Anne Of AUSTRIA

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Excerpt from Widipedia:
Anne of Austria (September 22, 1601 - January 20, 1666) was Queen Consort of France and Navarre and Regent for her son, Louis XIV of France. During her relatively brief Regency, 1643?1651, Cardinal Mazarin served as France's chief minister.

Queen consort of France
She was born in Valladolid, Spain and baptised Ana Maria Mauricia, as the daughter of Habsburg parents, Philip III, king of Spain, and Margaret of Austria. She bore the titles of infanta of Spain and of Portugal, archduchess of Austria, princess of Burgundy and of the Low Countries.

She was affianced at the age of ten, and on November 24, 1615, at Burgos she was married by proxy to King Louis XIII of France (1601-1643), part of the Bourbon Dynasty, a purely political match[1] that was pressed by the Queen Mother, Marie de' Medici. They would have two sons, Louis (the dauphin) born in 1638 and Philip I, Duke of OrlÈans born in 1640.

The marriage was not a happy one, filled with mistrust. It started badly with the fourteen-year-old couple forced to consummate the marriage, to forestall any possibility of future annulment, a humiliation that resulted in Louis' refusal to touch his wife for the following several years.

Anne of Austria in her widowhoodAlthough installed with all propriety in her own suite of apartments in the Louvre, Anne was thoroughly ignored. Marie de' Medici continued to carry herself as Queen of France, without the least deference to her daughter-in-law, while the timid and private young king appeared profoundly uninterested. As a Spaniard, among her entourage of high-born Spanish ladies-in-waiting, Anne was out of the mainstream of French culture; she continued to live according to Spanish etiquette and failed to improve her stilted French.

In 1617, Louis conspired with Charles d'Albert, duc de Luynes to dispense with the influence of his mother in a virtual palace coup d'etat, having her favorite Concino Concini assassinated on April 26 of that year. During the years while he was in the ascendancy, the duc de Luynes attempted to remedy the formal distance between Louis and his queen. He sent away the Spanish ladies and replaced them with French ones, notably the princesse de Conti and Marie de Rohan-Montbazon, his wife, and organized court events that would bring the couple together under amiable circumstances. Anne began to dress in the French manner, and in 1619 Luynes pressed the King to bed his Queen: some love developed, to the point where it was noted that Louis was distracted during a serious illness of the Queen.

A series of miscarriages disenchanted the King and served to chill their relations. On 14 March 1622, while playing with her ladies, Anne fell in a staircase and suffered her second miscarriage, for which Louis blamed her and found Mme de Luynes unforgivable for having encouraged the Queen in such negligent foolery. Henceforth, the King had less and less tolerance for the influence the duchesse de Luynes had over Anne, and the reciprocal antipathy between the two had serious consequences for the royal pair: the situation deteriorated after the death of Luynes (December 1621); the King's attention was monopolized by his war against the Protestants, while the Queen defended the remarriage of her inseparable companion, center of all court intrigue, to her lover, the duc de Chevreuse, in 1622.

Louis turned now to Cardinal Richelieu as his advisor; Richelieu's foreign policy of struggle against the Habsburgs, who surrounded France on two fronts, could not help create inevitable tension with Anne, who for her part remained childless for fully sixteen years, while Louis depended ever more on Richelieu, who was his first minister from 1624.

Under the malign influence of la Chevreuse, the Queen let herself be drawn into political opposition to Richelieu and became imbroiled in several intrigues against his policies. Vague rumors of betrayal circulated in the court, notably her supposed involvement with the conspiracies of the comte de Chalais that La Chevreuse organized in 1626, then of the king's traitorous lover, Cinq-Mars, who had been introduced by Richelieu.

In 1635, France declared war against Spain, placing the Queen in an untenable position. Her secret correspondence with her brother Philip IV of Spain passed beyond the requirements of fraternal affection. In August 1637, Anne was suspected, with enough cause that Richelieu forced her to sign covenants regarding her correspondence, which was henceforth open to inspection. The duchesse de Chevreuse was exiled and close watch was kept on the Queen.

Surprisingly, in such a climate of distrust, the Queen was soon pregnant once more, a circumstance that contemporary gossip attributed to a single stormy night that prevented Louis from travelling to Saint-Maur and being obliged to spend the night with the queen[2]. The Dauphin Louis DieudonnÈ was born on 5 September 1638, securing the Bourbon line.

Allegory of Prudence by Simon Vouet, part of a decor commissioned by the Queen, c. 1624 (MusÈe Fabre)The birth soon afterwards of a second son failed to reestablish confidence between the royal couple. Richelieu made Louis a gift of his palatial hÙtel, the Palais Cardinal, north of the Louvre in 1636, but the King never took possession: Anne fled the Louvre to install herself there with her two small sons, and remained as Regent (hence the name Palais-Royal the structure still carries) Louis tried to prevent Anne from obtaining the regency after his death, which came in 1643, not long after that of Richelieu.

Regent of France
Anne had herself named Regent. With the aid of Pierre SÈguier, Anne had the Parlement de Paris break the will of the late king, which would have limited her powers. Their four-year-old son was crowned King Louis XIV of France. Anne assumed the regency but to general surprise entrusted the government to the prime minister, Jules Cardinal Mazarin, who was a protegÈ of Richelieu and figured among the council of the Regency. Mazarin left the hÙtel Tuboeuf to take up residence at the Palais Royal near the queen. Before long he was believed to be her lover, and, it was hinted, even her husband.

With Mazarin's support, Anne overcame the revolt of aristocrats, led by Louis II de Bourbon, Prince de CondÈ, that is called the Fronde. In 1651, when her son Louis XIV officially came of age, her regency legally ended. However, she kept much power and influence over her son until the death of Mazarin. In 1659, the war with Spain ended with the Treaty of the Pyrenees. The following year, peace was cemented by the marriage of the young King Louis to Anne's niece, the Spanish Habsburg princess Maria Theresa of Spain.

In 1661, on the death of Mazarin, Anne, always a principal patron of the Compagnie du Saint-Sacrament, retired to the Compagnie's convent of Val-de-Gr‚ce where she later died of breast cancer. Her lady-in-waiting, Madame de Motteville wrote the story of the queen's life in her MÈmoires d'Anne d'Autriche. Many view her as a brilliant and cunning woman and she is one of the central figures in Alexandre Dumas' novel, The Three Musketeers.

Anne married Louis XIII King Of FRANCE on 24 Nov 1615. Louis (son of Henry IV King Of FRANCE and Maria DE'MEDICI) was born on 27 Sep 1601; died on 14 May 1643. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

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Name:
Louis XIV (Louis Dieudonné; 5 September 1638 - 1 September 1715), known as Louis the Great (Louis le Grand) or the Sun King (le Roi Soleil), was King of France from 14 May 1643 until his death in 1715. His reign of 72 years and 110 days is the longest recorded of any monarch of a sovereign country in European history.[1][a] In the age of absolutism in Europe, Louis XIV's France was a leader in the growing centralisation of power.[2]

Louis began his personal rule of France in 1661, after the death of his chief minister, the Italian Cardinal Mazarin.[3] An adherent of the concept of the divine right of kings, Louis continued his predecessors' work of creating a centralised state governed from the capital. He sought to eliminate the remnants of feudalism persisting in parts of France and, by compelling many members of the nobility to inhabit his lavish Palace of Versailles, succeeded in pacifying the aristocracy, many members of which had participated in the Fronde rebellion during Louis' minority. By these means he became one of the most powerful French monarchs and consolidated a system of absolute monarchical rule in France that endured until the French Revolution.

