Accession of Queen Anne of Great Britain and Ireland. Conclusion

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Archduke Charles of Austria, Duke of Marlborough, Electress Sophia of Hanover, King Carlos II of Spain, King Felipe V of Spain, King George I of Great Britain, Philippe of Anjou, Queen Anne of Great Britain and Ireland, Sarah Churchill, Treaty of Utrecht, War of the Spanish Succession

The War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1715) was a conflict involving many of the leading European powers that was triggered by the death in November 1700 of the childless Carlos II of Spain.

Prince Louis, The Grand Dauphin, had the strongest genealogical claim to the Spanish throne held by King Carlos II who was his maternal uncle. The Grand Dauphin was the son and heir-apparent of King Louis XIV of France and Navarre.

However, since neither the Grand Dauphin nor his eldest son, Louis, Duke of Burgundy, could be displaced from the succession to the French throne, King Carlos II named the Philippe, Duke of Anjou as his heir. The Duke of Anjou was the second son of Louis, Grand Dauphin, Duke of Anjou as his heir-presumptive.

If Philippe, Duke of Anjou refused the crown, the alternative was Archduke Charles of Austria, younger son of Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor.

King Felipe V of Spain

Having accepted, Philippe was proclaimed King Felipe V of an undivided Spanish Empire on November 16, 1700. The proclamation led to war, with France and Spain on one side and the Grand Alliance on the other to maintain the separation of the Spanish and French thrones.

At issue wasn’t just who had hereditary right to the Spanish throne; at it’s heart was to established the principle that dynastic rights were secondary to maintaining the balance of power between different countries.

As the expensive War of the Spanish Succession grew unpopular, so did the Whig administration. The impeachment of Henry Sacheverell, a high church Tory Anglican who had preached anti-Whig sermons, led to further public discontent.

Anne thought Sacheverell ought to be punished for questioning the Glorious Revolution, but that his punishment should only be a mild one to prevent further public commotion.

In London, riots broke out in support of Sacheverell, but the only troops available to quell the disturbances were Anne’s guards, and Secretary of State Sunderland was reluctant to use them and leave the Queen less protected.

Anne declared God would be her guard and ordered Sunderland to redeploy her troops. In line with Anne’s views, Sacheverell was convicted, but his sentence—suspension of preaching for three years—was so light as to render the trial a mockery.

The Queen, increasingly disdainful of the Marlboroughs and her ministry, finally took the opportunity to dismiss Sunderland in June 1710.

Godolphin followed in August. The Junto Whigs were removed from office, although Marlborough, for the moment, remained as commander of the army. In their place, she appointed a new ministry headed by Harley, which began to seek peace with France.

Unlike the Whigs, Harley and his ministry were ready to compromise by giving Spain to the Bourbon claimant, Philippe of Anjou, in return for commercial concessions. In the parliamentary elections that soon followed his appointment, Harley, aided by government patronage, secured a large Tory majority.

In January 1711, Anne forced Sarah to resign her court offices, and Abigail took over as Keeper of the Privy Purse. Harley was stabbed by a disgruntled French refugee, the Marquis de Guiscard, in March, and Anne wept at the thought he would die. He recovered slowly. Godolphin’s death from natural causes in September 1712 reduced Anne to tears; she blamed their estrangement on the Marlboroughs.

Holy Roman Emperor Joseph I, died in April 1711and his brother Archduke Charles of Austria, succeeded him in Austria, Hungary and the Holy Roman Empire as Emperor Charles VI.

To also give him the Spanish throne was no longer in Britain’s interests, but the proposed Peace of Utrecht submitted to Parliament for ratification did not go as far as the Whigs wanted to curb Bourbon ambitions.

In the House of Commons, the Tory majority was unassailable, but the same was not true in the House of Lords. The Whigs secured the support of the Earl of Nottingham against the treaty by promising to support his Occasional Conformity bill.

Seeing a need for decisive action to erase the anti-peace majority in the House of Lords, and seeing no alternative, Anne reluctantly created twelve new peers, even though such a mass creation of peers was unprecedented.

