Spain's Alfonso XIII was king from birth and a Nobel Peace nominee
Alfonso XIII never knew a day when he was not king. His father died months before he was born, so the crown passed to him the moment he arrived in 1886. Decades later he remains the only monarch known to have been put forward for a Nobel Prize, thanks to a wartime office helping prisoners.
Moments after his birth at the Royal Palace of Madrid, the infant king was reportedly carried on a silver tray to show the prime minister, and at his baptism he wore the Golden Fleece and was christened with water brought from the River Jordan. His mother, Maria Christina of Austria, ruled as regent, and it was on her watch in 1898 that war with the Americans stripped Spain of the Philippines, Guam, Puerto Rico and Cuba. Alfonso took full power on his sixteenth birthday in 1902.
On a visit to Britain he fell for Princess Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria. The match faced hurdles: she was Protestant, his mother preferred a Habsburg bride, and Victoria's brother had haemophilia. She converted, and they married in Madrid in 1906; an anarchist's bomb struck the procession, but a carriage lined with protective material designed by the Polish inventor Jan Szczepanik shielded the couple. Their eldest son did inherit haemophilia, as did a younger son, Gonzalo, and the king grew distant from his wife.
Spain stayed neutral in the First World War, and Alfonso set up an office in the Royal Palace that used Spanish diplomats to pass letters and help thousands of prisoners of war on every side. That work earned him the 1917 nomination; the Red Cross took the prize. He also sent telegrams offering the Russian imperial family refuge.
His later reign went badly. He acquiesced in Miguel Primo de Rivera's dictatorship from 1923, withdrew support in 1930, and after municipal elections in April 1931 left the country as the Second Republic was proclaimed on 14 April. He died in 1941, never having reigned again.
Source: Alfonso XIII
