Bourbon, a French family which for several generations occupied the thrones of France and Naples, and still rules in Spain. It derived its name from the castle and seignior of Bourbon, in the former province of Bourbonnais, in the centre of France. The first member of the family recorded in history was Adhèmar, sire or lord of Bourbon, at the beginning of the 10th century, who traced his descent from the illustrious Charles Martel. After several changes the seignior of Bourbon devolved upon an heiress, who in 1272 married Robert, the sixth son of Louis IX. of France, and the name and possessions of the house thus passed to a branch of the royal family of the Capets, under whom it was converted into a duchy. From this Robert sprang two lines, an elder and a younger. The elder line had many eminent representatives among the nobles of France, but ended with the famous Constable of Bourbon, who in 1523 was deprived of his possessions and dignities by allying himself with Charles V. against his own country.
A representative of the younger line inherited the possessions of the Constable, and was raised to the dukedom of Vendôme. His son, Antoine, obtained by marriage the throne of Navarre, and Antoine's son was the famous Henry of Navarre, who in 1589, on the extinction of the male line of the House of Valois, fell heir to the crown of France. Among the many collateral and less eminent branches of the Bourbon house among the French nobility may be mentioned those of Montpensier, Condé, Conti, and Soissons. Only a few members of the collateral lines, however, have actually borne the name of Bourbon; for example, the Cardinal Charles de Bourbon, Duke of Vendôme, who, under the name of Charles X., was set up by the Catholic League as a rival king to Henry IV. The ducal dignity was revived by Louis XIV. in the House of Condé, so that the eldest son of that house should bear the title of Duke of Bourbon.
Main Line of the House of Bourbon.—As we have seen, the male line of the Valois branch of the French royal family died out in 1589, and Henry of Navarre of the Bourbon line became king of France as Henry IV. On his assassination in 1610 he left, by his second wife, Mary de' Medici, five legitimate children: (1) Louis XIII. (q.v.), his successor on the throne; (2) J. B. Gaston, Duke of Orleans (q.v.), who died in 1660, and left no male heirs; (3) Elizabeth, married to Philip IV. of Spain; (4) Christina, married to Victor Amadeus, afterwards Duke of Savoy; (5) Henrietta, married to Charles I. of England.—Louis XIII., on his death in 1643, left two sons by his queen, Anne of Austria: (1) Louis XIV. (q.v.), his successor; and (2) Philip, who received from his elder brother the title of Duke of Orleans, and was the founder of the family which has become the younger Bourbon dynasty.—The Dauphin Louis, styled Monsieur, the son of Louis XIV. by his marriage with Maria Theresa of Austria, died in 1711, and left three sons by his marriage with Maria Anna of Bavaria: (1) Louis, Duke of Burgundy; (2) Philip, Duke of Anjou, who afterwards became king of Spain, as Philip V.; (3) Charles, Duke of Berri, who died in 1714.—Louis, Duke of Burgundy, died in 1712. By his wife, Maria Adelaide of Savoy, he had three sons, of whom two died in early youth, the only one who survived being Louis XV., who succeeded his great-grandfather, Louis XIV., in 1715.—Louis XV. having married Maria Leszczyńska, daughter of the dethroned king Stanislaus of Poland, had by her a son, the Dauphin Louis, who married Maria Josepha of Saxony, and died in 1765, leaving three sons: (1) Louis XVI. (q.v.), who succeeded his grandfather, Louis XV., in 1774; (2) Louis Stanislaus Xavier, Count of Provence, afterwards Louis XVIII.; (3) Charles Philippe, Count of Artois, afterwards Charles X.—Louis XVI. had three children by his queen, Marie Antoinette of Austria: (1) The Dauphin Louis, who died in 1789; (2) Louis, called Louis XVII. (q.v.), who died in 1795; (3) Maria Therese Charlotte, styled Madame Royale, afterwards Duchesse d'Angoulême (q.v.).—Louis XVIII. had no children; but Charles X. had two sons: (1) Louis Antoine de Bourbon, Duke of Angoulême (q.v.), who was dauphin prior to the Revolution of 1830, and died without issue in 1844; (2) Charles Ferdinand, Duke of Berri (q.v.), who was assassinated in 1820. The Duke of Berri left two children: (1) Marie Louise Therese, styled Mademoiselle d'Artois, married to the Duke of Parma; (2) Henry Charles Ferdinand Marie Dieudonné, Duke of Bordeaux, styled Count de Chambord (q.v.); he died childless in 1883, when the Legitimists of France accepted in his room the Orleanist Comte de Paris as head of the House of Bourbon.
Orleans Branch.—As already stated, the founder of the Orleans or younger branch of the Bourbon royal family of France, was Philip, Duke of Orleans (q.v.), the only brother of Louis XIV. He died in 1701, leaving, by his second marriage with Elizabeth Charlotte of the Palatine, a son of his own name as his heir, who was Regent of France during the minority of Louis XV. His son, Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orleans (born 1703), married a princess of Baden, and died in 1752, leaving an only son of his own name, whose son and heir was that Louis Joseph Philippe, Duke of Orleans (q.v.), so notable in the French Revolution, who in 1792 renounced his rank, taking the name of Citizen Egalité, and died by the guillotine in 1793. He left four children: (1) Louis-Philippe, who, before the Revolution, was styled Duke of Chartres—that being the ordinary title of the eldest son of the Orleans family—became afterwards Duke of Orleans, was king of the French from 1830 to 1848, and died in England, 1850; (2) the Duke de Montpensier, who died in England in 1807; (3) the Count de Beaujolais, who died at Malta in 1808; (4) Adelaide, styled Mademoiselle d'Orleans, born 1777, died 1847.—Louis-Philippe left a numerous family by his queen, Amelia of Naples; but his eldest son, Ferdinand, Duke of Orleans, lost his life by an accident in 1842, leaving by his wife, the Princess Helen of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, two sons, the eldest of whom, Louis-Philippe, styled Count of Paris, was at his death (1894) the representative of the Orleans family, and head of the House of Bourbon. His son Louis-Philippe Robert was already known as Duke of Orleans. As pretenders to the throne, the chiefs of the Orleans family were expelled from France in 1887. See the article LOUIS-PHILIPPE, the articles on the kings of this family, the works quoted at FRANCE, and the family history by Coiffier de Moret (2 vols. 1824).
