The House of Bourbon (English: , also UK: ; French: [buʁbɔ̃]) is a dynasty that originated in the Kingdom of France as a branch of the Capetian dynasty, the royal House of France. Bourbon kings first ruled France and Navarre in the 16th century. A branch descended from the French Bourbons came to rule Spain in the 18th century and is the current Spanish royal family. Other branches, descended from the Spanish Bourbons, held thrones in Naples, Sicily, and Parma. Today, Spain and Luxembourg have monarchs from the House of Bourbon.
The royal Bourbons originated in 1272, when Robert, the youngest son of King Saint Louis IX of France, married the heiress of the lordship of Bourbon. The house continued for three centuries as a cadet branch, serving as nobles under the direct Capetian and Valois kings.
The senior line of the House of Bourbon became extinct in the male line in 1527 with the death of Duke Charles III of Bourbon in the Sack of Rome. This made the junior Bourbon-Vendôme branch the genealogically senior branch of the House of Bourbon. In 1589, at the death of Henry III of France, the House of Valois became extinct in the male line. Under the Salic law, the head of the House of Bourbon, as the senior representative of the senior-surviving branch of the Capetian dynasty (first prince of the blood), became King of France as Henry IV. Bourbon monarchs then united to France the part of the Kingdom of Navarre north of the Pyrenees, which Henry's father had acquired by marriage in 1555, ruling both until the 1792 overthrow of the monarchy during the French Revolution. Restored briefly in 1814 and definitively in 1815 after the fall of the First French Empire, the senior line of the Bourbons was finally overthrown in the July Revolution of 1830. A cadet Bourbon branch, the House of Orléans, then ruled for 18 years (1830–1848), until it too was overthrown during the French Revolution of 1848.
The House of Condé was a cadet branch of the Bourbons descended from an uncle of Henry IV, and the House of Conti was a cadet line of the Condé branch. Both houses, recognized as princes of the blood, were prominent French noble families, well known for their participation in French affairs, even during exile in the French Revolution, until their respective extinctions in 1830 and 1814. Consequently, since the extinction of the Capetian House of Courtenay in 1733, the Bourbons are the only extant legitimate branch of the House of Capet. Although illegitimate, the House of Braganza traces its line to the House of Capet via descent from Robert II of France through the First House of Burgundy, then through the Portuguese House of Burgundy. Peter I of Portugal fathered an illegitimate son – John I of Portugal, founder of the House of Aviz – who in turn fathered an illegitimate son named Afonso, who in turn founded the extant House of Braganza.
In 1700, upon the death of King Charles II of Spain, the Spanish Habsburgs became extinct in the male line. Under the will of the childless Charles II, the second grandson of King Louis XIV of France was named as his successor, to preclude the union of the thrones of France and Spain. The prince, then Duke of Anjou, became Philip V of Spain. Permanent separation of the French and Spanish thrones was secured when France and Spain ratified Philip's renunciation, for himself and his descendants, of the French throne in the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, and similar arrangements later kept the Spanish throne separate from those of Naples, Sicily and Parma. The Spanish House of Bourbon (rendered in Spanish as Borbón [boɾˈβon]) has been overthrown and restored several times, reigning 1700–1808, 1813–1868, 1875–1931, and since 1975. Bourbons ruled in Naples from 1734 to 1806 and in Sicily from 1735 to 1816, as well as in a unified Kingdom of the Two Sicilies from 1816 to 1861. They also ruled in Parma from 1731 to 1735, 1748 to 1802 and 1847 to 1859, in the Kingdom of Etruria from 1802 to 1807, and in the Duchy of Lucca from 1814 to 1847.