Louis also enforced uniformity of religion under the Gallican Catholic Church. His revocation the Edict of Nantes abolished the rights of the Huguenot Protestant minority and subjected them to a wave of dragonnades, effectively forcing Huguenots to emigrate or convert, and virtually destroying the French Protestant community.

The Sun King surrounded himself with a dazzling constellation of political, military, and cultural figures such as Mazarin, Colbert, Louvois, the Grand Condé, Turenne, Vauban, Boulle, Molière, Racine, Boileau, La Fontaine, Lully, Charpentier, Marais, Le Brun, Rigaud, Bossuet, Le Vau, Mansart, Charles, Claude Perrault, and Le Nôtre.

During Louis' long reign, France was the leading European power, and it fought three major wars: the Franco-Dutch War, the War of the League of Augsburg, and the War of the Spanish Succession. There were also two lesser conflicts: the War of Devolution and the War of the Reunions. Warfare defined the foreign policy of Louis XIV, and his personality shaped his approach. Impelled "by a mix of commerce, revenge, and pique", Louis sensed that warfare was the ideal way to enhance his glory. In peacetime he concentrated on preparing for the next war. He taught his diplomats that their job was to create tactical and strategic advantages for the French military.[4]

Louis XIV was born on 5 September 1638 in the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, to Louis XIII and Anne of Austria. He was named Louis Dieudonné (Louis the God-given)[5] and bore the traditional title of French heirs apparent: Dauphin.[6] At the time of his birth, his parents had been married for 23 years. His mother had experienced four stillbirths between 1619 and 1631. Leading contemporaries thus regarded him as a divine gift and his birth a miracle of God.

Sensing imminent death, Louis XIII decided to put his affairs in order in the spring of 1643, when Louis XIV was four years old. In defiance of custom, which would have made Queen Anne the sole Regent of France, the king decreed that a regency council would rule on his son's behalf. His lack of faith in Queen Anne's political abilities was his primary rationale. He did, however, make the concession of appointing her head of the council.

Louis' relationship with his mother was uncommonly affectionate for the time. Contemporaries and eyewitnesses claimed that the Queen would spend all her time with Louis. Both were greatly interested in food and theatre, and it is highly likely that Louis developed these interests through his close relationship with his mother. This long-lasting and loving relationship can be evidenced by excerpts in Louis' journal entries, such as:

"Nature was responsible for the first knots which tied me to my mother. But attachments formed later by shared qualities of the spirit are far more difficult to break than those formed merely by blood."[7]

It was his mother who gave Louis his belief in the absolute and divine power of his monarchical rule.[8]

During his childhood, he was taken care of by the governesses Françoise de Lansac and Marie-Catherine de Senecey. In 1646, Nicolas V de Villeroy became the young king's tutor. Louis XIV became friends with Villeroy's young children, particularly François de Villeroy, and divided his time between the Palais-Royal and the nearby Hotel de Villeroy.

Minority and the Fronde

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Accession
Further information: Franco-Spanish War (1635?59)

Louis XIV in 1643, prior to becoming king, by Claude Deruet
On 14 May 1643, with Louis XIII dead, Queen Anne had her husband's will annulled by the Parlement de Paris (a judicial body comprising mostly nobles and high clergymen).[9] This action abolished the regency council and made Anne sole Regent of France. Anne exiled some of her husband's ministers (Chavigny, Bouthilier), and she nominated Brienne as her minister of foreign affairs.[10] Anne also nominated Saint Vincent de Paul as her spiritual adviser, which helped her deal with religious policy and the Jansenism question.[11]

Anne kept the direction of religious policy strongly in her hand until 1661; her most important political decisions were to nominate Cardinal Mazarin as her chief minister and the continuation of her late husband's and Cardinal Richelieu's policy, despite their persecution of her, for the sake of her son. Anne wanted to give her son absolute authority and a victorious kingdom. Her rationales for choosing Mazarin were mainly his ability and his total dependence on her, at least until 1653 when she was no longer regent. Anne protected Mazarin by arresting and exiling her followers who conspired against him in 1643: the Duke of Beaufort and Marie de Rohan.[12] She left the direction of the daily administration of policy to Cardinal Mazarin.

The best example of Anne's statesmanship and the partial change in her heart towards her native Spain is seen in her keeping of one of Richelieu's men, the Chancellor of France Pierre Séguier, in his post. Séguier was the person who had interrogated Anne in 1637, treating her like a "common criminal" as she described her treatment following the discovery that she was giving military secrets and information to Spain. Anne was virtually under house arrest for a number of years during her husband's rule. By keeping him in his post, Anne was giving a sign that the interests of France and her son Louis were the guiding spirit of all her political and legal actions. Though not necessarily opposed to Spain, she sought to end the war with a French victory, in order to establish a lasting peace between the Catholic nations.

The Queen also gave a partial Catholic orientation to French foreign policy. This was felt by the Netherlands, France's Protestant ally, which negotiated a separate peace with Spain in 1648.[13]

In 1648, Anne and Mazarin successfully negotiated the Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years' War. Its terms ensured Dutch independence from Spain, awarded some autonomy to the various German princes of the Holy Roman Empire, and granted Sweden seats on the Imperial Diet and territories to control the mouths of the Oder, Elbe, and Weser rivers. France, however, profited most from the settlement. Austria, ruled by the Habsburg Emperor Ferdinand III, ceded all Habsburg lands and claims in Alsace to France and acknowledged her de facto sovereignty over the Three Bishoprics of Metz, Verdun, and Toul. Moreover, eager to emancipate themselves from Habsburg domination, petty German states sought French protection. This anticipated the formation of the 1658 League of the Rhine, leading to the further diminution of Imperial power.

Early acts
As the Thirty Years' War came to an end, a civil war known as the Fronde (after the slings used to smash windows) erupted in France. It effectively checked France's ability to exploit the Peace of Westphalia. Anne and Mazarin had largely pursued the policies of Cardinal Richelieu, augmenting the Crown's power at the expense of the nobility and the Parlements. Anne interfered much more in internal policy than foreign affairs; she was a very proud queen who insisted on the divine rights of the King of France.[citation needed]


Europe after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648
All this led her to advocate a forceful policy in all matters relating to the King's authority, in a manner that was much more radical than the one proposed by Mazarin. The Cardinal depended totally on Anne's support and had to use all his influence on the Queen to avoid nullifying, but to restrain some of her radical actions. Anne imprisoned any aristocrat or member of parliament who challenged her will; her main aim was to transfer to her son an absolute authority in the matters of finance and justice. One of the leaders of the Parlement of Paris, whom she had jailed, died in prison.[14]

The Frondeurs, political heirs of the disaffected feudal aristocracy, sought to protect their traditional feudal privileges from the increasingly centralized royal government. Furthermore, they believed their traditional influence and authority was being usurped by the recently ennobled bureaucrats (the Noblesse de Robe, or "nobility of the robe"), who administered the kingdom and on whom the monarchy increasingly began to rely. This belief intensified the nobles' resentment.[citation needed]

In 1648, Anne and Mazarin attempted to tax members of the Parlement de Paris. The members refused to comply and ordered all of the king's earlier financial edicts burned. Buoyed by the victory of Louis, duc d?Enghien (later known as le Grand Condé) at the Battle of Lens, Mazarin, on Queen Anne's insistence, arrested certain members in a show of force.[15] The most important arrest, from Anne's point of view, concerned Pierre Broussel, one of the most important leaders in the Parlement de Paris.


