María de las Mercedes de Borbon y Orléans

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Doña María de las Mercedes de Borbón y Orléans , full name Doña María de las Mercedes Christina Genara Isabel Luísa Carolina Victoria de Borbón y Orléans (born December 23, 1910 in Madrid , † January 2, 2000 in La Mareta on Lanzarote ) was a member of the Spanish royal family and originally came from the House of Bourbon-Sicily . She was the grandmother of the current Spanish King Felipe VI.

Life

María de las Mercedes was a daughter of Prince Carlos Maria François of Naples-Sicily (1870-1949) and his second wife Princess Louise Françoise Marie Laure (1882-1958), youngest daughter of Louis Philippe Albert d'Orléans, comte de Paris and Princess Maria Isabella d'Orléans-Montpensier . Her paternal grandparents were Prince Alfons Maria of Naples-Sicily , Count of Caserta, and Princess Maria Antonia of Naples-Sicily . She grew up in Seville , where her father was governor general in the province. After the proclamation of the second republic on April 14, 1931, her family left the country and settled first in Cannes . They later moved to Paris , where she studied art history at the Sorbonne and Louvre .

At the wedding of Princess Beatrice Isabel held on January 14, 1935 , Doña María de las Mercedes met her cousin (second degree) and future husband, Juan de Borbón y Battenberg (1913-1993). Both families arranged a marriage, which took place in Rome on October 12, 1935 . When her husband accepted the title of Count of Barcelona as a pretender on March 8, 1941, María de las Mercedes became Countess of Barcelona accordingly . The couple had four children:

María de las Mercedes de Borbon y Orléans
⚭ 1967 Luis Gómez-Acebo y de Estrada, Count of Torre (1934–1991)
⚭ 1962 Princess Sophia Margarita Victoria Friederika of Greece and Denmark (* 1938)
⚭ 1972 Don Carlos Zurita y Delgado (* 1943)

After the marriage, the couple lived in Cannes and Rome. When the Second World War broke out , the young family moved to live with their mother-in-law, ex-Queen Victoria Eugénie , in Lausanne , Switzerland . They later lived in Estoril . In 1953 María de las Mercedes represented the Spanish royal family at the coronation of Elizabeth II. 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, who suffered from haemophilia , in the forehead; he died a few minutes later as a result of the injury. Doña María de las Mercedes suffered from depression due to the early death of her son .

In 1969, her son, Juan Carlos, was sworn in as Prince of Spain at Franco's side . With the death of Franco on November 20, 1975, the way for Juan Carlos' accession to the throne was mapped out. Two days later, on November 22, 1975, he was declared king and until his abdication on June 18, 2014, he was Juan Carlos I at the head of the Spanish state.

In 1982 María de las Mercedes broke her hip joint and in 1985 her left thigh bone . Therefore, she was in a wheelchair for the rest of her life. In 1993 she became a widow. She was enthusiastic about bullfighting and the Andalusian culture.

Doña María de las Mercedes died at the age of 89 of a heart attack in the royal residence La Mareta on Lanzarote, where she had traveled with her family for the New Year celebrations. She was buried with all honors of a Spanish queen in the royal tomb of the Real Sitio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial monastery . At the moment it rests in the inaccessible pudridero , a room in which the corpses rot for up to 50 years before the bones are reburied in the actual resting place in the Pantheon of Kings .

Name in different phases of life

  • 1910–1935 Princess María de las Mercedes de Borbón y Orléans
  • 1935–2000 Infanta María de las Mercedes of Spain
  • 1942–2000 María de las Mercedes, Countess of Barcelona, ​​officially since 1977

Coat of arms of Maria Mercedes of Bourbon, Countess of Barcelona as consort of the Pretender to the Spanish Throne.svg Coat of arms of Maria Mercedes of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Countess of Barcelona after her husband renounce as Pretender to the Spanish Throne (1977-1988) .svg Coat of arms of Maria Mercedes of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Countess of Barcelona after her husband renounce as Pretender to the Spanish Throne.svg Coat of arms of Maria Mercedes of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Countess Dowager of Barcelona.svg

Coat of arms : * (1941–1977) * (1977–1988) * (1988–1993) * (1993–2000)

literature

  • Marlene A. Eilers: Queen Victoria's Descendants. Genealogical Publishing Co., Baltimore MD 1987, ISBN 0-8063-1202-5 .
  • 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 84-01-55006-8 .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Doña María de las Mercedes de Bourbon-Sicily
  2. ^ Nicolas Enache: La Descendance de Marie-Therese de Habsburg . ICC, Paris, 1996, ISBN 2-908003-04-X , pp. 458, 532.
  3. ↑ Don Juan's Son Is Killed in Spanish Gun Accident. In: The New York Times .
  4. ^ Maria de Borbon, 89, Mother of Spain's King. In: The New York Times.
personal data
SURNAME Borbón y Orléans, María de las Mercedes de
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Bourbon Sicily, Maria de las Mercedes de; Bourbon Sicily, María de las Mercedes Christina Genara Isabel Luísa Carolina Victoria de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Spanish nobles
DATE OF BIRTH December 23, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Madrid
DATE OF DEATH January 2, 2000
Place of death La Mareta in Lanzarote