Grand Duchess Charlotte of Luxembourg married Prince Felix of Bourbon-Parma, and thus her successors, who have reigned in Luxembourg since her abdication in 1964, have also been members of the House of Bourbon. Isabel, Princess Imperial of Brazil, regent for her father, Emperor Pedro II of Brazil, married a cadet of the Orléans line and thus their descendants, known as the Orléans-Braganza, were in the line of succession to the Brazilian throne and expected to ascend its throne had the monarchy not been abolished by a coup in 1889. All legitimate, living members of the House of Bourbon, including its cadet branches, are direct agnatic descendants of Henry IV through his son Louis XIII.
Origins
The pre-Capetian House of Bourbon was a noble family, dating at least from the beginning of the 13th century, when the estate of Bourbon was ruled by the Sire de Bourbon who was a vassal of the King of France. The term House of Bourbon ("Maison de Bourbon") is sometimes used to refer to this first house and the House of Bourbon-Dampierre, the second family to rule the seigneury.
In 1272, Robert, Count of Clermont, sixth and youngest son of King Louis IX of France, married Beatrix of Bourbon, heiress to the lordship of Bourbon and member of the House of Bourbon-Dampierre. Their son Louis was made Duke of Bourbon in 1327. His descendant, the Constable of France Charles de Bourbon, was the last of the senior Bourbon line when he died in 1527. Because he chose to fight under the banner of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and lived in exile from France, his title was discontinued after his death.
The remaining line of Bourbons henceforth descended from James I, Count of La Marche, the younger son of Louis I, Duke of Bourbon. With the death of his grandson James II, Count of La Marche in 1438, the senior line of the Count of La Marche became extinct. All future Bourbons would descend from James II's younger brother, Louis, who became the Count of Vendôme through his mother's inheritance. In 1525, at the death of Charles IV, Duke of Alençon, all of the princes of the blood royal were Bourbons; all remaining members of the House of Valois were members of the king's immediate family.
In 1514, Charles, Count of Vendôme had his title raised to Duke of Vendôme. His son Antoine became King of Navarre, on the northern side of the Pyrenees, by marriage in 1555. Two of Antoine's younger brothers were Cardinal Archbishop Charles de Bourbon and the French and Huguenot general Louis de Bourbon, 1st Prince of Condé. Louis' male-line descendants, the Princes de Condé, survived until 1830. Finally, in 1589, the House of Valois died out and Antoine's son Henry III of Navarre became Henry IV of France.
List of Bourbons
Bourbon branches
Family from India's claim to be a branch and their claim to The "Throne of France"
Bourbons of India, claim to be descendants of Charles III, Duke of Bourbon, of the first House of Bourbon-Montpensier.
As per the latest research carried out by Prince Michael of Greece and incorporated in his historical novel, Le Rajah Bourbon, Balthazar Napoleon IV de Bourbon from India is the senior heir in line to the French throne.
France
Rise of Henry IV
The first Bourbon king of France was Henry IV. He was born on 13 December 1553 in the Kingdom of Navarre. Antoine de Bourbon, his father, was a ninth-generation descendant of King Louis IX of France. Jeanne d'Albret, his mother, was the Queen of Navarre and niece of King Francis I of France. He was baptized Catholic, but raised Calvinist. After his father was killed in 1562, he became Duke of Vendôme at the age of 10, with Admiral Gaspard de Coligny (1519–1572) as his regent. Seven years later, the young duke became the nominal leader of the Huguenots after the death of his uncle the Prince de Condé in 1569.
Henry succeeded to Navarre as Henry III when his mother died in 1572. That same year Catherine de' Medici, mother of King Charles IX of France, arranged for the marriage of her daughter, Margaret of Valois, to Henry, ostensibly to advance peace between Catholics and Huguenots. Many Huguenots gathered in Paris for the wedding on 24 August, but were ambushed and slaughtered by Catholics in the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre. Henry saved his own life by converting to Catholicism. He repudiated his conversion in 1576 and resumed his leadership of the Huguenots.