1655 portrait of Louis, the Victor of the Fronde, portrayed as the god Jupiter
People in France were complaining about the expansion of royal authority, the high rate of taxation, and the reduction of the authority of the Parlement de Paris and other regional representative entities. Paris erupted in rioting as a result, and Anne was forced, under intense pressure, to free Broussel. Moreover, a mob of angry Parisians broke into the royal palace and demanded to see their king. Led into the royal bedchamber, they gazed upon Louis, who was feigning sleep, were appeased, and then quietly departed. The threat to the royal family prompted Anne to flee Paris with the king and his courtiers.

Shortly thereafter, the conclusion of the Peace of Westphalia allowed Condé's army to return to aid Louis and his court. Condé's family was close to Anne at that time, and he agreed to help her attempt to restore the king's authority.[16] The queen's army, headed by Condé, attacked the rebels in Paris; the rebels were under the political control of Anne's old friend Marie de Rohan. Beaufort, who had escaped from the prison where Anne had incarcerated him five years before, was the military leader in Paris, under the nominal control of Conti. After a few battles, a political compromise was reached; the Peace of Rueil was signed, and the court returned to Paris.

Unfortunately for Anne, her partial victory depended on Condé, who wanted to control the queen and destroy Mazarin's influence. It was Condé's sister who pushed him to turn against the queen. After striking a deal with her old friend Marie de Rohan, who was able to impose the nomination of Charles de l'Aubespine, marquis de Châteauneuf as minister of justice, Anne arrested Condé, his brother Armand de Bourbon, Prince of Conti, and the husband of their sister Anne Genevieve de Bourbon, duchess of Longueville. This situation did not last long, and Mazarin's unpopularity led to the creation of a coalition headed mainly by Marie de Rohan and the duchess of Longueville. This aristocratic coalition was strong enough to liberate the princes, exile Mazarin, and impose a condition of virtual house arrest on Queen Anne.

All these events were witnessed by Louis and largely explained his later distrust of Paris and the higher aristocracy.[17] "In one sense, Louis' childhood came to an end with the outbreak of the Fronde. It was not only that life became insecure and unpleasant ? a fate meted out to many children in all ages ? but that Louis had to be taken into the confidence of his mother and Mazarin and political and military matters of which he could have no deep understanding".[18] "The family home became at times a near-prison when Paris had to be abandoned, not in carefree outings to other chateaux but in humiliating flights".[18] The royal family was driven out of Paris twice in this manner, and at one point Louis XIV and Anne were held under virtual arrest in the royal palace in Paris. The Fronde years planted in Louis a hatred of Paris and a consequent determination to move out of the ancient capital as soon as possible, never to return.[19]

Just as the first Fronde (the Fronde parlementaire of 1648?1649) ended, a second one (the Fronde des princes of 1650?1653) began. Unlike that which preceded it, tales of sordid intrigue and half-hearted warfare characterized this second phase of upper-class insurrection. To the aristocracy, this rebellion represented a protest against and a reversal of their political demotion from vassals to courtiers. It was headed by the highest-ranking French nobles, among them Louis' uncle Gaston, Duke of Orléans and first cousin Anne Marie Louise d'Orléans, Duchess of Montpensier, known as la Grande Mademoiselle; Princes of the Blood such as Condé, his brother Armand de Bourbon, Prince of Conti, and their sister the Duchess of Longueville; dukes of legitimised royal descent, such as Henri, Duke of Longueville, and François, Duke of Beaufort; so-called "foreign princes" such as Frédéric Maurice, Duke of Bouillon, his brother Marshal Turenne, and Marie de Rohan, Duchess of Chevreuse; and scions of France's oldest families, such as François de La Rochefoucauld.

Queen Anne played the most important role in defeating the Fronde because she wanted to transfer absolute authority to her son. In addition, most of the princes refused to deal with Mazarin, who went into exile for a number of years. The Frondeurs claimed to act on Louis' behalf, and in his real interest against his mother and Mazarin.

Queen Anne had a very close relationship with the Cardinal, and many observers believed that Mazarin became Louis XIV's stepfather by a secret marriage to Queen Anne.[20] However, Louis' coming-of-age and subsequent coronation deprived them of the Frondeurs' pretext for revolt. The Fronde thus gradually lost steam and ended in 1653, when Mazarin returned triumphantly from exile. From that time until his death, Mazarin was in charge of foreign and financial policy without the daily supervision of Anne, who was no longer regent.[21]

During this period, Louis fell in love with Mazarin's niece Marie Mancini, but Anne and Mazarin ended the king's infatuation by sending Mancini away from court to be married in Italy. While Mazarin might have been tempted for a short period of time to marry his niece to the King of France, Queen Anne was absolutely against this; she wanted to marry her son to the daughter of her brother, Philip IV of Spain, for both dynastic and political reasons. Mazarin soon supported the Queen's position because he knew that her support for his power and his foreign policy depended on making peace with Spain from a strong position and on the Spanish marriage. Additionally, Mazarin's relations with Marie Mancini were not good, and he did not trust her to support his position. All of Louis' tears and his supplications to his mother did not make her change her mind; the Spanish marriage was very important both for its role in ending the war between France and Spain, and because many of the claims and objectives of Louis' foreign policy in the next 50 years would be based on this marriage.[22]

Louis married Maria Theresa Of SPAIN in 1660. Maria was born in 1638; died in 1683. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Philip married Henrietta Anne Of ENGLAND in 1661. Henrietta (daughter of Charles I King Of ENGLAND and Henrietta Maria Queen Of ENGLAND) was born on 16 Jun 1644; died on 30 Jun 1670. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Philip married Elizabeth Charlotte Of PALATINE in 1671. Elizabeth was born in 1652; died in 1722. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Name:
Louis of France (1 November 1661 - 14 April 1711) was the eldest son and heir of Louis XIV, King of France, and his spouse, Maria Theresa of Spain. As the heir apparent to the French throne, he was styled Dauphin. He became known as Le Grand Dauphin after the birth of his own son, Le Petit Dauphin. As he died before his father, he never became king. His grandson became Louis XV of France.

Biography
Louis was born on 1 November 1661 at the Château de Fontainebleau, the eldest son of Louis XIV of France and Maria Theresa of Spain (who were double first-cousins to each other). As a Fils de France ("Son of France") he was entitled to the style of Royal Highness. He was baptised on 24 March 1662 at the chapel of the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye and given his father's name of Louis. At the ceremony, the Cardinal de Vendôme and the Princess of Conti acted as proxies for the godparents, Pope Clement IX and Queen Henrietta Maria of England. The latter was Louis's great-aunt. It was for this occasion that Jean-Baptiste Lully composed the motet Plaude Laetare Gallia.