Spanish Branch.—The Spanish branch of the House of Bourbon was founded by Philip, Duke of Anjou, grandson of Louis XIV. He ascended the Spanish throne in 1700 as Philip V. Philip V. was succeeded on the Spanish throne by his son, Ferdinand VI., who died without issue in 1759, and the crown fell to his brother, Charles III., whose son and successor, Charles IV., was compelled to resign it in 1808 in favour of a successor nominated by Napoleon, and died at Naples in 1819. The two eldest sons of Charles IV. by his marriage with Maria Louisa of Parma were—(1)
Don Fernando, Prince of Asturias, who, after the overthrow of Napoleon, reigned as Ferdinand VII. (q.v.), whose eldest daughter was Isabella II., the mother of Alfonso XII.; (2) Don Carlos, who, on the death of his elder brother in 1833, became pretender to the Spanish throne (see CARLOS). Isabella II., who succeeded in 1833, was expelled in 1868; but the Bourbon line was in 1874 restored to the throne of Spain in the person of Alfonso XII. On his death in 1885 his daughter Maria reigned till the birth of a posthumous son, Alfonso XIII., in 1886. See SPAIN.
Neapolitan Branch.—On the elevation of Philip of Anjou to the throne of Spain, Naples and Sicily, which till that time had been Spanish possessions, were transferred to Austria. By the Peace of Vienna in 1738, however, a younger son of Philip V. became king of Naples and Sicily, under the name of Charles III. Upon his accession to the throne of Spain in 1759, he gave up that of Sicily to his third son, Don Fernando, called Ferdinand IV., with the express stipulation that it should never again be occupied by a king of Spain. Ferdinand IV. was compelled to yield to the French arms in 1806; but after the overthrow of Napoleon he became king of the Two Sicilies as Ferdinand I. (q.v.). His son, Francis I., left the throne in 1830 to his son, Ferdinand II. (q.v.), whose son, Francis II., was expelled in 1860, when Naples was incorporated with the new kingdom of Italy. See NAPLES.
Parmese Branch.—By the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, Austria made over the duchies of Parma and Piacenza to Don Philip, the youngest son of Philip V. of Spain. Except during the interval 1814-47, when the duchies were assigned to Marie Louise of Austria, second wife of the first Napoleon, Parma and Piacenza were under Bourbon rulers till 1859. In that year they were incorporated with the new kingdom of Italy. See ITALY and PARMA; and see Coiffier de Moret, Histoire du Bourbonnais (1828); Achaintre, Histoire de la Maison de Bourbon (1825); Bingham, The Marriages of the Bourbons (1889); also histories by Mure (Paris, 1860-68) and Dussieux (1869).
THE HOUSE OF BOURBON.
Henry IV., died 1610.
Louis XIII., died 1643.
graph TD
H[Henry IV., died 1610] --> L13[Louis XIII., died 1643]
L13 --> L14[Louis XIV., died 1715]
L13 --> P[Philip, Duke of Orleans, died 1701]
L14 --> L17[Louis, Grand-dauphin, died 1711]
L14 --> P
L17 --> L18[Louis, Duke of Burgundy, died 1712]
L17 --> P
L18 --> L19[Louis XV., died 1774]
L18 --> P
L19 --> L20[Louis, Dauphin, died 1765]
L19 --> P
L20 --> L21[Louis XVI., died 1793]
L20 --> L22[Louis XVIII., died 1824]
L20 --> C10[Charles X. (Comte d'Artois), died 1836]
L21 --> CL[Charles Louis (Louis XVII.), died 1795]
L22 --> CL
C10 --> CL
CL --> LA[Louis Antoine, Duc d'Angoulême, died 1844]
CL --> CF[Charles Ferdinand, Duc de Berri, died 1820]
CF --> HC[Henri, Comte de Chambord (Henry V.), died s. p. 1883]
P --> L23[Philip, Duke of Anjou, died 1746]
L23 --> C33[Charles III. of Spain, died 1788]
L23 --> P2[Philippe, died 1765]
C33 --> C34[Charles IV., died 1819]
C33 --> F1[Ferdinand I., died 1825]
C33 --> IG[Infant Gabriel, died 1788]
C34 --> CSB[Spanish Branch]
F1 --> BT[Branch of the Two Sicilies]
IG --> JSB[Junior Spanish Branch]
P2 --> P3[Louis, died 1752]
P2 --> L24[Louis-Philippe, died 1785]
L24 --> L25[Louis-Philippe (Egalité), executed 1793]
L25 --> L26[Louis-Philippe, king 1830-48; died 1850]
L26 --> L27[Louis, Duc de Nemours.]
L26 --> F2[François, Prince de Joiville.]
L26 --> H2[Henri, Duc d'Aunale.]
L26 --> A2[Antoine, Duc de Montpensier.]
L27 --> L28[Louis, Comte d'Eu.]
F1 --> F3[Ferdinand, died 1842]
F3 --> L29[Louis-Philippe, Comte de Paris, died 1894.]
F3 --> R2[Robert, Duc de Chartres.]