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What If ... France Develops A Matriarchy
King's and Queens of France
1575 to 1589 : Henry III (House of Valois-Angouleme)
1589 to 1583 : Isabella (House of Habsburg) (1)
1633 to 1678: Jeanne I (House of Habsburg) [2]
(1) Isabella of France was never supposed to become the first Queen Regnant of France. After the crown had passed through three of her maternal uncles - Francis II, Charles IX and Henri III - the closest male line relative to the Valois-Angouleme was Henri, King of Navarre, tenth cousin to the last King and a protestant. The likelihood that the Valois-Angouleme male line would become extinct had been anticipated - though the assassination that had removed Henri III had been unexpected - and a Pragmatic Sanction in 1585 stated that male preference primogeniture would be adopted. By this declaration, the French succession fell to Henri III's niece, Archduchess Isabella of Austria. The decision to hand France over to the Hapsburgs and the Holy Roman Empire was not a popular one, but it was one that Emperor Rudolf II and Isabella's father, Phillip II, King of Spain, fully endorsed.
In 1589, Isabella was crowned as Queen of France at Reims Cathedral. She was unmarried, but the support of Emperor Rudolf and the Holy Roman Empire to hold her throne was conditional on her marriage to Archduke Albert, the Emperor's brother - both were brothers of Anna of Austria, the Queen's late step-mother. The Habsburg Band had been formed from the Iberian Peninsula across France to the eastern-most holdings of the Empire. And the rest of Europe did not like this one iota.
The English Succession had long been unclear - but even Elizabeth could see that the personal union of England and Scotland that she, her father and their ministers had long wanted to avoid, would be of benefit when facing the Habsburg Band. With Isabella's succession, Elizabeth formally acknowledged her cousin, James VI of Scotland as legitimate heir to England, investing him as Prince of Wales to further emphasise her belief in his succession.
Isabella and Albert produced six children from 1590 to 1602, the latter born when she was thirty-six - all girls (for the first eighteen months of her reign, her heirs under the Pragmatic Sanction were her sister, Catherine, Duchess of Savoy, and Catherine's three children - Victor, Emmanuel and Margaret). Therefore the Dauphinate of Viennois lay vacant and Henri of Navarre, who continued to claim the throne of France began to style himself as King of Navarre and Dauphin of Viennois. But surrounded by Habsburgs, there was little that Henri and the Navarese could do to enforce the claim itself.
As a wedding gift to his daughter, the King of Spain had ceded the Spanish Netherlands to France. France found itself preoccupied with the United Provinces until an uneasy peace was agreed in 1612 which also required that France display some religious tolerance after the mass protestant persecution of the Religious Wars of Isabella's uncles reigns.
By 1633, Isabella was 67, had given birth to six surviving daughters (and a number of other children who did not survive infancy) and seen those children age and yield grandchildren for her. After it's somewhat rocky start, Habsburg France seemed stable for the moment, but if either Spain or the Holy Roman Empire fell out with the other, or France fell out with either, its position would become more fraught.
Isabella was succeeded by her eldest daughter, Jeanne.
[2] Princess Jeanne was the oldest daughter of Queen Isabella of France and her husband, Archduke Albert of Austria. Habsburg on both sides, Jeanne was *famously* not born with the Habsburg chin, contrary to all of her sisters. The physical difference to her family soon grew to become one based also in personality as the harsh and rigid education her mother inflicted on her made the young Dauphine of Viennois quickly grew to hate the rest of her family. Jeanne soon grew to be a bull-headed, stubborn and defiant young woman, who was keen on contradicting everything her mother seemed to put forward for her. This, in turn, made her deeply popular with the french people, whom hated both King Albert and King Elizabeth for their foreign origins, and saw in young Jeanne "Frenchness".
They were not wrong. Historians have come to claim that the reason a revolt against Isabella did not happen is because the French nobility stacked behind her daughter and heir, and mother and daughter formed two different courts, with Jeanne soon heading out to the Loire, where she spent time in the Summer and to Viennois in the winter. In a fit to unite the french people behind her and as a declaration of independence against her mother, Isabella would famously marry Louis de Soissons, a member of the House of Bourbon. When her first child was born, Jeanne styled him as "De Soissons", taking the name of her husband for herself. While French historians have classified her as a member of the House of Habsburg, Jeanne never did identify herself as an Habsburg after her marriage. She and her husband, Louis, would go on to have six children.
The death of her mother was joyously celebrated, both by Jeanne (privatelly) and by the vast majority of the french people, whom never took a liking to their Spanish Queen. Jeanne's start to life as Queen took a vastly different turn from her mother's, whom had kept France mostly internally focused and served as a pin between the more influential Habsburg realms of Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. Despite not breaking off immediatelly from her alliance with her Habsburg cousins, Jeanne rapidly took to treking a different path from her mother. The first of her choices was to return her father to Vienna, where he would be made ambassador to the Imperial court in what was effectivelly exile from France. Her younger sisters, however, Jeanne quickly married to various Italian and German princes, forming commercial and military alliances in much of central-western Europe and restoring french influence abroad.
Jeanne, was, however, a true Habsburg in her obcession with the lands of the New World. Perhaps the only thing Jeanne had kept from her Spanish tutors in her youth were their stories of the New World and how it had altered the destiny of the Spanish realms. Thus, is it to no-one's surprise that Jeanne is considered the matron of the French navy and the founder of the French colonial Empire. The founding of the colonies of Acadia, Canada and Louisiane (named after King-Consort Louis) happened during her reign, due to the patronage of many navigators and explorers by the Queen in Paris. An edict was put forth allowing privileges to Catholics whom immigrated to the new world, such as parcels of lands and freedom from serfdom, while protestants were famously given freedom of religion overseas. Thus, thousands of Frenchmen, mainly of Breton, Norman, Gascon and Flemish origin would emigrate to the new world in massive waves during these times, with the Acadian cities of Port-Royal in Gaspé (Otl Halifax, Nova Scotia) and Montreine (OTL Moncton, New Brunswick), the Canadian cities of Québec, Montreal and Brule (Otl Ottawa and Gatineau, on the border between OTL Ontario and Quebec). These cities became the main urban centers of northern New France and the main sources of authority in the rapidly expanding French colonial settlements there. In Louisiane, which was located in the Gulf of Mexico, Nouvelle Calais (Otl New Orleans, Louisiana) and La Roche (OTL Little Rock, Arkansas) quickly became the main centers of French control over the Missisipi. By the end of Jeanne's reign, french explorers were trying to find a connection alongside the Ohio basin to the Missisipi, and would discover the "Illinois territory" just before her death.
Jeanne died in 1678, finishing a vast program of internal reform meant to tackle the power of both the clergy and the nobility, renovate the French financial system and break much of the power of the old parliaments. She was widely celebrated as a Queen by her people. She was suceeded by ___________.
King's and Queens of France
1575 to 1589 : Henry III (House of Valois-Angouleme)
1589 to 1583 : Isabella (House of Habsburg) (1)
1633 to 1678: Jeanne I (House of Habsburg) [2]
(1) Isabella of France was never supposed to become the first Queen Regnant of France. After the crown had passed through three of her maternal uncles - Francis II, Charles IX and Henri III - the closest male line relative to the Valois-Angouleme was Henri, King of Navarre, tenth cousin to the last King and a protestant. The likelihood that the Valois-Angouleme male line would become extinct had been anticipated - though the assassination that had removed Henri III had been unexpected - and a Pragmatic Sanction in 1585 stated that male preference primogeniture would be adopted. By this declaration, the French succession fell to Henri III's niece, Archduchess Isabella of Austria. The decision to hand France over to the Hapsburgs and the Holy Roman Empire was not a popular one, but it was one that Emperor Rudolf II and Isabella's father, Phillip II, King of Spain, fully endorsed.
In 1589, Isabella was crowned as Queen of France at Reims Cathedral. She was unmarried, but the support of Emperor Rudolf and the Holy Roman Empire to hold her throne was conditional on her marriage to Archduke Albert, the Emperor's brother - both were brothers of Anna of Austria, the Queen's late step-mother. The Habsburg Band had been formed from the Iberian Peninsula across France to the eastern-most holdings of the Empire. And the rest of Europe did not like this one iota.
The English Succession had long been unclear - but even Elizabeth could see that the personal union of England and Scotland that she, her father and their ministers had long wanted to avoid, would be of benefit when facing the Habsburg Band. With Isabella's succession, Elizabeth formally acknowledged her cousin, James VI of Scotland as legitimate heir to England, investing him as Prince of Wales to further emphasise her belief in his succession.
Isabella and Albert produced six children from 1590 to 1602, the latter born when she was thirty-six - all girls (for the first eighteen months of her reign, her heirs under the Pragmatic Sanction were her sister, Catherine, Duchess of Savoy, and Catherine's three children - Victor, Emmanuel and Margaret). Therefore the Dauphinate of Viennois lay vacant and Henri of Navarre, who continued to claim the throne of France began to style himself as King of Navarre and Dauphin of Viennois. But surrounded by Habsburgs, there was little that Henri and the Navarese could do to enforce the claim itself.
As a wedding gift to his daughter, the King of Spain had ceded the Spanish Netherlands to France. France found itself preoccupied with the United Provinces until an uneasy peace was agreed in 1612 which also required that France display some religious tolerance after the mass protestant persecution of the Religious Wars of Isabella's uncles reigns.
By 1633, Isabella was 67, had given birth to six surviving daughters (and a number of other children who did not survive infancy) and seen those children age and yield grandchildren for her. After it's somewhat rocky start, Habsburg France seemed stable for the moment, but if either Spain or the Holy Roman Empire fell out with the other, or France fell out with either, its position would become more fraught.
Isabella was succeeded by her eldest daughter, Jeanne.
[2] Princess Jeanne was the oldest daughter of Queen Isabella of France and her husband, Archduke Albert of Austria. Habsburg on both sides, Jeanne was *famously* not born with the Habsburg chin, contrary to all of her sisters. The physical difference to her family soon grew to become one based also in personality as the harsh and rigid education her mother inflicted on her made the young Dauphine of Viennois quickly grew to hate the rest of her family. Jeanne soon grew to be a bull-headed, stubborn and defiant young woman, who was keen on contradicting everything her mother seemed to put forward for her. This, in turn, made her deeply popular with the french people, whom hated both King Albert and King Elizabeth for their foreign origins, and saw in young Jeanne "Frenchness".
They were not wrong. Historians have come to claim that the reason a revolt against Isabella did not happen is because the French nobility stacked behind her daughter and heir, and mother and daughter formed two different courts, with Jeanne soon heading out to the Loire, where she spent time in the Summer and to Viennois in the winter. In a fit to unite the french people behind her and as a declaration of independence against her mother, Isabella would famously marry Louis de Soissons, a member of the House of Bourbon. When her first child was born, Jeanne styled him as "De Soissons", taking the name of her husband for herself. While French historians have classified her as a member of the House of Habsburg, Jeanne never did identify herself as an Habsburg after her marriage. She and her husband, Louis, would go on to have six children.
The death of her mother was joyously celebrated, both by Jeanne (privatelly) and by the vast majority of the french people, whom never took a liking to their Spanish Queen. Jeanne's start to life as Queen took a vastly different turn from her mother's, whom had kept France mostly internally focused and served as a pin between the more influential Habsburg realms of Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. Despite not breaking off immediatelly from her alliance with her Habsburg cousins, Jeanne rapidly took to treking a different path from her mother. The first of her choices was to return her father to Vienna, where he would be made ambassador to the Imperial court in what was effectivelly exile from France. Her younger sisters, however, Jeanne quickly married to various Italian and German princes, forming commercial and military alliances in much of central-western Europe and restoring french influence abroad.
Jeanne, was, however, a true Habsburg in her obcession with the lands of the New World. Perhaps the only thing Jeanne had kept from her Spanish tutors in her youth were their stories of the New World and how it had altered the destiny of the Spanish realms. Thus, is it to no-one's surprise that Jeanne is considered the matron of the French navy and the founder of the French colonial Empire. The founding of the colonies of Acadia, Canada and Louisiane (named after King-Consort Louis) happened during her reign, due to the patronage of many navigators and explorers by the Queen in Paris. An edict was put forth allowing privileges to Catholics whom immigrated to the new world, such as parcels of lands and freedom from serfdom, while protestants were famously given freedom of religion overseas. Thus, thousands of Frenchmen, mainly of Breton, Norman, Gascon and Flemish origin would emigrate to the new world in massive waves during these times, with the Acadian cities of Port-Royal in Gaspé (Otl Halifax, Nova Scotia) and Montreine (OTL Moncton, New Brunswick), the Canadian cities of Québec, Montreal and Brule (Otl Ottawa and Gatineau, on the border between OTL Ontario and Quebec). These cities became the main urban centers of northern New France and the main sources of authority in the rapidly expanding French colonial settlements there. In Louisiane, which was located in the Gulf of Mexico, Nouvelle Calais (Otl New Orleans, Louisiana) and La Roche (OTL Little Rock, Arkansas) quickly became the main centers of French control over the Missisipi. By the end of Jeanne's reign, french explorers were trying to find a connection alongside the Ohio basin to the Missisipi, and would discover the "Illinois territory" just before her death.