He was initially under the care of royal governesses, among them being Julie d'Angennes and Louise de Prie de La Mothe-Houdancourt. When Louis reached the age of seven, he was removed from the care of women and placed in the society of men. He received Charles de Sainte-Maure, duc de Montausier, as his governor and was tutored by Jacques Bénigne Bossuet, Bishop of Meaux, the great French preacher and orator, without positive result:

Louis XIV secretly nursed the same suspicious jealousy of the Grand Dauphin that Louis XIII had once shown to himself. No prince could have been less deserving of such feelings. Monseigneur, as the heir to the throne was now known, had inherited his mother's docility and low intelligence. All his life he remained petrified with admiration of his formidable father and stood in fear of him even while lavish proofs of 'affection' were showered upon him. The best way for Monseigneur to do someone an injury was to commend him to the royal favour. He knew it, and did not conceal it from his rare petitioners.
Louis XIV saw to it that his son's upbringing was quite the opposite of his own. Instead of a devoted mother and an affectionate and likeable tutor, the Dauphin had the repellent and misanthropic Duc de Montausier, who ruthlessly applied the same methods that had so disturbed Louis XIII. They annihilated his grandson.
[...] Bossuet overwhelmed his backward pupil with such splendid lessons that the Dauphin developed a lasting horror of books, learning and history. By the age of eighteen, Monseigneur had assimilated almost none of the knowledge amassed to so little purpose, and the apathy of his mind was second only to that of his senses.[2]

It was said that when Louis was an adult, he could pass a whole day simply tapping his cane against his foot in an armchair. Nonetheless, his generosity, affability, and liberality gave him great popularity in Paris and with the French people in general. Louis was one of six legitimate children of his parents. The others all died in early childhood; the second longest-lived, Marie Thérèse of France, died at the age of five when Louis was 11.

Louis XIV, too, had a low opinion of his son:

indolent, fatuous, and dull, only the saving grace of his bourgeois morals kept him from outraging the pious people about him. Like his father he enjoyed the hunt, but that was about the only way in which this disappointing son resembled his father. [3]
Alive especially to political considerations, the King considered various European royal daughters as possible wives for his heir, such as Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici, Louis' own cousin Marie Louise d'Orléans, daughter of Philippe, Duke of Orléans, and Princess Henrietta of England. According to various reports, Marie Louise and Louis were in love, having grown up with each other. However, Louis XIV decided to use Marie Louise to forge a link with Spain and forced her to marry the invalid Charles II of Spain, the Dauphin's own half-uncle.

Louis was engaged to his second cousin, Maria Anna Victoria of Bavaria, when he was seven. She was a year older than Louis and, upon arriving at the French court, was described as being very unattractive. Nonetheless, she was a very cultured princess, and made initially a good impression upon her arrival as she was able to speak French fluently.

They were married by proxy in Munich on 28 January 1680; the couple met for the first time on 7 March 1680 in Châlons-sur-Marne.

Political and military role
Although he was permitted at first to attend and later to participate in the Conseil d'en haut, Louis did not play an important part in French politics. Nonetheless, as the heir to the throne, he was constantly surrounded by cabals battling for future prominence. Apart from the minor political role he played during his father's reign, Louis engaged in more leisurely pursuits and was esteemed for his magnificent collection of art at Versailles and Meudon. Louis XIV purchased Meudon for him from the widow of Louvois. The Dauphin employed Jules Hardouin Mansart and the office of the Bâtiments du Roi, but most particularly his long-term "house designer" Jean Bérain, head of the Menus Plaisirs, to provide new decors. He lived quietly at Meudon for the remainder of his life surrounded by his two half-sisters Marie Anne de Bourbon and the Princess of Condé, both of whom he loved dearly. These three made up the main part of the Cabal de Meudon which opposed the Dauphin's son Louis and his Savoyard wife, the Duchess of Burgundy.

Louis is said to have hunted wolves to extinction in the Île-de-France.[citation needed]

During the War of the Grand Alliance, he was sent in 1688 to the Rhineland front. Before leaving the court, Louis was thus instructed by his father:

In sending you to command my army, I am giving you an opportunity to make known your merit; go and show it to all Europe, so that when I come to die it will not be noticed that the King is dead.

There Louis succeeded, under the tutelage of Marshal de Duras and Vauban, in taking one of the bridgeheads across the Rhine, Philippsburg, which was surrounded by marshes. Louis' courage was shown when he visited the soldiers in the inundated trenches under heavy fire to observe the progress of the siege.[4] Montausier, his former governor, wrote to him thus:

I shall not compliment you on the taking of Philippsburg; you had a good army, bombs, cannons and Vauban. I shall not compliment you because you are brave. That virtue is hereditary. But I rejoice with you that you have been liberal, generous, humane, and have recognised the services of those who did well.[5]


The Grand Dauphin
Louis' capture of Philippsburg prevented the large gathering Imperial army from crossing the Rhine and invading Alsace.

Louis's position in the Conseil d'en haut gave him an opportunity to have his voice heard in the years and crises leading up to the War of the Spanish Succession. From his mother, Louis had rights and claims to the Spanish throne. His uncle Charles II of Spain had produced no descendants and, as he lay dying, had no heir to whom he could pass the throne. The choice of a successor was essentially split between the French and Austrian claimants. In order to improve the chances of a Bourbon succession, Louis gave up his (and his eldest son's) rights in favour of his second son, Philip, Duke of Anjou (later Philip V of Spain), who, as second son, was not expected to succeed to the French throne, thus keeping France and Spain separate. Moreover, in the discussions in the Conseil d'en haut regarding the French response to Charles II's last will and testament, which did indeed leave all Spanish possessions to Anjou, Louis persuasively argued for acceptance. He opposed those who advocated a rejection of the will and the adherence to the Partition Treaty signed with William III of England, even though that Treaty had awarded Naples, Sicily and Tuscany to him.

Louis died of smallpox on 11 April 1711, at the age of 49, predeceasing his father.

Literary tribute
The Delphin Classics was a large edition of the Latin classics, edited in the 1670s for Louis (Delphin is the adjective derived from dauphin) Thirty-eight scholars contributed to the series, which was edited by Pierre Huet, with assistance from several co-editors including Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet and Anne Dacier.
Marriages
Louis married Duchess Maria Anna of Bavaria on 7 March 1680. She was known in France as Dauphine Marie Anne Victoire. Although the marriage was not a close one, the couple had three sons. The Dauphine died in 1690 and in 1695 Louis secretly married his lover Marie Émilie de Joly de Choin. His new wife did not acquire the status of Dauphine of France, and the marriage remained without surviving issue. Pregnant at the time of her marriage, Mlle de Choin gave birth to a son, who was secretly sent to the countryside; the child died aged two, in 1697, without having been publicly named.[6]

Issue
Louis (16 August 1682 ? 18 February 1712), Duke of Burgundy and later Dauphin of France; married Princess Maria Adelaide of Savoy and had the future Louis XV of France;
Philip (19 December 1683 ? 9 July 1746), Duke of Anjou and later King of Spain; married Princess Maria Luisa of Savoy and had issue; married again Elisabeth Farnese and had issue such as the future Dauphine of France, Infanta Maria Teresa Rafaela of Spain;
Charles (31 July 1686 ? 5 May 1714), Duke of Berry, Alençon and of Angoulême Count of Ponthieu; married Marie Louise Élisabeth d'Orléans and had issue but none survived over a year;
Thus, through Burgundy and Anjou, Louis ensured the continuation of the senior Bourbon line on the throne of France and the establishment of the Spanish Bourbon dynasty.

Besides his unnamed child with Mme de Choin, Louis had two illegitimate daughters with Françoise Pitel:[7][8]

Anne Louise de Bonbour (1695 ? August 1716) ? wife of Anne Errard d'Avaugour;
Charlotte de Fleury (6 February 1697 ? 1750) ? wife of Gérard Michel de La Jonchère.
With another mistress, Marie Anne Caumont de La Force, he had one daughter:[8]

Louise Émilie de Vautedard (1694?1719) ? wife of Nicolas Mesnager.
Legend has it that a prophecy told at his birth[citation needed] said that Louis would be "son of a king, father of a king, but never a king". This was thought to be fulfilled as he was the son of Louis XIV of France and father of Philip V of Spain, but did not himself become king.

