Pretenders to the French Throne. Part III: Legitimists

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Comte de Chambord, Henri de Bourbon, House of Bourbon, House of Orléans, Legitimists, Louis Alphonse de Bourbon, Philippe of Orleans, Pretenders to the French Throne, Spanish Bourbon

In the 1870s the rival Legitimist and Orléanist claimants agreed for the sake of restoration of the monarchy in France to end their rivalry. Philippe d’Orléans, Count of Paris and grandson of Louis Philippe I, accepted the prior claim to the throne of France by Prince Henri, Compte de Chambord.

The Comte de Chambord remained childless and therefore in turn acknowledged that Philippe d’Orléans would claim the right to succeed him as heir, and after his death many Legitimists accepted the descendants of Philippe d’Orléans as the rightful pretenders to the French throne and those that supported this plan became known as Unionists.

Proclamation of Felipe V as King of Spain in the Palace of Versailles on November 16, 1700

Those Legitimists who did not accept the Orléanist line as the successors of the Compte de Chambord argued that the renunciation of the French throne by Felipe V of Spain, second grandson of Louis XIV, was invalid and that in 1883 (when Chambord died childless) the throne passed by right to Felipe V’s heirs in the male-line.

In 1883, the senior male of the Spanish branch of Bourbons was Infante Juan, Count of Montizón. His father, Infante Carlos de Borbón, Count of Molina (second son of Carlos IV: grandson of Felipe V), had lost Spain’s throne in favor of his niece, the non-Salic heiress of his elder brother, Queen Isabella II of Spain, and his lineage became known as the Carlist pretenders in Spain.

Henri, Comte de Chambord

When the Carlist branch died out in 1936, the French claim was reunited with that of the Isabelline Spanish line through her grandson Alfonso XIII of Spain, who was also (officially) the grandson of her consort Francisco de Asís, Duke of Cádiz (grandson Carlos IV via his third son, Infante Francisco de Paula of Spain) and was thus the most senior male-line descendant of Felipe V (although by that time Alfonso had been dethroned by the Second Spanish Republic).

The French and Spanish claims separated once again at Alfonso’s death as his eldest surviving son Infante Jaime, Prince of Asturias, renounced his claim to the Spanish throne due to physical disability and some years later asserted his claim to the French succession based on Legitimist principles.

The present French Legitimist claimant, Louis Alphonse de Bourbon, descends from Jaime while the present King Felipe VI of Spain is the grandson of Jamie’s younger brother, Infante Juan, Count of Barcelona.

Louis Alphonse de Bourbon, Duke of Anjou

With the claimant to the French throne (Louis Alphonse) and the present King of Spain (Felipe VI) being two separate individuals this will be a significant point when discussing who has the better claim to the French throne between the Legitimists and Orléanist factions.

There are however some legitimists who have questioned the claims of all pretenders from Alfonso XIII onward, as it is commonly believed that his father, King Alfonso XII of Spain, was not the biological son of the Duke of Cadiz.

Francisco de Borbón y Escasany, 5th Duke of Seville

If true, this would mean that Francisco de Borbón y Escasany, 5th Duke of Seville (great-great grandson of Cádiz’s younger brother) is currently the true legitimist heir to the French throne. He would be considered King François III of France.

June 30, 1644: Birth of Henrietta Anne of England, Duchess of Orléans

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Catherine de Médici, Charles I of England, Charles II of England, Henri IV of France, Henrietta Anne of England, Infanta Maria Theresa of Spain, Louis XIV of France, Philippe of Orleans, The Fronde

From the Emperor’s Desk: instead of doing an entire biography of Henrietta Anne of England in this entry I will focus on her move to France and her marriage to Philippe duc d’Orléans.

Henrietta Anne of England (June 26, 1644 – June 30, 1670) was the youngest daughter of King Charles I of England and Queen Henrietta Maria.

Henrietta was born on June 26, 1644, on the eve of the Second Battle of Newbury during the Civil War, at Bedford House in Exeter, a seat of William Russell, 5th Earl of Bedford, who had recently returned to the Royalist side.

Her father was King Charles I of England, her mother the youngest daughter of Henri IV of France and Marie de’ Medici. All her life, Henrietta had a close relationship with her mother, Queen Henrietta Maria. Her connections with the French court as niece of Louis XIII and cousin of Louis XIV proved very useful later in life.