Jeanne died in 1678, finishing a vast program of internal reform meant to tackle the power of both the clergy and the nobility, renovate the French financial system and break much of the power of the old parliaments. She was widely celebrated as a Queen by her people. She was suceeded by ___________.
Last edited:
wwbgdiaslt
Gone Fishin'
Jeanne was not the Dauphine of Viennois, the Dauphinate lay vacant because Isabella only had daughters and the title was claimed by the Bourbons in Navarre. She isn't the Dauphine because she was never Heir Apparent, only Heir Presumptive - the same way the Prince of Wales is not created as Prince of Wales unless they are male.
wwbgdiaslt
Gone Fishin'
What If ... France Develops A Matriarchy
King's and Queens of France
1575 to 1589 : Henry III (House of Valois-Angouleme)
1589 to 1583 : Isabella (House of Habsburg) (1)
1633 to 1678: Jeanne (House of Habsburg) [2]
1678 to 1713: Isabella II (House of Bourbon) [3]
(1) Isabella of France was never supposed to become the first Queen Regnant of France. After the crown had passed through three of her maternal uncles - Francis II, Charles IX and Henri III - the closest male line relative to the Valois-Angouleme was Henri, King of Navarre, tenth cousin to the last King and a protestant. The likelihood that the Valois-Angouleme male line would become extinct had been anticipated - though the assassination that had removed Henri III had been unexpected - and a Pragmatic Sanction in 1585 stated that male preference primogeniture would be adopted. By this declaration, the French succession fell to Henri III's niece, Archduchess Isabella of Austria. The decision to hand France over to the Hapsburgs and the Holy Roman Empire was not a popular one, but it was one that Emperor Rudolf II and Isabella's father, Phillip II, King of Spain, fully endorsed.
In 1589, Isabella was crowned as Queen of France at Reims Cathedral. She was unmarried, but the support of Emperor Rudolf and the Holy Roman Empire to hold her throne was conditional on her marriage to Archduke Albert, the Emperor's brother - both were brothers of Anna of Austria, the Queen's late step-mother. The Habsburg Band had been formed from the Iberian Peninsula across France to the eastern-most holdings of the Empire. And the rest of Europe did not like this one iota.
The English Succession had long been unclear - but even Elizabeth could see that the personal union of England and Scotland that she, her father and their ministers had long wanted to avoid, would be of benefit when facing the Habsburg Band. With Isabella's succession, Elizabeth formally acknowledged her cousin, James VI of Scotland as legitimate heir to England, investing him as Prince of Wales to further emphasise her belief in his succession.
Isabella and Albert produced six children from 1590 to 1602, the latter born when she was thirty-six - all girls (for the first eighteen months of her reign, her heirs under the Pragmatic Sanction were her sister, Catherine, Duchess of Savoy, and Catherine's three children - Victor, Emmanuel and Margaret). Therefore the Dauphinate of Viennois lay vacant and Henri of Navarre, who continued to claim the throne of France began to style himself as King of Navarre and Dauphin of Viennois. But surrounded by Habsburgs, there was little that Henri and the Navarese could do to enforce the claim itself.
As a wedding gift to his daughter, the King of Spain had ceded the Spanish Netherlands to France. France found itself preoccupied with the United Provinces until an uneasy peace was agreed in 1612 which also required that France display some religious tolerance after the mass protestant persecution of the Religious Wars of Isabella's uncles reigns.
By 1633, Isabella was 67, had given birth to six surviving daughters (and a number of other children who did not survive infancy) and seen those children age and yield grandchildren for her. After it's somewhat rocky start, Habsburg France seemed stable for the moment, but if either Spain or the Holy Roman Empire fell out with the other, or France fell out with either, its position would become more fraught.
Isabella was succeeded by her eldest daughter, Jeanne.
[2] Princess Jeanne was the oldest daughter of Queen Isabella of France and her husband, Archduke Albert of Austria. Habsburg on both sides, Jeanne was *famously* not born with the Habsburg chin, contrary to all of her sisters. The physical difference to her family soon grew to become one based also in personality as the harsh and rigid education her mother inflicted on her made the young Dauphine of Viennois quickly grew to hate the rest of her family. Jeanne soon grew to be a bull-headed, stubborn and defiant young woman, who was keen on contradicting everything her mother seemed to put forward for her. This, in turn, made her deeply popular with the french people, whom hated both [ Archduke ] Albert and [ Queen Isabella ] for their foreign origins, and saw in young Jeanne "Frenchness".
They were not wrong. Historians have come to claim that the reason a revolt against Isabella did not happen is because the French nobility stacked behind her daughter and heir, and mother and daughter formed two different courts, with Jeanne soon heading out to the Loire, where she spent time in the Summer and to Viennois in the winter. In a fit to unite the french people behind her and as a declaration of independence against her mother, Isabella would famously marry Louis de Soissons, a member of the House of Bourbon. When her first child was born, Jeanne styled him as "De Soissons", taking the name of her husband for herself. While French historians have classified her as a member of the House of Habsburg, Jeanne never did identify herself as an Habsburg after her marriage. She and her husband, Louis, would go on to have six children.
The death of her mother was joyously celebrated, both by Jeanne (privatelly) and by the vast majority of the french people, whom never took a liking to their Spanish Queen. Jeanne's start to life as Queen took a vastly different turn from her mother's, whom had kept France mostly internally focused and served as a pin between the more influential Habsburg realms of Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. Despite not breaking off immediatelly from her alliance with her Habsburg cousins, Jeanne rapidly took to treking a different path from her mother. The first of her choices was to return her father to Vienna, where he would be made ambassador to the Imperial court in what was effectivelly exile from France. Her younger sisters, however, Jeanne quickly married to various Italian and German princes, forming commercial and military alliances in much of central-western Europe and restoring french influence abroad.
Jeanne, was, however, a true Habsburg in her obcession with the lands of the New World. Perhaps the only thing Jeanne had kept from her Spanish tutors in her youth were their stories of the New World and how it had altered the destiny of the Spanish realms. Thus, is it to no-one's surprise that Jeanne is considered the matron of the French navy and the founder of the French colonial Empire. The founding of the colonies of Acadia, Canada and Louisiane (named after King-Consort Louis) happened during her reign, due to the patronage of many navigators and explorers by the Queen in Paris. An edict was put forth allowing privileges to Catholics whom immigrated to the new world, such as parcels of lands and freedom from serfdom, while protestants were famously given freedom of religion overseas. Thus, thousands of Frenchmen, mainly of Breton, Norman, Gascon and Flemish origin would emigrate to the new world in massive waves during these times, with the Acadian cities of Port-Royal in Gaspé (Otl Halifax, Nova Scotia) and Montreine (OTL Moncton, New Brunswick), the Canadian cities of Québec, Montreal and Brule (Otl Ottawa and Gatineau, on the border between OTL Ontario and Quebec). These cities became the main urban centers of northern New France and the main sources of authority in the rapidly expanding French colonial settlements there. In Louisiane, which was located in the Gulf of Mexico, Nouvelle Calais (Otl New Orleans, Louisiana) and La Roche (OTL Little Rock, Arkansas) quickly became the main centers of French control over the Missisipi. By the end of Jeanne's reign, french explorers were trying to find a connection alongside the Ohio basin to the Missisipi, and would discover the "Illinois territory" just before her death.
Jeanne died in 1678, finishing a vast program of internal reform meant to tackle the power of both the clergy and the nobility, renovate the French financial system and break much of the power of the old parliaments. She was widely celebrated as a Queen by her people. She was suceeded by ___________.
(3) Isabella de Soissons, only surviving child of Louis, Duke of Soissons, Crown Prince of France and his wife, Louisa Christina of Savoy. Her fathers birth and her grandmother's succession to the throne made it clear that whilst France still held the territory of Viennois, the title of Dauphin, still claimed by the Bourbons in Navarre, was sullied by their claim and despite her grandmother's vague attempt to style herself as Dauphine, France would not use it. Her parents were second cousins - Isabella I and Catherine Micaela, Duchess of Savoy had been sisters - but this catered to his grandmother's anti-pro-Habsburg policies (not anti-Habsburg - just not pro-Habsburg). But as much as Jeanne had tried to fight it, the Habsburg support from the Empire and Spain was still fundamental in maintaining France's male preference primogeniture, despite the build-up in colonial assets and her naval forces to rival the British.
Her father was shot when Isabella II was only ten and she grew up, shuffled between her grandmother's court in Paris, her mother's court in Vienne and her maternal uncle's court in Turin. In 1678 when she became Queen after the death of her 88 year old grandmother, Isabella II was clearly more influenced by the Savoyard Court than either of the French ones. She continued the pro-colonial policies of her grandmother, invested heavily in French ports and related infrastructure including roads that connected France and Savoy. She created a French standing army and constructed a number of coastal fortifications both on the Channel and the Mediterranean.
She did not however embrace her uncles persecution of Waldensians, and continued the French policy of religious tolerance and encouragement of emigration of protestants to the colonies.
Isabella II had married her cousin, Francis Hyacinth, Duke of Aosta (her uncle, Charles Emmanuel II's, second son) and the pair had six children. In 1713 she died at the age of fifty seven (born 1656) after reigning for thirty five years, an autopsy revealed that she died of gall bladder occlusion and liver failure - and would be succeeded by ..............
Isabella I, b. 1566, r. 1589 to 1633, m. Archduke Albert of Austria (1559 to Post-1633)
King's and Queens of France
1575 to 1589 : Henry III (House of Valois-Angouleme)
1589 to 1583 : Isabella (House of Habsburg) (1)
1633 to 1678: Jeanne (House of Habsburg) [2]
1678 to 1713: Isabella II (House of Bourbon) [3]
(1) Isabella of France was never supposed to become the first Queen Regnant of France. After the crown had passed through three of her maternal uncles - Francis II, Charles IX and Henri III - the closest male line relative to the Valois-Angouleme was Henri, King of Navarre, tenth cousin to the last King and a protestant. The likelihood that the Valois-Angouleme male line would become extinct had been anticipated - though the assassination that had removed Henri III had been unexpected - and a Pragmatic Sanction in 1585 stated that male preference primogeniture would be adopted. By this declaration, the French succession fell to Henri III's niece, Archduchess Isabella of Austria. The decision to hand France over to the Hapsburgs and the Holy Roman Empire was not a popular one, but it was one that Emperor Rudolf II and Isabella's father, Phillip II, King of Spain, fully endorsed.
In 1589, Isabella was crowned as Queen of France at Reims Cathedral. She was unmarried, but the support of Emperor Rudolf and the Holy Roman Empire to hold her throne was conditional on her marriage to Archduke Albert, the Emperor's brother - both were brothers of Anna of Austria, the Queen's late step-mother. The Habsburg Band had been formed from the Iberian Peninsula across France to the eastern-most holdings of the Empire. And the rest of Europe did not like this one iota.
The English Succession had long been unclear - but even Elizabeth could see that the personal union of England and Scotland that she, her father and their ministers had long wanted to avoid, would be of benefit when facing the Habsburg Band. With Isabella's succession, Elizabeth formally acknowledged her cousin, James VI of Scotland as legitimate heir to England, investing him as Prince of Wales to further emphasise her belief in his succession.
Isabella and Albert produced six children from 1590 to 1602, the latter born when she was thirty-six - all girls (for the first eighteen months of her reign, her heirs under the Pragmatic Sanction were her sister, Catherine, Duchess of Savoy, and Catherine's three children - Victor, Emmanuel and Margaret). Therefore the Dauphinate of Viennois lay vacant and Henri of Navarre, who continued to claim the throne of France began to style himself as King of Navarre and Dauphin of Viennois. But surrounded by Habsburgs, there was little that Henri and the Navarese could do to enforce the claim itself.
As a wedding gift to his daughter, the King of Spain had ceded the Spanish Netherlands to France. France found itself preoccupied with the United Provinces until an uneasy peace was agreed in 1612 which also required that France display some religious tolerance after the mass protestant persecution of the Religious Wars of Isabella's uncles reigns.
By 1633, Isabella was 67, had given birth to six surviving daughters (and a number of other children who did not survive infancy) and seen those children age and yield grandchildren for her. After it's somewhat rocky start, Habsburg France seemed stable for the moment, but if either Spain or the Holy Roman Empire fell out with the other, or France fell out with either, its position would become more fraught.
Isabella was succeeded by her eldest daughter, Jeanne.
