Alfons de Borbon

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Alfons (right) with his father and brother Juan Carlos (1950)
Family coat of arms of the Spanish royal family Borbón

Alfons Christian de Borbón y de Borbón , Spanish Alfonso Cristino Teresa Angelo Francisco de Asis y Todos los Santos de Borbón y de Borbón (born October 3, 1941 in Rome , † March 29, 1956 in Estoril ) was a member of the Spanish line of the Bourbons .

Life

Alfons was the youngest son of the Infante Juan de Borbón y Battenberg (1913-1993), Count of Barcelona and head of the Spanish royal family, and his wife Princess Maria de las Mercedes de Borbón y Orléans (1910-2000), daughter of Prince Carlos Maria François de Bourbon-Sicily and his wife Princess Louise Françoise d'Orléans. His paternal grandparents were King Alfonso XIII. of Spain and Princess Victoria Eugenie von Battenberg .

Alfons, called Alfonsito within the family , was born in 1941 in exile in Rome. Prince Alfonso d'Orleans-Bourbon (1886–1975) and his aunt, Princess Maria Christina de Borbón , Countess Marone (* 1911) acted as his godparents . He first grew up in Italy and Switzerland . After the end of the Second World War , the family went to Estoril in Portugal , the preferred place of exile for many displaced monarchs.

At the invitation of the dictator Francisco Franco , Prince Alfons visited Spain for the first time . Together with his older brother, who later became King Juan Carlos I , they lived in the Miramar Palace in San Sebastián at the beginning of 1950 . After he had passed his "Bachillerato", the school leaving examination, in Madrid , he went to the military academy in Saragossa as a cadet in 1955 .

During a vacation in royal exile in Estoril, a momentous accident occurred on March 29, 1956: the 14-year-old Prince Alfons died from a gunshot wound. Juan Carlos, then 18, was the only witness. The official explanation was that a shot had gone off while the gun was being cleaned. The bullet hit Alfons in the forehead; he died a few minutes later as a result of the injury. Prince Alfons was buried in the Cascais cemetery. In 1992 his body was transferred to Real Sitio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial and rests in Chapel 2 of the Pantheon of the Infants .

A judicial investigation, which was also requested by Alfons' uncle Jaime de Borbón , the older brother of the father, never took place. It was also never clarified who of the two youths triggered the shot.

literature

  • Jiří Louda, Michael MacLagan: Lines of Succession. Heraldry of the Royal Families of Europe. Little, Brown and Company, London 1999, ISBN 0-316-84820-4 .
  • Arnold McNaughton: The Book of Kings. A Royal Genealogy. 3 volumes. Garnstone Press, London 1973, ISBN 0-900391-19-7 .
  • José M. Zavala: Dos infantes y un destino. Plaza & Janés, Barcelona 1998, ISBN 8-4015-5006-8 .

Remarks

  1. ^ Son Born to Spanish Pretender , The New York Times
  2. ^ Don Juan's Son Is Killed in Spanish Gun Accident , The New York Times
  3. ↑ Barbara Mikkelson: A royal mystery
personal data
SURNAME Alfons de Borbon
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Alfonso Christino Teresa Angelo Francisco de Asis y Todos los Santos de Borbón y de Borbón
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Spanish nobleman, member of the House of Bourbon
DATE OF BIRTH October 3, 1941
PLACE OF BIRTH Rome
DATE OF DEATH March 29, 1956
Place of death Estoril