La Reine-Infante

Can anyone give me more information on Mariana Vittoria of Spain, Queen of Portugal's pregnancies?
I read that she was pregnant eight times, but everyone only records her having D. Maria I, Queen of Portugal; the Princess of Brazil; and two other daughters who were proposed for the Dauphin and Philippe Egalité.
 
I had never about this so I tried to Google it for you. I just took a quick look so the only thing I've found so far was Wikipedia in English, which links to this genealogy site. It does mention 8 pregnancies but 4 children seem to have died at birth or during early childhood at least. If you click on their links, the Europäische Stammtafeln is listed as the source. You can find more information about working with that book here.

Either way, if you have tried looking up books about her and there's nothing in there, you should try biographies of Joseph I and even Maria I. There may be something mentioned about their family life. One of the children appears to have been the only boy among 7 girls, so I find it hard to believe that he would go unnoticed.
 
There may be something mentioned about their family life. One of the children appears to have been the only boy among 7 girls, so I find it hard to believe that he would go unnoticed.

Firstly, thank you. I had no idea either of these pages existed. Secondly, it is interesting to note that even HAD Louis XV and Mariana Vitoria married, if she'd had the same children as OTL, Louis would've found himself with the same situation as OTL, except there might not have been a Dauphin to blunt that. So in 1774 the French crown would fall onto the head of the Duc d'Orleans who would've become an alt Louis XVI, Louis-Philippe I or Philippe VII.
 
Firstly, thank you. I had no idea either of these pages existed. Secondly, it is interesting to note that even HAD Louis XV and Mariana Vitoria married, if she'd had the same children as OTL, Louis would've found himself with the same situation as OTL, except there might not have been a Dauphin to blunt that. So in 1774 the French crown would fall onto the head of the Duc d'Orleans who would've become an alt Louis XVI, Louis-Philippe I or Philippe VII.

Well, it wouldn't be the same situation as OTL. The Dauphin died before he could succeed to the throne, but next king (Louis XVI) was the Dauphin's son and therefore Louis XV's grandson. That means he was at least a direct descedant of the previous king, which is not too bad nor too uncommon as Louis XV himself was the great-grandson of the last ruler before him, Louis XIV.

If Louis XV and Mariana Vittoria had gotten married and had the same children she did OTL, this would have been a very different situation IMO. Louis-Philippe d'Orleans sounds like a probable candidate but as a very distant relative of Louis XV succession could be somewhat shaky. I wonder if Spain would try anything since Charles III of Spain was Louis XV's second cousin and probably his closest living male relative in 1774. Louis XV's eldest daughter, an alt Maria, would probably marry whichever was more likely to get throne or at least one of his sons if he happened to be married by that point, as she did OTL with her uncle. I wonder if French succession laws would have allowed her to become Queen of France in a scenario like this; I don't know a lot about it.

By the way, I see you're the person who posted that Borgias thread, and you should go check it out because I replied last night.
 
I saw, thank you for your contribution, and I hope you had a decent sleep.

It would perhaps prompt a Stuart-Hannoverian civil war in France between the duc d'Orleans (the heir presumptive per the Treaties of Utrecht, rastatt and Baden) and the Spanish Bourbons (the heirs presumptive per the absolutist tendencies which viewed Philip V's renunciation of his French rights as invalid).

Also, it would be a question of which Spanish infante would succeed, since Carlos III becoming king is incompatible as it would unite the French and Spanish crowns. D. Felipe was already duke of Parma, but who he would marry is up in the air (since he married an OTL daughter of Louis XV), but he was already dead, so his son might; or D. Luis (still alive, but his children barred from inheriting ANY Spanish titles, not sure if it would work the same in France).
 
Thanks! :D

A civil war sounds like a very likely scenario, in my opinion.

As I said, I'm not really sure how foreign claims and inheritance would work here. However, if D. Felipe married an OTL daughter of Louis XV, I don't see why he couldn't have done the same thing if Louis XV and Mariana Victoria had her OTL children together. After all, there would be daughters, just different ones :p The Duke of Parma would be their uncle and he was born in 1720, which is not very different from OTL Maria I marrying her OTL uncle who was born in 1717. As you say, though, there would be a very small time frame during which he could have married one of his nieces if at all. They could have married his son Ferdinando, I suppose.
 
Another question I'm hoping someone can help we with, and I'm too tired to start a new thread for it, is are there any records of Marianne of Neuberg's pregnancies (faked or otherwise)? Everyone talks of her having faked pregnancies to control Carlos II, but I can't seem to find records thereof.

PLEASE HELP!!!!
 
Another question I'm hoping someone can help we with, and I'm too tired to start a new thread for it, is are there any records of Marianne of Neuberg's pregnancies (faked or otherwise)? Everyone talks of her having faked pregnancies to control Carlos II, but I can't seem to find records thereof.

PLEASE HELP!!!!

I don't know a lot about her but I tried to find something for you out of curiosity. It seems like most of what we know about her pregnancies is based on rumours rather than official records. My explanation for this is that in those times it would be hard to accurately confirm a pregnancy early on*, so announcing it officially could cause disappointment and even harmful rumours if it turned out to be wrong. Maria Anna would have been under enormous pressure to produce heirs and she was not particularly loved by the Spanish so if she was pregnant, she would probably want to avoid giving false alarms.