[2] Princess Jeanne was the oldest daughter of Queen Isabella of France and her husband, Archduke Albert of Austria. Habsburg on both sides, Jeanne was *famously* not born with the Habsburg chin, contrary to all of her sisters. The physical difference to her family soon grew to become one based also in personality as the harsh and rigid education her mother inflicted on her made the young Dauphine of Viennois quickly grew to hate the rest of her family. Jeanne soon grew to be a bull-headed, stubborn and defiant young woman, who was keen on contradicting everything her mother seemed to put forward for her. This, in turn, made her deeply popular with the french people, whom hated both [ Archduke ] Albert and [ Queen Isabella ] for their foreign origins, and saw in young Jeanne "Frenchness".
They were not wrong. Historians have come to claim that the reason a revolt against Isabella did not happen is because the French nobility stacked behind her daughter and heir, and mother and daughter formed two different courts, with Jeanne soon heading out to the Loire, where she spent time in the Summer and to Viennois in the winter. In a fit to unite the french people behind her and as a declaration of independence against her mother, Isabella would famously marry Louis de Soissons, a member of the House of Bourbon. When her first child was born, Jeanne styled him as "De Soissons", taking the name of her husband for herself. While French historians have classified her as a member of the House of Habsburg, Jeanne never did identify herself as an Habsburg after her marriage. She and her husband, Louis, would go on to have six children.
The death of her mother was joyously celebrated, both by Jeanne (privatelly) and by the vast majority of the french people, whom never took a liking to their Spanish Queen. Jeanne's start to life as Queen took a vastly different turn from her mother's, whom had kept France mostly internally focused and served as a pin between the more influential Habsburg realms of Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. Despite not breaking off immediatelly from her alliance with her Habsburg cousins, Jeanne rapidly took to treking a different path from her mother. The first of her choices was to return her father to Vienna, where he would be made ambassador to the Imperial court in what was effectivelly exile from France. Her younger sisters, however, Jeanne quickly married to various Italian and German princes, forming commercial and military alliances in much of central-western Europe and restoring french influence abroad.
Jeanne, was, however, a true Habsburg in her obcession with the lands of the New World. Perhaps the only thing Jeanne had kept from her Spanish tutors in her youth were their stories of the New World and how it had altered the destiny of the Spanish realms. Thus, is it to no-one's surprise that Jeanne is considered the matron of the French navy and the founder of the French colonial Empire. The founding of the colonies of Acadia, Canada and Louisiane (named after King-Consort Louis) happened during her reign, due to the patronage of many navigators and explorers by the Queen in Paris. An edict was put forth allowing privileges to Catholics whom immigrated to the new world, such as parcels of lands and freedom from serfdom, while protestants were famously given freedom of religion overseas. Thus, thousands of Frenchmen, mainly of Breton, Norman, Gascon and Flemish origin would emigrate to the new world in massive waves during these times, with the Acadian cities of Port-Royal in Gaspé (Otl Halifax, Nova Scotia) and Montreine (OTL Moncton, New Brunswick), the Canadian cities of Québec, Montreal and Brule (Otl Ottawa and Gatineau, on the border between OTL Ontario and Quebec). These cities became the main urban centers of northern New France and the main sources of authority in the rapidly expanding French colonial settlements there. In Louisiane, which was located in the Gulf of Mexico, Nouvelle Calais (Otl New Orleans, Louisiana) and La Roche (OTL Little Rock, Arkansas) quickly became the main centers of French control over the Missisipi. By the end of Jeanne's reign, french explorers were trying to find a connection alongside the Ohio basin to the Missisipi, and would discover the "Illinois territory" just before her death.
Jeanne died in 1678, finishing a vast program of internal reform meant to tackle the power of both the clergy and the nobility, renovate the French financial system and break much of the power of the old parliaments. She was widely celebrated as a Queen by her people. She was suceeded by ___________.
(3) Isabella de Soissons, only surviving child of Louis, Duke of Soissons, Crown Prince of France and his wife, Louisa Christina of Savoy. Her fathers birth and her grandmother's succession to the throne made it clear that whilst France still held the territory of Viennois, the title of Dauphin, still claimed by the Bourbons in Navarre, was sullied by their claim and despite her grandmother's vague attempt to style herself as Dauphine, France would not use it. Her parents were second cousins - Isabella I and Catherine Micaela, Duchess of Savoy had been sisters - but this catered to his grandmother's anti-pro-Habsburg policies (not anti-Habsburg - just not pro-Habsburg). But as much as Jeanne had tried to fight it, the Habsburg support from the Empire and Spain was still fundamental in maintaining France's male preference primogeniture, despite the build-up in colonial assets and her naval forces to rival the British.
Her father was shot when Isabella II was only ten and she grew up, shuffled between her grandmother's court in Paris, her mother's court in Vienne and her maternal uncle's court in Turin. In 1678 when she became Queen after the death of her 88 year old grandmother, Isabella II was clearly more influenced by the Savoyard Court than either of the French ones. She continued the pro-colonial policies of her grandmother, invested heavily in French ports and related infrastructure including roads that connected France and Savoy. She created a French standing army and constructed a number of coastal fortifications both on the Channel and the Mediterranean.
She did not however embrace her uncles persecution of Waldensians, and continued the French policy of religious tolerance and encouragement of emigration of protestants to the colonies.
Isabella II had married her cousin, Francis Hyacinth, Duke of Aosta (her uncle, Charles Emmanuel II's, second son) and the pair had six children. In 1713 she died at the age of fifty seven (born 1656) after reigning for thirty five years, an autopsy revealed that she died of gall bladder occlusion and liver failure - and would be succeeded by ..............
Isabella I, b. 1566, r. 1589 to 1633, m. Archduke Albert of Austria (1559 to Post-1633)
1) Jeanne, b. 1590, r. 1633 to 1678, m. Louis de Bourbon, Duke of Soissons (d. pre. 1666)
a) Louis, Crown Prince of France, Duke of Soissons, b. 1620, d. 1666, m. Louisa Christina of Savoy (1629 to 1692)
1) Isabella II, b. 1656, r. 1678 to 1713, m. Francis Hyacinth, Duke of Aosta (b. 1655)
x) six children of Isabella II and the Duke of Aosta
x) five other children of Jeanne and Louis de Bourbon
x) five other daughters born prior to 1602 of Isabella and Albert of Austria
Caterina Micaela of Austria, b. 1567, d. 1597, m. Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy (1562 to 1630)1) Victor Amadeus, Duke of Savoy, b. 1587, d. 1637, m. Christine Marie of Navarre (1606 to 1663)
a) Louisa Christina of Savoy (1629 to 1692), m. Louis, Crown Prince of France, Duke of Soissons, (1620 to 1666)
1) Isabella II, b. 1656, r. 1678 to 1713, m. Francis Hyacinth, Duke of Aosta (b. 1655)
x) six children of Isabella II and the Duke of Aosta
b) Francis Hyacinth, Duke of Savoy, b. 1632, d. 1638
c) Charles Emmanuel II, Duke of Savoy, b. 1634, d. 1675, married
1) Victor Amadeus II, Duke of Savoy, b. 1654, married, has issue
2) Francis Hyacinth, Duke of Aosta, b. 1655, m. Isabella II (1656 to 1713)
x) six children of Isabella II and the Duke of Aosta
x) other children of Victor Amadeus and Christine Marie
x) other children of Caterina Micaela and Charles Emmanuel I
Last edited:
wwbgdiaslt
Gone Fishin'
And a supplemental family tree ...
Philip I of Aragon, m. Joanna of Castile and Aragon
1) Emperor Charles V
a) Philip II of Spain
1) Isabella of France, m. Albert, Archduke of Austria
x) see French tree
2) Caterina Micaela, Duchess of Savoy
x) see French tree
3) Philip III of Spain
2) Emperor Ferdinand
a) Emperor Maximilian II
1) Anna of Austria (final wife of Philip II of Spain, mother of Philip III of Spain)
2) Emperor Rudolf II
3) Albert, Archduke of Austria, m. Isabella of France
x) see French tree
4) Elisabeth of Austria (wife of late Charles IX of France)
I don't see the comparison. France is not England and French succession has been made male-preference primogeniture. The moment Isabella went past childbearing age and it became apparent she would have no male heirs, Jeanne would logically be made Dauphine. The Bourbons down in Navarre claiming the Dauphinate is of no consequence to the ruling dinasty of France. It is simply a claim that can be easily refuted by the fact it is indeed Paris that controls Viennois, not Navarre.
wwbgdiaslt
Gone Fishin'
Even when English Succession is explicitly male preference primogeniture, the Prince of Wales is only conferred on the heir apparent, because a woman until recently could only be heir presumptive. George VI explicitly refused to have Elizabeth II created as Princess of Wales in her own right due to the problems this could arise given that she could, however unlikely it might seem, be displaced in the line of succession. Its the same here, it is highly unlikely to happen - but it COULD - and that is what is important.
Either way, I stated in the initial post that the Dauphinate title was left vacant, claimed by the Bourbons, and have clarified that the land of the Dauphinate has amalgamated into the crown land itself. The heir is the Crown Prince (as it was under the Orleanists) who may or may not hold a Dukedom of their own.
I don't know at all how this new list goes on. Only females are allowed to rule then? @wwbgdiaslt
Kings and Queens of France:
1575 - 1589: Henry III (House of Valois-Angouleme)
1589 - 1583: Isabella I (House of Habsburg) (1)
1633 - 1678: Jeanne (House of Habsburg) [2]
1678 - 1713: Isabella II (House of Bourbon) [3]
1713 - 1744: Isabella III (House of Savoy) [4]
(1) Isabella of France was never supposed to become the first Queen Regnant of France. After the crown had passed through three of her maternal uncles - Francis II, Charles IX and Henri III - the closest male line relative to the Valois-Angouleme was Henri, King of Navarre, tenth cousin to the last King and a protestant. The likelihood that the Valois-Angouleme male line would become extinct had been anticipated - though the assassination that had removed Henri III had been unexpected - and a Pragmatic Sanction in 1585 stated that male preference primogeniture would be adopted. By this declaration, the French succession fell to Henri III's niece, Archduchess Isabella of Austria. The decision to hand France over to the Hapsburgs and the Holy Roman Empire was not a popular one, but it was one that Emperor Rudolf II and Isabella's father, Phillip II, King of Spain, fully endorsed.
In 1589, Isabella was crowned as Queen of France at Reims Cathedral. She was unmarried, but the support of Emperor Rudolf and the Holy Roman Empire to hold her throne was conditional on her marriage to Archduke Albert, the Emperor's brother - both were brothers of Anna of Austria, the Queen's late step-mother. The Habsburg Band had been formed from the Iberian Peninsula across France to the eastern-most holdings of the Empire. And the rest of Europe did not like this one iota.
The English Succession had long been unclear - but even Elizabeth could see that the personal union of England and Scotland that she, her father and their ministers had long wanted to avoid, would be of benefit when facing the Habsburg Band. With Isabella's succession, Elizabeth formally acknowledged her cousin, James VI of Scotland as legitimate heir to England, investing him as Prince of Wales to further emphasise her belief in his succession.
Isabella and Albert produced six children from 1590 to 1602, the latter born when she was thirty-six - all girls (for the first eighteen months of her reign, her heirs under the Pragmatic Sanction were her sister, Catherine, Duchess of Savoy, and Catherine's three children - Victor, Emmanuel and Margaret). Therefore the Dauphinate of Viennois lay vacant and Henri of Navarre, who continued to claim the throne of France began to style himself as King of Navarre and Dauphin of Viennois. But surrounded by Habsburgs, there was little that Henri and the Navarese could do to enforce the claim itself.
As a wedding gift to his daughter, the King of Spain had ceded the Spanish Netherlands to France. France found itself preoccupied with the United Provinces until an uneasy peace was agreed in 1612 which also required that France display some religious tolerance after the mass protestant persecution of the Religious Wars of Isabella's uncles reigns.
By 1633, Isabella was 67, had given birth to six surviving daughters (and a number of other children who did not survive infancy) and seen those children age and yield grandchildren for her. After it's somewhat rocky start, Habsburg France seemed stable for the moment, but if either Spain or the Holy Roman Empire fell out with the other, or France fell out with either, its position would become more fraught.
Isabella was succeeded by her eldest daughter, Jeanne.
[2] Princess Jeanne was the oldest daughter of Queen Isabella of France and her husband, Archduke Albert of Austria. Habsburg on both sides, Jeanne was *famously* not born with the Habsburg chin, contrary to all of her sisters. The physical difference to her family soon grew to become one based also in personality as the harsh and rigid education her mother inflicted on her made the young Dauphine of Viennois quickly grew to hate the rest of her family. Jeanne soon grew to be a bull-headed, stubborn and defiant young woman, who was keen on contradicting everything her mother seemed to put forward for her. This, in turn, made her deeply popular with the french people, whom hated both King Albert and King Elizabeth for their foreign origins, and saw in young Jeanne "Frenchness".
