Word: queenly
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Sudden pains came, and the Queen Mother tossed restlessly. Midnight tolled. Maria Christina grew pale, livid, and drops of sweat stood on her brow. She had been stricken with angina pectoris?paroxysms of the heart. Hot applications slightly eased the paroxysms, but before a priest arrived, at 2 a. m., the Queen Mother was unconscious. Last rites were administered, though Maria Christina knew it not, and she died...
...rose and the luxe from Paris chuffed into Madrid with King Christian and Queen Alexandrine of Denmark, both attired in faultless mourning, which traveling Royalty must always carry "just in case...
Presently the dead Queen was laid out in the Chapel Royal, garbed in the simple robes of a nun. Thus it was recalled that Maria Christina was in her youth a member of an Austrian order, and used to plight her vows twelve months at a time to Jesus the Christ. She had intended to become permanently the Savior's bride, but in the nick of time King Alfonso XII of Spain arrived to seek a spouse at the court of her father's cousin, Emperor Franz Josef, and the young Prinzessin's destiny was altered...
Returning to Madrid with his bride, King Alfonso XII, who had been a childless widower, swiftly begot two daughters, but died in 1885 without knowing whether or not he had begotten a son. Three months passed. The elder daughter, Maria de las Mercedes, 5, was then a Queen-Babe under her mother's regency. Suddenly the royal physicians proclaimed, amid prodigious Spanish rejoicings, that the Queen Mother was certainly with child. Thereafter excitement was intense and betting unrestrained. Would it be a mere girl, or was there actually stirring in the royal widow a KING...
When sealed, the simple mahogany box lined with lead was placed upon a catafalque. Splendrously a mass was sung. Then reverent hands lowered the Queen Mother to her last rest in the Panteon de los Reyes. There many a sovereign of Spain?including Maria Christina's husband, Alfonso XII?already, lay, each in a black marble sarcophagus lettered in gold. Into a similar sarcophagus went Maria Christina Henrietta Desiree Felicite Réniére de Espana...