Person:Maria Theresa of Spain (1)

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Maria Theresa of Spain (; ; 10 September 1638 – 30 July 1683) was Queen of France as the wife of King Louis XIV. She was born an Infanta of Spain and Portugal as the daughter of King Philip IV and Queen Elisabeth, and was an Archduchess of Austria as a member of the Spanish branch of the House of Habsburg. Maria Theresa is subject to the rumor that she had given birth to an illegitimate child, the child being Louise Marie Thérèse—a nun at an abbey in Moret-sur-Loing.

Her marriage in 1660 to King Louis XIV, her double first cousin, was made with the purpose of ending the lengthy war between France and Spain. Famed for her virtue and piety, she saw five of her six children die in early childhood, and is frequently viewed as an object of pity in historical accounts of her husband's reign, since she was often neglected by the court.

Without any political influence in the French court or government (except briefly in 1672, when she was named regent during her husband's absence during the Franco-Dutch War), she died at the early age of 44 from complications from an abscess on her arm. Her grandson Philip V inherited the Spanish throne in 1700 after the death of her younger half-brother, Charles II, and the War of the Spanish Succession, founding the Spanish branch of the House of Bourbon, which has reigned with some interruption until present time.

1. ↑ ^1.0 1.1 Maria Theresa of Spain, in Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia.