Maria Louisa

Spanish Queen
1748 - 1819

There are few good words written about the Spanish Queen, Maria-Louisa, whose over-promotion of her lover Manuel Godoy has been blamed for many of her country's problems at the time of the French Revolution.

Ugly beyond belief, immoral - she had up to three illegitimate children to Godoy - sexually wanton and totally unscrupulous are just some of the ways she is described.

Maria-Louisa went into exile with her husband in 1808 - together with Godoy - and lived in moderate style on a French pension.

She died of pneumonia in Rome in 1819.