What if Louis Phillipe, Duke of Orleans was invited to be King of Italy in 1815?
Kings of the Italians
1815 - 1850: Louis Phillipe (House of Orleans) [1]
1850 - 1861: Reginaldo Bourbon (House of Orleans) [2]
Kings of Italy
1861 - 1870: Reginaldo Bourbon (House of Orleans) [2]
1870 - 1918: Gregorio Antonio (House of Orleans) [3]
Emperors of Italian Empire
1918 - 1936: Gregorio Antonio (House of Orleans) [3]
1936 - 1937: Umberto Antonio (House of Orleans) [4]
1937 - 1967: Silvio Matteo (House of Orleans) [5]
1967 - Present: Victor Alberto (House of Orleans) [6]
(Louis Phillipe during a state visit with Queen Victoria c. 1841)
[1] The Kingdom of Italy was not a kingdom of all of Italy - it was a subject kingdom that Emperor Napoleon had founded in Northern Italy. When Napoleon surrendered in 1814, his Viceroy (and step-son) was exiled to Bavaria by the Austrians and Count Heinrich Von Bellegarde was made Provisional Regent and in May 1815, with the Treaty of Paris it was announced that the Kingdom of Italy would remain as a construct with a foreigner invited to take the crown. The French Duke of Orleans, a distant relative of the reinserted Bourbons, was invited to become King after a referendum amongst the nobility in the constituent states.
Louis Phillipe arrived in Milan in late 1815 where he was crowned - not as King of Italy as had been offered, but as King of the Italians, which he had made a condition of his acceptance. His wife was Maria Amalia of Naples and Sicily and he already had four children - Ferdinand (the eldest, born 1810, who became Crown Prince of the Italians), Louise, Marie and Louis - at the point of his coronation. However, Ferdinand and Louis would both subsequently die whilst Marie Amalia would die in childbirth with their third daughter, Clementine in 1816.
The succession law in the Kingdom of Italy was similar to the French - the crown could not be held by a woman, nor could it pass through a female line. If Louis Phillipe was to lack male heirs, the crown would have to backtrack through his history until they reached Louis XIII of France - and then the crowns of France and Italy would enter a personal union which had been prohibited in the Treat of Paris.
Louis Phillipe had rejected his claims to the French crown by accepting that of Italy. It was not an issue in 1815, but could be an issue later - so Louis Phillipe was forced to seek out a second bride, and was soon betrothed to Amalie of Saxony (who would outlive her husband by twenty years) who gave him three sons, one each year in 1824, 1825 and 1826, all of whom survived to adulthood and the eldest of whom was appointed Crown Prince of the Italians.
In 1830, the Bourbons were deposed and the French laid out an invitation to Louis Phillipe to take the throne but he refused, and then vetoed the offer to his four year old third son. France was plunged into a succession crisis - as no other legitimate male line existed the provisional government were forced to consider a drastic overhaul of French succession rights, and allow descent through a female line finally appointing Charles, Duke of Lucca, great great grandson of Louis XV through his eldest daughter, Louise Elisabeth, Duchess of Parma, as Charles XI.
This was a radical step and would not be, they determined, ever repeated. But the brief period in 1830 when it looked as if Louis Phillipe would accept the French crown caused some tension in the Kingdom of Italy which was quickly subdued by his outright refusal - although he did agree to the marriage of his 14 year old daughter, Clementine, to Henry V, the ten year old (disputed, deposed and abdicated King of France), Count of Chambord when Louis Philippe gave Henry and his mother, Marie Caroline of Two Sicilies, sanctuary in Milan (whilst the British gave sanctuary to Henry IV and Charles X).
The rest of his reign passed in relative peace, especially when compared to the political upheaval of his first sixteen years. Influenced by Leopold of Belgium, he commissioned engineers to build an extensive railway to service his Kingdom and helped to maneuver Venice into a renaissance as a port for trade. He died in 1850 at the age of 76 at the Royal Palace of Milan whereupon he was succeeded by his son, Crown Prince of the Italians, Reginaldo Bourbon.