Ancestry
Louis's paternal grandparents were Louis XIII of France and Anne of Austria; he was descended, on his mother's side, from Philip IV of Spain and Élisabeth of France. Louis XIII and Élisabeth de Bourbon were siblings (the children of Henry IV of France and Marie de' Medici), as were Anne of Austria and Philip IV, who were the children of Philip III of Spain and Margaret of Austria. That means that he had only four great grandparents instead of the usual eight, and that his parents had the same coefficient of coancestry (1/8) as if they were half-siblings.

Louis married Maria Anna Victoria of BAVARIA in 1680. Maria (daughter of Elector of Bavaria Ferdinand Maria Of BAVARIA and Henrietta Adelaide Marie Of SAVOY) was born on 28 Nov 1660 in Munich, Bavaria; died on 20 Apr 1690 in Palace of Versailles, France. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Name:
Anne Marie d'Orléans (27 August 1669 ? 26 August 1728) was the first Queen consort of Sardinia by marriage to Victor Amadeus II of Savoy. She served as regent of Savoy during the absence of her spouse in 1686 and during the War of the Spanish Succession.[1] She is also an important figure in British history (see Jacobite Succession below).


She was the daughter of Philippe I, Duke of Orléans, younger brother of Louis XIV, and Henrietta of England, the youngest daughter of Charles I of England. Her mother died at the Château de Saint-Cloud ten months after Anne Marie's birth. A year later, her father married 19-year-old Elizabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate, who became very close to her stepdaughters. Her half-brother Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, the future regent of France, was born of her father's second marriage.

Her stepmother later described her as one of the most amiable and virtuous of women.[2]

Marriage
To maintain French influence in the Italian states, her uncle King Louis XIV arranged her marriage, at the age of fourteen, to her third cousin Victor Amadeus II of Savoy, then Duke of Savoy, later King of Sicily and then of Sardinia. Louis XIV was an ally of her future mother-in-law, Marie Jeanne, and supported Marie Jeanne when she extended her regency even after her actual mandate as regent had come to an end in 1680: Marie Jeanne did, in fact, not surrender her position as regent until shortly before her son's wedding.[3]

The proxy marriage of Anne Marie and Víctor Amadeus took place at Versailles on 10 April 1684, the day after the signature of the marriage contract. Her husband-to-be was represented by her cousin, Louis Auguste, Duke of Maine. Louis XIV gave her a dowry of 900,000 livres.[4]

The Duke of Orléans accompanied his daughter as far as Juvisy-sur-Orge (18 kilometers south of Paris), and the comtesse de Lillebonne accompanied her all the way to Savoy. She met her husband Victor at Chambéry on 6 May, the nuptials being performed at the castle by the Archbishop of Grenoble. Two days later, the newlyweds made their "Joyous Entry" into Turin.

Anne Marie bore nine children, beginning with Marie-Adélaïde just a few months after Anne Marie's 16th birthday. The birth nearly cost Anne Marie her life, prompting administration of the viaticum.[5] Marie-Adélaïde married Louis, Duke of Burgundy, grandson of Louis XIV in 1697, and was the mother of Louis XV.

This marriage was arranged with the assistance of the maréchal de Tessé and of Jeanne Baptiste d'Albert de Luynes, comtesse de Verrué, who was Victor's mistress from 1689 till 1700.

Her husband had two children with Jeanne. Nonetheless, when he fell ill with smallpox, Anne Marie nursed him until his recovery.

Queen Anne Marie
After her arrival in Savoy, Anne Marie came under the influence of her pro-French mother-in-law, who maintained a powerful position as a French ally at the court of Savoy. She was described as a dutiful and humble daughter-in-law, who loyally adhered to Marie Jeanne's wishes.[6] Her close relationship with her mother-in-law was not viewed favorably by her spouse, who regarded it as a political threat, as he had long been opposed to his mother's influence in politics.[7]

The personal relationship between Anne Marie and Victor Amadeus was reportedly somewhat cool during the first years of their marriage, partly due to the adultery on his part and his disappointment that she did not give birth to a son for several years.[8] Anne Marie served as regent for the first time during the trip of Victor Amadeus in 1686, and was said to have handled the task well despite her young age.[9]

When Victor Amadeus severed his ties with France in 1690, Anne Marie and her children accompanied her mother-in-law when they demonstratively left the capital in protest.[10]

Despite his marriage ties to France, Victor Amadeus joined the anti-French side in the War of the Spanish Succession. Anne Marie was appointed by him to serve as regent of Savoy during his absence in the war, a task she handled with maturity and judgement.[11] In 1706, Turin was besieged by French forces under the command of Anne Marie's half-brother Philippe d'Orléans, and Spanish forces of her cousin and son-in-law Philip V. She and her sons Victor Amadeus and Carlo Emanuele were forced to flee to Genoa.[12]

When the war was ended in 1713 by the Treaty of Utrecht, Victor Amadeus received the Kingdom of Sicily, formerly a Spanish possession. Anne Marie's stepmother wrote: I shall neither gain nor lose by the peace, but one thing I shall enjoy is to see our Duchess of Savoy become a queen, because I love her as though she were my own child ...[13] When Victor Amadeus left for his coronation in Sicily, he had originally planned to leave Anne Marie behind to function as regent in his absence, but as he feared that she would let herself be directed by his mother because of her loyalty to her, he changed his mind and took her along with him instead.[14] Anne Marie was crowned with him in Sicily.

At the death of her eldest son in 1715, both she and Victor Amadeus fell into severe depression and left the capital to mourn, leaving Marie Jeanne to handle their official duties.[15] Victor Amadeus was forced to exchange Sicily for the less important domain of Sardinia in 1720, but retained the title of King.

As the Savoyard consort, Anne-Marie had the use of the Royal Palace of Turin, the vast Palazzina di caccia di Stupinigi outside the capital, and the Vigna di Madama Reale.[16]

Queen Anne Marie died of heart failure at her villa on 26 August 1728, the day before her 59th birthday. She is buried at the Basilica of Superga in Turin, where all her children, except Marie-Adélaïde and Maria Luisa, are also buried.

Jacobite succession
From 1714 to 1720, Anne Marie d'Orléans was the heiress presumptive to the Jacobite claim to the thrones of England, Scotland, and Ireland. These claims were held at the time by James Francis Edward Stuart ("the Old Pretender", son of James II). Anne Marie became heiress presumptive with the death of James' daughter Queen Anne in 1714. She was displaced as heir by the birth of the Old Pretender's son, Charles Edward Stuart ("Bonnie Prince Charlie"), on 31 December 1720. Charles Edward and his brother Henry, Cardinal Stuart, both died without legitimate issue, so the descendants of Anne Marie d'Orléans inherited the Jacobite claim, i.e. they would have inherited the British crown had it not been for the Act of Settlement, which excluded the claims of the Catholic Stuarts and d'Orléans' and settled the throne on the nearest Protestant relatives, the Hanoverians.