The period from 1576 to 1584 was relatively calm in France, with the Huguenots consolidating control of much of the south with only occasional interference from the royal government. Extended civil war erupted again in 1584, when François, Duke of Anjou, younger brother of King Henry III of France, died, leaving Navarre next in line for the throne. Thus began the War of the Three Henrys, as Henry of Navarre, Henry III, and the ultra-Catholic leader, Henry of Guise, fought a confusing three-cornered struggle for dominance. After Henry III was assassinated on 31 July 1589, Navarre claimed the throne as the first Bourbon king of France, Henry IV.
Much of Catholic France, organized into the Catholic League, refused to recognize a Protestant monarch and instead recognized Henry IV's uncle, Charles, Cardinal de Bourbon, as rightful king, and the civil war continued. Henry won a crucial victory at Ivry on 14 March 1590 and, following the death of the Cardinal the same year, the forces of the League lacked an obvious Catholic candidate for the throne and divided into various factions. Nevertheless, as a Protestant, Henry IV was unable to take Paris, a Catholic stronghold, or to decisively defeat his enemies, now supported by the Spanish. He reconverted to Catholicism in 1593 and was crowned king retroactively to 1589 at the Cathedral of Chartres on 27 February 1594.
Early Bourbons in France
Henry granted the Edict of Nantes on 13 April 1598, establishing Catholicism as an official state religion but also granting the Huguenots a measure of religious tolerance and political freedom short of full equality with the practice of Catholicism. This compromise ended the religious wars in France. That same year the Treaty of Vervins ended the war with Spain, adjusted the Spanish-French border, and resulted in a belated recognition by Spain of Henry as king of France.
Ably assisted by Maximilien de Béthune, Duke of Sully, Henry reduced the land tax known as the taille; promoted agriculture, public works, construction of highways, and the first French canal; started such important industries as the tapestry works of the Gobelins; and intervened in favor of Protestants in the duchies and earldoms along the German frontier. This last was to be the cause of his assassination.
Henry's marriage to Margaret, which had produced no heir, was annulled in 1599, and he married Marie de' Medici, niece of the grand duke of Tuscany. A son, Louis, was born to them in 1601. Henry IV was assassinated on 14 May 1610 in Paris. Louis XIII was only nine years old when he succeeded his father. He was to prove a weak ruler; his reign was effectively a series of distinct regimes, depending who held the effective reins of power. At first, Marie de' Medici, his mother, served as regent and advanced a pro-Spanish policy. To deal with the financial troubles of France, Louis summoned the Estates General in 1614; this would be the last time that body met until the eve of the French Revolution. Marie arranged the 1615 marriage of Louis to Anne of Austria, the daughter of King Philip III of Spain.
In 1617, Louis conspired with Charles d'Albert, 1st Duke of Luynes to dispense with her influence, having her favorite Concino Concini assassinated on 26 April of that year. After some years of weak government by Louis's favorites, the King made Cardinal Richelieu, a former protégé of his mother, the chief minister of France in 1624.
Richelieu advanced an anti-Habsburg policy. He arranged for Louis' sister, Henrietta Maria, to marry King Charles I of England, on 11 May 1625. Her pro-Catholic propaganda in England was one of the contributing factors to the English Civil War. Richelieu, as ambitious for France and the French monarchy as for himself, laid the ground for the absolute monarchy that would last in France until the Revolution. He wanted to establish a dominating position for France in Europe, and he wanted to unify France under the monarchy. He established the role of intendants, non-noble men whose arbitrary powers of administration were granted (and revocable) by the monarch, superseding many of the traditional duties and privileges of the noble governors.
Although it required a succession of internal military campaigns, Richelieu disarmed the fortified Huguenot towns that Henry had allowed. He involved France in the Thirty Years' War (1618–1648) against the Habsburgs by concluding an alliance with Sweden in 1631 and, actively, in 1635. He died in 1642 before the conclusion of that conflict, having groomed Cardinal Mazarin as a successor. Louis XIII outlived him but by one year, dying in 1643 at the age of forty-two. After a childless marriage for twenty-three years his queen, Anne, delivered a son on 5 September 1638, whom he named Louis after himself. In the mid-17th century, the Bourbon monarchy had a faulty system for finance and taxation. Their lacking a national bank led to them taking short-term loans, and ordering financial agents to make payments in advance or in excess of tax revenues collected.
