Maria Christina Henriette Desideria Felicitas Raineria of Austria (; 21 July 1858 – 6 February 1929) was Queen of Spain as the second wife of Alfonso XII. She was queen regent during the vacancy of the throne between her husband's death in November 1885 and the birth of their son Alfonso XIII in May 1886, and subsequently also until the coming of age of the latter in May 1902.
Early life
Known to her family as Christa, she was born at Židlochovice Castle (Groß Seelowitz), near Brünn (now Brno), in Moravia, a daughter of Archduke Karl Ferdinand of Austria and his wife, Archduchess Elisabeth Franziska of Austria.
Her paternal grandparents were Archduke Charles of Austria and Princess Henriette Alexandrine of Nassau-Weilburg.
Various sources attributed good traits to Maria Christina before her marriage. One states she was "tall, fair, sensible, and well educated". She was Princess-Abbess of the Theresian Royal and Imperial Ladies Chapter of Prague Castle (1875-1879).
Queen consort
After the death of Queen María de las Mercedes in June 1878, King Alfonso XII was determined to remarry to produce an heir. The Queen had died just a few months after her marriage with no descendants and negotiations started with the court of Vienna. In August, Alfonso XII traveled to Arcachon, Gironde, with the specific purpose of meeting Archduchess Maria Christina and her mother Archduchess Elisabeth. In this first meeting, the King proposed to her and she accepted.
In early September 1878, the Spanish Government approved the engagement and Emperor Franz Joseph asked his niece to officially relinquish her title of Abbess of the Theresian Convent of Prague as it was necessary for the future queen to abandon all her Austrian appointments. The proposal was gazetted in the Wiener Zeitung on 7 September: "His Majesty the King of Spain, during his visit to Archacon, has requested the hand of the Most Serene Lady Archduchess Maria Christina... with previous consent of His Imperial and Royal Apostolic Majesty, as Chief of the Imperial Family, the Most Serene Lady Archduchess has accepted the said proposal".
In compliance with Article 56 of the Constitution, the Cortes passed a law granting a 500.000 pesetas annuity for the future queen consort on 2 November. The terms of the marriage were settled in an agreement executed between Austria and Spain in Vienna on 15 November by their respective plenipotentiaries. That same day Maria Christina renounced to her succession rights to the Austrian throne before the Emperor and the court according to the tradition imposed to the archduchesses who were to marry a foreign prince. Another marriage agreement was signed in Madrid on 28 November by the King and Maria Christina themselves.
The wedding took place on 29 November 1879 at the Basilica of Atocha in Madrid. The arranged marriage (the second of Alfonso XII after the death of his first wife María de las Mercedes of Orléans), was concerted on the basis of the conservative profile espoused by the Austro-Hungarian Empire as well as by the prestige attained by the Habsburgs in their previous involvement in the history of Spain, and blocked the possibility of a prospective Austrian endorsement to the Carlist cause.
After giving birth to two female children—María de las Mercedes (born 1880) and María Teresa (born 1882)—she ensured dynastic continuity, yet, with the threatening landmark for the ruling dynasty set by the previous Carlist Wars, she was still pressured to undergo a new pregnancy and give birth to a male child in order to consolidate the political system, as it was considered at the time.
She became pregnant again before the death of her husband in November 1885 (the king suffered from tuberculosis yet he led an active life). An attributed dying wish by Alfonso XII pleading to her is "Ya verás cómo todo se arregla providencialmente. Pero, si muero, guarda el coño y ándate siempre de Cánovas a Sagasta y de Sagasta a Cánovas" ("You will see how everything is going to be providentially fixed, yet if I die, keep your pussy at bay and always go from Cánovas to Sagasta and from Sagasta to Cánovas"). While possibly apocryphal, it is representative of the Restoration era. Months later, in May 1886, she would give birth to a male child, Alfonso, who reigned as Alfonso XIII upon his birth.