Queen Palatine Maria Anna of Neuburg

The daughter of the Duke of Neuburg, Maria Anna (1667-1740) was the second wife of King Charles II of Spain, from 1689 until the king’s death in 1700. Given the physical and mental shortcomings of Charles II, the goal of marriage was to desperately provide an heir to the crown, but failing to do so before the death of the monarch, the War of the Spanish Succession broke out. The support of Queen Maria Anna to Archduke Charles of Austria, a candidate for the Spanish crown during the conflict, earned her exile by order of the victor, Philip V, who inaugurated the Bourbon dynasty in Spain. Maria Anna was forcibly exiled to Bayonne from 1706 to 1738. Returning to the court in 1739, she died the following year in the Palacio del Infantado in Guadalajara.