Philip V of Spain

Philip V
King of Spain
Reign	1 November 1700 – 14 January 1724 (23 years, 74 days)
Predecessor	Charles II
Successor	Louis I
King of Spain
Reign	6 September 1724 - 9 July 1746 (21 years, 306 days)
Predecessor	Louis I
Successor	Ferdinand VI
Burial	La Granja, Segovia, Spain
Spouse	Maria Luisa of Savoy Elisabeth of Parma
Issue Detail	Louis I of Spain Ferdinand VI of Spain Charles III of Spain Mariana Victoria, Queen of Portugal Philip, Duke of Parma Maria Teresa, Dauphine of France Louis, Count of Chinchon Maria Antonieta, Queen of Sardinia
House	House of Bourbon
Father	Louis, Dauphin of France
Mother	Duchess Maria Anna of Bavaria

Philip V of Spain (19 December 1683 - 9 July 1746), born Philippe de France, fils de France and duc d'Anjou, was king of Spain from 1700 to 1724 and from 1724 to 1746, the first of the Bourbon dynasty in Spain. His entire reign of 45 years and 21 days is the longest in the history of Spain.

Biography

Philippe de France was born at the Palace of Versailles in France. At his birth he was created the Duke of Anjou which he would be known as till he became the King of Spain. He was baptised in 1687 and was given the name Philippe which was traditional for the "second son".

Philippe was the second son of Louis, le Grand Dauphin and Maria Anna of Bavaria, known as Dauphine Victoire. He was a younger brother of Louis, duc de Bourgogne and an uncle of Louis XV of France.

His paternal grandparents were Louis XIV of France and Maria Theresa of Spain. His maternal grandparents were Ferdinand Maria, Elector of Bavaria and Princess Henriette Adelaide of Savoy, the daughter of Victor Amadeus I, Duke of Savoy.

His older brother, Louis de France, duc de Bourgogne (1684-1712), was in line to the throne right after his father, Le Grand Dauphin, thus leaving him and his younger brother, Charles de France, duc de Berry (1686-1714) little expectation to ever rule over France.

As the son of the Dauphin, he was a Petit fils de France, "Grandson of France". This rank allowed him precedence over all at the court of his grand father Louis XIV as well as the Princes of the Blood. This also allowed him the style of address Royal Highness. Despite this, the style was rarely used in France at the time except in relations with foreign powers; he was also allowed the style of Most High and Powerful Prince which was the one more commonly used. He was tutored with his brothers by François Fénelon, Archbishop of Cambrai. The three were also educated by Paul de Beauvilliers.

At the age of 6, Philippe lost his mother. His Bavarian mother had married his father in 1680 and had always suffered from great melancholy. His father would later marry Marie Emilie Thérèse de Joly de Choin in a secret marriage in 1695. She was never Dauphine as Philippe's mother was due to the union being Morganatic.

In 1697 his oldest brother Louis married a cousin, Princess Maria Adelaide of Savoy. She was the daughter of Victor Amadeus II, Duke of Savoy and Philippe's second cousin Anne Marie d'Orléans. The Duke and Duchess of Savoy were also the parents of Philippe's first wife Maria Luisa of Savoy.

A possible bride was Caroline of Ansbach who refused due to her not wanting to renounce her faith. She was later the wife of George II of Great Britain.

Claims to the Spanish throne

In the year 1700, the King of Spain, Charles II, died. Charles' will named the 16-year old Philippe, the grandson of Charles' sister Maria Theresa of Spain, as his successor. Upon any possible refusal, the Crown of Spain would be offered next to Philip's younger brother, the duc de Berry, or, next, to Archduke Charles of Austria.

Both claimants, Philip and Charles, had a legal right to the Spanish throne due to the fact that Philip's grandfather, King Louis XIV of France and Charles's father, Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor, were sons of Charles' aunts, Anne of Austria and Maria Anna of Austria. Philip had the better claim because his grandmother and great-grandmother were older than Leopold's. However, the Austrian branch claimed that Philip's grandmother had renounced the Spanish throne for herself and her descendants as part of her marriage contract. This was countered by the French branch's claim that it was on the basis of a dowry that had never been paid.

After a long council meeting where the Dauphin spoke up in favour of his son's rights, it was agreed that Philip would ascend the throne but would forever renounce his claim to the throne of France for himself and his descendants. It was not difficult to see whether Louis would have refused, as a Habsburg ruler in Spain would have put a possible enemy on three frontiers.