Abigail’s husband, Samuel Masham, was made a baron, although Anne protested to Harley that she “never had any design to make a great lady of [Abigail], and should lose a useful servant”. On the same day, Marlborough was dismissed as commander of the army. The peace treaty was ratified and Britain’s military involvement in the War of the Spanish Succession ended.

By signing the Treaty of Utrecht, King Louis XIV of France recognised the Hanoverian succession in Britain. Nevertheless, gossip that Anne and her ministers favoured the succession of her Catholic half-brother, Prince James Francis, Prince of Wales rather than the Hanoverians continued, despite Anne’s denials in public and in private.

The rumours were fed by her consistent refusals to permit any of the Hanoverians to visit or move to England, and by the intrigues of Harley and the Tory Secretary of State Lord Bolingbroke, who were in separate and secret discussions with her half-brother about a possible Stuart restoration until early 1714.

Death

Anne was unable to walk between January and July 1713. At Christmas, she was feverish, and lay unconscious for hours, which led to rumours of her impending death. She recovered, but was seriously ill again in March.

By July, Anne had lost confidence in Harley; his secretary recorded that Anne told the cabinet “that he neglected all business; that he was seldom to be understood; that when he did explain himself, she could not depend upon the truth of what he said; that he never came to her at the time she appointed; that he often came drunk; [and] last, to crown all, he behaved himself towards her with ill manner, indecency and disrespect.”

On July 27, 1714, during Parliament’s summer recess, she dismissed Harley as Lord Treasurer. Despite failing health, which her doctors blamed on the emotional strain of matters of state, she attended two late-night cabinet meetings that failed to determine Harley’s successor.

A third meeting was cancelled when she became too ill to attend. She was rendered unable to speak by a stroke on July 30, 1714, the anniversary of Gloucester’s death, and on the advice of the Privy Council handed the treasurer’s staff of office to Whig grandee Charles Talbot, 1st Duke of Shrewsbury.

Anne died around 7:30 a.m. on August 1, 1714. John Arbuthnot, one of her doctors, thought her death was a release from a life of ill-health and tragedy; he wrote to Jonathan Swift, “I believe sleep was never more welcome to a weary traveller than death was to her.”

She was buried beside her husband and children in the Henry VII Chapel on the South Aisle of Westminster Abbey on August 24.

Succession

The Electress Sophia of Hanover had died on May 28, two months before Anne, so the Electress’s son, Georg Ludwig, Elector of Hanover, succeeded to the British throne as King George of Great Britain and Ireland pursuant to the Act of Settlement 1701.

The possible Catholic claimants, including Anne’s half-brother, James Francis, Prince of Wales were ignored. The Elector’s accession was relatively stable: a Jacobite rising in 1715 failed. Marlborough was reinstated, and the Tory ministers were replaced by Whigs.

November 11, 1748: Birth of King Carlos IV of Spain.

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Age of Enlightenment, House of Bourbon, King Carlos III of Spain, King Carlos IV of Spain, King Felipe V of Spain, King Louis XV of France, King Louis XVI of France, Kingdom of Spain, Manuel de Godoy, Maria Louisa of Parma, Napoleon Bonaparte, Queen Marie Antoinette, Spanish Empire

From the Emperor’s Desk: Due to technological difficulties I was unable to post this yesterday.

Carlos IV (November 11, 1748 – January 20, 1819) was King of Spain and the Spanish Empire from 14 December 14, 1788, until his abdication on March 19, 1808.

The Spain inherited by Carlos IV gave few indications of instability, but during his reign, Spain entered a series of disadvantageous alliances and his regime constantly sought cash to deal with the exigencies of war. He detested his son and heir Fernando, who led the unsuccessful El Escorial Conspiracy and later forced Carlos’s abdication after the Tumult of Aranjuez in March 1808, along with the ouster of his widely hated first minister Manuel de Godoy.

Summoned to Bayonne by Napoleon Bonaparte, who forced Fernando VII to abdicate, Carlos IV also abdicated, paving the way for Napoleon to place his older brother Joseph Bonaparte on the throne of Spain. The reign of Carlos IV turned out to be a major turning point in Spanish history.