Shortly before Henrietta’s birth, her mother had been forced to leave Oxford for Exeter, where she arrived on May 1, 1644. Many thought she would not survive the birth due to her state of health. After a particularly difficult birth, Henrietta was put in the care of Anne Villiers, Countess of Morton, known at that time as Lady Dalkeith.

For Henrietta’s safety, the queen made her way to Falmouth and then returned to France to ask Louis XIV to assist her husband’s war efforts. Arriving at Falmouth in mid-July, the queen was informed that Henrietta had been taken ill with convulsions, from which she recovered. On July 26, Henrietta met her father, Charles I of England, for the first time. Before his arrival, he had ordered that Henrietta be baptised in accordance with the rites of the Church of England, and she was baptised Henrietta at Exeter Cathedral on July 21.

A canopy of state was erected in honour of her dignity as a princess of England. Henrietta was moved to Oatlands Palace outside London, where she and her household lived for three months before fleeing secretly in June 1646; Lady Dalkeith ensured Henrietta’s safe arrival in France, where she was reunited with her mother.

While living at the French court, Henrietta was given the name Anne in honour of her aunt, the French queen Anne of Austria. When she first arrived, she was known as Henrietta d’Angleterre or the princesse d’Angleterre in France. She and her mother were given apartments at the Louvre, a monthly pension of 30,000 livres and the use of the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye. This lavish establishment soon diminished, as all the money Queen Henrietta Maria received was given to her husband in England or to exiled cavaliers who had fled to France.

During the Fronde, the civil war that raged in France from 1648 to 1653, Henrietta and her mother stayed at the Louvre.

In February 1649, Henrietta’s mother was informed of the execution of her husband, who had been beheaded on January 30. At the end of the Fronde, Queen Henrietta Maria and her daughter moved into the Palais Royal with the young Louis XIV and his mother and brother Philippe.

At the same time, Queen Henrietta Maria decided to have her daughter, who had been baptised in the Church of England, brought up as a Catholic. With the arrival of Henrietta’s brother, Henry Stuart, Duke of Gloucester, in 1652, their small court was increased.

After the Fronde was over, the French court made it a priority to find a bride for the young king of France. Queen Henrietta Maria hinted at the idea of a union between Henrietta and Louis XIV but Queen Anne rejected the idea, preferring instead her niece by blood, Infanta Maria Theresa of Spain. Louis XIV and Infanta Maria Theresa married in June 1660, after which Queen Anne turned her attentions to her unmarried son Philippe.

While residing at the Château de Colombes, Henrietta Maria’s personal residence outside Paris, mother and daughter heard of the restoration of the monarchy in England under Henrietta’s brother Charles II of England, and returned to Paris. This change of fortunes caused the flamboyant Philippe, a reputed homosexual who had been party to a series of sexual scandals, to propose to Henrietta. Before this, there were rumours at court that Henrietta had received proposals from Charles Emmanuel of Savoy and the Grand Prince of Tuscany, but nothing came of them as a result of her status as an exile.

The impatient Philippe was eager to make sure he married Henrietta as soon as possible, but Queen Henrietta Maria was intent on going to England to sort out her debts, secure a dowry for Henrietta, and prevent the Duke of York’s announcement of his marriage to Anne Hyde, a former maid-of-honour to the Princess Royal.

During this time, Henrietta became distraught when her brother the Duke of Gloucester died of smallpox in September 1660. In October, Henrietta and her mother embarked at Calais for Dover, where they stayed at Dover Castle. The French court officially asked for Henrietta’s hand on November 22 and her dowry was arranged. Charles II agreed to give his sister a dowry of 840,000 livres and a further 20,000 towards other expenses. She was also given, as a personal gift, 40,000 livres annually and the Château de Montargis as a private residence.

Henrietta’s return to France was delayed by the death from smallpox of her elder sister Mary, Princess of Orange. She finally left England in January 1661. She and Philippe signed their marriage contract at the Palais Royal on March 30, 1661; the ceremony took place the next day. The marriage was elaborately celebrated and she and her husband moved into the Palais des Tuileries. As she had married Monsieur, Henrietta was styled Madame, la duchesse d’Orléans.

The marriage started well and Philippe seems to have been a doting husband. A year into the marriage, Henrietta gave birth to a daughter later baptised Marie Louise.