After the Royal Council decided to accept Charles' will naming Philip King of Spain, 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, although Louis XIV did. Ironically, Philip had only begun taking Spanish lessons that day.

War of Spanish Succession

A Breech-loading gun which belonged to Philip V of Spain, made by A. Tienza, Madrid circa 1715. It came with a ready-to-load reusable cartridge. This is a miquelet system.

However, the other powers of Europe contested the idea, eventually leading to the War of Spanish Succession (1701-1714). Although Philip was allowed to remain on the Spanish throne, Spain was forced to cede Minorca and Gibraltar to Great Britain; the Spanish Netherlands, Naples, Milan, and Sardinia to the Austrian Habsburgs; and Sicily and parts of the Milanese to Savoy.

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 as Great Britain increasingly began to dominate at sea.

On 2 November 1701 he married Princess Maria Luisa Gabriella of Savoy; the bride was barely thirteen years old. There was a proxy ceremony at Turin and another at Versailles, this had been celebrated on 11 September. Philippe's grandfather chose the bride. This marriage was to cement the Treaty of Turin, which ended Franco-Savoyard conflicts during the Nine Years' War. The Duke and Duchess of Burgundy also personified this treaty.

The new Queen of Spain was a popular choice; she was a bright and pretty girl who would later serve as Regent for her husband on several occasions, her most successful term was when Philippe was away touring his Italian domains for 9 months in 1702.

The Spanish cival war was not only an international conflict, but also a civil war. The Crowns of Castile and Navarre remained faithful to the House of Bourbon; on the other hand, the major party of the crown of Aragon supported rule by the Archduke Charles of Austria, son of Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor and legal claimant to the Spanish throne by right of his grandmother Maria Anna of Spain. Charles claimed his right and was even hailed as the King of Spain as Charles III by Aragon.

The actual are finally, in Spain, in favor of the troops "philippistes", sometimes to the price of slaughters and of destructions, as to Xàtiva, burned in 1707. Philip V except his holds court thanks to the victories of Almansa by the Duke of Berwick in 1707, and of Villaviciosa and Brihuega by the Duke of Vendôme in 1710.

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.

The war was fought not only in Europe, but also in colonial North America, where the conflict became known to the English colonists as Queen Anne's War, and by corsairs and privateers along the Spanish Main. Over the course of the fighting, some 400,000 people were killed.

Abdication and return

Family of Philip V of Spain in 1743

"The Family of Philip V of Spain 1743"; (L-R) Mariana Victoria, Princess of Brazil; Barbara, Princess of Asturias; Ferdinand, Prince of Asturias; King Philip V; Luis, Count of Chinchón; Elisabeth of Parma; Infante Philip; Princess Marie Louise Élisabeth of France; Infanta Maria Teresa Rafaela; Infanta Maria Antonietta; Maria Amalia, Queen of Naples and Sicily; Charles, King of Naples and Sicily. The two children in the foreground are Princess Maria Isabella Anne of Naples and Sicily and Infanta Isabella Maria of Spain (daughter of the future Duke of Parma)

On 14 January 1724, Philip abdicated the throne to his eldest son, the seventeen-year old Louis, for reasons still the subject of debate:

One theory states that Philip V, who exhibited many elements of mental instability during his reign, did not wish to reign due to his increasing mental decline and so conscientiously abdicated in favour of his son.

A second theory puts the abdication in context of the Bourbon dynasty. The French royal family recently had lost many legitimate agnates to diseases, making the lack of an heir and 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 (1713), 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. However, this theory seems improbable as the French Bourbons' dynastic crisis was acute in 1711/1712 - before the Treaty of Utrecht was even signed - and not in 1724, a year after Louis XV had begun to govern in his own right. Furthermore, in the Treaty Philip had renounced his and his descendants' rights to the succession in France, regardless of who actually reigned in Spain.

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

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.

Consequences of Philip V's reign

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.

During his reign, Spain began to recover from the stagnation it had suffered during the twilight of the Spanish Habsburg dynasty. Ferdinand VI of Spain, his son by his first queen Maria Luisa of Savoy, succeeded him.

Philip was afflicted by fits of manic depression and increasingly fell victim to a deep melancholia. His second wife, Elizabeth Farnese, completely dominated her passive husband. She bore him further sons, including another successor, Charles III of Spain. He was later helped with his affliction by the castrato singer Carlo Broschi, famously known as Farinelli, who, for twenty years, sang the same four arias each night to the king before he went to sleep.

