Could Prince Eugene of Savoy, known for his OTL exploits in the field first on behalf of Austria and then of France have possibly married Maria Antonia of Austria? Her OTL son was a candidate for the Spanish succession before dying young, and I'm wondering if ale progeny from this marriage could inherit the Italian possessions of the Spanish hapsburgs, if not Spain itself, assuming the Spanish succession crisis still happens on schedule.
 
The thing is, Eugene was pretty far down in the Savoyard succession, even though Leopold I DID consider his cousin, the duke of Savoy, as a potential marriage candidate for her.
 
As said, Eugene was the juniormost prince in the House of Savoy. He was gay. Most of his revenues came from ecclesiastical livings in Savoy he could not continue to hold while married. All of this pleaded for "living free" his all life. OTL, he seemed to have considered his nephews as his heirs. But their mother was too lowborn for them to marry an Austrian archduchess. The best Eugene could manage was a Liechtenstein princess.
 

Vitruvius

Donor
I agree with the above comments about the difference in their relative ranks but I think the main obstacle would be that Eugene never showed any interest in marrying anyone ever. Whether that was because he was homosexual or not I couldn't say but he was offered a pretty good bride OTL, one of the Lauenburg sisters who were heiresses to substantial holdings in Bohemia (with the other sister going to another Imperial General the Emperor wished to reward, Louis of Baden who was coincidentally Eugene's cousin), and he refused the match. So that's the first problem. Then as mentioned there's his low rank, the younger son of a cadet branch of the House of Savoy. Also his older brother, the Count of Soissons and head of the family, would have still been serving Louis XIV at the time Maria Antonia was married and what's more Eugene had only been in Imperial service a few years and had yet to really distinguish himself.

As a side note I'm confused as to what was meant by "exploits in the field first on behalf of Austria and then of France" because Eugene never fought for or on behalf of France and was only ever in Austrian service, either against the Ottomans or against the French.
 
As a side note I'm confused as to what was meant by "exploits in the field first on behalf of Austria and then of France" because Eugene never fought for or on behalf of France and was only ever in Austrian service, either against the Ottomans or against the French.
I think I had him confused with one of his French contemporaries.
 
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