They were not wrong. Historians have come to claim that the reason a revolt against Isabella did not happen is because the French nobility stacked behind her daughter and heir, and mother and daughter formed two different courts, with Jeanne soon heading out to the Loire, where she spent time in the Summer and to Viennois in the winter. In a fit to unite the french people behind her and as a declaration of independence against her mother, Isabella would famously marry Louis de Soissons, a member of the House of Bourbon. When her first child was born, Jeanne styled him as "De Soissons", taking the name of her husband for herself. While French historians have classified her as a member of the House of Habsburg, Jeanne never did identify herself as an Habsburg after her marriage. She and her husband, Louis, would go on to have six children.
The death of her mother was joyously celebrated, both by Jeanne (privatelly) and by the vast majority of the french people, whom never took a liking to their Spanish Queen. Jeanne's start to life as Queen took a vastly different turn from her mother's, whom had kept France mostly internally focused and served as a pin between the more influential Habsburg realms of Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. Despite not breaking off immediatelly from her alliance with her Habsburg cousins, Jeanne rapidly took to treking a different path from her mother. The first of her choices was to return her father to Vienna, where he would be made ambassador to the Imperial court in what was effectivelly exile from France. Her younger sisters, however, Jeanne quickly married to various Italian and German princes, forming commercial and military alliances in much of central-western Europe and restoring french influence abroad.
Jeanne, was, however, a true Habsburg in her obcession with the lands of the New World. Perhaps the only thing Jeanne had kept from her Spanish tutors in her youth were their stories of the New World and how it had altered the destiny of the Spanish realms. Thus, is it to no-one's surprise that Jeanne is considered the matron of the French navy and the founder of the French colonial Empire. The founding of the colonies of Acadia, Canada and Louisiane (named after King-Consort Louis) happened during her reign, due to the patronage of many navigators and explorers by the Queen in Paris. An edict was put forth allowing privileges to Catholics whom immigrated to the new world, such as parcels of lands and freedom from serfdom, while protestants were famously given freedom of religion overseas. Thus, thousands of Frenchmen, mainly of Breton, Norman, Gascon and Flemish origin would emigrate to the new world in massive waves during these times, with the Acadian cities of Port-Royal in Gaspé (Otl Halifax, Nova Scotia) and Montreine (OTL Moncton, New Brunswick), the Canadian cities of Québec, Montreal and Brule (Otl Ottawa and Gatineau, on the border between OTL Ontario and Quebec). These cities became the main urban centers of northern New France and the main sources of authority in the rapidly expanding French colonial settlements there. In Louisiane, which was located in the Gulf of Mexico, Nouvelle Calais (Otl New Orleans, Louisiana) and La Roche (OTL Little Rock, Arkansas) quickly became the main centers of French control over the Missisipi. By the end of Jeanne's reign, french explorers were trying to find a connection alongside the Ohio basin to the Missisipi, and would discover the "Illinois territory" just before her death.
Jeanne died in 1678, finishing a vast program of internal reform meant to tackle the power of both the clergy and the nobility, renovate the French financial system and break much of the power of the old parliaments. She was widely celebrated as a Queen by her people. She was suceeded by ___________.
(3) Isabella de Soissons, only surviving child of Louis, Duke of Soissons, Crown Prince of France and his wife, Louisa Christina of Savoy. Her fathers birth and her grandmother's succession to the throne made it clear that whilst France still held the territory of Viennois, the title of Dauphin, still claimed by the Bourbons in Navarre, was sullied by their claim and despite her grandmother's vague attempt to style herself as Dauphine, France would not use it. Her parents were second cousins - Isabella I and Catherine Micaela, Duchess of Savoy had been sisters - but this catered to his grandmother's anti-pro-Habsburg policies (not anti-Habsburg - just not pro-Habsburg). But as much as Jeanne had tried to fight it, the Habsburg support from the Empire and Spain was still fundamental in maintaining France's male preference primogeniture, despite the build-up in colonial assets and her naval forces to rival the British.
Her father was shot when Isabella II was only ten and she grew up, shuffled between her grandmother's court in Paris, her mother's court in Vienne and her maternal uncle's court in Turin. In 1678 when she became Queen after the death of her 88 year old grandmother, Isabella II was clearly more influenced by the Savoyard Court than either of the French ones. She continued the pro-colonial policies of her grandmother, invested heavily in French ports and related infrastructure including roads that connected France and Savoy. She created a French standing army and constructed a number of coastal fortifications both on the Channel and the Mediterranean.
She did not however embrace her uncles persecution of Waldensians, and continued the French policy of religious tolerance and encouragement of emigration of protestants to the colonies.
Isabella II had married her cousin, Francis Hyacinth, Duke of Aosta (her uncle, Charles Emmanuel II's, second son) and the pair had six children. In 1713 she died at the age of fifty seven (born 1656) after reigning for thirty five years, an autopsy revealed that she died of gall bladder occlusion and liver failure - and would be succeeded by her daughter, Isabella.
Queen Isabella III in Her Prime
[4] Isabella III was the fourth child of Queen Isabella II of France and Duke Francis Hyacinth of Aosta having been born in 1683. Isabella was for most of her life not ever expected to ascend to the throne. However some members of the court of Isabella II who believed that the line of female monarchs was not just coincidence and little happenstances but a sign from God himself that he wanted a female dominant line for the French Monarchy. To back up their reasoning two of Isabella’s three older brothers had died in childhood the first being Francis, who had been a stillborn and the second being Philippe who had died of smallpox at the age of nine. Many however dismissed these instances as what they were; tragic happenstance; and argued that Isabella’s third elder brother, Henri, who was still living and had made it to his twenties and would succeed his mother as King of France. This belief did not last long as eventually Henri succumbed to paranoia and grief and was found dead in his bedroom having drunken a lethal dose of cyanide. Many grieved the death of the prince but some took it as the now so called “Isabellaian Curse” taking another victim to make way for another female ruler. Some still however clung to the old ways and wished for Louis, the new heir apparent, to succeed his mother as King of France however he considered himself not fit to rule (combined with the paranoia of the deaths of so many brothers) and would renounce his titles to the French Throne and would announce that he would succeed his father as Duke of Aosta.
With the path now clear to the throne Isabella began to prepare herself for her reign taking the classes that any French Prince would take. She would end up being a fast learner impressing her teachers and tutors with her knowledge of geography, politics, and civil discord. With much preparation for the throne many began to search for a suitable husband to help aid in her studies. That would come in Louis of Navarre, grandson King Louis III of Navarre who was only a year older than Princess Isabella and was considered to be a good match for her. Louis’s first wife; Marie Adélaïde of Savoy; had died of measles the year earlier and he was looking for a new wife. Even though he had the acceptance of Queen Isabella II her daughter didn’t fancy the young Duke and begged her mother to reconsider the betrothal but her mind was made up and the decision was finalized when the two were married in August of 1707. Though the wedding was a joyous event the marriage was anything but with Isabella initially ignoring the advances of her husband and other than their wedding night the two did not sleep in the same bed yet the same room for the first year and a half of their marriage and it was only when her mother demanded that she have a child did she concede to her husband’s demands. After half a year of trial and error it was announced that the heir to the french throne was with child and nine months later she would give birth to a healthy daughter and would give birth to another less than two years later. Though the marriage was fruitful it was not considered a happy one and Isabella’s spouse would die after contracting measles less than five years after their marriage. While the search began for a new husband was ongoing tragedy would strike Isabella as her mother would die the following year in 1713 and she would be sent back to Paris to be made Queen of France.
Isabella would travel to Paris as quickly as possible so that she could be made Queen. After arriving she would be greeted by the lesser nobles and would be taken to the Palace of Versailles where she would be coronated in a modest but eventful fashion. Now as Queen the royal court would pressure the new monarch to find a new husband to become King-Consort but the Queen would take her time with this decision and would focus on other matters such internal improvements and improving relations with fellow monarchs. Eventually however Isabella would find a new husband on her own accord when she would attend part of the Treaties of Stockholm in 1719 after the conclusion of the Great Northern War while visiting for a royal marriage. After a break in the discussion of treaties Isabella would meet with several of the Monarchs present for the treaty one of which would be George II of Britain who also was looking for a new wife after the death of his wife to disease. The two would end up getting to know each other and would end up exchanging letters when they would go back to their countries. Eventually arrangement for a royal marriage would be finalized and the two would be married in 1721. However due to their ages the two wouldn’t have any children but it didn’t matter since both had children from their previous marriages. Isabella would spend her reign improving standard living for those in her domain and would push for an increase of women’s rights such as the choice to choose who to marry and not being forced by their peers.
Isabella would reign until her death in 1744 where she would be succeeded by ________.
1575 - 1589: Henry III (House of Valois-Angouleme)
1589 - 1583: Isabella I (House of Habsburg) (1)
1633 - 1678: Jeanne (House of Habsburg) [2]
1678 - 1713: Isabella II (House of Bourbon) [3]
1713 - 1744: Isabella III (House of Savoy) [4]
(1) Isabella of France was never supposed to become the first Queen Regnant of France. After the crown had passed through three of her maternal uncles - Francis II, Charles IX and Henri III - the closest male line relative to the Valois-Angouleme was Henri, King of Navarre, tenth cousin to the last King and a protestant. The likelihood that the Valois-Angouleme male line would become extinct had been anticipated - though the assassination that had removed Henri III had been unexpected - and a Pragmatic Sanction in 1585 stated that male preference primogeniture would be adopted. By this declaration, the French succession fell to Henri III's niece, Archduchess Isabella of Austria. The decision to hand France over to the Hapsburgs and the Holy Roman Empire was not a popular one, but it was one that Emperor Rudolf II and Isabella's father, Phillip II, King of Spain, fully endorsed.
In 1589, Isabella was crowned as Queen of France at Reims Cathedral. She was unmarried, but the support of Emperor Rudolf and the Holy Roman Empire to hold her throne was conditional on her marriage to Archduke Albert, the Emperor's brother - both were brothers of Anna of Austria, the Queen's late step-mother. The Habsburg Band had been formed from the Iberian Peninsula across France to the eastern-most holdings of the Empire. And the rest of Europe did not like this one iota.
The English Succession had long been unclear - but even Elizabeth could see that the personal union of England and Scotland that she, her father and their ministers had long wanted to avoid, would be of benefit when facing the Habsburg Band. With Isabella's succession, Elizabeth formally acknowledged her cousin, James VI of Scotland as legitimate heir to England, investing him as Prince of Wales to further emphasise her belief in his succession.
Isabella and Albert produced six children from 1590 to 1602, the latter born when she was thirty-six - all girls (for the first eighteen months of her reign, her heirs under the Pragmatic Sanction were her sister, Catherine, Duchess of Savoy, and Catherine's three children - Victor, Emmanuel and Margaret). Therefore the Dauphinate of Viennois lay vacant and Henri of Navarre, who continued to claim the throne of France began to style himself as King of Navarre and Dauphin of Viennois. But surrounded by Habsburgs, there was little that Henri and the Navarese could do to enforce the claim itself.
As a wedding gift to his daughter, the King of Spain had ceded the Spanish Netherlands to France. France found itself preoccupied with the United Provinces until an uneasy peace was agreed in 1612 which also required that France display some religious tolerance after the mass protestant persecution of the Religious Wars of Isabella's uncles reigns.
By 1633, Isabella was 67, had given birth to six surviving daughters (and a number of other children who did not survive infancy) and seen those children age and yield grandchildren for her. After it's somewhat rocky start, Habsburg France seemed stable for the moment, but if either Spain or the Holy Roman Empire fell out with the other, or France fell out with either, its position would become more fraught.
Isabella was succeeded by her eldest daughter, Jeanne.
[2] Princess Jeanne was the oldest daughter of Queen Isabella of France and her husband, Archduke Albert of Austria. Habsburg on both sides, Jeanne was *famously* not born with the Habsburg chin, contrary to all of her sisters. The physical difference to her family soon grew to become one based also in personality as the harsh and rigid education her mother inflicted on her made the young Dauphine of Viennois quickly grew to hate the rest of her family. Jeanne soon grew to be a bull-headed, stubborn and defiant young woman, who was keen on contradicting everything her mother seemed to put forward for her. This, in turn, made her deeply popular with the french people, whom hated both King Albert and King Elizabeth for their foreign origins, and saw in young Jeanne "Frenchness".
They were not wrong. Historians have come to claim that the reason a revolt against Isabella did not happen is because the French nobility stacked behind her daughter and heir, and mother and daughter formed two different courts, with Jeanne soon heading out to the Loire, where she spent time in the Summer and to Viennois in the winter. In a fit to unite the french people behind her and as a declaration of independence against her mother, Isabella would famously marry Louis de Soissons, a member of the House of Bourbon. When her first child was born, Jeanne styled him as "De Soissons", taking the name of her husband for herself. While French historians have classified her as a member of the House of Habsburg, Jeanne never did identify herself as an Habsburg after her marriage. She and her husband, Louis, would go on to have six children.