The child’s paternity was doubted by some of the court, who insinuated Louis XIV or the Count of Guiche was the father. Henrietta and Guiche may have started an affair early in her marriage, despite his having been an alleged former lover of Philippe. These flirtations made the once-adoring Philippe intensely jealous, and he complained to Queen Anne.

Soon after, Louis XIV started an affair with one of Henrietta’s ladies-in-waiting, Louise de La Vallière, who had joined her household at the end of 1661 and protected Henrietta with regard to the affair of Guiche.

The couple’s next child was a son born in July 1664 who was given the title Duke of Valois. The son died in 1666 of convulsions after being baptised Philippe Charles hours before death. The loss of the little Duke of Valois affected Henrietta greatly. She gave birth to a stillborn daughter in July 1665, but another daughter was born in 1669 who was baptised Anne Marie in 1670.

In 1666, her husband’s most prominent alleged lover, the Chevalier de Lorraine, became attached to the Orléans household. Lorraine often vied for power within Philippe’s household, an unusual arrangement for the time.

Jacobite claims to the British throne after Henry Benedict Stuart’s death descend from Henrietta Anne’s daughter Anne Marie, Queen of Sardinia.

This date in History: December 2, 1723. Death of Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, Regent of the Kingdom of France and Navarre.

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Duke of Orleans, House of Bourbon, King Louis XIV of France and Navarre, Kingdom of France, Louis XV of France., Philippe II of Orleans, Philippe of Orleans, Princess Henrietta Anne of England, Regent of France

Philippe II, Duke of Orléans (Philippe Charles; August 2, 1674 – December 2, 1723), was a member of the Royal Family of France and served as Regent of the Kingdom from 1715 to 1723. Born at his father’s palace at Saint-Cloud, he was known from birth under the title of Duke of Chartres. His father was Louis XIV’s younger brother Philippe I, Duke of Orléans, his mother was Elizabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate.

Philippe II’s mother, Princess Elisabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate was born on May 27, 1652 in Heidelberg Castle, to Carl I Ludwig, Elector Palatine of the Simmern branch of the House of Wittelsbach, and Landgravine Charlotte of Hesse-Cassel. She is directly related to several iconic European monarchs. Her grandmother Elizabeth Stuart was a Scottish and later English princess, daughter of James I-VI of England and Scotland and granddaughter of Mary I, Queen of Scots. Her first cousin became George I, the first Hanoverian King of Great Britain. Through her daughter, she was the great-grandmother of Queen Marie Antoinette of France and Navarre, wife of Louis XVI of France and Navarre.

Princess Henrietta Anne of England

In March 1661, his father, Philippe I Duke of Orléans, married his first cousin Princess Henrietta Anne of England, known as Madame at court. She was youngest daughter of King Charles I of England, Scotland and Ireland and his wife, Henrietta Maria of France, the youngest daughter of King Henri IV of France and Navarre and his second wife, Marie de’ Medici.

The marriage was stormy; Henrietta was a famed beauty, sometimes depicted as flirtatious by those at the court of Versailles. A year into the marriage, Henrietta gave birth to a daughter later baptised Marie Louise. The paternity of the child was doubted by some of the court, who insinuated Louis XIV or the Count of Guiche was the father. Henrietta and Guiche may have started an affair early in her marriage, despite his having been an alleged former lover of Philippe I.

Nonetheless, the marriage produced three children: the aforementioned Marie Louise d’Orléans, future queen of Spain, (wife of Carlos II) who left France in 1679 when Philippe was just five; Philippe Charles (1664–1666), Duke of Valois; and Anne Marie d’Orléans, born at Saint-Cloud in 1669, later queen consort of Victor Amadeus II of Sardinia (they became the maternal grandparents of Philippe’s future protégé Louis XV).

Madame Henriette died at Saint-Cloud in 1670; rumors abounded that she had been poisoned by her husband or his long-term lover, the Chevalier de Lorraine; the two would remain together till the death of the Duke of Orléans in 1701.

In the following year, the Duke of Orléans wed Princess Elizabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate, only daughter of Carl I Ludwig, Elector Palatine and Landgravine Charlotte of Hesse-Cassel. The new Duchess of Orléans, who had converted from Protestantism to Catholicism just before entering France, was popular at court upon her arrival in 1671 and quickly became the mother of Alexandre Louis d’Orléans in 1673, another short-lived Duke of Valois. The next year, the duchess gave birth to another son, Philippe Charles d’Orléans.

