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The one thing to know about each of Spain’s ‘crazy’ kings and queens

Which Spanish king thought he was a frog? Who was a reputed sex addict? Understanding Spanish history can be tough, so we've broken it down into the most important and quirky trivia you need to know about each Spanish king and queen.

Published: 12 May 2023 15:55 CEST

The one thing to know about each of Spain's 'crazy' kings and queens

Jailed by Napoleon (Fernando VII), mentally and physically challenged due to generations of inbreeding (Carlos II) and exiled under the pretence of being a 'nympho' (Isabel II). Spanish royal family history is certainly very...colourful.

Isabel I and Fernando V of Castilla (The Catholic Monarchs): They paid for Columbus’ ‘discovery’ of America and united Spain
The first monarchs of post-Moorish Spain, Isabel and Fernando unified Spain after the Reconquista, ordered the expulsion of the Jews and the Moors and funded Christopher Columbus’s alternate journey to what the explorer thought were the Indies. Fernando was the ruler of the Kingdom of Aragón and Isabel of Castilla, meaning that their marriage united these two huge areas, encompassing much of modern-day Spain.

Juana I of Castilla (The Mad) and Felipe I of Castilla (The Handsome): She probably wasn’t crazy and he may have been poisoned
Daughter of Isabel and Fernando, Juana was known as La Loca and kept prisoner for 46 years at Tordesillas Palace due to an alleged mental disorder, which was quite possibly a strategic excuse by power-hungry relatives. Felipe V didn’t fare much better. His death at aged just 28 was so sudden that the rumour spread that his father-in-law had poisoned him.

Carlos I (The Emperor): The ‘Caesar’ who was born in a latrine
The second son of Juana I and Felipe I had some rather ‘humble beginnings’, as his mother unknowingly gave birth to him in a latrine in the Belgian city of Gent. He was however to become the Holy Roman Emperor and Archduke of Austria, King of Spain, Lord of the Netherlands and Duke of Burgundy, showcasing how Spain was a world force at the time.

Felipe II (The Prudent): He had loads of kids and took over Portugal
Felipe II of Spain had 11 recognised offspring, but it’s more likely to have been at least 15 when factoring in his affairs. He obviously wasn’t called The Prudent because of his propensity to father children, but rather because he is said to have thought through every decision carefully, including annexing Portugal to Spain when the neighbouring country’s king died without leaving heirs.

Felipe III (The Pious): Aloof and a gambler

Third in line to the throne, Philip III’s two older siblings died leaving him unwillingly in charge when his father passed in 1598. Despite his nickname suggesting he had no vices, some historical records have him down as a gambler who lost lots of money to his courtesans when playing cards. Felipe III placed all important affairs in the hands of the Duke of Lerma at a time when Spain had economic problems and its fingers in many pies: Naples, Portugal, Sicily and Milan to name a few.

Felipe IV (The Great or the Planet King): Art lover and witness to declining empire
His other nickname was the ‘Gob-smacked King’, given that the notorious facial features that were a product of decades of Habsburg inbreeding were starting to show. ‘The Planet King’ nickname was either due to astrological reasons or because of the size of the Spanish empire at the time, as Felipe wasn’t exactly a traveller (he never left Spain). Although he was a patron of some of Spain’s greatest ever artists – Velázquez and Lope de Vega included – his 44-year reign is generally not considered to have been a successful one as Spain lost clout on the world stage.

Carlos II (The Bewitched): Famously inbred
Google “inbreeding among royals” and most of the images will be of poor Charles II of Spain and his bizarre facial features, including the so-called ‘Habsburg Jaw’ (which explains his nickname). The last monarch of the Spanish Habsburg dynasty was mentally and physically challenged, and crucially infertile. With his death in 1700, the War of Spanish Succession began.

Felipe V (The Courageous): He thought he was a frog

The founder of the current Bourbon dynasty suffered from depression and hallucinations and actually believed he was a frog, croaking and jumping throughout the palace. He also refused to change his clothes and wash for fear of being poisoned through new ones. Despite this, he ruled for 46 years with a break of just 229 days.

Luis I (The Beloved or The Liberal): Short and not-so-sweet reign
Luis I had one of the shortest reigns in Spanish history lasting only 229 days until he died aged just 17.

Fernando VI (The Prudent or The Just): Just as mad as his father
The fourth son of Felipe V became increasingly erratic and depressed throughout his reign culminating in what’s known as ‘the year without a king’ before his death from ‘melancholia’. It is thought he was probably also bipolar, he couldn’t sleep, barely washed, bit people in the royal court, danced publicly in his underwear and pretended he was a ghost.

Carlos III (The Politician): The man behind the Spanish lottery and flag
The third son of Felipe V to reach the throne, Charles III was determined to restore Spain’s position on the world stage, with middling success. He set up Spain’s national lottery as a way of filling the royal coffers, enforced Spanish over other languages in the Iberian peninsula and chose the red-yellow-red flag Spain has to this day.

