The Countess of Barcelona, Maria de las Mercedes de Borbon y Orleans, who died on January 2nd, aged 90, was wife to a man who should have become king of Spain and mother to a son who, eventually, did. Her intervention, behind the scenes, prevented a lasting rift between Don Juan de Borbon, the rightful heir to the Spanish throne, and their son, Juan Carlos, chosen as successor by the victor in the 1936-1939 civil war, General Franco.
She proved decisive in consolidating the monarchy, and Spanish democracy, after the dictator's death, by persuading her husband to renounce all claim to the throne. "Even though Juan never became king, and even though he was the rightful heir, to have our son become king meant continuity, which is the essential ingredient in a monarchy," Dona Mercedes told a biographer.
Her lack of pomp, and love of bullfighting and football, made her a popular figure in later years. She was born in Madrid, the daughter of Don Carlos de Borbon and his second wife, Luisa of France.
When she was eight, the family moved to Seville and she developed a great love of Andalucia, becoming a keen horsewoman. But when Spain became a republic, in 1931, she was forced to go into exile, with the rest of the royal family.
At a dance in Rome, she and her second cousin, Juan, who had become heir to the Spanish throne and was serving with the British Royal Navy, met again. He was taken with the tall, blonde, handsome woman he remembered as a child, and they married in 1935. After the second World War, they settled in Estoril, on the Portuguese coast near Lisbon, but temporary exile turned into decades of lonely isolation.
Dona Mercedes comforted her husband and brought up four children, two boys and two girls, in a modest villa. Her strength of will ensured her daughter, Margarita, born blind, led as normal a life as possible.
Don Juan's offer to fight with the nationalist side during the civil war had been rebuffed. So, too, was his intention, declared in 1945, to become "King of all Spaniards" and heal the rifts of war. Instead, Franco offered to take the couple's elder son, Juan Carlos, and educate him in Spain. na Mercedes said she missed him so much that talking on the telephone became unbearable and they decided to write instead.
In summer 1969, Juan Carlos telephoned his father to say Franco had appointed him future king. Don Juan considered that, in accepting without consultation, his son had betrayed him. Dona Mercedes felt Franco had left her son no option and struggled to reunite the family.
She and her husband watched Juan Carlos confirmed as king, by the Spanish parliament in 1975, on television in Paris, while they ate lunch. Her discreet diplomacy continued and, in 1977, at a low-key ceremony in the king's private residence, Don Juan renounced all claim to the throne. In 1983, the couple returned to live in Madrid. Two falls in later years confined Dona Mercedes to a wheelchair, but she remained a regular in the royal box at the bullring and an ardent supporter of Seville's Betis football club. She died, unexpectedly, after celebrating the new year with her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.
Maria de las Mercedes Cristina Gennara Isabella Luisa Carolina Victoria de Borbon y Orleans: born 1910; died January, 2000