He succeeded to relinquish suzerainty of his cousin Alfonso VII of León, becoming instead a subject of the papacy, as the kingdoms of Sicily and Aragon had done before him.

Several precursor kingdoms have had an Alfonso I.

Alfonso also moved the capital from Pravia, where Silo had located it, to Oviedo, the city of his father's founding and his birth.

Alfonso was the eldest son of Prince Francisco de Asis de Borbón-Dos Sicilias and Queen Isabel II, whose reign was marked by a constant political crisis which had several causes.

He assumed the title of Alfonso XII, for although no King of united Spain had borne the name " Alfonso XI ", the Spanish monarchy was regarded as continuous with the more ancient monarchy represented by the 11 kings of Asturias, León and Castile also named Alfonso.

Coming to the throne at such an early age, Alfonso had served no apprenticeship in the art of ruling, but he possessed great natural tact and a sound judgment ripened by the trials of exile.

Alfonso had two sons by Elena Armanda Nicolasa Sanz y Martínez de Arizala ( Castellón de la Plana, 15 December 1849 – Paris, 24 December 1898 ):

Alfonso and Ena had six children:

The marriage had been arranged by her father Alfonso VI of León in 1106 to unite the two chief Christian states against the Almoravides, and to supply them with a capable military leader.

Alfonso had the support of one section of the nobles who found their account in the confusion.

Elena Lourie ( 1975 ) suggested instead that it was Alfonso's attempt to neutralize the papacy's interest in a disputed succession — Aragon had been a fief of the Papacy since 1068 — and to fend off Urraca's son from her first marriage, Alfonso VII of Castile, for the Papacy would be bound to press the terms of such a pious testament.

Generous bequests to important churches and abbeys in Castile had the effect of making the noble churchmen there beneficiaries who would be encouraged by the will to act as a brake on Alfonso VII's ambitions to break it — and yet among the magnates witnessing the will in 1131 there is not a single cleric.

After being widowed in 1327, Alfonso married in February 1329 Eleanor of Castile ( 1308 – 1359 ), who was betrothed to his brother James, who had refused to consummate the marriage.

In 1421 Queen Joan II of Naples, who had no children, adopted and named him as heir to the Kingdom of Naples, and Alfonso went to Naples.

When Sforza also abandoned Louis, Alfonso seemed to have all his problems solved ; however, his relationship with Joan suddenly worsened, and in May 1423 he had her lover, and a powerful figure in the Neapolitan court, Gianni Caracciolo, arrested.

Alfonso requested support from Braccio da Montone, who was besieging Joan's troops in L ' Aquila, but had to set sail for Spain, where a war had broken out between his brothers and the Kingdom of Castile.

Alfonso tried to regain the favour of the queen, but failed, and had to wait for the death of both Louis ( at Cosenza in 1434 ) and Joan herself ( February 1435 ).

As the Neapolitans had called for the French, Alfonso decided to intervene and, with the support of several barons of the kingdom, captured Capua and besieged the important sea fortress of Gaeta.

Papal troops had invaded the Neapolitan kingdom, but Alfonso corrupted the cardinal Giovanni Vitelleschi, who commanded them, and his successes waned.

This was because in 1448, while Skanderbeg was victoriously fighting off the Turkish invasions, three military columns, commanded by Demetrio Reres along with his sons Giorgio and Basilio, were dispatched to help Alfonso V defeat the barons of Naples who had rebelled against him.

Alfonso had been betrothed to Maria of Castile ( 1401 – 1458 ; sister of John II of Castile ) in Valladolid in 1408 ; the marriage was celebrated in Valencia on 12 June 1415.

Alfonso had been in love with a woman of noble family named Lucrezia d ' Alagno, who served as a de facto queen at the Neapolitan court as well as an inspiring muse.

Afonso married Infanta Urraca of Castile, daughter of Alfonso VIIIof Castile and Leonora of England, in 1206.

He divorced Matilda in 1253 and, in the same year, married Beatrice of Castile, illegitimate daughter of Alfonso X, King of Castile, and Mayor Guillén de Guzmán ( Maria de Guzman ).

The first-born of this union, Infanta Maria of Portugal, married King Alfonso XI of Castile in 1328, at the same time that Afonso IV's heir, Peter I of Portugal, was promised to another Castilian infanta, Constance of Peñafiel.

On 23 January 1878 at the Basilica of Atocha in Madrid, Alfonso married his cousin, Princess Maria de las Mercedes, daughter of Antoine, Duke of Montpensier, but she died within six months of the marriage.

On 29 November 1879 at the Basilica of Atocha in Madrid, Alfonso married a much more distant relative, Maria Christina of Austria, daughter of Archduke Karl Ferdinand of Austria and of his wife Archduchess Elisabeth of Austria.

* Alfonso Sanz y Martínez de Arizala ( 28 January 1880, Madrid – 1970 ), married in 1922 to María de Guadalupe de Limantour y Mariscal ( d. 1977, Marbella ), daughter of Julio de Limantour y Marquet ( 17 June 1863, Mexico City – 11 October 1909, Mexico City ) and wife Elena Mariscal y ..., paternal granddaughter of French Joseph Yves de Limantour y Rence de la Pagame ( 1812, Ploemeur – 1885, Mexico City ) and wife Adèle Marquet y Cabannes ( 1820, Bordeaux –?

1929 portrait of King Alfonso XIIIOn 31 May 1906, at the Royal Monastery of San Geronimo in Madrid, Alfonso married Scottish-born Princess Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg ( 1887 – 1969 ), a niece of King Edward VII of the United Kingdom, and a granddaughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom.

Alfonso married in 1125 Faydiva d ' Uzes and had the following issue:

Count Raymond VII of Toulouse finally signed the Treaty of Paris in 1229, in which he retained much of his lands for life, but his daughter, married to Count Alfonso of Poitou, produced him no heir and so the County of Toulouse went to the King of France.

Lucrezia was married to Giovanni Sforza ( Lord of Pesaro ), Alfonso of Aragon ( Duke of Bisceglie ), and Alfonso I d ' Este ( Duke of Ferrara ).

Following her divorce from Sforza, Lucrezia was married to the Neapolitan Alfonso of Aragon, the half-brother of Sancha of Aragon who was the wife of Lucrezia's brother Gioffre Borgia.

She then married Alfonso I d ' Este, Duke of Ferrara in early 1502 in Ferrara.

His brother Raymond was married to Urraca, the heiress of León ; they became the parents of King Alfonso VII of León.

Thus, " Ermesinda, Pelayo's daughter, was married to Alfonso, Peter of Cantabria's son.

Thus, Ermesinda, Pelayo's daughter, was married to Alfonso, Dux Peter of Cantabria's son.

*** daughter Ippolita Maria ( 1446 – 1484 ), married king of Alfonso II d ' Aragon of Naples

Among these adventurers was Henry of Burgundy, who, in 1095, married Theresa of León, natural daughter of Alfonso VI of León.

Alfonso XIII was declared of age in 1902 and he married Victoria Eugénie Julia Ena of Battenberg, the granddaughter of the British queen Victoria, on 31 May 1906.

Alfonso married the notorious Lucrezia Borgia, and continued the war with Venice with success.

His son Alfonso II married Lucrezia, daughter of grand-duke Cosimo I of Tuscany, then Barbara, sister of the emperor Maximilian II and finally Margherita Gonzaga, daughter of the duke of Mantua.

In 1154 Louis VII married Constance of Castile, daughter of Alfonso VII of Castile.

He married his daughter Ermesinda to the future king Alfonso I, son of Pelagius ' eastern neighbour, Duke Peter of Cantabria.