All posts tagged: Spain

Royal inter-marriage proposals

Last week I promised you all the gossip on Mariana Victoria and her engagement. In 1721 Mariana Victoria was bethrothed, at age 3, to her first cousin, Louis XV of France. Louis, like most 11 year old boys, was not interested in toddlers, and avoided his fiancee as much as possible. As Louis got older and got interested in girls, things got worse.  I can’t imagine what  could be creepier as a 15 year old trying to flirt with the ladies of the court than having your 7 year old future-wife hanging about the place. The situation was resolved in 1725 when Louis had a health scare and the powers-that-be in France, desperate to avoid him dying without a heir, shipped Mariana back to Spain and married the 15 year old Louis off to the princess most likely to have kids right away, and  least likely to really anger and insult the Spanish: the 21 year old  Maria LeszczyÅ„ska. He was momentarily enchanted with his older bride, before becoming enchanted with a dozen other women, …

Rate the dress: Maria Josepha of Saxony

Gah!  I’ve been having bad luck with my Rate the Dress selections lately.  I saw a great one, bookmarked it to go back later and get the picture, went to write my post, and the site is down and I can’t find the picture.  To fill in the gap, I’ve gone with the theme of ‘bad luck’, as it suits both last week’s dress and the subject of this week’s dress. Last week’s very colourful Rate the Dress‘s  bad luck was that you did not approve of it, either because of the colour or because of the ruffles of the lower skirt.  It rated a 5.9 out of 10 For our bad luck lady, I present Maria Josepha of Saxony.  Nope, it’s not Marie Antoinette’s mother in law (the one she never met), this is a different Maria Josepha of Saxony, two generations later. Maria Josepha’s bad life began early in life – she lost her mother as an infant.  She herself died, young, and without any children, at 26.  Her other bad luck was …