[2] Named to be a king, Reginaldo wanted more than to be King of the Italians, he wanted to be King of all Italy. But Italy had four other states to contend with. To the west was the Kingdom of Sardina, also known as Piedmont, for it included the Piedmont, or as the States of Savoy, for it included the Duchy of Savoy, in fact its kings were from the House of Savoy. Its capital was Turin. To the immediate south were the Papal States, the territories across central Italy that were ruled by the Pope. A lot of the Papal States had been incorporated into the Kingdom of Italy during the Napoleonic era, but the treaty continuing the kingdom had restored those to the Pope. Of course the capital was Rome. Also there was the small city state of San Marino that was surrounded by the Papal States. Then in the south was the great state of the Two Sicilies with the entire bottom half of the Italian peninsula and the island of Sicily. Its capital was Naples.
Reginaldo had married a local Milanese noble woman, Maria Bianchi, in 1845, and was as Italian in language and culture as his wife, having been raised that way as his nurse and tutors were instructed to use only Italian in raising him. (He did of course later learn other languages: French, German, Spanish, Slovenian, and English.) By the time he became king he had two children, Crown Prince Gregorio, born in 1847, and Princess Phillipa, born in 1849.
Reginaldo wisely decided before he faced the Papal States, he needed to give his forces battle experience. He also needed to be seen as a liberator. So he set his sights on 'liberating' Slovenia from the Austrians. At this time Slovenia, as an Austrian province, included the Italian speaking city of Trieste. The war of liberation lasted from late 1853 into 1854 and was a great success. Reginaldo declared Trieste and its surroundings to be part of the Kingdom of Italy, but the rest of Slovenia he set up as a 'independent' Duchy with a strong treaty making it subservient to the Kingdom of Italy.
After this he turned his sights on the Papal States. This war, in 1856, was also a success, with all of the Papal States except Rome itself, 'liberated' from the earthly rule of the Pope. (San Marino was allowed to remain independent as long as it had no military of its own and used the money and the postal services of the Kingdom of Italy.)
Now Reginaldo had only two other Italian kingdoms to deal with. As the Kingdom of Sardinia was allied with the powerful Second French Empire and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies' only real ally was ever weaker Spain, Reginaldo made an alliance with Turin to defeat Milan and divide up that kingdom between them. The two invaded at the same time in the Spring of 1861, Milan from the north and Turin in Sicily. Quickly Naples fell. The very southern toe of the Peninsula and Sicily went to Sardinia. The rest went to Milan.
Reginaldo then marched north and took Rome, except for the Vatican. The temporal power of the Pope was done. In Rome he declared it his new capital and that he was now King of Italy.
This title did not sit well with Victor Emmanuel of Sardinia, but there was little he could do. For the next few years the two states lived in a peaceful tension. But forces were growing for a union of the two into one Italian state, unfortunately for both royal families, these forces were Republican and threatened revolution. It was one such revolutionary who shot and killed the King of Italy as he was traveling to visit the Pope from his palace in Rome to the Vatican.
[3] Gregorio Antonio, born in 1847, to Crown Prince of the Italians, Reginaldo Bourbon and his wife Princess Maria Bianchi, during the reign of his grandfather, Louis Phillipe, whom would a year before his death, in 1849, arranged a marriage between his grandson and Queen Victoria's recent daughter, Princess Louise, born in 18 March 1848.
The wedding would take place in 25 March 1865, a week after Louisa Caroline Alberta's conversion to Catholicism, the marriage ceremony was performed by Pope Alexander IX, within the Sistine Chapel, the marriage would produce 11 children, giving Queen Victoria, 98 grandchildren in total.
Five years after the marriage, his father was assassinated by revolutionary in Rome, while 23 year old, Gregorio and Louisa was in Milan, visiting how repairs were being made to the city following the invasion.