Issue
During her marriage, Anne Marie gave birth to nine children, of whom only three survived to adulthood and one outlived her:[17][18]

Princess Marie Adélaïde of Savoy (b. Turin, 6 December 1685 ? d. Versailles, 12 February 1712), married Louis, Duke of Burgundy and was the mother of Louis XV of France.
Princess Maria Anna of Savoy (b. Turin, 14 August 1687 ? d. Turin, 5 August 1690).
Princess Maria Luisa Gabriella of Savoy (b. Turin, 17 September 1688 ? d. Madrid, 14 February 1714), married King Philip V of Spain.
Stillborn daughter (Turin, 6 June 1690).
Stillborn daughter (Turin, 19 July 1691).
Stillborn son (Turin, 9 November 1697).
Victor Amadeus Filippo Giuseppe, Prince of Piedmont (b. Turin, 6 May 1699 ? d. of smallpox, Turin, 22 March 1715).
Charles Emmanuel III of Savoy (b. Turin, 27 April 1701 ? d. Turin, 20 February 1773), King of Sardinia.
Prince Emanuele Philibert of Savoy (b. Turin, 1 December 1705 ? d. Turin, 19 December 1705), Duke of Chablais.

Family/Spouse: King of Sicily and Sardinia Victor Amadeus II Of SAVOY. Victor (son of Charles Emmanuel II Of SAVOY and Marie Jeanne Baptiste of SAVOY-NEMOURS) was born on 14 May 1666 in Royal Palace, Turin, Savoy; died on 31 Oct 1732 in Castle of Rivoli, Turin, Savoy. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Name:
Philip V (Spanish: Felipe V, French: Philippe, Italian: Filippo; 19 December 1683 ? 9 July 1746) was King of Spain from 1 November 1700 to his abdication in favour of his son Louis on 14 January 1724, and from his reaccession of the throne upon his son's death, 6 September 1724 to his own death on 9 July 1746.

Before his reign, Philip occupied an exalted place in the royal family of France as a grandson of King Louis XIV. His father, Louis, Grand Dauphin, had the strongest genealogical claim to the throne of Spain when it became vacant in 1700. However, since neither the Grand Dauphin nor Philip's older brother, Louis, Duke of Burgundy, could be displaced from their place in the succession to the French throne, the Grand Dauphin's maternal uncle (Philip's granduncle) King Charles II of Spain named Philip as his heir in his will. It was well known that the union of France and Spain under one monarch would upset the balance of power in Europe, such that other European powers would take steps to prevent it. Indeed, Philip's accession in Spain provoked the 13-year War of the Spanish Succession, which continued until the Treaty of Utrecht forbade any future possibility of unifying the French and Spanish crowns while confirming his accession to the throne of Spain.

Philip was the first member of the French House of Bourbon to rule as King of Spain. The sum of his two reigns, 45 years and 21 days, is the longest in modern Spanish history.


Early years
Philip was born at the Palace of Versailles[1] in France as the second son of Louis, Grand Dauphin, the heir apparent to the throne of France, and his wife Maria Anna Victoria of Bavaria,[2] known as the Dauphine Victoire. He was a younger brother of Louis, Duke of Burgundy, the father of Louis XV of France. At birth, Philip was created Duke of Anjou, a traditional title for younger sons in the French royal family. He would be known by this name until he became the King of Spain. Since Philip's older brother, the Duke of Burgundy, was second in line to the French throne after his father, there was little expectation that either he or his younger brother Charles, Duke of Berry, would ever rule over France.

Philip lived his first years under the supervision of the royal governess Louise de Prie and after that was tutored with his brothers by François Fénelon, Archbishop of Cambrai. The three were also educated by Paul de Beauvilliers.

Claims to the Spanish throne

Proclamation of Philip V as King of Spain in the Palace of Versailles on November 16, 1700
In 1700, King Charles II of Spain died childless. His will named as successor Philip, grandson of Charles' half-sister Maria Theresa, the first wife of Louis XIV.[2] Upon any possible refusal, the crown of Spain would be offered next to Philip's younger brother, the Duke of Berry, then to the Archduke Charles of Austria, later Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI.[2] Philip had the better genealogical claim to the Spanish throne, because his Spanish grandmother and great-grandmother were older than the ancestors of the Archduke Charles of Austria. However, the Austrians maintained that Philip's grandmother had renounced the Spanish throne for herself and her descendants as part of her marriage contract. The French claimed that it was on the basis of a dowry that had never been paid.[3]

After a long Royal Council meeting in France at which the Dauphin spoke up in favour of his son's rights, it was agreed that Philip would ascend the throne, but he would forever renounce his claim to the throne of France for himself and his descendants.[2] The Royal Council decided to accept the provisions of the will of Charles II naming Philip, King of Spain, and the Spanish ambassador was called in and introduced to his new king. The ambassador, along with his son, knelt before Philip and made a long speech in Spanish, which Philip did not understand. (Louis XIV, the son and husband of Spanish princesses, did speak Spanish, but Philip learned only later.)[citation needed]

First marriage
On 2 November 1701, the almost 18-year-old Philip married the 13-year-old Maria Luisa of Savoy, as chosen by his grandfather King Louis XIV. She was the daughter of Victor Amadeus II, Duke of Savoy, and his wife Anne Marie d'Orléans, Philip's first cousin once removed. The Duke and Duchess of Savoy were also the parents of Princess Marie Adélaïde of Savoy, Duchess of Burgundy, Philip's sister-in-law. There was a proxy ceremony at Turin, the capital of the Duchy of Savoy, and another one at Versailles on 11 September.[citation needed]

Maria Luisa proved very popular as Queen of Spain. She served as regent for her husband on several occasions. Her most successful term was when Philip was away touring his Italian domains for nine months in 1702, when she was just 14 years old. On entering Naples that year he was presented with Bernini's Boy with a Dragon by Carlo Barberini. In 1714, Maria Luisa died at the age of 26 from tuberculosis, a devastating emotional blow to her husband.[citation needed]

War of the Spanish Succession
Main article: War of the Spanish Succession

Philip V of Spain in hunting attire

Philip (right) at the Battle of Villaviciosa

Portrait of Philip V of Spain exhibited upside down in the Museum of Almodí [es], Xàtiva, for having burned the city in 1707.
The actions of Louis XIV heightened the fears of the English, the Dutch and the Austrians, among others. In February 1701, Louis XIV caused the Parlement of Paris (a court) to register a decree that if Philip's elder brother, the Petit Dauphin Louis, died without an heir, then Philip would surrender the throne of Spain for the succession to the throne of France, ensuring dynastic continuity in Europe's greatest land power.

However, a second act of the French king "justified a hostile interpretation": pursuant to a treaty with Spain, Louis occupied several towns in the Spanish Netherlands (modern Belgium and Nord-Pas-de-Calais). This was the spark that ignited the powder keg created by the unresolved issues of the War of the League of Augsburg (1689?97) and the acceptance of the Spanish inheritance by Louis XIV for his grandson.

Almost immediately the War of the Spanish Succession began. Concern among other European powers that Spain and France united under a single Bourbon monarch would upset the balance of power pitted powerful France and weak Spain against the Grand Alliance of England, the Netherlands and Austria.[4]

Inside Spain, the Crown of Castile supported Philip of France. On the other hand, the majority of the nobility of the Crown of Aragon supported Charles of Austria, son of Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I and claimant to the Spanish throne by right of his grandmother Maria Anna of Spain. Charles was even hailed as King of Aragon under the name Charles III.

