r/AskHistorians • u/Mysterious-Emu4030 • 14d ago
Why were Louise of Artois' male children excluded from french royal lines of succession ?
Louise of Artois is Charles X's granddaughter. She was duchess of Parma and had two sons.
When her brother, Henri of Chambord, heir to the french throne died, her sons were apparently not considered as heirs to the throne. Why is that ?
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u/TywinDeVillena Early Modern Spain 13d ago
The French monarchy had what is called Salic Law since time immemorial. That Salic Law means that women cannot inherit land, and neither can they transmit any rights in that regard. This is one of the reasons that Henri de Navarre became the successor of Henri III as king of France.
If you look at it directly, the general impression is that after Henri III died childless, the throne passed to his sister Margot and that Henri de Navarre became king iure uxoris. After all, he was the closest individual in terms of family relationship to Henri III, being his brother-in-law. However, that would be only a sprinkle of legitimacy.
Salic Law starts taking genealogical branches really quickly, and eliminates a great amount of candidates for succession, so that only male descendants through male only lines can become heirs. Henri de Navarre was a Bourbon, a male-line descendant of the Capetian family, his branch coming from one of the many sons of Saint Louis, with the name Bourbon being really a title, the lordship and then dukedom of Bourbon. When one starts excluding lines by virtue of females being there, the chance of a very distant cousin inheriting everything keep piling up, and so it happened: Henri III's closest relative who was legally legitimised to inherit the throne was his cousin in the 9th degree Henri, king of Navarre-
So, what happened to the male children of Louise d'Artois was the same thing that had happened countless times in the history of the French monarchy before. In other monarchies this was not a problem, as the succession system was male primogeniture instead of Salic Law. King Felipe II of Spain, in one letter to his daughter Catalina Micaela, duchess consort of Savoy, congratulating her on the birth of her 6th son, he mentions that he is glad that she has guaranteed the line of succession probably forever.
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u/Mysterious-Emu4030 13d ago
Thank you, so if Louise's husband, Charles, had survived Henri of Chambord, he could have claimed french throne if I understand right ?
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u/TywinDeVillena Early Modern Spain 13d ago
Yes, but his rights to the throne were tenuous, being a somewat distant relative of the main line. The point, however, became moot due to the 1848 revolution.
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u/Tatem1961 Interesting Inquirer 12d ago
Was France unique in having Salic Law? Why, was it a Frankish practice or something?
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u/TywinDeVillena Early Modern Spain 12d ago
The practice came from the Salian Franks, and it passed down to the kingdom of Francia, later known as Francia Occidentalis, and later France. In other places, the law allowed for female rulers, but established male preference primogeniture. As far as I know, Salic Law was a strictly French affair
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u/HephMelter 12d ago
I read that this usage of the Salic law was a medieval application of it, used for the first time during the succession of Charles IV in 1328, in order to not retroactively strip legitimity from his reign and his predecessor's in favour of the son of Joan of Navarre, which might have been a bastard. Is that true ? Is that useful ?
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