Early life

Carlos was the second son of Carlos III and his wife, Maria Amalia of Saxony. He was born in Naples (November 11, 1748), while his father was King of Naples and Sicily. His elder brother, Don Felipe, was passed over for both thrones, due to his learning disabilities and epilepsy.

In Naples and Sicily, Carlos was referred to as the Prince of Taranto. He was called El Cazador (meaning “the Hunter”), due to his preference for sport and hunting, rather than dealing with affairs of the state. Carlos was considered by many to have been amiable, but simple-minded. In 1788, Carlos III died and Carlos IV succeeded to the throne, and ruled for the next two decades.

Even though he had a profound belief in the sanctity of the monarchy, and kept up the appearance of an absolute, powerful king Carlos IV never took more than a passive part in his own government. The affairs of government were left to his wife, Maria Luisa, and the man he appointed first minister, Manuel de Godoy.

Carlos occupied himself with hunting in the period that saw the outbreak of the French Revolution, the executions of his Bourbon relative Louis XVI of France and his queen, Marie Antoinette, and the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte. Ideas of the Age of Enlightenment had come to Spain with the accession of the first Spanish Bourbon, Felipe V.

Carlos IV’s father Carlos III had pursued an active policy of reform that sought to reinvigorate Spain politically and economically and make the Spanish Empire more closely an appendage of the metropole. Carlos III was an active, working monarch with experienced first ministers to help reach decisions. Carlos IV by contrast was a do-nothing king, with a domineering wife and an inexperienced but ambitious first minister, Godoy.

Well-meaning and pious, Carlos IV floundered in a series of international crises beyond his capacity to handle. He was painted by Francisco Goya in a number of official court portraits, which numerous art critics have seen as satires on the King’s stout vacuity.

Riots, and a popular revolt at the winter palace Aranjuez, in 1808 forced the king to abdicate on March 19, in favor of his son. Fernando took the throne as Fernando VII, but was mistrusted by Napoleon, who had 100,000 soldiers stationed in Spain by that time due to the ongoing War of the Third Coalition.

Marriage and children

Carlos IV married his first cousin Infanta Maria Louisa of Parma, the daughter of Philip, Duke of Parma, in 1765. The couple had fourteen children, six of whom survived into adulthood:

Infanta Maria Luisa of Parma (1751 – 1819) was Queen consort of Spain from 1788 to 1808 leading up to the Peninsular War. She was the youngest daughter of Philip, Duke of Parma, the fourth son of Felipe V of Spain and Louise Élisabeth of France, the eldest daughter of King Louis XV. In 1765 she married Carlos, Prince of Asturias who ascended the throne in 1788 and thus became queen.

Maria Luisa’s father, Philip (1720 – 1765) was Infante of Spain by birth, and Duke of Parma from 1748 to 1765. Born at the Royal Alcazar in Madrid as Felipe de Borbón y Farnesio, he was the third child and second son of Felipe V of Spain and his wife, Elisabeth Farnese. He founded the House of Bourbon-Parma, a cadet line of the Spanish branch of the Bourbon dynasty. He was a son-in-law of Louis XV.

Maria Luisa’s relationship with Manuel Godoy and influence over the King made her unpopular among the people and aristocrats. In total, Maria Luisa had twenty-four pregnancies of which fourteen children were born and ten miscarried.

She was rivals with the Duchess of Alba and the Duchess of Osuna attracting popular attention. The death of her daughter-in-law Princess Maria Antonia of Naples and Sicily, whom she disliked, was said to be the poisoning by the queen. When Carlos IV abdicated in 1808 he was accompanied by Maria Luisa.

Following Napoleon’s deposing of the Bourbon dynasty, the ex-King Carlos IV, his wife, Maria Luisa and former Prime Minister Godoy were held captive in France first at the château de Compiègne and three years in Marseille (where a neighborhood was named after him).

After the collapse of the regime installed by Napoleon, Fernando VII was restored to the Spanish throne. The former Carlos IV drifted about Europe until 1812, when he finally settled in Rome, in the Palazzo Barberini. His wife died on January 2, 1819, followed shortly by Carlos IV who died on January 20, of the same year.