Louis XIV and Louis XV
Louis XIV succeeded his father at four years of age; he would go on to become the most powerful king in French history. His mother Anne served as his regent with her favorite Jules, Cardinal Mazarin, as chief minister. When Louis was age 7, Nicolas de Neufville de Villeroy became governor of the young king. The main childhood places of Louis XIV were the Palais-Royal and the nearby Hôtel de Villeroy. Mazarin continued the policies of Richelieu, bringing the Thirty Years' War to a successful conclusion in 1648 and defeating the nobility's challenge to royal absolutism in a series of civil wars known as the Frondes. He continued to war with Spain until 1659.
In that year the Treaty of the Pyrenees was signed signifying a major shift in power, France had replaced Spain as the dominant state in Europe. The treaty called for an arranged marriage between Louis and his cousin Maria Theresa, a daughter of King Philip IV of Spain by his first wife Elisabeth, the sister of Louis XIII. They were married in 1660 and had a son, Louis, in 1661. Mazarin died on 9 March 1661 and it was expected that Louis would appoint another chief minister, as had become the tradition, but instead he shocked the country by announcing he would rule alone.
For six years Louis reformed the finances of his state and built formidable armed forces. France fought a series of wars from 1667 onward and gained some territory on its northern and eastern borders. Maria Theresa died in 1683 and the next year he secretly married the devoutly Catholic Françoise d'Aubigné, Marquise de Maintenon. Louis XIV began to persecute Protestants, undoing the religious tolerance established by his grandfather Henry IV, culminating in his revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685.
The last war waged by Louis XIV proved to be one of the most important to dynastic Europe. In 1700, King Charles II of Spain, a Habsburg, died without a son. Louis's only legitimate son, the Grand Dauphin, as the late king's nephew, was the closest heir; and Charles willed the kingdom to the Dauphin's second son, the Duke of Anjou. Other powers, particularly the Austrian Habsburgs, who had the next closest claims, objected to such a vast increase in French power.
Initially, most of the other powers were willing to accept Anjou's reign as Philip V, but Louis's mishandling of their concerns soon drove the English, Dutch and other powers to join the Austrians in a coalition against France. The War of the Spanish Succession began in 1701 and raged for 12 years. In the end Louis's grandson was recognized as king of Spain, but he was obliged to agree to the forfeiture of succession rights in France, the Spanish Habsburgs' other European territories were largely ceded to Austria, and France was nearly bankrupted by the cost of the struggle. Louis died on 1 September 1715 ending his seventy-two-year reign, the longest in European history.
The reign of Louis XIV was so long that he outlived both his son and eldest grandson. He was succeeded by his great-grandson Louis XV. Louis XV was born on 15 February 1710 and was thus aged only five at his ascension, the third Louis in a row to become king of France before the age of thirteen (Louis XIII became king at 9, Louis XIV at almost 5 and himself at 5). Initially, the regency was held by Philippe, Duke of Orléans, Louis XIV's nephew, as nearest adult male to the throne. This Régence was seen as a period of greater individual expression, manifested in secular, artistic, literary and colonial activity, in contrast to the austere latter years of Louis XIV's reign.
Following Orléans' death in 1723, the Duke of Bourbon, representative of the Bourbon-Condé cadet line, became prime minister. It was expected that Louis would marry his cousin, the daughter of King Philip V of Spain, but this engagement was broken by the duke in 1725 so that Louis could marry Marie Leszczyńska, the daughter of Stanislas, former king of Poland. Bourbon's motive appears to have been a desire to produce an heir as soon as possible so as to reduce the chances of a succession dispute between Philip V and the Duke of Orléans in the event of the sickly king's death. Maria was already an adult woman at the time of the marriage, while the infanta was still a young girl.