I was able to find some dates around which she was rumoured to be pregnant, but my source are some forums I found through Google where someone posted a sort of biography about her. I can PM you the link if you're still interested or if you want to try to find a source. I would recommend finding some biographies about her, they probably mention the rumours so you can make a list.

* I'm not a medical expert, but nowadays if we suspect that we're pregnant we can go to a doctor and run a few tests. A few centuries ago, the only ways to know if someone was pregnant during the first 2-3 months would be a lack of menstruation (which can be caused by many other things) or morning sickness (which does not happen to everyone). Furthermore, if her first pregnancy resulted in a miscarriage that would be a reason to be very careful when discussing the others. Some of the pregnancy rumours seem to have coincided with periods when she was sick, so maybe she miscarried, used her sickness to feed rumours, or people merely assumed when they heard that she was unwell.
 
I was wondering if there is any other support for this besides that which I read on a notoriously unreliable online encyclopedia, that Mariana Vittoria, between being rejected as a future queen of France and becoming the future queen of Portugal, was actually proposed (by who?) as a wife for Pyotr II Alexeievich, Czar of Russia.

I know Pyotr II's mother didn't convert from her native Lutheranism, but she had to agree in the marriage contract that her children would be raised Orthodox. But Mariana would've been Catholic - and Empress Anna Ivanovna tormented one of her courtiers when he married a Catholic - and needless to say, I can't see the Pope granting the dispensation necessary.

However, it would be interesting. Might the Spanish Bourbons then have a different son of D. Felipe V if their OTL double-marriage policy goes through, since that would marry Fernando VI or Carlos III to Natalia Alexeievna. (After all, all of Felipe V's children were part of double-marriage schemes - originally D. Luis I & D. Carlos III were to marry two daughters of the Duc d'Orléans; then when that fell through D. Carlos III and D. Felipe were to marry the heiresses of HRE Karl VI (Maria Theresa and Maria Anna); and when D. Carlos III finally married Maria Amalia of Poland, his sister Antonia was to marry the Crown Prince of Poland; also, with the Family Compact, D. Felipe and D. Maria Teresa were married to the Dauphin and Madame Premiere respectively, and D. Fernando VI was considered for Madame Seconde).
 
I was wondering if there is any other support for this besides that which I read on a notoriously unreliable online encyclopedia, that Mariana Vittoria, between being rejected as a future queen of France and becoming the future queen of Portugal, was actually proposed (by who?) as a wife for Pyotr II Alexeievich, Czar of Russia.

I know Pyotr II's mother didn't convert from her native Lutheranism, but she had to agree in the marriage contract that her children would be raised Orthodox. But Mariana would've been Catholic - and Empress Anna Ivanovna tormented one of her courtiers when he married a Catholic - and needless to say, I can't see the Pope granting the dispensation necessary.

However, it would be interesting. Might the Spanish Bourbons then have a different son of D. Felipe V if their OTL double-marriage policy goes through, since that would marry Fernando VI or Carlos III to Natalia Alexeievna. (After all, all of Felipe V's children were part of double-marriage schemes - originally D. Luis I & D. Carlos III were to marry two daughters of the Duc d'Orléans; then when that fell through D. Carlos III and D. Felipe were to marry the heiresses of HRE Karl VI (Maria Theresa and Maria Anna); and when D. Carlos III finally married Maria Amalia of Poland, his sister Antonia was to marry the Crown Prince of Poland; also, with the Family Compact, D. Felipe and D. Maria Teresa were married to the Dauphin and Madame Premiere respectively, and D. Fernando VI was considered for Madame Seconde).

I think a Spanish Catholic czarina in St. Petersburg/Moscow is a bit of a stretch, even if Pyotr II is the cousin of Maria Theresa. And sending Natalia to Spain just sounds within the realms of impossibility. Spain didnt get her first Protestant queen consort until Alfonso XIII married Ena of Battenberg, and even then Ena had to convert before marrying him.

Natalia would be Orthodox, which viewed itself as the "true church" as opposed to the Catholic church. The Pope would once again be prevailed upon to provide a dispensation, and possibly the head of the Russian church would be expected to provide like. A similar parallel is Pyotr I's attempts to send Elizabeth or Anna Petrovna to marry Louis XV or the duc de Chartres. Both floundered on a disparity in forms of address (which would've been moot since Pyotr agreed to marry Elizabeth/Natalia Petrovna to Chartres once he was elected King of Poland) but I can imagine therr would've been religious issues too. This is after all, not a Protestant princess from Germany for whom Paris/Madrid would be worth a mass, but the daughter/sister of the Russian Emperor, for whom it would be a case of "I must change my religion? Never mind, there are enough princes in Germany happy to let me keep it.

NOTE: Ekaterina II tried to get Gustav IV to allow Alexandra Pavlovna to keep her Orthodox faith, and he refused, ending marital plans. IDK if cor her marriage to a Habsburg Archduke a dispensation was necessary or not, but I know the Imperial family refused to allow her to be buried in Vienna because of her Orthodoxy.
 
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