The death of his father came as a great shock and Gregorio, ordered a state of mourning that lasted for a month.
Sympathy for the royal family grew behind King Gregorio, and republicanism was squashed in his kingdom, while in Sardinia, revolution was in the air, King Victor Emmanuel of Sardinia, his three sons, Umberto, Amadeo and Oddone along with his second wife, Rosa Vercellana, 1st Countess of Mirafiori and Fontanafredda, while his daughter were killed by a rebel army who stormed the palace.
While his daughters Princess Maria Clotilde and Princess Maria Pia, were ransomed back to their mother's Austria.
The Republic of Sardinia only last for eleven years (1871-1882) during the life span of its only President Giuseppe Garibaldi, who although set about democracy, the power struggle that erupted following his death, lead to a civil war that needed Gregorio's army to bring about peace.
So by 1887, the Italian Peninsula and surrounding islands, united the kingdom under Gregorio, but he was not content with stopping there, he believed that his position on earth was set out by God to bring about the new Holy Roman Empire, these beliefs were not publically known until his diaries were published in 2036, 100 years after his death.
His belief would lead him to arrange marriages with his strict Catholic daughters with either prominent Catholics, such as Spain, France and even Austria, with his second daughter Elizabeth married to Crown Prince Karl Franz, her cousin through her aunt Princess Maria of Italy and Crown Prince Rudolf, or with the Orthodox monarchies like Bulgaria and Greece in the hope of converting the Royal family and then the nation, he was even able to marry his eldest child, Princess Maria to the future Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, this also helped him in his colonies, with the Italian nation in a key position to not just scramble for land in Africa, but also maintain a strong trade to improve the economy.
By 1914, Italy had the third largest navy, behind Britain and Germany; while also holding the fourth largest Standing Armies, behind Russia, France and Britain, so when Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria, was shot by a German anarchist, on February 21st in 1915, war broke out.
Austrian-Hungarian Empire declared war on Germany Empire, the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire declared war on Austria as allies of Germany, French Second Empire and Swedish Empire as allies of Austria, declared war on Germany. Britain and Italy remained neutral until 1916, when an Ottoman ship shot a Italian cruise ship, with prominent British citizens on board.
With the British and Italian empire now supporting Austria, the war, came to a end in early 1918, with German, Russia and the Ottoman Empire calling for a truce.
The last 18 years of Gregorio's reign saw a tenuous-peace in Europe, with himself as one of the main voices in a softer version of the "Treaty of Innsbruck" signed in Ambras Castle, Renaissance castle and palace located in the hills above Innsbruck, Austria. Stating that the citizen's of Germany and Russia, shouldn't be punished for what their leaders forced upon them.
He died age 89 in his bed, after 64 years on the throne, surrounded by his wife, his surviving 9 children, his 49 grandchildren and 157 great grandchildren, as well as their respective partners, Pope John XXV, Prime Minister, Ivanoe Bonomi and Gregorio's close staff members.
He was succeeded by his grandson, Prince Imperial Umberto Antonio.
[4] Umberto grew up knowing that he would one day be Emperor, and due to his father's death to cancer, he knew he would be King at a relatively young age. In his famous speech to the crew the battleship Louis Phillipe just a few years earlier he promised "to serve the empire with every bit of his being". Intelligent, handsome, and interested in government Umberto seemed to be the embodiment of everything a modern monarch was supposed to be.
That is what makes the coronation massacre one of the seminal tragedies of the twentieth century. The bomb was planted by a day laborer, one Adolf Hitler, an Austrian who wanted vengeance for his nation's defeat at Italian hands in the Great War. The bomb killed not only the young Emperor, but the Pope who was to crown him, his young wife Maria Emanuel, and wounded the visiting Czar Nicolas of Russia and King Edward the VIIIth of the United Kingdom among other members of the Royal Family.
At first there was confusion about who would succeed him as they sorted through who had lived and who died. Umberto Emanuel was succeeded by his cousin, Prince Silvio Romano.