Nevertheless, Bourbon's action brought a very negative response from Spain, and for his incompetence Bourbon was soon replaced by Cardinal André-Hercule de Fleury, the young king's tutor, in 1726. Fleury was a peace-loving man who intended to keep France out of war, but circumstances presented themselves that made this impossible. The first cause of these wars came in 1733 when Augustus II, the elector of Saxony and king of Poland died. With French support, Stanislas was again elected king. This brought France into conflict with Russia and Austria who supported Augustus III of Poland, Elector of Saxony and son of Augustus II.
Stanislas lost the Polish crown, but he was given the Duchy of Lorraine as compensation, which would pass to France after his death in 1766. Next came the War of the Austrian Succession in 1740 in which France supported King Frederick the Great of Prussia against Maria Theresa, Archduchess of Austria and Queen of Hungary. Fleury died in 1743 before the conclusion of the war.
Shortly after Fleury's death in 1745 Louis was influenced by his mistress the Marquise de Pompadour to reverse the policy of France in 1756 by creating an alliance with Austria against Prussia in the Seven Years' War. The war was a disaster for France, which lost most of her overseas possessions to the British in the Treaty of Paris (1763). Maria, his wife, died in 1768 and Louis himself died on 10 May 1774.
French Revolution
Louis XVI had become the Dauphin of France upon the death of his father Louis, the son of Louis XV, in 1765. He married Marie Antoinette of Austria, a daughter of Holy Roman Empress Maria Theresa, in 1770. Louis intervened in the American Revolution against Britain in 1778, but he is most remembered for his role in the French Revolution. France was in financial turmoil and Louis was forced to convene the Estates-General on 5 May 1789.
They formed the National Assembly and forced Louis to accept a constitution that limited his powers on 14 July 1789. He tried to flee France in June 1791, but was captured. The French monarchy was abolished on 21 September 1792 and a republic was proclaimed. The chain of Bourbon monarchs begun in 1589 was broken. Louis XVI was executed on 21 January 1793.
Marie Antoinette and her son, Louis, were held as prisoners. Many French royalists proclaimed him Louis XVII, but he never reigned. She was executed on 16 October 1793. He died of tuberculosis on 8 June 1795 at the age of ten while in captivity.
The French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars spread nationalism and anti-absolutism throughout Europe, and the other Bourbon monarchs were threatened. Ferdinand IV was forced to flee from Naples in 1806 when Emperor Napoleon deposed him and installed his brother, Joseph, as king. Ferdinand continued to rule from Sicily until 1815.
Napoleon conquered Parma in 1800 and compensated the Bourbon duke with Etruria, a new kingdom he created from the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. It was short-lived, counting only two monarchs, Louis and Louis II, as Napoleon annexed Etruria in 1807.
King Charles IV of Spain had been an ally of France. He succeeded his father, Charles III, in 1788. At first he declared war on France on 7 March 1793, but he made peace on 22 June 1795. This peace became an alliance on 19 August 1796. His chief minister, Manuel de Godoy convinced Charles that his son, Ferdinand, was plotting to overthrow him. Napoleon exploited the situation and invaded Spain in March 1808. This led to an uprising that forced Charles to abdicate on 19 March 1808 in favor of his son, who became Ferdinand VII. Napoleon forced Ferdinand to return the crown to Charles on 30 April and then convinced Charles to relinquish it to him on 10 May 1808. In turn, he gave it to his brother, Joseph, king of Naples on 6 June 1808. Joseph abandoned Naples to Joachim Murat, the husband of Napoleon's sister. This was very unpopular in Spain and resulted in the Peninsular War, a struggle that would contribute to the downfall of Napoleon.
Bourbon Restoration
With the abdication of Napoleon on 11 April 1814 the Bourbon dynasty was restored to the Kingdom of France in the person of Louis XVIII, brother of Louis XVI. Napoleon escaped from exile and Louis fled in March 1815. Louis was again restored after the Battle of Waterloo on 7 July 1815.
