List of Spanish monarchs in the context of "Camarilla"

This is a list of the women who were queens as wives of Spanish monarchs from the 16th century, when Spain was unified, until present. Francisco de Asís, Duke of Cádiz is the only King Consort, as the husband of Queen Isabella II.

The capture of Gibraltar by Anglo-Dutch forces of the Grand Alliance occurred between 1 and 4 August 1704 during the War of the Spanish Succession. Since the beginning of the war the Alliance had been looking for a harbour in the Iberian Peninsula to control the Strait of Gibraltar and facilitate naval operations against the French fleet in the western Mediterranean Sea. An attempt to seize Cádiz had ended in failure in September 1702, but following the Alliance fleet's successful raid in Vigo Bay in October that year, the combined fleets of the "Maritime Powers", the Netherlands and England, had emerged as the dominant naval force in the region. This strength helped persuade King Peter II of Portugal to sever his alliance with France and Bourbon-controlled Spain, and ally himself with the Grand Alliance in 1703 as the Alliance fleets could campaign in the Mediterranean using access to the port of Lisbon and conduct operations in support of the Austrian Habsburg candidate to the Spanish throne, the Archduke Charles, known to his supporters as Charles III of Spain.

Prince George of Hesse-Darmstadt represented the Habsburg cause in the region. In May 1704 the prince and admiral George Rooke, commander of the main Grand Alliance fleet, failed to take Barcelona in the name of "Charles III"; Rooke subsequently evaded pressure from his allies to make another attempt on Cádiz. In order to compensate for their lack of success the Alliance commanders resolved to capture Gibraltar, a small town on the southern Spanish coast. Following a heavy bombardment the town was invaded by English and Dutch marines and sailors. The governor, Diego de Salinas, agreed to surrender Gibraltar and its small garrison on 4 August. Three days later Prince George entered the town with Austrian and Spanish Habsburg troops in the name of Charles III of Spain. The Grand Alliance failed in its objective of replacing Philip V with Charles III as King of Spain, but in the peace negotiations Gibraltar was ceded to Britain.

The monarchy of Spain or Spanish monarchy (Spanish: Monarquía Española) is the constitutional form of government of Spain. It consists of a hereditary monarch who reigns as the head of state, being the highest office of the country.

The Spanish monarchy is constitutionally referred to as The Crown (Spanish: La Corona), and it comprises the reigning monarch, currently King Felipe VI, their family, and the Royal Household, which supports and facilitates the sovereign in the exercise of his duties and prerogatives.

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.