Carlos IV (The Hunter): A hobbyist more than a king

Charles IV of Spain ascended the throne shortly before the outbreak of the French Revolution, which ultimately marked his unstable reign. He entrusted the ruling of Spain to politician Manuel Godoy, instead losing himself in his hobbies for most of the day: music, hunting, craftsmanship and art. It’s no surprise that his wife María Luisa is said to have confessed to a friar that none of Carlos’s heirs were actually his.

Fernando VII (The Desired or The Felon): He was overthrown and imprisoned by Napoleon
Two months after Ferdinand occupied the Spanish throne in 1808, Napoleon Bonaparte invaded and took over and put the young king behind bars in France. When the Spanish populace rose up against the French invaders, he regained his crown from 1814 to 1833.

José I (The Intruder): He was Napoleon’s brother
Known as José I Bonaparte or José Napoleon I, he was a French politician, diplomat, lawyer, and older brother of Napoleon Bonaparte. He was given the Spanish throne by his sibling in 1808 but offered to abdicate on four occasions.

Isabel II (The Queen of Sad Destinies or The Chaste Queen): A reputed nymphomaniac
Isabel took the throne upon the death of her father when she was just three years old, with her mother acting as regent during her childhood. She has often been portrayed as not being the sharpest tool in the shed and a nymphomaniac, but these claims were most likely embellished by political adversaries. When she was forced to abdicate and into exile in Paris, she allegedly said “I was kicked out of Spain because I had lovers”. Her husband Francisco de Asís de Borbón was known to be homosexual, even though they had 12 children together.

Amadeo I (The Knight King or The Elect): An Italian prince who grew fed up of Spain
The only Spanish monarch from the House of Savoy, Amadeus was born in Turin in Italy and was elected by the Spanish courts to be king in 1870 after they dethroned Isabel II. As soon as he reached power, his main political ally Spanish Prime Minister Juan Prim was murdered, marking the tone for three years of instability and turmoil which led Amadeo to gracefully turn down the crown of this “deeply troubled” country as he put it, and cause the first Spanish Republic to be proclaimed.

Alfonso XII (The Pacifier): He helped repair the monarchy…and he liked sardines
Son of the dethroned Isabel II, the crown returned the House of Borbón with Alfonso XII. His ten-year reign gave hope of a stable constitutional monarchy in Spain. Alfonso died aged just 27 from tuberculosis. That didn’t give him much time to do anything that memorable, but he did famously love Málaga’s skewered sardines, known as espetos.

Alfonso XIII (The African): His reign was followed by fascism
After the death of his father, Alfonso Junior was King of Spain from his birth until the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic, but had to wait to officially take the throne when aged 16. His reign was rife with social and political problems with ultimately led to the fascist Primo de Rivera dictatorship. He got his nickname ‘The African’ due to Spain’s 1920s Rif War for colonial rule over northern Morocco, which anti-monarchists blamed him for.

Juan Carlos I: The Rascal?
The father of Spain’s current king. Despite being lauded for supporting Spain’s Transition into democracy after Franco’s dictatorship, he abdicated in favour of his son Felipe VI after a botched elephant hunting trip in Botswana and a number of ongoing financial scandals. He now lives is self-imposed exile in Abu Dhabi. Juan Carlos was not given a sobrenombre (nickname) by the public, but he did choose to call his sailboat Bribón, which means “rascal” in Spanish. Coincidence?

Felipe VI: Spain’s current squeaky clean king
Tall, handsome, level-headed, he speaks seven languages – German, English, French, Basque, Catalan, Galician and Spanish. Since being crowned in 2014, Spain’s King Felipe has done a great job in restoring the damage done to the Spanish monarchy by his father, with not a single controversy making front page news.

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Are Spaniards the world's most misunderstood sleepers?

Along with their supposed obsession with bullfighting and constant sipping on sangría, one of the timeless (yet misunderstood) stereotypes that foreigners have of Spaniards is that they have a siesta every day.

In reality, this is far from the truth. Often foreigners can mistake the laid back pace of life in Spain, combined with the easy going nature of many Spaniards and tradition of siestas (more on the history below) as evidence that Spaniards must sleep a lot.

In more reductionist terms, this leads to Spaniards sometimes being incorrectly characterised as lazy or work shy — any culture that has a tradition of taking a nap during the day must sleep more, right?

This is one of those cultural stereotypes that just feels right, even though the reality is quite different.

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Not only do Spaniards work more on average than many of their European neighbours, according to OECD figures, but new data has revealed that they actually sleep less than many others around the continent. Less, even, than many of their supposedly harder working Northern European neighbours.

According to statistics from the Sleep Cycle app, Spaniards sleep on average 7 hours and 13 minutes per day (or night).

For context, that makes Spain one of the countries with the lowest average sleep hours on the continent. Europe’s deepest sleepers are found in Holland and Finland (7 hours 37 minutes) followed by countries like the UK (7.33), Ireland (7.30) and France (7.29).

At the other end of the sleep spectrum, among the continent’s lightest sleepers (or those that sleep the least) are Italy (7.09), Russia (7.07), Poland (7.04) and Turkey, where Turks sleep an average of just 6.5 hours per night.