The conservative elements of Europe dominated the post-Napoleonic age, but the values of the French Revolution could not be easily swept aside. Louis granted a constitution on 14 June 1814 to appease the liberals, but the ultra-royalist party, led by his brother, Charles, continued to influence his reign. When he died in 1824 his brother became king as Charles X much to the dismay of French liberals. In a saying ascribed to Talleyrand, "they had learned nothing and forgotten nothing."
Aftermath
Charles passed several laws that appealed to the upper class but angered the middle class. The situation came to a head when he appointed a new minister on 8 August 1829 who did not have the confidence of the Chamber of Deputies. The chamber censured the king on 18 March 1830 and in response Charles proclaimed the July Ordinances on 26 July 1830 intended to silence criticism against him. This resulted in the July Revolution.
As a compromise the crown was offered to Louis Philippe, duke of Orléans, a descendant of the brother of Louis XIV, and the head of the Orléanist cadet branch of the Bourbons. Agreeing to reign constitutionally and under the tricolour, he was proclaimed King of the French on 7 August 1830. The resulting regime, known as the July Monarchy, lasted until the Revolution of 1848. The Bourbon monarchy in France ended on 24 February 1848, when Louis Philippe was forced to abdicate and the short-lived Second Republic was established.
Some Legitimists refused to recognize the Orléanist monarchy. After the death of Charles in 1836 his son was proclaimed Louis XIX, though this title was never formally recognized. Charles' grandson Henri, Count of Chambord, the last Bourbon claimant of the French crown, was proclaimed by some Henry V, but the French monarchy was never restored.
Following the 1870 collapse of the Second French Empire of Emperor Napoleon III, Henri was offered a restored throne. However Chambord refused to accept the throne unless France abandoned the revolution-inspired tricolour and accepted what he regarded as the true Bourbon flag of France, featuring the fleur-de-lis. The tricolour, originally associated with the French Revolution and the First Republic, had been used by the July Monarchy, the Second Republic and both Empires; the French National Assembly could not possibly agree.
A temporary Third Republic was established, while monarchists waited for the comte de Chambord to die and for the succession to pass to Prince Philippe, Count of Paris, who was willing to accept the tricolour. Henri lived until 1883, by which time public opinion had come to accept the republic as the "form of government that divides us least." His death without issue marked the extinction of the main line of the French Bourbons. Thus the head of the House of Bourbon became Juan, Count of Montizón of the Spanish line of the house who was also Carlist claimant to the throne of Spain, and had become the senior male of the dynasty by primogeniture. His heir as eldest Bourbon and head of the house is today Louis Alphonse, Duke of Anjou, sometimes regarded as Louis XX.
However the terms of the Peace of Utrecht forbade the descendants of Philip V of Spain from inheriting the throne of France, therefore many monarchists recognised the Orléans line as heirs to the French throne.
By an ordinance of Louis Philippe I of 13 August 1830, it was decided that the king's children (and his sister) would continue to bear the arms of Orléans, that Louis-Philippe's eldest son Ferdinand, as Prince Royal, would bear the title of Duke of Orléans, that the younger sons would continue to have their existing titles, and that the sister and daughters of the king would be styled Royal Highness and "d'Orléans," but the Orléans dynasts did not take the name "of France."
Bourbons of Spain and Italy
Philip V
The Spanish branch of the House of Bourbon, also known as the House of Bourbon-Anjou, was founded by Philip V. He was born in 1683 at Versailles, the second son of the Grand Dauphin, who was eldest son of Louis XIV. He was Duke of Anjou and probably never expected to be raised to a rank higher than that. However, King Charles II of Spain, dying without issue, willed the throne to his grand-nephew the Duke of Anjou, who was the younger grandson of his eldest sister Marie-Thérèse, who had married Louis XIV.