonna say that
Speaker 1: as a net. You know, when you look at the
Speaker 1: full whole of everything, it's probably better that I didn't
Speaker 1: marry posh spice. Okay, I agree with that. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think I agree with that. Yeah, I think I think
Speaker 1: it's likely that I made a better choice. Well, you
Speaker 1: didn't ask, but Scary was my favorite. I was going
Speaker 1: to ask. I just wanted to make sure we were
Speaker 1: done with my thing first. Scary. Of course, Scary was
Speaker 1: your favorite. I would have guessed that too. The coolest. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're super cool. She was a little scary. I could
Speaker 1: see it. An intimidating woman. Yes, I don't know how
Speaker 1: this ended with Spice girls either. We were all on
Speaker 1: a Game of Thrones and now suddenly we're talking about
Speaker 1: spice girls. But whatever, this is the kind of exciting
Speaker 1: bouncing around the topics do you come to expect from
Speaker 1: Ridiculous moments. Nobody expects the Spice Girls inquisition. Yeah you could.
Speaker 1: You could book end it. I brought it back, brought
Speaker 1: us back. If you're still with us, we'd love to
Speaker 1: hear from you about your your take on this whole story,
Speaker 1: this chaos, this amazing weird Martinian I'm coining that phrase. Uh,
Speaker 1: kind of royal story of weird dicks and backstabbings and
Speaker 1: scheming a little bit of everything. Again, it was just
Speaker 1: like every story of every wife. I was like today,
Speaker 1: there's so much drama, because so fun. I will all
Speaker 1: enjoyed it as much as we did to research and record.
Speaker 1: This episode was about this guy in his crazy life.
Speaker 1: So please do reach out to us. We love hearing
Speaker 1: from you as always. Our email address is ridic Romance
Speaker 1: at gmail dot com. That's right. You can find us
Speaker 1: on Twitter and Instagram. I'm at Oh Great, It's Eli,
Speaker 1: and I'm at Danamite Boom and the show is at
Speaker 1: ridic Romance and don't forget to find us on TikTok
Speaker 1: at Ridiculous Romance as well, where you can see cool
Speaker 1: videos like this of us moving around. Person. Thanks for
Speaker 1: tuning in. Everybody. We'll catch you all with the next one.
Speaker 1: Thanks for spending time with us, We love you. Bye,
Speaker 1: so long friends, it's time to go. Thanks so listening
Speaker 1: to our show. Tell your friends name's Uncle's in this
Speaker 1: to listen to a show? Ridiculous roll nance