Talk:House of Bourbon

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There seems to be a superfluity of "well-beloved"s here. Were they really all called that? By whom? Vicki Rosenzweig

I think Louis XIII was called "The Just", not the "Well-Beloved". Louis XV, however, was indeed called the "Well-Beloved". At the end of his reign, though, he was so detested the French people called him the "Well-Hated". --Slugguitar 00:05, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

This article should certainly not be part of the "History of France series." The "History of France series," I'd add, is hardly worthy of the name at the moment. john k 18:35, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Contents 1 Moved from article 2 Big mystery edit 3 French Bourbons 4 Very confusing passage 5 His Majesty: Juan Carlos contact details??? 6 Charles of Bourbon 7 Tree 8 Map? 9 Indian connection

[edit] Moved from article

The following was recently added with reference to Juan Carlos of Spain; I've moved it here from the article because it's not very coherent:

"- Cousin to Archiduquessa- Infanta Luciella Minouette de Borbon: Twelfth in line for the Spannish ([sic]) crown. Luciella was the only royal family member to emigrate away to the United States."

How can the reigning king be twelfth in line? or is it saying that Luciella is twelfth in line? and if the latter, how is that any more relevant than the rest of the first dozen heirs in line? If there is something relevant here that belongs either in this article or elsewhere in the Wikipedia, please "mine" it and write it up coherently. -- Jmabel 22:59, Jul 23, 2004 (UTC)

This sounds like nonsense from supporters of some imposter. Archiduquessa-Infanta Luciella Minouette de Borbon sounds deeply dubious - I've never heard of her, and that title sounds completely dubious. john k 01:16, 14 Sep 2004 (UTC)

It is utter nonsense. Firstly, the title of Archduchess is not a Spanish one, it is an Austrian one. Secondly, to be an Infanta, she must have been either a daughter of the present King of Spain, his son Prince Felipe, his late father Don Juan, or his late grandfather King Alfonso. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 193.108.158.71 (talk • contribs) 1 December 2006.

Also moved from article:

this material belongs at Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre?:

3,000 Huguenots were killed in Paris and 20,000 Huguenots were killed elsewhere in France. Henry of Navarre was put in jail and forced to convert to Catholicism by a later date (he was still married to Margaret).

Obviously, comments like this are talk-page stuff. -- Jmabel | Talk 02:14, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Big mystery edit

This massive addition of material is from an anon. No edit summary. Is this a possible copyvio? Does it come from some other part of Wikipedia? Does anyone know what is going on here? -- Jmabel | Talk 02:18, 12 October 2005 (UTC)

No one is responding, I guess I'll assume it is OK and copy edit it. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:19, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

I see. Someone was trying to follow up on the proposed merge of France: Wars of Religion - Bourbon Dynasty, but instead of a proper merge they just dumped the text, without even an edit summary. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:28, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Looks like this has been through the blender in the last 24 hours. I've restored some lost material. There is probably more of this to do. I'll probably be back soon, but I won't feel poached on if someone else takes up this particular Bourbon restoration. -- Jmabel | Talk 07:08, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Ahh mystery solved didnt know where it came from either. I restored some of the basic info like see also, interwiki etc.. but obviously this needs a lot more work, almost all of the old material seems to have gone missing.. I'd help but know nothing of the subject. Stbalbach 17:35, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Maybe we should restore the old material, and start from there? john k 17:52, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

I've now restored everything I think was worth restoring. The result may be a bit uneven in terms of depth of coverage, but I believe it is now far better written. This may call for some refactoring, possibly into an article (or articles) on a period (or periods) in the history of France allowing the present article to focus more on the dynasty as such. Or maybe not: I don't find articles focused on dynastic succession far less interesting than those that treat the matter as more a biography and a "life and times".

I'll bow out of this for a while now to give someone else a shot at moving forward from here. May I suggest that this is a substantive enough article that if someone wants to do drastic edits again they might put a note on the talk page saying what they intend to do? -- Jmabel | Talk 02:34, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] French Bourbons

The French Bourbon line is described as "extinct" by the article. In this case - purely as an academic exercise - if the monarchy in France were to be restored today, who would have the best genealogical claim to succeed to the throne? You mention that Juan Carlos of Spain is a member of the Bourbon dynasty, so would he have any claim to the throne of France? I'm not familiar enough with the genealogy of the Bourbons to know. Walton monarchist89 11:45, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

The article is ambiguous and/or erroneous in describing the French Bourbons as "extinct", and should be corrected. It's true that there is no currently reigning "King of France" or "King of the French". Nor is there an undisputed heir to the title King of France, but there are two claimants.

