House of Bourbon: History and Key Facts

The House of Bourbon (English: , also UK: ; French: [buʁbɔ̃]) is a dynasty that originated in the Kingdom of France as a branch of the Capetian dynasty, the royal House of France. Bourbon kings first ruled France and Navarre in the 16th century. A branch descended from the French Bourbons came to rule Spain in the 18th century and is the current Spanish royal family. Other branches, descended from the Spanish Bourbons, held thrones in Naples, Sicily, and Parma. Today, Spain and Luxembourg have monarchs from the House of Bourbon.

The royal Bourbons originated in 1272, when Robert, the youngest son of King Saint Louis IX of France, married the heiress of the lordship of Bourbon. The house continued for three centuries as a cadet branch, serving as nobles under the direct Capetian and Valois kings.

The senior line of the House of Bourbon became extinct in the male line in 1527 with the death of Duke Charles III of Bourbon in the Sack of Rome. This made the junior Bourbon-Vendôme branch the genealogically senior branch of the House of Bourbon. In 1589, at the death of Henry III of France, the House of Valois became extinct in the male line. Under the Salic law, the head of the House of Bourbon, as the senior representative of the senior-surviving branch of the Capetian dynasty (first prince of the blood), became King of France as Henry IV. Bourbon monarchs then united to France the part of the Kingdom of Navarre north of the Pyrenees, which Henry's father had acquired by marriage in 1555, ruling both until the 1792 overthrow of the monarchy during the French Revolution. Restored briefly in 1814 and definitively in 1815 after the fall of the First French Empire, the senior line of the Bourbons was finally overthrown in the July Revolution of 1830. A cadet Bourbon branch, the House of Orléans, then ruled for 18 years (1830–1848), until it too was overthrown during the French Revolution of 1848.

The House of Condé was a cadet branch of the Bourbons descended from an uncle of Henry IV, and the House of Conti was a cadet line of the Condé branch. Both houses, recognized as princes of the blood, were prominent French noble families, well known for their participation in French affairs, even during exile in the French Revolution, until their respective extinctions in 1830 and 1814. Consequently, since the extinction of the Capetian House of Courtenay in 1733, the Bourbons are the only extant legitimate branch of the House of Capet. Although illegitimate, the House of Braganza traces its line to the House of Capet via descent from Robert II of France through the First House of Burgundy, then through the Portuguese House of Burgundy. Peter I of Portugal fathered an illegitimate son – John I of Portugal, founder of the House of Aviz – who in turn fathered an illegitimate son named Afonso, who in turn founded the extant House of Braganza.

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