The death of her mother was joyously celebrated, both by Jeanne (privatelly) and by the vast majority of the french people, whom never took a liking to their Spanish Queen. Jeanne's start to life as Queen took a vastly different turn from her mother's, whom had kept France mostly internally focused and served as a pin between the more influential Habsburg realms of Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. Despite not breaking off immediatelly from her alliance with her Habsburg cousins, Jeanne rapidly took to treking a different path from her mother. The first of her choices was to return her father to Vienna, where he would be made ambassador to the Imperial court in what was effectivelly exile from France. Her younger sisters, however, Jeanne quickly married to various Italian and German princes, forming commercial and military alliances in much of central-western Europe and restoring french influence abroad.
Jeanne, was, however, a true Habsburg in her obcession with the lands of the New World. Perhaps the only thing Jeanne had kept from her Spanish tutors in her youth were their stories of the New World and how it had altered the destiny of the Spanish realms. Thus, is it to no-one's surprise that Jeanne is considered the matron of the French navy and the founder of the French colonial Empire. The founding of the colonies of Acadia, Canada and Louisiane (named after King-Consort Louis) happened during her reign, due to the patronage of many navigators and explorers by the Queen in Paris. An edict was put forth allowing privileges to Catholics whom immigrated to the new world, such as parcels of lands and freedom from serfdom, while protestants were famously given freedom of religion overseas. Thus, thousands of Frenchmen, mainly of Breton, Norman, Gascon and Flemish origin would emigrate to the new world in massive waves during these times, with the Acadian cities of Port-Royal in Gaspé (Otl Halifax, Nova Scotia) and Montreine (OTL Moncton, New Brunswick), the Canadian cities of Québec, Montreal and Brule (Otl Ottawa and Gatineau, on the border between OTL Ontario and Quebec). These cities became the main urban centers of northern New France and the main sources of authority in the rapidly expanding French colonial settlements there. In Louisiane, which was located in the Gulf of Mexico, Nouvelle Calais (Otl New Orleans, Louisiana) and La Roche (OTL Little Rock, Arkansas) quickly became the main centers of French control over the Missisipi. By the end of Jeanne's reign, french explorers were trying to find a connection alongside the Ohio basin to the Missisipi, and would discover the "Illinois territory" just before her death.
Jeanne died in 1678, finishing a vast program of internal reform meant to tackle the power of both the clergy and the nobility, renovate the French financial system and break much of the power of the old parliaments. She was widely celebrated as a Queen by her people. She was suceeded by ___________.
(3) Isabella de Soissons, only surviving child of Louis, Duke of Soissons, Crown Prince of France and his wife, Louisa Christina of Savoy. Her fathers birth and her grandmother's succession to the throne made it clear that whilst France still held the territory of Viennois, the title of Dauphin, still claimed by the Bourbons in Navarre, was sullied by their claim and despite her grandmother's vague attempt to style herself as Dauphine, France would not use it. Her parents were second cousins - Isabella I and Catherine Micaela, Duchess of Savoy had been sisters - but this catered to his grandmother's anti-pro-Habsburg policies (not anti-Habsburg - just not pro-Habsburg). But as much as Jeanne had tried to fight it, the Habsburg support from the Empire and Spain was still fundamental in maintaining France's male preference primogeniture, despite the build-up in colonial assets and her naval forces to rival the British.
Her father was shot when Isabella II was only ten and she grew up, shuffled between her grandmother's court in Paris, her mother's court in Vienne and her maternal uncle's court in Turin. In 1678 when she became Queen after the death of her 88 year old grandmother, Isabella II was clearly more influenced by the Savoyard Court than either of the French ones. She continued the pro-colonial policies of her grandmother, invested heavily in French ports and related infrastructure including roads that connected France and Savoy. She created a French standing army and constructed a number of coastal fortifications both on the Channel and the Mediterranean.
She did not however embrace her uncles persecution of Waldensians, and continued the French policy of religious tolerance and encouragement of emigration of protestants to the colonies.
Isabella II had married her cousin, Francis Hyacinth, Duke of Aosta (her uncle, Charles Emmanuel II's, second son) and the pair had six children. In 1713 she died at the age of fifty seven (born 1656) after reigning for thirty five years, an autopsy revealed that she died of gall bladder occlusion and liver failure - and would be succeeded by her daughter, Isabella.
Queen Isabella III in Her Prime
With the path now clear to the throne Isabella began to prepare herself for her reign taking the classes that any French Prince would take. She would end up being a fast learner impressing her teachers and tutors with her knowledge of geography, politics, and civil discord. With much preparation for the throne many began to search for a suitable husband to help aid in her studies. That would come in Louis of Navarre, grandson King Louis III of Navarre who was only a year older than Princess Isabella and was considered to be a good match for her. Louis’s first wife; Marie Adélaïde of Savoy; had died of measles the year earlier and he was looking for a new wife. Even though he had the acceptance of Queen Isabella II her daughter didn’t fancy the young Duke and begged her mother to reconsider the betrothal but her mind was made up and the decision was finalized when the two were married in August of 1707. Though the wedding was a joyous event the marriage was anything but with Isabella initially ignoring the advances of her husband and other than their wedding night the two did not sleep in the same bed yet the same room for the first year and a half of their marriage and it was only when her mother demanded that she have a child did she concede to her husband’s demands. After half a year of trial and error it was announced that the heir to the french throne was with child and nine months later she would give birth to a healthy daughter and would give birth to another less than two years later. Though the marriage was fruitful it was not considered a happy one and Isabella’s spouse would die after contracting measles less than five years after their marriage. While the search began for a new husband was ongoing tragedy would strike Isabella as her mother would die the following year in 1713 and she would be sent back to Paris to be made Queen of France.
Isabella would travel to Paris as quickly as possible so that she could be made Queen. After arriving she would be greeted by the lesser nobles and would be taken to the Palace of Versailles where she would be coronated in a modest but eventful fashion. Now as Queen the royal court would pressure the new monarch to find a new husband to become King-Consort but the Queen would take her time with this decision and would focus on other matters such internal improvements and improving relations with fellow monarchs. Eventually however Isabella would find a new husband on her own accord when she would attend part of the Treaties of Stockholm in 1719 after the conclusion of the Great Northern War while visiting for a royal marriage. After a break in the discussion of treaties Isabella would meet with several of the Monarchs present for the treaty one of which would be George II of Britain who also was looking for a new wife after the death of his wife to disease. The two would end up getting to know each other and would end up exchanging letters when they would go back to their countries. Eventually arrangement for a royal marriage would be finalized and the two would be married in 1721. However due to their ages the two wouldn’t have any children but it didn’t matter since both had children from their previous marriages. Isabella would spend her reign improving standard living for those in her domain and would push for an increase of women’s rights such as the choice to choose who to marry and not being forced by their peers.
Isabella would reign until her death in 1744 where she would be succeeded by ________.
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wwbgdiaslt
Gone Fishin'
Isabella's brother were not Dauphins, France had stopped using the title in the reign of Isabella I, reinforced in the reign of Isabella II.
And Isabella III could not be Heir Presumptive in a male preference primogeniture succession as she would be displaced should a male be born, however unlikely that was.
And Isabella III could not be Heir Presumptive in a male preference primogeniture succession as she would be displaced should a male be born, however unlikely that was.
wwbgdiaslt
Gone Fishin'
Isabella I, b. 1566, r. 1589 to 1633, m. Archduke Albert of Austria (1559 to Post-1633)
1) Jeanne, b. 1590, r. 1633 to 1678, m. Louis de Bourbon, Duke of Soissons (d. pre. 1666)
a) Louis, Crown Prince of France, Duke of Soissons, b. 1620, d. 1666, m. Louisa Christina of Savoy (1629 to 1692)
1) Isabella II, b. 1656, r. 1678 to 1713, m. Francis Hyacinth, Duke of Aosta (b. 1655)
a) Francis of France
b) Philippe, Crown Prince of France
c) Henri, Duke of Aosta, prev. Crown Prince of France
d) Isabella III, b. 1683, r. 1713 to 1744, m1. Prince Louis of Navarre (d. 1712), m2. George II of Britain
- daughters born in 1709 and 1711 from Isabella III and Louis of Navarre
x) two other daughters of Isabella II and Francis Hyacinth
x) five other children of Jeanne and Louis de Bourbon
x) five other daughters born prior to 1602 of Isabella and Albert of Austria
Caterina Micaela of Austria, b. 1567, d. 1597, m. Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy (1562 to 1630)1) Victor Amadeus, Duke of Savoy, b. 1587, d. 1637, m. Christine Marie of Navarre (1606 to 1663)
a) Louisa Christina of Savoy (1629 to 1692), m. Louis, Crown Prince of France, Duke of Soissons, (1620 to 1666)
1) Isabella II, b. 1656, r. 1678 to 1713, m. Francis Hyacinth, Duke of Aosta (b. 1655)
x) see line of Isabella II
b) Francis Hyacinth, Duke of Savoy, b. 1632, d. 1638
c) Charles Emmanuel II, Duke of Savoy, b. 1634, d. 1675, married
1) Victor Amadeus II, Duke of Savoy, b. 1654, married, has issue
2) Francis Hyacinth, Duke of Aosta, b. 1655, m. Isabella II (1656 to 1713)
x) see line of Isabella II
x) other children of Victor Amadeus and Christine Marie
x) other children of Caterina Micaela and Charles Emmanuel I
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Kings and Queens of France:
1575 - 1589: Henry III (House of Valois-Angouleme)
1589 - 1583: Isabella I (House of Habsburg) (1)
1633 - 1678: Jeanne (House of Habsburg) [2]
1678 - 1713: Isabella II (House of Bourbon) [3]
1713 - 1744: Isabella III (House of Savoy) [4]
1744 - 1771: Marie-Louise (House of Bourbon) [5]
(1) Isabella of France was never supposed to become the first Queen Regnant of France. After the crown had passed through three of her maternal uncles - Francis II, Charles IX and Henri III - the closest male line relative to the Valois-Angouleme was Henri, King of Navarre, tenth cousin to the last King and a protestant. The likelihood that the Valois-Angouleme male line would become extinct had been anticipated - though the assassination that had removed Henri III had been unexpected - and a Pragmatic Sanction in 1585 stated that male preference primogeniture would be adopted. By this declaration, the French succession fell to Henri III's niece, Archduchess Isabella of Austria. The decision to hand France over to the Hapsburgs and the Holy Roman Empire was not a popular one, but it was one that Emperor Rudolf II and Isabella's father, Phillip II, King of Spain, fully endorsed.
In 1589, Isabella was crowned as Queen of France at Reims Cathedral. She was unmarried, but the support of Emperor Rudolf and the Holy Roman Empire to hold her throne was conditional on her marriage to Archduke Albert, the Emperor's brother - both were brothers of Anna of Austria, the Queen's late step-mother. The Habsburg Band had been formed from the Iberian Peninsula across France to the eastern-most holdings of the Empire. And the rest of Europe did not like this one iota.
The English Succession had long been unclear - but even Elizabeth could see that the personal union of England and Scotland that she, her father and their ministers had long wanted to avoid, would be of benefit when facing the Habsburg Band. With Isabella's succession, Elizabeth formally acknowledged her cousin, James VI of Scotland as legitimate heir to England, investing him as Prince of Wales to further emphasise her belief in his succession.
Isabella and Albert produced six children from 1590 to 1602, the latter born when she was thirty-six - all girls (for the first eighteen months of her reign, her heirs under the Pragmatic Sanction were her sister, Catherine, Duchess of Savoy, and Catherine's three children - Victor, Emmanuel and Margaret). Therefore the Dauphinate of Viennois lay vacant and Henri of Navarre, who continued to claim the throne of France began to style himself as King of Navarre and Dauphin of Viennois. But surrounded by Habsburgs, there was little that Henri and the Navarese could do to enforce the claim itself.
As a wedding gift to his daughter, the King of Spain had ceded the Spanish Netherlands to France. France found itself preoccupied with the United Provinces until an uneasy peace was agreed in 1612 which also required that France display some religious tolerance after the mass protestant persecution of the Religious Wars of Isabella's uncles reigns.
By 1633, Isabella was 67, had given birth to six surviving daughters (and a number of other children who did not survive infancy) and seen those children age and yield grandchildren for her. After it's somewhat rocky start, Habsburg France seemed stable for the moment, but if either Spain or the Holy Roman Empire fell out with the other, or France fell out with either, its position would become more fraught.
Isabella was succeeded by her eldest daughter, Jeanne.