The one most widely known and, arguably, viewed as the frontrunner for that throne were it to be restored today is Henri, Comte de Paris, Duc de France, born in 1933. He is the direct descendant and heir-male of King Louis-Philippe of the French who ended his reign in exile in 1848. Since the death in 1888 without issue or siblings of the last French Bourbon claimant acknowledged in this article, Henri, comte de Chambord (by a unique and not always honored custom, the titles of claimants to the French royal crown are not translated from French into English, nor is he addressed, as are others of his family, as "Your Royal Highness", but simply as "Monseigneur" and his consort as "Madame"), most French monarchists have recognized the head of the Orleans branch of the Capetian dynasty as rightful claimant. Certainly the French government did: The French Republic banished the heads of houses that had reigned over France in 1886. That law was enforced against the primogeniture heads of the Orleans branch (and against the heads of the Bonapartes), but not against any other Bourbon claimants, some of whom lived in France free of official molestation during the 1930s. Whereas Orleans claimants were jailed and/or exiled whenever the government found them on French soil. The Orleans claimant and his immediate family also re-patriated to France as soon as the law was lifted, and have lived there for the last 56 years.

On the other hand, the Orleans are not legally Bourbons in France, as determined by court ruling in a lawsuit between the rival claimants' branches in 1987. They do not descend in male-line from Louis XIV as do all other legitimate Bourbons, but from the Sun King's younger brother Philippe I, Duke of Orléans, whose title the courts have ruled they must continue to bear as surname. The Orléanist claimant is not, therefore, the legitimate, male-line primogeniture heir of Louis XIV or of the subsequent Kings of France. Rather, he is the primogeniture heir of the nearest branch which 1. Never renounced its claim to the French throne, and 2. Has remained consistently French, even when in exile.

The claimant who is the senior descendant in legitimate, male-line of the Kings of France is Louis-Alphonse de Borbón y Martínez-Bordiú, born in Madrid in 1974 and known to his supporters, the French Legitimists, as Monseigneur the Duc d'Anjou. He is the eldest surviving son of His late Royal Highness Don Alfonso de Borbón Dampierre, Duque de Cadiz; who was the eldest son of HRH the Infante Jaime of Spain, Duke of Segovia; who was the eldest surviving son of ex-King Alfonso XIII of Spain; who became the undisputed senior "legitimate" male-line representative of King Louis XIV after the extinction of the Carlist Borbóns in 1936.

The Spanish throne is currently occupied by a grandson of King Alfonso XIII through his younger son, Don Juan de Borbon, Count of Barcelona. The elder line of Infante Jaime was excluded from the Spanish throne by a combination of Jaime's 1933 renunciation due to deafness; 1935 marriage to the non-royal Emanuelle de Dampierre; and the 1969 designation by El Caudillo Francisco Franco of Don Juan's son, Juan Carlos I of Spain, as eventual successor to the throne. Although Cadiz wed Franco's granddaughter in 1972 and was legally eligible to be designated heir to Spain's crown, when Franco stuck with Juan Carlos Cadiz gradually shifted his focus to his Legitimist claim to France. He had divorced Carmen Martínez-Bordiú y Franco, asserted his rights as paterfamilias of the House of Bourbon under the title Duc d'Anjou, and had just become engaged to an Austrian archduchess when he was accidentally killed in 1989.

It is Cadiz's son, Louis-Alphonse, who has inherited leadership of the Legitimists. The dispute between he and his Orleans cousin hinges upon two issues: 1. The Orleanists maintain that the 1713 renunciation of Louis XIV's younger grandson, the original Duc d'Anjou, to the throne of France in exchange for the throne of Spain was valid and remains binding, as it was ratified by France in the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, which Louis XIV and the Parlement of Paris were compelled to accept to obtain peace from the Great Powers against which France had waged war. 2. Anjou renounced not only his French succession rights, but his French citizenship in order to accept the throne of Spain, over which he reigned as Felipe V and which his descendants retain to this day. Moreover, Louis XIV retracted the letters patent he had issued in 1700 allowing Anjou to retain French citizenship while reigning in Spain.

Essentially, the 1713 treaty amended the unwritten constitution of Ancien Régime France which, until then, was deemed to allow neither renunciations nor amendments of any kind. Nonetheless, Orleanists insist that Anjou's line was excluded from the French throne forever by this "amendment". Legitimists object that the treaty was invalid ab initio by 1. the fact that France had been defeated in war and was coerced into an unconstitutional change in their traditional rules of succession, and 2. Because Louis XIV, the Parlement of Paris, and Anjou as King of Spain took ultra vires action, violating France's constitution, in terminating the claim to France's throne of any of Anjou's future descendants.