[5] Silvio Romano was the cousin of Umberto Antonio and grandson of Gregorio Antonio by his second son, Prince Matteo Romano. Umberto Antonio had been an only child due to his father's early death from cancer, and when he was killed in the Coronation Day Massacre there was some concern about the line of succession but ultimately a significant proportion of the royal family survived albeit injured. He was 27 when he became Emperor following his own fathers death in thr Spanish Flu Pandemic and whilst he was married, he had produced no children. Whilst a Succession Crisis had been averted, one was looming because whilst Gregorio Antonio had 11 children, only 3 were male, and of those, two had died and the third, in his fifties and already suffering from cancer like his brother, had produced only female issue.
Silvio married Princess Marguerite a descendant of his paternal great great grandfather, Louis Philippe via his daughter Clementines marriage to Henry V, Count of Chambord (via their son, Henry, 2nd Count of Chambord and Ferdinand, 3rd Count of Chambord) and she became Empress Consort upon his coronation - he reigned for thirty years and faced some challenges via continued Austrian Republican Army dissent but their acts were sporadic and limited and only served to reinforce sympathy for the Italian Imperial family.
Eventually Marguerite bore Silvio several children - four sons all of whom survived until adulthood and all of whom were married by the time Silvio died at 59 in an accident whilst testing a race car at Monza and passing the crown to his eldest son, Victor Alberto.
[6] Born in 1939, and named after his eldest uncle, whom in turn was named after his maternal grandparents Queen Victoria and Prince Consort, Albert; Victor Alberto was a healthy and lively child, being sheltered from his families unhappy history, until his late teens.
At twenty-four, Prince Victor Alberto, married his cousin, Princess Irene of Greece, grand-daughter of Constantine I of Greece and Princess Vernice of Italy (daughter of King Gregorio)
At twenty-eight, he succeeds his father, dying during a test race car at Monza, during the most recent Grand Prix.
His fifty-one year rule has been one of securing his families position in the growing liberal and republican fueled European.
At 79, his health is slightly deteriorating and many believe he will abdicate soon, for his son, Prince Edwardo.
Kings of the Italians
1815 - 1850: Louis Phillipe (House of Orleans) [1]
1850 - 1861: Reginaldo Bourbon (House of Orleans) [2]
Kings of Italy
1861 - 1870: Reginaldo Bourbon (House of Orleans) [2]
1870 - 1918: Gregorio Antonio (House of Orleans) [3]
Emperors of Italian Empire
1918 - 1936: Gregorio Antonio (House of Orleans) [3]
1936 - 1937: Umberto Antonio (House of Orleans) [4]
1937 - 1967: Silvio Matteo (House of Orleans) [5]
1967 - Present: Victor Alberto (House of Orleans) [6]
(Louis Phillipe during a state visit with Queen Victoria c. 1841)
[1] The Kingdom of Italy was not a kingdom of all of Italy - it was a subject kingdom that Emperor Napoleon had founded in Northern Italy. When Napoleon surrendered in 1814, his Viceroy (and step-son) was exiled to Bavaria by the Austrians and Count Heinrich Von Bellegarde was made Provisional Regent and in May 1815, with the Treaty of Paris it was announced that the Kingdom of Italy would remain as a construct with a foreigner invited to take the crown. The French Duke of Orleans, a distant relative of the reinserted Bourbons, was invited to become King after a referendum amongst the nobility in the constituent states.
Louis Phillipe arrived in Milan in late 1815 where he was crowned - not as King of Italy as had been offered, but as King of the Italians, which he had made a condition of his acceptance. His wife was Maria Amalia of Naples and Sicily and he already had four children - Ferdinand (the eldest, born 1810, who became Crown Prince of the Italians), Louise, Marie and Louis - at the point of his coronation. However, Ferdinand and Louis would both subsequently die whilst Marie Amalia would die in childbirth with their third daughter, Clementine in 1816.