[2] Princess Jeanne was the oldest daughter of Queen Isabella of France and her husband, Archduke Albert of Austria. Habsburg on both sides, Jeanne was *famously* not born with the Habsburg chin, contrary to all of her sisters. The physical difference to her family soon grew to become one based also in personality as the harsh and rigid education her mother inflicted on her made the young Dauphine of Viennois quickly grew to hate the rest of her family. Jeanne soon grew to be a bull-headed, stubborn and defiant young woman, who was keen on contradicting everything her mother seemed to put forward for her. This, in turn, made her deeply popular with the french people, whom hated both King Albert and King Elizabeth for their foreign origins, and saw in young Jeanne "Frenchness".
They were not wrong. Historians have come to claim that the reason a revolt against Isabella did not happen is because the French nobility stacked behind her daughter and heir, and mother and daughter formed two different courts, with Jeanne soon heading out to the Loire, where she spent time in the Summer and to Viennois in the winter. In a fit to unite the french people behind her and as a declaration of independence against her mother, Isabella would famously marry Louis de Soissons, a member of the House of Bourbon. When her first child was born, Jeanne styled him as "De Soissons", taking the name of her husband for herself. While French historians have classified her as a member of the House of Habsburg, Jeanne never did identify herself as an Habsburg after her marriage. She and her husband, Louis, would go on to have six children.
The death of her mother was joyously celebrated, both by Jeanne (privatelly) and by the vast majority of the french people, whom never took a liking to their Spanish Queen. Jeanne's start to life as Queen took a vastly different turn from her mother's, whom had kept France mostly internally focused and served as a pin between the more influential Habsburg realms of Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. Despite not breaking off immediatelly from her alliance with her Habsburg cousins, Jeanne rapidly took to treking a different path from her mother. The first of her choices was to return her father to Vienna, where he would be made ambassador to the Imperial court in what was effectivelly exile from France. Her younger sisters, however, Jeanne quickly married to various Italian and German princes, forming commercial and military alliances in much of central-western Europe and restoring french influence abroad.
Jeanne, was, however, a true Habsburg in her obcession with the lands of the New World. Perhaps the only thing Jeanne had kept from her Spanish tutors in her youth were their stories of the New World and how it had altered the destiny of the Spanish realms. Thus, is it to no-one's surprise that Jeanne is considered the matron of the French navy and the founder of the French colonial Empire. The founding of the colonies of Acadia, Canada and Louisiane (named after King-Consort Louis) happened during her reign, due to the patronage of many navigators and explorers by the Queen in Paris. An edict was put forth allowing privileges to Catholics whom immigrated to the new world, such as parcels of lands and freedom from serfdom, while protestants were famously given freedom of religion overseas. Thus, thousands of Frenchmen, mainly of Breton, Norman, Gascon and Flemish origin would emigrate to the new world in massive waves during these times, with the Acadian cities of Port-Royal in Gaspé (Otl Halifax, Nova Scotia) and Montreine (OTL Moncton, New Brunswick), the Canadian cities of Québec, Montreal and Brule (Otl Ottawa and Gatineau, on the border between OTL Ontario and Quebec). These cities became the main urban centers of northern New France and the main sources of authority in the rapidly expanding French colonial settlements there. In Louisiane, which was located in the Gulf of Mexico, Nouvelle Calais (Otl New Orleans, Louisiana) and La Roche (OTL Little Rock, Arkansas) quickly became the main centers of French control over the Missisipi. By the end of Jeanne's reign, french explorers were trying to find a connection alongside the Ohio basin to the Missisipi, and would discover the "Illinois territory" just before her death.
Jeanne died in 1678, finishing a vast program of internal reform meant to tackle the power of both the clergy and the nobility, renovate the French financial system and break much of the power of the old parliaments. She was widely celebrated as a Queen by her people. She was suceeded by ___________.
(3) Isabella de Soissons, only surviving child of Louis, Duke of Soissons, Crown Prince of France and his wife, Louisa Christina of Savoy. Her fathers birth and her grandmother's succession to the throne made it clear that whilst France still held the territory of Viennois, the title of Dauphin, still claimed by the Bourbons in Navarre, was sullied by their claim and despite her grandmother's vague attempt to style herself as Dauphine, France would not use it. Her parents were second cousins - Isabella I and Catherine Micaela, Duchess of Savoy had been sisters - but this catered to his grandmother's anti-pro-Habsburg policies (not anti-Habsburg - just not pro-Habsburg). But as much as Jeanne had tried to fight it, the Habsburg support from the Empire and Spain was still fundamental in maintaining France's male preference primogeniture, despite the build-up in colonial assets and her naval forces to rival the British.
Her father was shot when Isabella II was only ten and she grew up, shuffled between her grandmother's court in Paris, her mother's court in Vienne and her maternal uncle's court in Turin. In 1678 when she became Queen after the death of her 88 year old grandmother, Isabella II was clearly more influenced by the Savoyard Court than either of the French ones. She continued the pro-colonial policies of her grandmother, invested heavily in French ports and related infrastructure including roads that connected France and Savoy. She created a French standing army and constructed a number of coastal fortifications both on the Channel and the Mediterranean.
She did not however embrace her uncles persecution of Waldensians, and continued the French policy of religious tolerance and encouragement of emigration of protestants to the colonies.
Isabella II had married her cousin, Francis Hyacinth, Duke of Aosta (her uncle, Charles Emmanuel II's, second son) and the pair had six children. In 1713 she died at the age of fifty seven (born 1656) after reigning for thirty five years, an autopsy revealed that she died of gall bladder occlusion and liver failure - and would be succeeded by her daughter, Isabella.
View attachment 779273
Queen Isabella III in Her Prime
[4] Isabella III was the fourth child of Queen Isabella II of France and Duke Francis Hyacinth of Aosta having been born in 1683. Isabella was for most of her life not ever expected to ascend to the throne. However some members of the court of Isabella II who believed that the line of female monarchs was not just coincidence and little happenstances but a sign from God himself that he wanted a female dominant line for the French Monarchy. To back up their reasoning two of Isabella’s three older brothers had died in childhood the first being Francis, who had been a stillborn and the second being Philippe who had died of smallpox at the age of nine. Many however dismissed these instances as what they were; tragic happenstance; and argued that Isabella’s third elder brother, Henri, who was still living and had made it to his twenties and would succeed his mother as King of France. This belief did not last long as eventually Henri succumbed to paranoia and grief and was found dead in his bedroom having drunken a lethal dose of cyanide. Many grieved the death of the prince but some took it as the now so called “Isabellaian Curse” taking another victim to make way for another female ruler. Some still however clung to the old ways and wished for Louis, the new heir apparent, to succeed his mother as King of France however he considered himself not fit to rule (combined with the paranoia of the deaths of so many brothers) and would renounce his titles to the French Throne and would announce that he would succeed his father as Duke of Aosta.
With the path now clear to the throne Isabella began to prepare herself for her reign taking the classes that any French Prince would take. She would end up being a fast learner impressing her teachers and tutors with her knowledge of geography, politics, and civil discord. With much preparation for the throne many began to search for a suitable husband to help aid in her studies. That would come in Louis of Navarre, grandson King Louis III of Navarre who was only a year older than Princess Isabella and was considered to be a good match for her. Louis’s first wife; Marie Adélaïde of Savoy; had died of measles the year earlier and he was looking for a new wife. Even though he had the acceptance of Queen Isabella II her daughter didn’t fancy the young Duke and begged her mother to reconsider the betrothal but her mind was made up and the decision was finalized when the two were married in August of 1707. Though the wedding was a joyous event the marriage was anything but with Isabella initially ignoring the advances of her husband and other than their wedding night the two did not sleep in the same bed yet the same room for the first year and a half of their marriage and it was only when her mother demanded that she have a child did she concede to her husband’s demands. After half a year of trial and error it was announced that the heir to the french throne was with child and nine months later she would give birth to a healthy daughter and would give birth to another less than two years later. Though the marriage was fruitful it was not considered a happy one and Isabella’s spouse would die after contracting measles less than five years after their marriage. While the search began for a new husband was ongoing tragedy would strike Isabella as her mother would die the following year in 1713 and she would be sent back to Paris to be made Queen of France.
Isabella would travel to Paris as quickly as possible so that she could be made Queen. After arriving she would be greeted by the lesser nobles and would be taken to the Palace of Versailles where she would be coronated in a modest but eventful fashion. Now as Queen the royal court would pressure the new monarch to find a new husband to become King-Consort but the Queen would take her time with this decision and would focus on other matters such internal improvements and improving relations with fellow monarchs. Eventually however Isabella would find a new husband on her own accord when she would attend part of the Treaties of Stockholm in 1719 after the conclusion of the Great Northern War while visiting for a royal marriage. After a break in the discussion of treaties Isabella would meet with several of the Monarchs present for the treaty one of which would be George II of Britain who also was looking for a new wife after the death of his wife to disease. The two would end up getting to know each other and would end up exchanging letters when they would go back to their countries. Eventually arrangement for a royal marriage would be finalized and the two would be married in 1721. However due to their ages the two wouldn’t have any children but it didn’t matter since both had children from their previous marriages. Isabella would spend her reign improving standard living for those in her domain and would push for an increase of women’s rights such as the choice to choose who to marry and not being forced by their peers.
Isabella would reign until her death in 1744 where she would be succeeded by Marie-Louise.
Marie-Louise at the beginning of her reign in 1744.
[5] Marie-Louise was born the second daughter of Isabella III of France on August 9th, 1712, named in honor of the Virgin Mary and her grandfather the King of Navarre. For much of her youth the expectation was that either her mother would bear a son and end the 'Reign of the Women' or that her elder sister the Princess Isabella-Jeanne would reign over the Kingdom of France.
As time passed her mother the Queen failed to bear a male heir from her unhappy marriage and the court expectation of Princess Isabella-Jeanne's reign grew, until the Crown-Princess contracted smallpox and died at age twelve, leaving the ten-year-old Princess Marie-Louise as the heir to the throne.
It was quickly discovered that the Princess's education had been severely lacking, her tutors having played favorites and focused almost all their efforts on her elder sister. The young Marie-Louise could read and write in French and do basic mathematics, but little else that was expected of an heir. Isabella III sacked the whole lot and hired new tutors with instructions to ensure that her daughter was 'the most learned woman in all of Europe'.
By the Princess Marie-Louise's 16th Birthday celebration in 1728 she was well versed in three languages and had a solid understanding of political theory, music, art, history, and the sciences and would continue to expand her knowledge, and her private library, for the rest of her life.
Discussions about the Princesses future husband were intense, the Habsburgs had few men left as their family dwindled away, while the Bourbon's in Navarre were too closely related even for a papal dispensation, and Marie-Louise's mother was not fond of Navarre due to her first marriage. A candidate was found in Gian Gastone de Medici, the second son of Cosimo III of Tuscany, and the pair were married in a lavish ceremony on April 7th, 1730. This marriage would prove fruitful in the form of four children, three daughters and one son, but also complicated due to Gian Gastone's elder brother Ferdinando having predeceased him years prior. But Ferdinando did leave a son named Cosimo behind who became the Grand Duke of Tuscany in 1723.
Much to the shock of the Medici family however Cosimo IV would die seven years later at age thirteen from a ruptured appendix, making Marie Louise's husband the Grand Duke of Tuscany and her the Grand Duchess.
The couple left the French court for Florence where they found the Grand Duchy in a dire state, the coffers were empty, the army was a mere 3000 men, and the city was full of starving people, on top of this Gian Gastone's health began to fail within months of arriving.
With these challenges at hand, the new Grand Duke made his wife his Regent during the periods where he could not rule, and Marie-Louise set to work at restoring Florence and the Tuscany to glory. While her husband busied himself with treatments for his ailments (and indulging his newfound passion for young men), Marie-Louise as Regent purged both the government and the clergy of its worst corrupt elements, lifted the bans of Cosimo III on learning 'new ideas' in the schools of Tuscany and secured a grant to expand the University of Pisa.
As Regent of Tuscany, Marie-Louise also pursued an aggressive trade policy, which to some was borderline piracy, especially along the North African coast against the weakening Ottoman Empire and the Babary States.
Not even the death of her husband in 1737 could disrupt her power in Tuscany, she simply ruled in the name of her son, Grand Duke Ferdinando III.
This was seen as promising to the people of France, especially when Isabella III died in 1744, making Marie-Louise the Queen of France and her son the first male heir in decades.
Marie-Louise's return to France was a grand celebration followed by an opulent coronation to showcase her power. As the new Queen she was faced with a major European crisis when the House of Habsburg's male line was whittled down to just two men, King Charles IV of Spain, and Emperor Albert Joseph I of the Holy Roman Empire, both of whom were sickly men and neither had produced living legitimate issue.