The reality

So, we know that Spaniards sleep less on average than many other nationalities. But what about siestas specifically?

Although many children and the elderly may choose to take a nap, most working people in Spain don’t have time to take a snooze during the working day.

According to survey data from 2016, 58 percent of Spaniards never take a siesta, while just 18 percent say they do so at least four days a week. Another 16 percent said they have one between one and three days a week, and 8 percent even less frequently than that.

In fact, data aside, anecdotally speaking many Spaniards claim they don’t sleep enough (siesta or no siesta) and they’d probably admit they should get more shut eye. The long-held siesta stereotype about Spain comes, in part, from history, climate and cliché, but also the structure of the Spanish working and social day.

"There is no night life in Spain. They stay up late but they get up late. That is not night life. That is delaying the day."

– Ernest Hemingway pic.twitter.com/9qQ33i4lQj

— Nick O'Brien (@NickLovesSpain) April 20, 2023

“Most workers have a split shift, and that ends up delaying our whole day. We Spaniards tend to have dinner after nine o’clock at night, and this means that we go to bed without having fully digested our food,” says Adela Fraile, sleep specialist at the HM Puerta del Sur University Hospital in Madrid.

This late eating custom, which usually means eating lunch between 2-4pm and then dinner anywhere from 9-11pm, is often the first thing many foreigners notice about Spain. But it’s not just that. As food is such an integral part of Spanish culture, other parts of life fit around lunch and dinner, rather than the other way around.

One example of this is the lateness of Spain’s prime time TV slot.

“We are also used to watching TV after dinner, and as prime time programmes start late, we often end up staying up until they finish,” Fraile adds. “Using devices such as computers, tablets or consoles in bed doesn’t help either… the German and the Spaniard get up at the same time, but the Spaniard has gone to bed later,” she concludes.

Nazi time zones

There’s also another slightly darker, historical explanation for the unconventional timekeeping and body clocks of Spaniards: the Nazis.

Although officially neutral during the Second World War, Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, who was keen to show his thanks for Nazi support during the Spanish Civil War, demonstrated this to Hitler by agreeing to put Spain’s clocks forward by an hour in an act of solidarity with Nazi Germany.

Spain has remained in the Central European Time zone ever since, in line with countries as far east as Poland. That means that Madrid currently has the same time as Warsaw in Poland 2,290km away but is one hour ahead of Lisbon which is only 502 km away.

This bizarre historical quirk has had a lasting impact on Spanish culture and society that underpins everything from Spaniard’s sleep cycles and meal times to the country’s birth rates and economic growth.

In recent years there have been calls to make the switch back to GMT because many believe the time zone quirk is affecting Spaniard’s productivity and quality of life. In 2013 a Spanish national commission concluded that Spaniards sleep significantly less than the European average, and that this led to increased stress, concentration problems, both at school and work, and workplace accidents.

The history of siestas

So, where does the siesta fit into all this?

After the Spanish Civil War, it was common for people to work two jobs to support their families: one in the morning and one in the afternoon. Taking a longer two-hour break allowed them to rest before starting their next job, and often this (understandably) included a nap.

Siestas were also used as a way to avoid midday heat, especially among agricultural workers. Spain is not alone in this tradition: workers in other countries close to the equator, such as Greece, Mexico, Ecuador, the Philippines, Costa Rica and Nigeria, observe similar sleep schedules.

These working hours, roughly 8/9am-2pm and 4pm-8pm, have endured in Spanish work culture until today, despite the fact that most Spaniards don’t work outside, have two jobs or take siestas for that matter.

When American in Spain Melissa Perri posed the question to Spaniards only “When do you sleep? Are you vampires?” one Spaniard replied “We have a culture built around the siesta and no time to take siestas any more, so people are getting less sleep than they need”.

Serious question for people from Spain…

When do you SLEEP?

Been here for a week. Dinner at 10pm (sometimes ELEVEN) and at work by 9am. Weekends people in their 40s and 50s out until 3am.

Are you vampires? How do you do it? What’s the secret?

— Melissa Perri (@lissijean) May 31, 2023

The future of siestas

So, what of siestas in the future? As the data shows, Spaniards sleep less than most other countries, and very few Spaniards actually take a siesta during the working week. In that sense, siestas could continue their downward trajectory and slowly die out over time.

Recent proposals by the Spanish government to cut the working week, which would likely mean that many Spaniards have a shorter lunch break and finish work earlier, say around 5pm or 6pm, would probably accentuate this trend and remove the need for afternoon naps for many people.

However, there’s also some evidence that the Covid-19 pandemic caused a slight resurgence in siesta sleeping among Spaniards. The rise of remote working (known as teletrabajo in Spanish) led many to reassess their sleeping habits, and as time goes on and the working world becomes increasingly digitised and online, perhaps Spaniards will begin splitting up the day again when working from home.

One thing seems certain, however. Siestas, like bullfighting and sangría and screaming olé for no good reason, will probably live on as a Spanish stereotype for a long while yet.

Now, time for a lie down.

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