The succession law in the Kingdom of Italy was similar to the French - the crown could not be held by a woman, nor could it pass through a female line. If Louis Phillipe was to lack male heirs, the crown would have to backtrack through his history until they reached Louis XIII of France - and then the crowns of France and Italy would enter a personal union which had been prohibited in the Treat of Paris.
Louis Phillipe had rejected his claims to the French crown by accepting that of Italy. It was not an issue in 1815, but could be an issue later - so Louis Phillipe was forced to seek out a second bride, and was soon betrothed to Amalie of Saxony (who would outlive her husband by twenty years) who gave him three sons, one each year in 1824, 1825 and 1826, all of whom survived to adulthood and the eldest of whom was appointed Crown Prince of the Italians.
In 1830, the Bourbons were deposed and the French laid out an invitation to Louis Phillipe to take the throne but he refused, and then vetoed the offer to his four year old third son. France was plunged into a succession crisis - as no other legitimate male line existed the provisional government were forced to consider a drastic overhaul of French succession rights, and allow descent through a female line finally appointing Charles, Duke of Lucca, great great grandson of Louis XV through his eldest daughter, Louise Elisabeth, Duchess of Parma, as Charles XI.
This was a radical step and would not be, they determined, ever repeated. But the brief period in 1830 when it looked as if Louis Phillipe would accept the French crown caused some tension in the Kingdom of Italy which was quickly subdued by his outright refusal - although he did agree to the marriage of his 14 year old daughter, Clementine, to Henry V, the ten year old (disputed, deposed and abdicated King of France), Count of Chambord when Louis Philippe gave Henry and his mother, Marie Caroline of Two Sicilies, sanctuary in Milan (whilst the British gave sanctuary to Henry IV and Charles X).
The rest of his reign passed in relative peace, especially when compared to the political upheaval of his first sixteen years. Influenced by Leopold of Belgium, he commissioned engineers to build an extensive railway to service his Kingdom and helped to maneuver Venice into a renaissance as a port for trade. He died in 1850 at the age of 76 at the Royal Palace of Milan whereupon he was succeeded by his son, Crown Prince of the Italians, Reginaldo Bourbon.
[2] Named to be a king, Reginaldo wanted more than to be King of the Italians, he wanted to be King of all Italy. But Italy had four other states to contend with. To the west was the Kingdom of Sardina, also known as Piedmont, for it included the Piedmont, or as the States of Savoy, for it included the Duchy of Savoy, in fact its kings were from the House of Savoy. Its capital was Turin. To the immediate south were the Papal States, the territories across central Italy that were ruled by the Pope. A lot of the Papal States had been incorporated into the Kingdom of Italy during the Napoleonic era, but the treaty continuing the kingdom had restored those to the Pope. Of course the capital was Rome. Also there was the small city state of San Marino that was surrounded by the Papal States. Then in the south was the great state of the Two Sicilies with the entire bottom half of the Italian peninsula and the island of Sicily. Its capital was Naples.
Reginaldo had married a local Milanese noble woman, Maria Bianchi, in 1845, and was as Italian in language and culture as his wife, having been raised that way as his nurse and tutors were instructed to use only Italian in raising him. (He did of course later learn other languages: French, German, Spanish, Slovenian, and English.) By the time he became king he had two children, Crown Prince Gregorio, born in 1847, and Princess Phillipa, born in 1849.
Reginaldo wisely decided before he faced the Papal States, he needed to give his forces battle experience. He also needed to be seen as a liberator. So he set his sights on 'liberating' Slovenia from the Austrians. At this time Slovenia, as an Austrian province, included the Italian speaking city of Trieste. The war of liberation lasted from late 1853 into 1854 and was a great success. Reginaldo declared Trieste and its surroundings to be part of the Kingdom of Italy, but the rest of Slovenia he set up as a 'independent' Duchy with a strong treaty making it subservient to the Kingdom of Italy.