For the Spanish Crown, the ailing Charles IV accepted his sister Catalina of Spain as heir, but for the Holy Roman Empire there was no clear successor to the Habsburg lands, much less who would be elected Holy Roman Empire. while Albert Joseph attempted to push for a 'Pragmatic Succession' to allow his Aunt Arch-Duchess Maria Caroline to inherit the Austrian lands and the title of Holy Roman Emperor to be given to her son, the young Duke of Saxony John Adolph III, the Duke of Saxony was the first Catholic ruler of Saxony in nearly two centuries and his own lands were gripped with unrest, and many in Europe desired the carving up of the Habsburg's holdings.
Marie-Louise became the first European Monarch to agree to the Pragmatic Succession, but she squeezed many conditions out of Albert Joseph, such as formally handing over the Duchy of Lorraine and the Prince-Bishopric of Liege, which was encircled by the 'French Netherlands' but part of the HRE. She also forced the Emperor to agree to end the HRE's new colonial projects in the New World, ensuring that France's only real challenger there was Spain and Britain.
The Pragmatic Succession was put to the test in 1745 when Emperor Albert Joseph I died and the Electors were unable to choose a successor. This saw the War of the Austrian Succession (1745 - 1748) break out. It was the last of the 'cabinet wars' in which armies tried to avoid pitch battles while negotiations took place in the courts of the Kings of Europe. But some major battles did take place, such as the Battle of Meissen in which the join Franco-Austrian forces defeated the Prussian led collation, but tasted bitter defeat at the Battle of Prague, but this battle was considered a crowning glory of Prussia's military history.
The end of the war saw a vastly changed Europe in which Prussia was granted full independence from the HRE proper, while Saxony gained a new Protestant Duke in the form of the Prussian King's third son, while the new Emperor John Adolph I now lived in Vienna. However the Kingdoms of Bohemia and Hungary were now independent, having been granted new kings by the Peace of Pilsen from minor German houses, and the Grand Duchy of Tuscany expanded its Italian lands and the Duchy of Savoy became part of France.
This was came with a cost, for the young Grand Duke of Tuscany, the son of Marie-Louise and heir to France was injured during the war and lost his right leg. His health never fully recovered and Ferdinando III of Tuscany died two years later, leaving only three illegitimate children by his favorite mistress and ending the hope of a male successor.
The death of her son hurt Marie-Louise deeply, even while the Queen threw herself into her work as monarch to cope, expanding French holdings in the America's and encouraging further settling by Frenchmen who wished for lands of their own. France also purchased the Tuscan holdings in North Africa, setting the state for French colonization of Africa to truly begin.
Marie-Louise also sent an unofficial ambassador to the British Thirteen Colonies to stir up trouble, for the British colonials were beginning to chafe under a brutal tax regime under the British Monarchs, for the War of Austrian Succession had played out in the New World in form of the 'War of Madness' (for the British had been part of the Prussian Collation). This would bear fruit in the future, but not in Marie-Louise's lifetime and have consequences that would be very farreaching indeed.
Marie-Louise also had a secret love affair with Philippe Auguste, Prince of Dombes in the later period of her reign, the aging Queen's spry young lover who was nearly two decades her junior was a source of much humor in the courts of Europe. But rumors persisted that there was a secret marriage between the pair, but it is now believed that these were stirred up by the Prince of Dombes himself out of pride, and a desire to perhaps become King-Consort himself.
Marie-Louise would die at age 59 of pneumonia and was succeeded by _____.
1575 - 1589: Henry III (House of Valois-Angouleme)
1589 - 1583: Isabella I (House of Habsburg) (1)
1633 - 1678: Jeanne (House of Habsburg) [2]
1678 - 1713: Isabella II (House of Bourbon) [3]
1713 - 1744: Isabella III (House of Savoy) [4]
1744 - 1771: Marie-Louise (House of Bourbon) [5]
(1) Isabella of France was never supposed to become the first Queen Regnant of France. After the crown had passed through three of her maternal uncles - Francis II, Charles IX and Henri III - the closest male line relative to the Valois-Angouleme was Henri, King of Navarre, tenth cousin to the last King and a protestant. The likelihood that the Valois-Angouleme male line would become extinct had been anticipated - though the assassination that had removed Henri III had been unexpected - and a Pragmatic Sanction in 1585 stated that male preference primogeniture would be adopted. By this declaration, the French succession fell to Henri III's niece, Archduchess Isabella of Austria. The decision to hand France over to the Hapsburgs and the Holy Roman Empire was not a popular one, but it was one that Emperor Rudolf II and Isabella's father, Phillip II, King of Spain, fully endorsed.
In 1589, Isabella was crowned as Queen of France at Reims Cathedral. She was unmarried, but the support of Emperor Rudolf and the Holy Roman Empire to hold her throne was conditional on her marriage to Archduke Albert, the Emperor's brother - both were brothers of Anna of Austria, the Queen's late step-mother. The Habsburg Band had been formed from the Iberian Peninsula across France to the eastern-most holdings of the Empire. And the rest of Europe did not like this one iota.
The English Succession had long been unclear - but even Elizabeth could see that the personal union of England and Scotland that she, her father and their ministers had long wanted to avoid, would be of benefit when facing the Habsburg Band. With Isabella's succession, Elizabeth formally acknowledged her cousin, James VI of Scotland as legitimate heir to England, investing him as Prince of Wales to further emphasise her belief in his succession.
Isabella and Albert produced six children from 1590 to 1602, the latter born when she was thirty-six - all girls (for the first eighteen months of her reign, her heirs under the Pragmatic Sanction were her sister, Catherine, Duchess of Savoy, and Catherine's three children - Victor, Emmanuel and Margaret). Therefore the Dauphinate of Viennois lay vacant and Henri of Navarre, who continued to claim the throne of France began to style himself as King of Navarre and Dauphin of Viennois. But surrounded by Habsburgs, there was little that Henri and the Navarese could do to enforce the claim itself.
As a wedding gift to his daughter, the King of Spain had ceded the Spanish Netherlands to France. France found itself preoccupied with the United Provinces until an uneasy peace was agreed in 1612 which also required that France display some religious tolerance after the mass protestant persecution of the Religious Wars of Isabella's uncles reigns.
By 1633, Isabella was 67, had given birth to six surviving daughters (and a number of other children who did not survive infancy) and seen those children age and yield grandchildren for her. After it's somewhat rocky start, Habsburg France seemed stable for the moment, but if either Spain or the Holy Roman Empire fell out with the other, or France fell out with either, its position would become more fraught.
Isabella was succeeded by her eldest daughter, Jeanne.
[2] Princess Jeanne was the oldest daughter of Queen Isabella of France and her husband, Archduke Albert of Austria. Habsburg on both sides, Jeanne was *famously* not born with the Habsburg chin, contrary to all of her sisters. The physical difference to her family soon grew to become one based also in personality as the harsh and rigid education her mother inflicted on her made the young Dauphine of Viennois quickly grew to hate the rest of her family. Jeanne soon grew to be a bull-headed, stubborn and defiant young woman, who was keen on contradicting everything her mother seemed to put forward for her. This, in turn, made her deeply popular with the french people, whom hated both King Albert and King Elizabeth for their foreign origins, and saw in young Jeanne "Frenchness".
They were not wrong. Historians have come to claim that the reason a revolt against Isabella did not happen is because the French nobility stacked behind her daughter and heir, and mother and daughter formed two different courts, with Jeanne soon heading out to the Loire, where she spent time in the Summer and to Viennois in the winter. In a fit to unite the french people behind her and as a declaration of independence against her mother, Isabella would famously marry Louis de Soissons, a member of the House of Bourbon. When her first child was born, Jeanne styled him as "De Soissons", taking the name of her husband for herself. While French historians have classified her as a member of the House of Habsburg, Jeanne never did identify herself as an Habsburg after her marriage. She and her husband, Louis, would go on to have six children.
The death of her mother was joyously celebrated, both by Jeanne (privatelly) and by the vast majority of the french people, whom never took a liking to their Spanish Queen. Jeanne's start to life as Queen took a vastly different turn from her mother's, whom had kept France mostly internally focused and served as a pin between the more influential Habsburg realms of Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. Despite not breaking off immediatelly from her alliance with her Habsburg cousins, Jeanne rapidly took to treking a different path from her mother. The first of her choices was to return her father to Vienna, where he would be made ambassador to the Imperial court in what was effectivelly exile from France. Her younger sisters, however, Jeanne quickly married to various Italian and German princes, forming commercial and military alliances in much of central-western Europe and restoring french influence abroad.
Jeanne, was, however, a true Habsburg in her obcession with the lands of the New World. Perhaps the only thing Jeanne had kept from her Spanish tutors in her youth were their stories of the New World and how it had altered the destiny of the Spanish realms. Thus, is it to no-one's surprise that Jeanne is considered the matron of the French navy and the founder of the French colonial Empire. The founding of the colonies of Acadia, Canada and Louisiane (named after King-Consort Louis) happened during her reign, due to the patronage of many navigators and explorers by the Queen in Paris. An edict was put forth allowing privileges to Catholics whom immigrated to the new world, such as parcels of lands and freedom from serfdom, while protestants were famously given freedom of religion overseas. Thus, thousands of Frenchmen, mainly of Breton, Norman, Gascon and Flemish origin would emigrate to the new world in massive waves during these times, with the Acadian cities of Port-Royal in Gaspé (Otl Halifax, Nova Scotia) and Montreine (OTL Moncton, New Brunswick), the Canadian cities of Québec, Montreal and Brule (Otl Ottawa and Gatineau, on the border between OTL Ontario and Quebec). These cities became the main urban centers of northern New France and the main sources of authority in the rapidly expanding French colonial settlements there. In Louisiane, which was located in the Gulf of Mexico, Nouvelle Calais (Otl New Orleans, Louisiana) and La Roche (OTL Little Rock, Arkansas) quickly became the main centers of French control over the Missisipi. By the end of Jeanne's reign, french explorers were trying to find a connection alongside the Ohio basin to the Missisipi, and would discover the "Illinois territory" just before her death.
Jeanne died in 1678, finishing a vast program of internal reform meant to tackle the power of both the clergy and the nobility, renovate the French financial system and break much of the power of the old parliaments. She was widely celebrated as a Queen by her people. She was suceeded by ___________.
(3) Isabella de Soissons, only surviving child of Louis, Duke of Soissons, Crown Prince of France and his wife, Louisa Christina of Savoy. Her fathers birth and her grandmother's succession to the throne made it clear that whilst France still held the territory of Viennois, the title of Dauphin, still claimed by the Bourbons in Navarre, was sullied by their claim and despite her grandmother's vague attempt to style herself as Dauphine, France would not use it. Her parents were second cousins - Isabella I and Catherine Micaela, Duchess of Savoy had been sisters - but this catered to his grandmother's anti-pro-Habsburg policies (not anti-Habsburg - just not pro-Habsburg). But as much as Jeanne had tried to fight it, the Habsburg support from the Empire and Spain was still fundamental in maintaining France's male preference primogeniture, despite the build-up in colonial assets and her naval forces to rival the British.
Her father was shot when Isabella II was only ten and she grew up, shuffled between her grandmother's court in Paris, her mother's court in Vienne and her maternal uncle's court in Turin. In 1678 when she became Queen after the death of her 88 year old grandmother, Isabella II was clearly more influenced by the Savoyard Court than either of the French ones. She continued the pro-colonial policies of her grandmother, invested heavily in French ports and related infrastructure including roads that connected France and Savoy. She created a French standing army and constructed a number of coastal fortifications both on the Channel and the Mediterranean.
She did not however embrace her uncles persecution of Waldensians, and continued the French policy of religious tolerance and encouragement of emigration of protestants to the colonies.
Isabella II had married her cousin, Francis Hyacinth, Duke of Aosta (her uncle, Charles Emmanuel II's, second son) and the pair had six children. In 1713 she died at the age of fifty seven (born 1656) after reigning for thirty five years, an autopsy revealed that she died of gall bladder occlusion and liver failure - and would be succeeded by her daughter, Isabella.
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Queen Isabella III in Her Prime
[4] Isabella III was the fourth child of Queen Isabella II of France and Duke Francis Hyacinth of Aosta having been born in 1683. Isabella was for most of her life not ever expected to ascend to the throne. However some members of the court of Isabella II who believed that the line of female monarchs was not just coincidence and little happenstances but a sign from God himself that he wanted a female dominant line for the French Monarchy. To back up their reasoning two of Isabella’s three older brothers had died in childhood the first being Francis, who had been a stillborn and the second being Philippe who had died of smallpox at the age of nine. Many however dismissed these instances as what they were; tragic happenstance; and argued that Isabella’s third elder brother, Henri, who was still living and had made it to his twenties and would succeed his mother as King of France. This belief did not last long as eventually Henri succumbed to paranoia and grief and was found dead in his bedroom having drunken a lethal dose of cyanide. Many grieved the death of the prince but some took it as the now so called “Isabellaian Curse” taking another victim to make way for another female ruler. Some still however clung to the old ways and wished for Louis, the new heir apparent, to succeed his mother as King of France however he considered himself not fit to rule (combined with the paranoia of the deaths of so many brothers) and would renounce his titles to the French Throne and would announce that he would succeed his father as Duke of Aosta.
