@history.of.world067: On her wedding day in 1906, a bomb exploded beside Queen Victoria Eugenia's carriage, killing 25 people. She survived. The marriage that followed would bring a different kind of devastation. Born at Balmoral Castle in 1887, Victoria Eugenia, known as Ena, was a granddaughter of Britain's Queen Victoria. At 18, she married King Alfonso XIII of Spain, converted to Catholicism and entered a royal court where she was regarded as an outsider. The attack came as the newlyweds returned from their wedding ceremony in Madrid. A bomb thrown from a balcony struck their procession. The couple escaped unharmed, but the celebration became a scene of carnage. Then came a tragedy within the palace. Their first son, Alfonso, was born with hemophilia, an inherited disorder that prevents blood from clotting properly. A younger son, Gonzalo, also had the condition. Alfonso XIII increasingly resented his wife, blaming her family bloodline for the illness. His infidelities deepened the humiliation of a queen already isolated at court. Yet Ena did not retreat from public life. She supported nursing education, reorganized Spain's Red Cross and championed efforts against tuberculosis. In 1931, the Spanish monarchy fell. The royal family went into exile, and the marriage broke apart. Both sons with hemophilia died young, in 1934 and 1938, following car accidents. Victoria Eugenia lived for decades in Switzerland. In 1968, after 37 years away, she briefly returned to Spain for the baptism of her great-grandson, the future King Felipe VI. She died the following year, aged 81. The princess who had crossed Europe to become a queen had spent much of her life paying for a marriage that promised her a crown.

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Thursday 29 October 2026 13:50:47 GMT