Philippe II Charles d’Orléans was born at the Château de Saint-Cloud, some ten kilometers west of Paris. As the grandson of King Louis XIII of France, Philippe was a petit-fils de France. This entitled him to the style of Royal Highness from birth, as well as the right to be seated in an armchair in the king’s presence.

Philippe II Charles Duke d’Orléans

At his birth, he was titled Duke of Chartres and was formally addressed as Monseigneur le duc de Chartres. As the second living son of his parents, his birth was not greeted with the enthusiasm the Duke of Valois had received in 1673. In 1676, the Duke of Valois died at the Palais-Royal in Paris, making Philippe the new heir to the House of Orléans. His distraught mother was pregnant at the time with Élisabeth Charlotte d’Orléans (1676–1744), future Duchess and regent of Lorraine. Élisabeth Charlotte and Philippe would always remain close.

Marriage with a foreign princess unlikely, or so Louis XIV told his brother, Philippe, also known as Monsieur, when persuading him to accept the king’s legitimised daughter, Françoise Marie de Bourbon (known as Mademoiselle de Blois), as wife for Philippe. Her mother was Louis XIV’s mistress, Madame de Montespan. The king offered a dowry of two million livres with his daughter’s hand (not to be paid until the Nine Years’ War was over, as well as the Palais-Royal for the bridegroom’s parents. Upon hearing that her son had agreed to the marriage, Philippe’s mother slapped his face in full view of the court and turned her back on the king as he bowed to her. Nonetheless, on February 18, 1692, the cousins were married.

Françoise Marie de Bourbon

On the death of his father in June 1701, Philippe inherited the dukedoms of Orléans, Anjou, Montpensier and Nemours, as well as the princedom of Joinville. Philippe had died at Saint-Cloud after an argument with his brother Louis XIV at Marly about Chartres’ flaunting his pregnant mistress, Marie-Louise de Séry, before Françoise Marie. It has also been claimed that Philippe I became so infuriated with Louis for not paying his daughter’s dowry that he suffered a paroxysm.

Throughout his life Philippe II had many mistresses; his wife came to prefer living quietly at Saint-Cloud, the Palais-Royal, or her house at Bagnolet. His most famous mistress was arguably Marie-Thérèse de Parabère.

On 29 July 1714, upon the insistence of his morganatic wife, the marquise de Maintenon, Louis XIV elevated his legitimised children to the rank of Princes of the Blood, which “entitled them to inherit the crown if the legitimate lines became extinct”. Thus, Louis-Auguste de Bourbon, Duke of Maine and Louis-Alexandre de Bourbon, Count of Toulouse were officially inserted into the line of hereditary succession following all of the legitimate, acknowledged princes du sang. Louis XIV’s Will left the Regency in the hands of, Louis-Auguste de Bourbon, Duke of Maine.

Louis XIV died at Versailles on September 1, 1715, and was succeeded by his five-year-old great-grandson, Louis XV. On September 2, the Duke of Orléans went to meet the parlementaires in the Grand-Chambre du Parlement in Paris in order to have Louis XIV’s will annulled and his previous right to the regency restored. After a break that followed a much-heated session, the Parlement abrogated the recent codicil to Louis XIV’s will and confirmed the Duke of Orléans as regent of France.

Young King Louis XV of France and Navarre.

On December 30, 1715, the regent decided to bring the young Louis XV from the château de Vincennes to the Tuileries Palace in Paris where he lived until his return to Versailles in June 1722. The regent governed from his Parisian residence, the Palais-Royal.

On the majority of the king, which was declared on February 15, 1723, the Duke stepped down as regent. At the death of Cardinal Dubois on 10 August of that year, the young king offered the Duke the position of prime minister, and he remained in that office until his death a few months later.

The regent died in Versailles on December 2, 1723, aged 49, in the arms of his mistress the duchesse de Falari. Louis XV mourned him greatly. The Duke of Bourbon took on the role of Prime Minister of France.

On December 3, the Duke of Orléans’ body was taken to Saint-Cloud where funeral ceremonies began the following day. His heart was taken to the Val de Grâce church in Paris and his body to the Basilica of Saint Denis, (about 10 km north of Paris), the necropolis of the French kings and their family.