September 23, 1713: Birth of Fernando VI, King of Spain.

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Ferdinand VI of Spain, House of Bourbon, Infanta Barbara of Portugal, Jesuits, John V of Portugal, King Carlos III of Spain, King Felipe V of Spain, Kingdom of Spain, Ricardo Wall, War of the Austrian Succession

Fernando VI (September 23, 1713 – August 10, 1759), called the Learned (el Prudente) and the Just (el Justo), was King of Spain from July 9, 1746 until his death. He was the third ruler of the Spanish Bourbon dynasty. He was the son of the previous monarch, Felipe V, and his first wife Maria Luisa of Savoy.

Born at the Royal Alcázar of Madrid, Infante Fernando endured a lonely childhood. His stepmother, the domineering Elisabeth Farnese, had no affection except for her own children, and looked upon Fernando as an obstacle to their fortunes. The hypochondria of his father left Elisabeth mistress of the palace.

Fernando was by temperament melancholic, shy and distrustful of his own abilities. When complimented on his shooting, he replied, “It would be hard if there were not something I could do.” Shooting and music were his only pleasures, and he was the generous patron of the famous singer Farinelli, whose voice soothed his melancholy.

Marriage

Fernando was married in 1729 to Infanta Barbara of Portugal, daughter of King João V of Portugal and Archduchess Maria Anna of Austria, was a daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I and Eleonor Magdalene of Neuburg. Maria Anna was a sister of Holy Roman Emperors Joseph I and Charles VI. Through her brother Charles, she was an aunt of Maria Theresa, Austria’s only queen regnant.

Beginning of the reign

When he came to the throne, Spain found itself in the War of the Austrian Succession, which ended without any benefit to Spain. He started his reign by eliminating the influence of his stepmother and her group of Italian courtiers. As king he followed a steady policy of neutrality in the conflict between France and Britain and refused to be tempted by the offers of either into declaring war on the other.

Prominent figures during his reign were Marquis of Ensenada, a Francophile; and José de Carvajal y Lancáster, a supporter of the alliance with Great Britain. The fight between both ended in 1754 with the death of Carvajal and the fall of Ensenada, after which Ricardo Wall became the most powerful advisor to the monarch.

The most important tasks during the reign of Ferdinand VI were carried out by the Marquis of Ensenada, the Secretary of the Treasury, Navy and Indies. He suggested that the state help modernize the country. To him, this was necessary to maintain a position of exterior strength so that France and Great Britain would consider Spain as an ally without supposing Spain’s renunciation of its claim to Gibraltar.

Church relations were really tense from start of the reign of Felipe V because of the recognition of Charles of Austria as the King of Spain by the pope. A regalist policy was maintained that pursued as much political as fiscal objectives and whose decisive achievement was the Concord of 1753. From this the right of universal patronage was obtained from Pope Benedict XIV, giving important economic benefits to the Crown and a great control over the clergy.

King Fernando VI helped create the Royal Academy of the Fine Arts of San Fernando in 1752. The noted composer Domenico Scarlatti, music teacher to Queen Barbara, wrote many of his 555 harpsichord sonatas at Fernando VI’s court.

During the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years’ War, Spain reinforced its military might.

The main conflict was its confrontation with Portugal over the colony of Sacramento, from which British contraband was transferred down the Río de la Plata. In 1750 José de Carvajal helped Spain and Portugal strike a deal. Portugal agreed to renounce the colony and its claim to free navigation down the Río de la Plata.

In return, Spain ceded to Portugal two regions on the Brazilian border, one in the Amazon and the other to the south, in which were seven of the thirty Jesuit Guaraní towns. The Spanish had to expel the missionaries, generating a conflict with the Guaraní people that lasted eleven years.

The conflict over the towns provoked a crisis in the Spanish Court. Ensenada, favorable to the Jesuits, and Father Rávago, confessor of the King and members of the Society of Jesus, were fired, accused of hindering the agreements with Portugal.

Death

During his last year of reign, Fernando VI was rapidly losing his mental capacity and he was held in the Villaviciosa de Odón castle until his death on 10 August 1759. That period of time between August 1758 and August 1759 is known in Spanish historiography as the year without a king, due to the absence of the royal figure as ruler.