Orleanists point out that Louis XIV initiated a war of aggression, lost, yet kept France and his grandson was allowed to keep Spain. Nor has any ratified treaty ever been recognized internationally as invalid on grounds that one of the contracting parties later declared the treaty ultra vires: France cannot accuse its King and Parlement of exceeding their treaty-making authority because Utrecht's terms were the necessary price of ending a war France could no longer fight. The force majeure here was exercised by the Great Powers who, in effect, compelled France to make an exception to its succession rules for the purpose of excluding one man and his descendants from the prospect of combining the thrones of France and Spain to the detriment of the peace of Europe. Treaties could never conclude wars if the losing party could simply claim later that they had no choice but to agree to illegal peace terms. Nor did the Kingdom of France ever repudiate the treaty.

Moreover, it was a tenet of France's pre-revolutionary constitution that foreigners could not inherit the French throne. Since Anjou and his descendants became foreigners, reigning over Spain for the next 300 years, Orleanists consider them excluded from the French succession even if the Treaty of Utrecht was unconstitutional, according to Orleanists.

Legitimists (who have undergone something of a revitalization in monarchist circles since Cadiz separated the French from the Spanish dynastic claims in the 1980s) contend that Utrecht simply could not amend an unamendable constitution, France's ancient line of succession could not be lawfully altered by any process, especially foreign force, and that the constitutional exclusion of foreigners from the French throne does not preclude a rightful claimant from choosing French nationality when the claim actually devolves upon him.

Although Louis-Alphonse currently lives in Venezuela where his wife, María Margarita Vargas y Santaella, is a native, by right of his paternal grandmother, Emanuelle de Dampierre, he and his father were born French citizens (although neither ever lived in France). So there is no impediment to the validity of his current claim to the French throne from a Legitimist perspective, even though Alfonso XIII and Infante Jaime did not apply for French citizenship when the Legitimist claim devolved upon them in 1936 and 1941 respectively.Lethiere 04:10, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Very confusing passage

He failed and after the capture of the fortress of Gaeta (February 13, 1861) his kingdom was incorporated in the Kingdom of Italy but only on March 17, 1861 because two other fortress Messina and Civitella del Tronto surrendered on March 12, 1861 9 p.m.(Messina) and only on March 20 Civitella. (to be true when the magg. Ascione was convinced to surrender from the order of his King, there was still a group of soldier contrary to the surrender led by the heroic sgt. Massinelli and the friar Leonardo Zilli. The former commander, Ascione, however, succeeded to make to penetrate the enemy piemontesi in the morning of March 20. They shoot the heroes Massinelli and Zilli and so fell the last fortress of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.)

Will someone who knows (1) the English language, (2) the relevant history, and (3) the meaning of NPOV please clean this up? (I lack item 2, or I'd do this myself). - Jmabel | Talk 19:24, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

I wonder if its possible to add a large family tree diagram here? 203.218.37.8 02:32, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] His Majesty: Juan Carlos contact details???

Can anybody provide me with Juan carlos' e-mail adress? I need to contact his majesty URGENTLY. I will be happy with any contact details. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 168.209.97.34 (talk • contribs) 17:19, 3 December 2006 (UTC).

Try a postcard  ;-))

Aubisse 18:46, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Charles of Bourbon

The section on the War of Three Henrys linked Cardinal de Bourbon with Charles II, Duke of Bourbon - that does not seem correct, so I have changed - but where should it link ? -- Beardo 06:53, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tree

I spent a few hours drawing up this tree of the Spanish Bourbons and their relationships to the house of Habsburg Lorraine. Obviously it's very rough at the moment and will be tidied up. Does anyone have any suggestions?

-Lec CRP1 15:07, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Spent a few hours doing the proper version (see bottom right). Oh, the pain

-Lec CRP1 05:20, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Map?

I think it would be great if there was a map of Bourbon domains in the late 18th century so show the political influence of this family. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 68.175.83.141 (talk • contribs) 18 January 2007.

[edit] Indian connection

Perhaps someone could verify these?

• Le Rajah Bourbon
• Hindu news
• IBN live

thanks for the help, STTW (talk) 12:27, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

It seems strange, but the Bourbon's of Bhopal, MP India, have had an old claim.

See the discussion at:

http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/IndiaArchaeology/message/2856 http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/IndiaArchaeology/message/2878 http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/IndiaArchaeology/message/2881 http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/IndiaArchaeology/message/4876 http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/IndiaArchaeology/message/2857

Yashwant

It's pretty much impossible for them to be legitimate Bourbon offshoots. One article claims that the entrepreneur was a 'nephew' of Henry IV - but Henry had no legitimate nephews, and I don't know about illegitimate (but any illegitimate children would have no right to the name anyway). Nor would anyone cousin of Henry IV named 'Jean de Bourbon of Navarre' have ever existed - his Bourbon cousins had no claim on Navarre (Antoine de Bourbon, Henry's father, had married the Navarro heiress). And it is simply impossible for these people to be 'true heirs of France' - since the entire range of Bourbon and Orleans direct male descendants stand genealogically in their way (look at it this way: the Merovingians would have a better claim, because they could claim to have been overthrown by usurpers. This line, if it is legitimate - which is very unlikely, if they are truly of Bourbon descent - doesn't even have that). Michael Sanders 00:49, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Please see:

• http://archiver.rootsweb.com/th/read/GEN-MEDIEVAL/1998-02/0886979312
• http://genealogy.euweb.cz/capet/capet37.html
• http://genroy.free.fr/bourbon.html
• http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/IndiaArchaeology/message/2878

--Malaiya 00:51, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

1) says "The family descended from Jean Philippe Bourbon, a collateral of King Henry IV of France, and the son of the Constable of Bourbon who was supposedly killed at the siege of Rome in l527 by Benvenuto Cellini (amazing?)." - a 'collateral of King Henry IV of France'? More to the point, Charles III, Duke of Bourbon (Constable de Bourbon) had no legitimate children. That's why he launched his rebellion against Francis I - if he'd had legitimate offspring, they'd have inherited his wife's estates. 2) Offers no sort of proof. I could spin out the same sort of thing in half an hour to claim I was descended from a union between the Louis XVII and a grand piano. 3) "Cette famille descendrait soit 1) de Jean-Philippe de BOURBON-BUSSET (disparu en mer vers 1580), soit 2) d'un fils du Connétable de BOURBON qui, ayant dû s'exiler à la suite d'un duel, fut pris en mer par des pirates puis débarqué en Egypte d'ou il passa en Inde, soit 3) d'un autre fils du Connétable et d'Alaique, Princesse Mongole qui aurait échoué dans la conspiration d'Amboise et serait parti pour l'Inde. L'hypothèse la plus vraisemblable est la deuxième" - no evidence of any of these suggestions, makes it clear it is entirely unsure who the father might be (1 is an illegitimate Bourbon line, 2 is Constable de Bourbon again, 3) ... Constable de Bourbon. again. Involving various implausible tales involving kidnappings, pirates, and Mongolian Princesses, all of which is more appropriate to the Thousand and One Nights than sober history. It also seems to be claiming Charles of Montpensier didn't die in 1527, which is just plain wrong). 4) "But I did turn up a Jean Philippe de Bourbon, said to be a "naturalny" son, i.e., legitimate?, of Charles de Bourbon-Montpensier, later Charles III, duc de Bourbon (and of the mysterious Mongolian princess, Alaique, and this Jean Philippe evidently had a connection with Bophal and India" - 'natural son' means illegitimate. And how exactly would Charles of Montpensier ever have met a Mongolian Princess? And of course, the writer comments at the end - "I suppose he might, after all, have been a mere adventurer." - which is the general explanation when someone claims descent from a mythical union between a famous French troublemaker a Mongolian Princess. Michael Sanders 01:10, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Please note that the Bourbons of India had no direct benefit in claiming the descent in a region where very few had heard of the House of Bourbon. Their claim is an old one.--Malaiya 02:50, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

There is an old saying in India: the king's (biological) son carries water and the water carrier's (biological) son sits on the throne. Where does a certain European prince get his red hair? Who knows? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Malaiya (talk • contribs) 03:00, 12 March 2007 (UTC).

And Pierre Plantard had no direct benefit in claiming descent from the Merovingians. He still did it, and it was still sheer rubbish. I also don't see what the point of the saying about Aquarii is. Are you suggesting that the 'Indian Bourbons' are true descendants of the Bourbons, and that the French royal family are bastards? Michael Sanders 03:24, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

You have raised some interesting questions. Perhaps a DNA test will resolve some of them? My apologies if I have offended anyone, I was just reminded of the old Hindi saying. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Malaiya (talk • contribs) 03:28, 12 March 2007 (UTC).

I doubt anyone's offended; it is simply unlikely, considering sober evidence, that they are Bourbon descendants (and near impossible that they are legitimate descendants. And IMPOSSIBLE that they are, as Michael of Oldenburg claims, the rightful heirs to the French throne). But yes, I would presume a DNA test taken against a member of the Bourbon family (anyone with a Y-chromosome and a direct descendant of Robert of Clermont) would prove or disprove the claim. Michael Sanders 03:37, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Are there any reliable sources on this? The existence of an illegitimate son of Constable Bourbon, at least, should be easily verifiable? john k 03:43, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

The family is mentioned in: "India and Its Native Princes: Travels in Central India and in the Presidencies of Bombay and Bengal By Louis Rousselet, Charles Randolph Buckle", 1875.

--Malaiya 19:52, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Is any mention of a connection, or possible connection, between them and the French Bourbons made? Michael Sanders 21:41, 12 March 2007 (UTC)