After this he turned his sights on the Papal States. This war, in 1856, was also a success, with all of the Papal States except Rome itself, 'liberated' from the earthly rule of the Pope. (San Marino was allowed to remain independent as long as it had no military of its own and used the money and the postal services of the Kingdom of Italy.)
Now Reginaldo had only two other Italian kingdoms to deal with. As the Kingdom of Sardinia was allied with the powerful Second French Empire and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies' only real ally was ever weaker Spain, Reginaldo made an alliance with Turin to defeat Milan and divide up that kingdom between them. The two invaded at the same time in the Spring of 1861, Milan from the north and Turin in Sicily. Quickly Naples fell. The very southern toe of the Peninsula and Sicily went to Sardinia. The rest went to Milan.
Reginaldo then marched north and took Rome, except for the Vatican. The temporal power of the Pope was done. In Rome he declared it his new capital and that he was now King of Italy.
This title did not sit well with Victor Emmanuel of Sardinia, but there was little he could do. For the next few years the two states lived in a peaceful tension. But forces were growing for a union of the two into one Italian state, unfortunately for both royal families, these forces were Republican and threatened revolution. It was one such revolutionary who shot and killed the King of Italy as he was traveling to visit the Pope from his palace in Rome to the Vatican.
The wedding would take place in 25 March 1865, a week after Louisa Caroline Alberta's conversion to Catholicism, the marriage ceremony was performed by Pope Alexander IX, within the Sistine Chapel, the marriage would produce 11 children, giving Queen Victoria, 98 grandchildren in total.
Five years after the marriage, his father was assassinated by revolutionary in Rome, while 23 year old, Gregorio and Louisa was in Milan, visiting how repairs were being made to the city following the invasion.
The death of his father came as a great shock and Gregorio, ordered a state of mourning that lasted for a month.
Sympathy for the royal family grew behind King Gregorio, and republicanism was squashed in his kingdom, while in Sardinia, revolution was in the air, King Victor Emmanuel of Sardinia, his three sons, Umberto, Amadeo and Oddone along with his second wife, Rosa Vercellana, 1st Countess of Mirafiori and Fontanafredda, while his daughter were killed by a rebel army who stormed the palace.
While his daughters Princess Maria Clotilde and Princess Maria Pia, were ransomed back to their mother's Austria.
The Republic of Sardinia only last for eleven years (1871-1882) during the life span of its only President Giuseppe Garibaldi, who although set about democracy, the power struggle that erupted following his death, lead to a civil war that needed Gregorio's army to bring about peace.
So by 1887, the Italian Peninsula and surrounding islands, united the kingdom under Gregorio, but he was not content with stopping there, he believed that his position on earth was set out by God to bring about the new Holy Roman Empire, these beliefs were not publically known until his diaries were published in 2036, 100 years after his death.
His belief would lead him to arrange marriages with his strict Catholic daughters with either prominent Catholics, such as Spain, France and even Austria, with his second daughter Elizabeth married to Crown Prince Karl Franz, her cousin through her aunt Princess Maria of Italy and Crown Prince Rudolf, or with the Orthodox monarchies like Bulgaria and Greece in the hope of converting the Royal family and then the nation, he was even able to marry his eldest child, Princess Maria to the future Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, this also helped him in his colonies, with the Italian nation in a key position to not just scramble for land in Africa, but also maintain a strong trade to improve the economy.
By 1914, Italy had the third largest navy, behind Britain and Germany; while also holding the fourth largest Standing Armies, behind Russia, France and Britain, so when Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria, was shot by a German anarchist, on February 21st in 1915, war broke out.
Austrian-Hungarian Empire declared war on Germany Empire, the Russian Empire and the Ottoman Empire declared war on Austria as allies of Germany, French Second Empire and Swedish Empire as allies of Austria, declared war on Germany. Britain and Italy remained neutral until 1916, when an Ottoman ship shot a Italian cruise ship, with prominent British citizens on board.