The cause of the disease is still debated. Some authors suggest that the king suffered a depressive episode. The death of his wife Barbara, who had been devoted to him, and who carefully abstained from political intrigue, broke his heart. Between the date of her death in August 1758 and his own on August 10, 1759, he fell into a state of prostration in which he would not even dress, but wandered unshaven, unwashed and in a nightgown about his park.

Other opinion is that Fernando VI suffered a rapidly progressive clinical syndrome where behavioral disorganization with apathy and impulsivity, loss of judgment, and epileptic seizures of right frontal lobe semiology were predominant. This semiology is highly suggestive of a right frontal lobe syndrome. As the couple had no children, Fernando VI was succeeded as King by his half-brother as King Carlos III.

Pretenders to the Throne ~ France, part I

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Fundamental Laws of Succession to the French Crown, Hugh Capet, King Charles X of France, King Felipe III of Spain, King Felipe V of Spain, King Louis XIV of France, King of France, Louis Philippe, Pretenders to the Throne, Salic Law

One of the most interesting battles for the claims to a vacant or non existent throne is that of France. The argument rests on the legality of the renunciation of rights to the French throne by King Felipe V of Spain (1700-1746) and his descendents at the end of the War of the Spanish Succession in 1714. Felipe V (Philippe Duc d’Anjou) was born a French prince and a grandson of King Louis XIV of France (1643-1715) and also a great-grandson of King Felipe III of Spain (1598-1621) from whose descent he was appointed successor to the childless King Carlos II of Spain (1665-1700).

Today there are two claimants from different lines of the House of Bourbon: Prince Louis Alphonse of Bourbon, Duke of Anjou is the senior male heir of Hugh Capet, King of France (987-996). Louis Alphonse is also the senior descendant of King Louis XIV of France through his grandson King Felipe V of Spain. By the Legitimist faction of French royalists he is recognized as the rightful claimant to the French crown.

The other claimant to the French crown is Prince Henri of Orléans, Comte de Paris and Duc de France. Prince Henri is a descendant of King Louis Philippe (1830-1848), the last King of France and he is the current head of the Orléans line of the Bourbon dynasty.

The issues are complicated so I will attempt to give a basic readers digest version of how the two rival claims arouse. Succession to the thrones of all monarchies are governed by laws. There are two basic fundamental laws that governed the succession to the French throne. The First is the Salic Law which states that the succession is via male only primogeniture and that women could neither inherit the throne for themselves nor pass on succession rights to their sons. The other relevant law is that a French prince could not renounce their rights to the throne.

In 1830 King Charles X of France (1824-1830) was deposed in a revolution. He unsuccessfully tried to abdicate the throne in favor of his eldest son, Louis Antoine, Duc d’Angoulême whom the Legitimist faction call King Louis XIX of France and Navarre. His tenure on the French throne was brief and never recognized for 30 minutes later Louis XIX abdicated his claim to the throne to his nephew Henri of Artois, Count of Chambord. The Count of Chambord claimed the throne of France as Henri V until the Chamber of Deputies proclaimed his distant cousin, Louis Philippe, Duc d’Orléans as King of the French on August 9, 1830. The Legitimist faction view Louis-Philippe as a usurper to the French throne.

Technically he was a usurper. The National Assembly named Louis Philippe Lieutenant général du royaume, and gave him the responsibility to proclaim to the Chamber of Deputies his desire to have his cousin, Henri V, Count of Chambord mount the French throne. Louis Philippe failed to do this in an attempt to seize the throne for himself. This hesitation gave the Chamber of Deputies time to consider Louis Philippe in the role of king due to his liberal policies and his popularity with the general public. Despite Louis Philippe being regent for Henri V the Chamber of Deputies proclaimed Louis Philippe as the new French king, displacing the senior branch of the House of Bourbon which was in direct violation of the Fundamental Laws of Succession to the French Crown.

This concludes part I. Tomorrow Part II will show the rise of the rival claims in the aftermath of the reign of Louis Philippe.

Louis Philippe, King of the French 1830-1848