The war was centred in Spain and west-central Europe (especially the Low Countries), with other important fighting in Germany and Italy. Prince Eugene of Savoy and the Duke of Marlborough distinguished themselves as military commanders in the Low Countries. In colonial North America, the conflict became known to the English colonists who fought against French and Spanish forces as Queen Anne's War. Over the course of the fighting, some 400,000 people were killed.[5]

It was with this war as a backdrop that, beginning in 1707, Philip issued the Nueva Planta decrees, which centralized Spanish rule under the Castilian political and administrative model and in the process abolished the charters of all independently administered kingdoms within Spain?most notably the Crown of Aragon, which was supporting Charles VI in the conflict?except for the Kingdom of Navarre and the rest of the Basque region, who had supported Philip in the war for the Spanish throne, and retained their semi-autonomous self-government. The policy of centralization had as model the French State under Louis XIV and was strongly supported by politicians such as Joseph de Solís and the Sardinian-born political philosopher Vicente Bacallar.[6]

At one point in 1712 Philip was offered the choice of renouncing the throne of Spain so that he could be made heir of France, but he refused.

Philip decided to relinquish his right of succession to France under one condition: the introduction of semi-Salic law in Spain. Under this law, the succession to the Spanish crown was limited to his entire male line before it could pass to any female, a condition of his renunciation made clear to the allies during the preliminaries of the Treaties of Utrecht. It was not until this was successfully accomplished (10 May 1713) that Spain and Great Britain made their own peace terms at the second Treaty of Utrecht (annexing the new law to the Treaty). By the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht that concluded the war, Philip was recognized as king of Spain but Spain was forced to cede Menorca and Gibraltar to Great Britain; the Spanish Netherlands, Naples, Milan, and Sardinia to the Austrian Habsburgs; and Sicily and parts of Milan to Savoy.[7]

These losses greatly diminished the Spanish Empire in Europe, which had already been in decline. Throughout his reign, Philip sought to reverse the decline of Spanish power. Trying to overturn the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht, he attempted to re-establish Spanish claims in Italy, triggering the War of the Quadruple Alliance (1718?1720) in which Spain fought a coalition of four major powers. Phillip V was forced to sue for peace.

Second marriage
Shortly after the death of Queen Maria Luisa in 1714, the King decided to marry again. His second wife was Elisabeth of Parma, daughter of Odoardo Farnese, Hereditary Prince of Parma, and Dorothea Sophie of the Palatinate. At the age of 22, on 24 December 1714, she was married to the 31-year-old Philip by proxy in Parma. The marriage was arranged by Cardinal Alberoni, with the concurrence of the Princesse des Ursins, the Camarera mayor de Palacio ("chief of the household") of the king of Spain.

Abdication

A breech loading miquelet musket with a reusable cartridge, used by Philip V, made by A. Tienza, Madrid, circa 1715
On 14 January 1724, Philip abdicated the throne to his eldest son, the seventeen-year-old Louis, for reasons still subject to debate. One theory suggests that Philip V, who exhibited many elements of mental instability during his reign, did not wish to reign due to his increasing mental decline.[8] A second theory puts the abdication in context of the Bourbon dynasty. The French royal family recently had lost many legitimate agnates to diseases. Indeed, Philip V's abdication occurred just over a month after the death of the Duke of Orléans, who had been regent for Louis XV of France. The lack of an heir made another continental war of succession a possibility. Philip V was a legitimate descendant of Louis XIV, but matters were complicated by the Treaty of Utrecht, which forbade a union of the French and Spanish crowns. The theory supposes that Philip V hoped that by abdicating the Spanish crown he could circumvent the Treaty and succeed to the French throne.[citation needed]

In any case, Louis died on 31 August 1724 in Madrid of smallpox, having reigned only seven months and leaving no issue. Philip was forced to return to the Spanish throne as his younger son, the later Ferdinand VI, was not yet of age.[citation needed]

Later reign

Tomb of Philip V and Elizabeth Farnese in the Collegiate Church of the Holy Trinity, in the Royal Palace of La Granja de San Ildefonso (Segovia).
Philip helped his Bourbon relatives to make territorial gains in the War of the Polish Succession and the War of the Austrian Succession by reconquering Naples and Sicily from Austria and Oran from the Ottomans. Finally, at the end of his reign Spanish forces also successfully defended their American territories from a large British invasion during the War of Jenkins' Ear (1739?1748).[citation needed]

During Philip's reign, Spain began to recover from the stagnation it had suffered during the twilight of the Spanish Habsburg dynasty. Although the population of Spain grew, the financial and taxation systems were archaic and the treasury ran deficits. The king employed thousands of highly paid retainers at his palaces?not to rule the country but to look after the royal family. The army and bureaucracy went months without pay and only the shipments of silver from the New World kept the system going. Spain suspended payments on its debt in 1739?effectively declaring bankruptcy.[9]

Death
Philip was afflicted by fits of manic depression and increasingly fell victim to a deep melancholia.[10] His second wife, Elizabeth Farnese, completely dominated her passive husband. She bore him further sons, including another successor, Charles III of Spain.[10] Beginning in August 1737 his affliction was eased by the castrato singer Farinelli, who, became the "Musico de Camara of Their Majesties." Farinelli would sing eight or nine arias for the king and queen every night, usually with a trio of musicians.[2]

Philip died on 9 July 1746 in El Escorial, in Madrid, but was buried in his favorite Royal Palace of La Granja de San Ildefonso, near Segovia.[2] Ferdinand VI of Spain, his son by his first queen Maria Luisa of Savoy, succeeded him.[citation needed]

Legacy
Historians have not been kind to the king. Lynch says Philip V advanced the government only marginally over that of his predecessors and was more of a liability than the incapacitated Charles II. When a conflict came up between the interests of Spain and France, he usually favored France. However Philip did make some reforms in government, and strengthened the central authorities relative to the provinces. Merit became more important, although most senior positions still went to the landed aristocracy. Below the elite level, the inefficiency and corruption that had existed under Charles II was as widespread as ever. The reforms started by Philip V culminated in much more important reforms of Charles III.[11] The economy, on the whole, improved over the previous half-century, with greater productivity, and fewer famines and epidemics.[12]

To commemorate the indignities the city of Xàtiva suffered after Philip's victory in the Battle of Almansa in the War of the Spanish Succession, in which he ordered the city to be burned and renamed San Felipe, the portrait of the monarch hangs upside down in the local museum of L'Almodí.[13]

In addition, after the death of the last legitimate male descendant of Philip V's elder brother Louis, Henri, Count of Chambord, in 1883, all remaining legitimate agnatic descendants of Louis XIV were henceforth descended from Philip V.[citation needed]

Philip V favored and promoted the Atlantic trade of Spain with its American possessions. During this Atlantic trade emerged important figures of the naval history of Spain, among which stands out the corsair Amaro Pargo. Philip V frequently benefited the corsair in his commercial incursions and corsairs: he granted a Royal order given at the Royal Palace of El Pardo in Madrid in September 1714, in which he appointed him captain of a commercial ship bound for Caracas.[14] The Monarch also interceded in the liberation of Amaro during his detention by the Casa de Contratación of Cádiz[15][16] and authorized him to build a ship bound for Campeche, which was armed in Corsica.[15]

Issue
Philip married his double-second cousin Maria Luisa of Savoy (17 September 1688 ? 14 February 1714) on 3 November 1701[2] and they had 4 sons:

Louis I of Spain (25 August 1707 ? 31 August 1724) married Louise Élisabeth d'Orléans but had no children.
Philip (2 July 1709 ? 18 July 1709) died young.
Infante Philip of Spain (7 June 1712 ? 29 December 1719) died young.
Ferdinand VI of Spain (23 September 1713 ? 10 August 1759) married Barbara of Portugal but had no children.
Philip married Elisabeth Farnese (25 October 1692 ? 11 July 1766) on 24 December 1714,[17] they had 6 children:

Charles III of Spain (20 January 1716 ? 14 December 1788). married Maria Amalia of Saxony and had children.
Infanta Mariana Victoria of Spain (31 March 1718 ? 15 January 1781) married King Joseph I of Portugal and had children.
Infante Philip of Spain (15 March 1720 ? 18 July 1765), Duke of Parma and founder of the line of Bourbons of Parma, married Louise Élisabeth of France and had children.
Infanta Maria Teresa of Spain (11 June 1726 ? 22 July 1746), married Louis of France, Dauphin of France and had children.
Infante Louis of Spain (25 July 1727 ? 7 August 1785), known as the Cardinal Infante. Was Archbishop of Toledo, Primate of Spain and Cardinal since 1735. In 1754, renounced his ecclesiastical titles and became Count of Chinchón. In 1776, he married morganatically María Teresa de Vallabriga and had children, but without royal titles.
Infanta Maria Antonia of Spain (17 November 1729 ? 19 September 1785), married Victor Amadeus III of Sardinia and had children.

Family/Spouse: Maria Luisa Of SAVOY. Maria (daughter of King of Sicily and Sardinia Victor Amadeus II Of SAVOY and Anne Marie of ORLEANS) was born on 17 Sep 1688 in Royal Palace, Turin, Savoy; died on 14 Feb 1714 in Royal Alcazar of Madrid, Spain. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Name:
Maria Luisa of Savoy (Maria Luisa Gabriella; 17 September 1688 ? 14 February 1714) was a queen consort of Spain by marriage to Philip V of Spain.[1] She acted as Regent of Spain during the absence of her spouse from 1702 until 1703, and had great influence over him as his adviser, while she was herself in turn influenced by the Princesse des Ursins.


Early life
She was the third daughter and second surviving child of Victor Amadeus II, Duke of Savoy and his French-born wife Anne Marie d'Orléans, the youngest daughter of Philippe of France and Henrietta of England. Throughout her life, Maria Luisa remained close to her older sister Maria Adelaide who later married Louis, Duke of Burgundy, the eldest grandson of Louis XIV. In her youth, Maria Luisa was described as playful and fun loving and had received a good education.[2]

Marriage
Philip V of Spain, a French prince, was recently crowned King of Spain upon the death of childless Charles II. In order to enforce his shaky authority over Spain due to his French birth, Philip V decided to maintain ties with Victor Amadeus II, Duke of Savoy. Philip and Maria Luisa were Second cousins through Louis XIII. Philip V's brother, Louis, Duke of Burgundy, had married the elder sister of Maria Luisa several years earlier, and in mid-1701, Philip V asked for Maria Luisa's hand with the permission of his grandfather Louis XIV.[3]

Maria Luisa was wed by proxy to Philip V on 12 September 1701 at the age of thirteen and was escorted to Nice, arriving there on 18 September. While in Nice, she was greeted by Pope Clement XI who gave her the Golden Rose on 20 September as a ritualistic gift for the young princess.[2] Within a week, she sailed from Nice for Antibes and was taken to Barcelona. The official wedding took place on 2 November 1701.[2]

Queen
Philip V was deeply in love with her from the start: as would be the case of his next consort, he was sexually dependent on her, as his religious scruples prevented him from exercising any sexual life outside of marriage. She was also said to be very beautiful and intelligent.[4][page needed] Unlike what was normal for a Spanish monarch, he usually slept in her bed the entire night, and insisted upon his conjugal rights.[4][page needed] Already shortly after their marriage, the French ambassador, the Duke of Gramont reported to Philip?s grandfather, Louis XIV, that Philip would be completely governed by his spouse as long as he had one, a report that led Louis XIV to warn him not to allow his queen to dominate him.[4][page needed] Marie Luisa is described as remarkably mature for her age, politically savvy, articulate and hardworking, and she has been credited with giving the normally passive Philip V the energy he needed to participate in warfare.[4]


In 1702, Philip V was obliged to leave Spain to fight in Naples as part of the ongoing War of Spanish Succession.[1] During her husband's absence, Maria Luisa acted as Regent from Madrid. She was praised as an effective ruler, having successfully implemented various changes in government and insisted upon all complaints being investigated and reports made direct to her. Her leadership encouraged the reorganization in the junta and, in doing this, inspiring people and their cities to make donations towards the war effort.[1] Despite being only fourteen at that time, Maria Luisa's effective regency made her admired in Madrid and throughout Spain. During her tenure as regent, she presided daily at the committee of government, gave audiences to ambassadors, worked for hours with ministers, corresponded with Philip and worked to prevent Savoy from joining the enemy.[4][page needed]

The Princesse des Ursins was a member of the household of the Queen. She would maintain great influence over Maria Luisa as her Camarera mayor de Palacio, chief of the household to the queen. The Princesse des Ursins maintained as strong dominance of Maria Luisa by using all the rights of proximity to the queen that her position entitled her to: she was almost constantly in the presence of the queen, accompanied her wherever she went as soon as she left her private rooms, followed her to the council meetings, where she listened sitting by the side sewing; followed her back to her rooms, where she was present at the most intimate personal tasks; dressing and undressing her, and controlling whoever wished to come into her presence. As Philip V, contrary to the custom of the time, actually shared a bedroom with Maria Luisa, the Princesse also had enormous influence over the king as well.[4][page needed]

After her husband's return in 1703, she resumed her role as queen consort. In 1704, the Princesse des Ursins was exiled at the order of Louis XIV, devastating Maria Luisa. However, in 1705, the Princesse returned to Madrid, much to the joy of the queen.[1]

Maria Luisa gave birth to the couple's first child, Infante Luis Felipe in 1707. Maria Luisa gave birth to three more children, two of whom would survive infancy. Towards the end of her life, the Queen became ill. She would die from the effects of tuberculosis on 14 February 1714. She was buried at San Lorenzo de El Escorial. Maria Luisa died in her 25th year.

16 September 1714, just months after Maria Luisa's death, her widower Philip V remarried by proxy, to Elisabeth Farnese, the only child and heir of the Duke of Parma.[1] All of Maria Luisa's children were to die without issue, thus there are no descendants of Maria Luisa of Savoy.

Legacy
She was nicknamed La Savoyana by her adoring subjects and was well-loved in Spain. After her death, both of her sons that lived past childhood, her youngest and oldest, were to become Kings of Spain. Her niece, Princess Maria Luisa was named after her.

Issue
Louis I of Spain (25 August 1707 ? 31 August 1724) married Louise Élisabeth d'Orléans, no issue.
Infante Philip of Spain (2 July 1709 ? 18 July 1709).
Infante Philip of Spain (7 June 1712 ? 29 December 1719) died in childhood.
Ferdinand VI of Spain (23 September 1713 ? 10 August 1759) married Infanta Maria Barbara of Portugal, no issue.

Family/Spouse: Philip V of SPAIN. Philip (son of Grand Dauphin Louis Of FRANCE and Maria Anna Victoria of BAVARIA) was born on 19 Dec 1683 in Palace of Versailles, France; died on 9 Jul 1746 in Madrid, Spain. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]