The Probert Encyclopaedia of People

BOURBON

The Bourbons were an ancient French family which has given three dynasties to Europe, the Bourbons of France, Spain, and Naples. The first of the line known in history is Adhemar, who, at the beginning of the 10th century, was lord of the Bourbonnais. The power and possessions of the family increased steadily through a long series of Archambaulds of Bourbon until in 1272 Beatrix, daughter of Agnes of Bourbon and John of Burgundy, married Robert, sixth son of Louis IX. of France, and thus connected the Bourbons with the royal line of the Capets.

Their son Louis had the barony converted into a dukedom and became the first Duc de Bourbon. Two branches took their origin from the two sons of this Louis, duke of Bourbon, who died in 1341. The elder line was that of the dukes of Bourbon, which became extinct at the death of the Constable of Bourbon in 1527, in the assault of the city of Rome. The younger was that of the counts of La Marche, afterwards counts and dukes of Vendome. From these descended Anthony of Bourbon, duke of Vendome, who by marriage acquired the kingdom of Navarre, and whose son Henry of Navarre became Henry IV of France. Anthony's younger brother, Louis, prince of Conde, was the founder of the line of Conde. There were, therefore, two chief branches of the Bourbons - the royal, and that of Conde.

The royal branch was divided by the two sons of Louis XIII, the elder of whom, Louis XIV, continued the chief branch, whilst Philip, the younger son, founded the house of Orleans as the first duke of that name. The kings of the elder French royal line of the house of Bourbon run in this way: Henry IV Louis XIIL Louis XIV Louis XV Louis XVI Louis XVII Louis XVIII, and Charles X. The last sovereigns of this line, Louis XVI, Louis XVIIL, and Charles X. (Louis XVII, son of Louis XVI., never obtained the crown), were brothers, all of them being grandsons of Louis XV Louis XVIII. had no children, but Charles X had two sons, viz. Louis Antoine de Bourbon, duke of Angouleme, who was dauphin until the revolution of 1830, and died without issue in 1844, and Charles Ferdinand, duke of Berry, who died, on the 14th of February 1820, of a wound given him by a political fanatic.

The Duke of Berry had two children: (1) Louise Marie Therese, called Mademoiselle d'Artois; and (2) Henri Charles Ferdinand Marie Dieudonne, born in 1820, and at first called Duke of Bordeaux, but afterwards Count De Chambord, who was looked upon by his party until his death (in 1883) as the legitimate heir to the crown of France.

The branch of the Bourbons known as the House of Orleans was raised to the throne of France by the revolution of 1830, and deprived of it by that of 1848. It derives its origin from Duke Philip I of Orleans (who died in 1701), second son of Louis XIII, and only brother of Louis XIV. A regular succession of princes leads us to the notorious Egalite Orleans, who in 1793 died on the scaffold, and whose son Louis Philippe was king of France from 1830 to the revolution of 1848. His grandson Louis Philippe, count de Paris (born in 1838, died in 1894), after the death of Count de Ghambord the last male representative of the elder Bourbons, united in himself the claims of both branches, now vested in his son the present Duke of Orleans.

The Spanish-Bourbon dynasty originated when in 1700 Louis XIV placed his grandson Philip, duke of Anjou, on the Spanish throne, who became Philip V of Spain. From him descended the later occupant of the Spanish throne, Alphonso XIII, born in 1886.

The royal line of Naples, or the Two Sicilies, took its rise when in 1735 Don Carlos, the younger son of Philip V of Spain, obtained the crown of Sicily and Naples (then attached to the Spanish monarchy), and reigned as Charles III. In 1759, however, he succeeded his brother Ferdinand VI on the Spanish throne, when he transferred the Two Sicilies to his third son Fernando (Ferdinand IV), on the express condition that this crown should not be again united with Spain. Ferdinand IV had to leave Naples in 1806; but after the fall of Napoleon he again became king of both Sicilies under the title of Ferdinand I, and the succession remained to his descendants till 1860, when Naples was incorporated into the new kingdom of Italy.
Research Bourbon