Alfonso XII in the context of "Alfonso XIII of Spain"

The Restoration (Spanish: Restauración) or Bourbon Restoration (Spanish: Restauración borbónica) was the period in Spanish history between the First Spanish Republic and the Second Spanish Republic from 1874 to 1931. It began on 29 December 1874, after a pronunciamento by General Arsenio Martínez Campos in Valencia ended the First Spanish Republic and restored the Bourbon monarchy under King Alfonso XII, and ended on 14 April 1931 with the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic.

After nearly a century of political instability and several civil wars, the Restoration attempted to establish a new political system that ensured stability through the practice of turno, an intentional rotation of liberal and conservative parties in leadership, often achieved through electoral fraud. Critics of the turnismo system included republicans, socialists, communists, anarchists, Basque and Catalan nationalists, and Carlists. However, the relative stability to the turnismo system outlived its creator, the Conservative politician Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, and characterised the era with comparative peace, despite great social inequalities in the agricultural areas of Spain, and sporadic unrest relating to military defeats abroad.

Francisco de Asís de Borbón (Francisco de Asís María Fernando de Borbón y Borbón-Dos Sicilias; 13 May 1822 – 17 April 1902) was King of Spain as the husband of Queen Isabella II from their marriage in 1846 until Isabella's deposition in 1868. Francisco and his wife were double first cousins, as their fathers were brothers and their mothers were sisters. Isabella was deposed in the Glorious Revolution of 1868, but the monarchy was restored under their son Alfonso XII in 1874.

Alfonso XIII (Spanish: Alfonso León Fernando María Jaime Isidro Pascual Antonio de Borbón y Habsburgo-Lorena; French: Alphonse Léon Ferdinand Marie Jacques Isidore Pascal Antoine de Bourbon; 17 May 1886 – 28 February 1941), also known as El Africano or the African for his Africanist views, was King of Spain from his birth until 14 April 1931, when the Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed. He became a monarch at birth as his father, Alfonso XII, had died the previous year. Alfonso's mother, Maria Christina of Austria, served as regent until he assumed full powers on his sixteenth birthday in 1902.

Alfonso XIII's upbringing and public image were closely linked to the military estate; he often presented himself as a soldier-king. His effective reign started four years after the Spanish–American War, when various social milieus projected their expectations of national regeneration onto him. Like other European monarchs of his time he played a political role, entailing a controversial use of his constitutional executive powers. His wedding to Princess Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg in 1906 was marred by an attempt at regicide; he was unharmed.

The Royal Palace of Riofrío (Spanish: Palacio Real de Riofrío, pronounced [paˈlaθjo reˈal de ri.oˈfɾi.o]) is one of the residences of the Spanish royal family. It is under the management of Patrimonio Nacional, a government agency dedicated to the care and maintenance of properties owned by the Spanish state which the royal family uses. The building is set in a wooded deer-park in the municipality of San Ildefonso, in the province of Segovia, central Spain.

The palace is Italian style with a square floor plan and three stories high, designed by the Italian architect Virgilio Rabaglio in the image and likeness of the Royal Palace of Madrid. It is surrounded by an extensive forest of 625 hectares, where fallow deer and deer, among others, live. Used by the monarchs exclusively for hunting, it has only been inhabited as a habitual residence, on a temporary basis, by King Alfonso XII and, previously, by his father, Francisco de Asís, the King Consort.