Zenaida of Spain (Napoleon's World)

Zenaida of Spain (8 July 1801 - 3 November 1848) was the Queen of Spain from 1844 until her assassination in 1848, and the daughter of Joseph I, the niece of Napoleon I of France and the cousin of Napoleon II and Louis I. She ruled over a period of escalating instability in Spain along with her cousin and husband, Prince Consort Charles Lucien, who was mostly absentee during her rule with several of her children in France. Following her father's death, the Spanish viewed her reign as illegitimate and hoped to bring back the Bourbons to Spain, an outcome regarded as unacceptable to France. Her assassination in Burgos on November 3, 1848 sparked the extremely violent War of the Bourbon Restoration, also referred to as the Spanish-Sicilian War, which would last until 1860 and consume Spain for the next decade.