Yo, el rey: La historia de Carlos II: 112

The true monarch behind the myth of the "bewitched" king. Madrid, 1665. A four-year-old boy inherits the throne of the Spanish Monarchy, the greatest empire of its time. From Brussels to Naples, from Mexico to Manila, millions of subjects fall under the authority of a king whose figure has been the object of mockery and pity for centuries. History has remembered him with the cruel nickname "the Bewitched" and as a symbol of Habsburg decline. But what if that image were nothing more than a myth, the product of propaganda? In I, the King, Alberto Bravo dismantles one of the most persistent black legends in Spanish history and restores Charles II to his true dimension. Far from the caricature of an incapable monarch, we discover a sovereign aware of the weight of his crown, who ruled for more than three decades and managed to preserve the cohesion of the Spanish Monarchy at one of the most delicate moments in its history. Under his reign, the economy of the peninsular kingdoms recovered, and the political machinery continued to function with a remarkable capacity for adaptation. The result of years of research and a deep knowledge of the sources, I, the King is the most complete and revealing portrait of the last Habsburg. With narrative drive and historical rigor, Alberto Bravo looks at Charles II with fresh eyes and reveals the king behind the legend: not the sickly phantom of a crumbling empire, but a monarch who upheld his inheritance to the very end.