With the path now clear to the throne Isabella began to prepare herself for her reign taking the classes that any French Prince would take. She would end up being a fast learner impressing her teachers and tutors with her knowledge of geography, politics, and civil discord. With much preparation for the throne many began to search for a suitable husband to help aid in her studies. That would come in Louis of Navarre, grandson King Louis III of Navarre who was only a year older than Princess Isabella and was considered to be a good match for her. Louis’s first wife; Marie Adélaïde of Savoy; had died of measles the year earlier and he was looking for a new wife. Even though he had the acceptance of Queen Isabella II her daughter didn’t fancy the young Duke and begged her mother to reconsider the betrothal but her mind was made up and the decision was finalized when the two were married in August of 1707. Though the wedding was a joyous event the marriage was anything but with Isabella initially ignoring the advances of her husband and other than their wedding night the two did not sleep in the same bed yet the same room for the first year and a half of their marriage and it was only when her mother demanded that she have a child did she concede to her husband’s demands. After half a year of trial and error it was announced that the heir to the french throne was with child and nine months later she would give birth to a healthy daughter and would give birth to another less than two years later. Though the marriage was fruitful it was not considered a happy one and Isabella’s spouse would die after contracting measles less than five years after their marriage. While the search began for a new husband was ongoing tragedy would strike Isabella as her mother would die the following year in 1713 and she would be sent back to Paris to be made Queen of France.
Isabella would travel to Paris as quickly as possible so that she could be made Queen. After arriving she would be greeted by the lesser nobles and would be taken to the Palace of Versailles where she would be coronated in a modest but eventful fashion. Now as Queen the royal court would pressure the new monarch to find a new husband to become King-Consort but the Queen would take her time with this decision and would focus on other matters such internal improvements and improving relations with fellow monarchs. Eventually however Isabella would find a new husband on her own accord when she would attend part of the Treaties of Stockholm in 1719 after the conclusion of the Great Northern War while visiting for a royal marriage. After a break in the discussion of treaties Isabella would meet with several of the Monarchs present for the treaty one of which would be George II of Britain who also was looking for a new wife after the death of his wife to disease. The two would end up getting to know each other and would end up exchanging letters when they would go back to their countries. Eventually arrangement for a royal marriage would be finalized and the two would be married in 1721. However due to their ages the two wouldn’t have any children but it didn’t matter since both had children from their previous marriages. Isabella would spend her reign improving standard living for those in her domain and would push for an increase of women’s rights such as the choice to choose who to marry and not being forced by their peers.
Isabella would reign until her death in 1744 where she would be succeeded by Marie-Louise.
Marie-Louise at the beginning of her reign in 1744.
[5] Marie-Louise was born the second daughter of Isabella III of France on August 9th, 1712, named in honor of the Virgin Mary and her grandfather the King of Navarre. For much of her youth the expectation was that either her mother would bear a son and end the 'Reign of the Women' or that her elder sister the Princess Isabella-Jeanne would reign over the Kingdom of France.
As time passed her mother the Queen failed to bear a male heir from her unhappy marriage and the court expectation of Princess Isabella-Jeanne's reign grew, until the Crown-Princess contracted smallpox and died at age twelve, leaving the ten-year-old Princess Marie-Louise as the heir to the throne.
It was quickly discovered that the Princess's education had been severely lacking, her tutors having played favorites and focused almost all their efforts on her elder sister. The young Marie-Louise could read and write in French and do basic mathematics, but little else that was expected of an heir. Isabella III sacked the whole lot and hired new tutors with instructions to ensure that her daughter was 'the most learned woman in all of Europe'.
By the Princess Marie-Louise's 16th Birthday celebration in 1728 she was well versed in three languages and had a solid understanding of political theory, music, art, history, and the sciences and would continue to expand her knowledge, and her private library, for the rest of her life.
Discussions about the Princesses future husband were intense, the Habsburgs had few men left as their family dwindled away, while the Bourbon's in Navarre were too closely related even for a papal dispensation, and Marie-Louise's mother was not fond of Navarre due to her first marriage. A candidate was found in Gian Gastone de Medici, the second son of Cosimo III of Tuscany, and the pair were married in a lavish ceremony on April 7th, 1730. This marriage would prove fruitful in the form of four children, three daughters and one son, but also complicated due to Gian Gastone's elder brother Ferdinando having predeceased him years prior. But Ferdinando did leave a son named Cosimo behind who became the Grand Duke of Tuscany in 1723.
Much to the shock of the Medici family however Cosimo IV would die seven years later at age thirteen from a ruptured appendix, making Marie Louise's husband the Grand Duke of Tuscany and her the Grand Duchess.
The couple left the French court for Florence where they found the Grand Duchy in a dire state, the coffers were empty, the army was a mere 3000 men, and the city was full of starving people, on top of this Gian Gastone's health began to fail within months of arriving.
With these challenges at hand, the new Grand Duke made his wife his Regent during the periods where he could not rule, and Marie-Louise set to work at restoring Florence and the Tuscany to glory. While her husband busied himself with treatments for his ailments (and indulging his newfound passion for young men), Marie-Louise as Regent purged both the government and the clergy of its worst corrupt elements, lifted the bans of Cosimo III on learning 'new ideas' in the schools of Tuscany and secured a grant to expand the University of Pisa.
As Regent of Tuscany, Marie-Louise also pursued an aggressive trade policy, which to some was borderline piracy, especially along the North African coast against the weakening Ottoman Empire and the Babary States.
Not even the death of her husband in 1737 could disrupt her power in Tuscany, she simply ruled in the name of her son, Grand Duke Ferdinando III.
This was seen as promising to the people of France, especially when Isabella III died in 1744, making Marie-Louise the Queen of France and her son the first male heir in decades.
Marie-Louise's return to France was a grand celebration followed by an opulent coronation to showcase her power. As the new Queen she was faced with a major European crisis when the House of Habsburg's male line was whittled down to just two men, King Charles IV of Spain, and Emperor Albert Joseph I of the Holy Roman Empire, both of whom were sickly men and neither had produced living legitimate issue.
For the Spanish Crown, the ailing Charles IV accepted his sister Catalina of Spain as heir, but for the Holy Roman Empire there was no clear successor to the Habsburg lands, much less who would be elected Holy Roman Empire. while Albert Joseph attempted to push for a 'Pragmatic Succession' to allow his Aunt Arch-Duchess Maria Caroline to inherit the Austrian lands and the title of Holy Roman Emperor to be given to her son, the young Duke of Saxony John Adolph III, the Duke of Saxony was the first Catholic ruler of Saxony in nearly two centuries and his own lands were gripped with unrest, and many in Europe desired the carving up of the Habsburg's holdings.
Marie-Louise became the first European Monarch to agree to the Pragmatic Succession, but she squeezed many conditions out of Albert Joseph, such as formally handing over the Duchy of Lorraine and the Prince-Bishopric of Liege, which was encircled by the 'French Netherlands' but part of the HRE. She also forced the Emperor to agree to end the HRE's new colonial projects in the New World, ensuring that France's only real challenger there was Spain and Britain.
The Pragmatic Succession was put to the test in 1745 when Emperor Albert Joseph I died and the Electors were unable to choose a successor. This saw the War of the Austrian Succession (1745 - 1748) break out. It was the last of the 'cabinet wars' in which armies tried to avoid pitch battles while negotiations took place in the courts of the Kings of Europe. But some major battles did take place, such as the Battle of Meissen in which the join Franco-Austrian forces defeated the Prussian led collation, but tasted bitter defeat at the Battle of Prague, but this battle was considered a crowning glory of Prussia's military history.
The end of the war saw a vastly changed Europe in which Prussia was granted full independence from the HRE proper, while Saxony gained a new Protestant Duke in the form of the Prussian King's third son, while the new Emperor John Adolph I now lived in Vienna. However the Kingdoms of Bohemia and Hungary were now independent, having been granted new kings by the Peace of Pilsen from minor German houses, and the Grand Duchy of Tuscany expanded its Italian lands and the Duchy of Savoy became part of France.
This was came with a cost, for the young Grand Duke of Tuscany, the son of Marie-Louise and heir to France was injured during the war and lost his right leg. His health never fully recovered and Ferdinando III of Tuscany died two years later, leaving only three illegitimate children by his favorite mistress and ending the hope of a male successor.
The death of her son hurt Marie-Louise deeply, even while the Queen threw herself into her work as monarch to cope, expanding French holdings in the America's and encouraging further settling by Frenchmen who wished for lands of their own. France also purchased the Tuscan holdings in North Africa, setting the state for French colonization of Africa to truly begin.
Marie-Louise also sent an unofficial ambassador to the British Thirteen Colonies to stir up trouble, for the British colonials were beginning to chafe under a brutal tax regime under the British Monarchs, for the War of Austrian Succession had played out in the New World in form of the 'War of Madness' (for the British had been part of the Prussian Collation). This would bear fruit in the future, but not in Marie-Louise's lifetime and have consequences that would be very farreaching indeed.
Marie-Louise also had a secret love affair with Philippe Auguste, Prince of Dombes in the later period of her reign, the aging Queen's spry young lover who was nearly two decades her junior was a source of much humor in the courts of Europe. But rumors persisted that there was a secret marriage between the pair, but it is now believed that these were stirred up by the Prince of Dombes himself out of pride, and a desire to perhaps become King-Consort himself.
Marie-Louise would die at age 59 of pneumonia and was succeeded by _____.
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Isabella I, b. 1566, r. 1589 to 1633, m. 1589, Archduke Albert of Austria (1559 to Post-1633)
- 1) Jeanne, b. 1590, r. 1633 to 1678, m. Louis de Bourbon, Duke of Soissons (d. pre. 1666)
Caterina Micaela of Austria, b. 1567, d. 1597, m. Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy (1562 to 1630)
- 1) Victor Amadeus, Duke of Savoy, b. 1587, d. 1637, m. Christine Marie of Navarre (1606 to 1663)
- 1) Jeanne, b. 1590, r. 1633 to 1678, m. Louis de Bourbon, Duke of Soissons (d. pre. 1666)
a) Louis, Crown Prince of France, Duke of Soissons, b. 1620, d. 1666, m. Louisa Christina of Savoy (1629 to 1692)
- 1) Isabella II, b. 1656, r. 1678 to 1713, m. Francis Hyacinth, Duke of Aosta (b. 1655)
a) Francis of France
b) Philippe, Crown Prince of France
c) Isabella III, b. 1683, r. 1713 to 1744, m1. 1707, Prince Louis of Navarre (d. 1712), m2. 1721, George II of Britain
- 1a) Isabella-Jeanne, Crown Princess of France, b. 1710, d. 1722
- 2a) Marie-Louise, b. 1712, r. 1744 to 1771, m. 1730, Gian Gastone, Grand Duke of Tuscany (d. 1737)
a) Ferdinando III, Grand Duke of Tuscany
- x*) three illegitimate children by a mistress
x) three daughters of Marie-Louise and Gian Gastone
d) Henri, Duke of Aosta, prev. Crown Prince of France, b. Post-1683
x) two other daughters of Isabella II and Francis Hyacinth
x) two other daughters of Isabella II and Francis Hyacinth
x) five other children of Jeanne and Louis de Bourbon
- x) five other daughters born prior to 1602 of Isabella and Albert of AustriaCaterina Micaela of Austria, b. 1567, d. 1597, m. Charles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy (1562 to 1630)
- 1) Victor Amadeus, Duke of Savoy, b. 1587, d. 1637, m. Christine Marie of Navarre (1606 to 1663)
a) Louisa Christina of Savoy, b. 1629, d. 1692, m. Louis, Crown Prince of France, Duke of Soissons (1620 to 1666)
- 1) Isabella II, b. 1656, r. 1678 to 1713, m. Francis Hyacinth, Duke of Aosta (b. 1655)
x) see line of Isabella II
b) Francis Hyacinth, Duke of Savoy, b. 1632, d. 1638
c) Charles Emmanuel II, Duke of Savoy, b. 1634, d. 1675, married
- 1) Victor Amadeus II, Duke of Savoy, b. 1654, married, has issue
- 2) Francis Hyacinth, Duke of Aosta, b. 1655, m. Isabella II (1656 to 1713)
x) see line of Isabella II
x) other children of Victor Amadeus and Christine Marie
- x) other children of Caterina Micaela and Charles Emmanuel I
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You forgot Isabella III’s younger brother, Louis, who renounced his claims to the throne so he could become Duke of Aosta instead.
I did mention that Ferdinando III of Tuscany had three illegitimate children by a mistress.