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.

Legacy

Half escudo gold coin of Philip V, dated 1743

• 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 [1]).
• An equestrian statue of Philip V was commissioned during his lifetime to be erected in Lima, Viceroyalty of Peru. It came crashing down in a huge earthquake in 1746, in the same month Philip V himself died. The statue was never replaced.

Marriages

First Marriage

Family of Philip V of Spain in 1723

File:Familia de Felip V (of Spain).jpg Family of Philip V in 1723; Infante Ferdinand of Spain and future King Ferdinand VI; Philip himself; Louis, Prince of Asturias; Infante Felip, future Duke of Parma; Elisabeth of Parma who was his second wife; Painting of Philip's eldest daughter Infanta Mariana Victoria of Spain who was in France and betrothed to Louis XV and Infante Carlos, another future King of Spain. Painted by Jean Ranc.

Philip married his double-second cousin Princess Maria Luisa of Savoy (17 September 1688 – 14 February 1714) on 3 November 1701 and they had four sons:

• Infante Luis Felipe of Spain (25 August 1707 – 31 August 1724)
• Infante Felipe of Spain (2 July 1709 – 18 July 1709).
• Infante Felipe Pedro of Spain (7 June 1712 – 29 December 1719).
• Infante Ferdinand of Spain (23 September 1713 – 10 August 1759).

Second marriage

He married Elizabeth, Princess of Parma, (25 October 1692 – 11 July 1766), on 24 December 1714, they had seven children:

• Infante Carlos of Spain (20 January 1716 – 14 December 1788).
• Infante Francisco of Spain (21 March 1717 – 21 April 1717).
• Infanta Mariana Victoria of Spain (31 March 1718 – 15 January 1781).
• Infante Felipe of Spain (20 March 1720 – 18 July 1765) Duke of Parma and founder of the line of House of Bourbon-Parma.
• Infanta Maria Teresa Rafaela of Spain (11 June 1726 – 22 July 1746).
• Infante Luis Antonio Jamie of Spain (25 July 1727 – 7 August 1785), known as the Cardinal-Infante. He 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 Doña María Teresa de Vallabriga y Rozas and had issue, but without royal titles.
• Infanta Maria Antonietta of Spain (17 November 1729 – 19 September 1785).

Ancestry

Family of Philip V of Spain

16. Henry IV of France 8. Louis XIII of France 17. Marie de' Medici 4. Louis XIV of France 18. Philip III of Spain 9. Infanta Anne of Spain 19. Archduchess Margaret of Austria 2. Louis, Dauphin of France 20. Philip III of Spain (= 18) 10. Philip IV of Spain 21. Archduchess Margaret of Austria (= 19) 5. Infanta Maria Theresa of Spain 22. Henry IV of France (= 16) 11. Princess Elisabeth de France 23. Marie de' Medici (= 17) 1. Philip V of Spain 24. William V, Duke of Bavaria 12. Maximilian I, Elector of Bavaria 25. Princess Renata of Lorraine 6. Ferdinand Maria, Elector of Bavaria 26. Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor 13. Archduchess Maria Anna of Austria 27. Princess Maria Anna of Bavaria 3. Princess Maria Anna of Bavaria 28. Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy 14. Victor Amadeus I, Duke of Savoy 29. Infanta Catherine Michelle of Spain 7. Princess Henriette Adelaide of Savoy 30. Henry IV of France (= 16) 15. Princess Christine Marie de France 31. Marie de' Medici (= 17)

Titles, styles, honours and arms

Titles and styles

• 19 December, 1683 - 1 November, 1700 His Royal Highness the Duke of Anjou (Monseigneur le duc d'Anjou)
• 1 November, 1700 - 14 January' 1724 His Majesty the King of Spain
• 14 January, 1724 - 6 September, 1724 His Majesty the King
• 6 September, 1724 - 9 July, 1746 His Majesty the King of Spain

Sources

• Armstrong, Edward (1892). Elizabeth Farnese: "The Termagant of Spain". London: Longmans, Green, and Co.
• Kamen, Henry (2001). Philip V of Spain: The King Who Reigned Twice. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-08718-7.
• Petrie, Sir Charles (1958). The Spanish Royal House. London: Geoffrey Bles.

Titles

Titles and Succession