Alfonso XIII (17 May 1886 28 February 1941), also known as El Africano or the African, was King of Spain from 17 May 1886 to 14 April 1931, when the Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed. He was a monarch from birth as his father, Alfonso XII, had died the previous year. Alfonso's mother, Maria Christina of Austria, served as regent until he assumed full powers on his sixteenth birthday in 1902.

Alfonso XIII's upbringing and public image were closely linked to the military estate, often presenting himself as a soldier-king. His effective reign started four years after the so-called 1898 Disaster, with various social factions projecting their expectations of national regeneration upon him. Similarly to other European monarchs of his time, he played an important political role, entailing a highly controversial use of his constitutional executive powers. His wedding with Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg in 1906 was marked by a regicide attempt, from which he escaped unharmed.

With a divided opinion in the public eye about the World War I aloof, split between Germanophiles and pro-entente sympathizers, Alfonso XIII leveraged his family relations to every major European royal family to help preserve the stance of neutrality espoused by the government. The rupture of the turno and ensuing deepening of the crisis of the Restoration system in the 1910s, dealt by a triple whammy in 1917, ensued with the final cracking, otherwise inseparable from the spiral of violence in Morocco, leading up to the installment of the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera through a 1923 military coup d'etat that won the acquiescence from Alfonso XIII, thereby further undermining the monarch's constitutional legitimacy. Upon the political failure of the dictatorship, Alfonso XIII removed support to Primo de Rivera (who was thereby forced to resign in 1930) and favoured during the so-called dictablanda a return to the pre-1923 state of affairs. Nevertheless, he had lost most of his political capital along the way.

He left Spain voluntarily after the municipal elections of April 1931, understood as a plebiscite on whether continuing with the monarchy or declaring a republic, and which led to the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic on 14 April 1931.

His efforts with the European War Office during World War I, earned him a nomination the Nobel Peace Prize in 1917, which was ultimately won by the Red Cross. To date, he is the only monarch that had been nominated for a Nobel Prize.

The Cortes Generales (Spanish pronunciation: [ˈkoɾtes xeneˈɾales]; English: Spanish Parliament, lit. 'General Courts') are the bicameral legislative chambers of Spain, consisting of the Congress of Deputies (the lower house), and the Senate (the upper house).

The Congress of Deputies meets in the Palacio de las Cortes. The Senate meets in the Palacio del Senado. Both are in Madrid. The Cortes are elected through universal, free, equal, direct and secret suffrage, with the exception of some senatorial seats, which are elected indirectly by the legislatures of the autonomous communities. The Cortes Generales are composed of 616 members: 350 Deputies and 265 Senators.

The members of the Cortes Generales serve four-year terms, and they are representatives of the Spanish people. In both chambers, the seats are divided by constituencies that correspond with the fifty provinces of Spain, plus Ceuta and Melilla. However, the Canary and Balearic islands form different constituencies in the Senate.

As a parliamentary system, the Cortes confirm and dismiss the Prime Minister of Spain and his or her government; specifically, the candidate for Prime Minister has to be invested by the Congress with a majority of affirmative votes. The Congress can also dismiss the Prime Minister through a vote of no confidence. The Cortes also hold the power to enact a constitutional reform.

The modern Cortes Generales were created by the Constitution of Spain, but the institution has a long history.