With the British and Italian empire now supporting Austria, the war, came to a end in early 1918, with German, Russia and the Ottoman Empire calling for a truce.
The last 18 years of Gregorio's reign saw a tenuous-peace in Europe, with himself as one of the main voices in a softer version of the "Treaty of Innsbruck" signed in Ambras Castle, Renaissance castle and palace located in the hills above Innsbruck, Austria. Stating that the citizen's of Germany and Russia, shouldn't be punished for what their leaders forced upon them.
He died age 89 in his bed, after 64 years on the throne, surrounded by his wife, his surviving 9 children, his 49 grandchildren and 157 great grandchildren, as well as their respective partners, Pope John XXV, Prime Minister, Ivanoe Bonomi and Gregorio's close staff members.
He was succeeded by his grandson, Prince Imperial Umberto Antonio.
[4] Umberto grew up knowing that he would one day be Emperor, and due to his father's death to cancer, he knew he would be King at a relatively young age. In his famous speech to the crew the battleship Louis Phillipe just a few years earlier he promised "to serve the empire with every bit of his being". Intelligent, handsome, and interested in government Umberto seemed to be the embodiment of everything a modern monarch was supposed to be.
That is what makes the coronation massacre one of the seminal tragedies of the twentieth century. The bomb was planted by a day laborer, one Adolf Hitler, an Austrian who wanted vengeance for his nation's defeat at Italian hands in the Great War. The bomb killed not only the young Emperor, but the Pope who was to crown him, his young wife Maria Emanuel, and wounded the visiting Czar Nicolas of Russia and King Edward the VIIIth of the United Kingdom among other members of the Royal Family.
At first there was confusion about who would succeed him as they sorted through who had lived and who died. Umberto Emanuel was succeeded by his cousin, Prince Silvio Romano.
[5] Silvio Romano was the cousin of Umberto Antonio and grandson of Gregorio Antonio by his second son, Prince Matteo Romano. Umberto Antonio had been an only child due to his father's early death from cancer, and when he was killed in the Coronation Day Massacre there was some concern about the line of succession but ultimately a significant proportion of the royal family survived albeit injured. He was 27 when he became Emperor following his own fathers death in thr Spanish Flu Pandemic and whilst he was married, he had produced no children. Whilst a Succession Crisis had been averted, one was looming because whilst Gregorio Antonio had 11 children, only 3 were male, and of those, two had died and the third, in his fifties and already suffering from cancer like his brother, had produced only female issue.
Silvio married Princess Marguerite a descendant of his paternal great great grandfather, Louis Philippe via his daughter Clementines marriage to Henry V, Count of Chambord (via their son, Henry, 2nd Count of Chambord and Ferdinand, 3rd Count of Chambord) and she became Empress Consort upon his coronation - he reigned for thirty years and faced some challenges via continued Austrian Republican Army dissent but their acts were sporadic and limited and only served to reinforce sympathy for the Italian Imperial family.
Eventually Marguerite bore Silvio several children - four sons all of whom survived until adulthood and all of whom were married by the time Silvio died at 59 in an accident whilst testing a race car at Monza and passing the crown to his eldest son, Victor Alberto.
[6] Born in 1939, and named after his eldest uncle, whom in turn was named after his maternal grandparents Queen Victoria and Prince Consort, Albert; Victor Alberto was a healthy and lively child, being sheltered from his families unhappy history, until his late teens.
At twenty-four, Prince Victor Alberto, married his cousin, Princess Irene of Greece, grand-daughter of Constantine I of Greece and Princess Vernice of Italy (daughter of King Gregorio)
At twenty-eight, he succeeds his father, dying during a test race car at Monza, during the most recent Grand Prix.
His fifty-one year rule has been one of securing his families position in the growing liberal and republican fueled European.
At 79, his health is slightly deteriorating and many believe he will abdicate soon, for his son, Prince Edwardo.
