A bit of wider worldbuilding here, but something I actually quite enjoyed doing. I think monarch wikiboxes are quite a good way of conveying wider parts of the world.
Hope you like it
Alfonso Fernando I (10 May 1907 – 6 September 1958), also known as
El Libertador or
the Liberator, was a Spanish Antillean prince who reigned as the King of Cuba between October 1940 and September 1958. The first monarch of an independent Cuban state, Alfonso Fernando reigned for nearly 18 years, which saw the international recognition of Cuban independence, the country's transition to democracy and its membership in the Commonwealth of Nations. Remembered as a national hero, the king is known as the "Liberator of Cuba" and numerous monuments and memorials to the king can be found throughtout the island, and his descendants make up the current Cuban royal family.
Born in the Royal Palace, Havana in 1907, during the reign of his grandfather, Alfonso Francisco I, from birth he was the second in line to the Spanish Antillean throne and the defunct Spanish throne, as the eldest son of Alfonso Leon, Prince of Asturias, and his wife Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg, from who he inherited the genetic disorder haemophilia. He and his younger brother, Gonzalo, were kept in specially-tailored jackets to prevent injury. Upon his father's accession to the throne in 1922, Alfonso Fernando was created Prince of Asturias, the traditional title of the Spanish heir apparent, despite the Spanish Republic's repeated objections. His father thought him unsuitable to suceed him, and sort to remove him from the line of succession and pressured Alfonso Fernando to renounce his right to the throne.
In 1933, Alfonso Fernando married Edelmira Sampedro y Robato, a Cuban commoner, and renounced his rights to the throne, taking the courtesy title Count of Covadonga and establishing his own branch of the House of Bourbon. Their marriage was strained in its early years, until the birth of their only child, Enrique Antonio, in 1936. With the increasingly authoritarian Antillean government, the Count and his family would spent much of their time in Florida. In the late 1930s, Alfonso Fernando was first approached by the underground democracy movement in Cuba to aid them in a revolt against his father and the dictatorial pro-Axis National Unity government of Gerardo Machado and Rafael Trujillo. Initially reluctant to publicly oppose the Antillean government, Alfonso Fernando agreed to support the democracy movement after being presented with evidence of the violent repression of dissidents, to which his father was allegedly complicit.
Leaving his wife and son in Florida, Alfonso Fernando returned to Cuba in September 1940 during widespread protests and civil unrest across the island. On 10 October 1940, at the head of a mass protest, Cuban revolutionaries issued a declaration of independence in Santiago, proclaiming Alfonso Fernando I as the first king of a free and independent Cuba. The civil uprising would evolve into a civil war and spread across both Cuba and Santo Domingo, opening up a secondary theatre in the Second World War, as Allied- and Axis-aligned forces fought against each other across the territory. On 15 January 1941, his brother, Juan Carlos, was proclaimed King of the Dominicans, and the two brothers aligned their forces against the fascist regime. Due to his haemophilia, Alfonso Fernando would not take part in the fighting, but his public appearances in liberated cities and on propaganda inspired the people and the revolutionaries. After the liberation of Havana and the death of his father in February 1941, Alfonso Fernando entered the city to jubilant crowds. The deaths of Trujillo and Machado in March signalled the end of the conflict.
On 14 April 1941, the San Juan Agreement was signed by representatives of the new Cuban and Dominican governments, and led to the mutual recognition of their independence. Alfonso Fernando was crowned King of Cuba on 8 January 1942, and he and his family took up official residence at the Royal Palace in Havana. The early years of his reign saw the nation undergo an extensive period of reconstruction, as the fledgling democracy consolidated itself and alongside the legislature he promulgated a formal constitution that established Cuba as a parliamentary consitutional monarchy. Cuba would join the nascent Commonwealth of Nations, becoming one of the first non-British colonies to join the organisation, in a ceremony attended by the king and Princess Elizabeth, the future Queen-Empress Elizabeth II.
An active and popular monarch, the king made regular public appearances across Cuba, spending much of the 1940s and early 50s travelling the length and breadth of his new realm. By 1955, the king's health began to deteriorate, a side effect of his haemophilia, and he would regularly return to the Royal Villa at Covadonga to rest and recuperate. On 5 September 1958, the king and queen were out horse riding when the king was thrown from his horse. Although he appeared to have only minor injuries, his haemophilia led to fatal internal bleeding and the king passed away in the early hours of 6 September. He was buried in the Cathedral of San Cristobal in a full state funeral, and was suceeded as king by his son, Enrique Antonio. Upon his wife's death in 1994 she was buried next to him. Alfonso Fernando is repeatedly ranked amongst the greatest Cubans, and his reign left a lasting legacy on the country and its people.
