Jaime de Borbón

Jacques-Henri de Bourbon, originally named Jaime Luitpoldo Isabelino Enrique Alejandro Alberto Víctor Acacio Pedro Pablo María de Borbón y Battenberg, was born on June 23, 1908, at the Royal Palace of La Granja de San Ildefonso in Spain’s province of Segovia. He was the second son of King Alfonso XIII of Spain and his British wife, Victoria Eugenia of Battenberg. At birth, he received the rank of Spanish infante. He was baptized on June 29, 1908, in the palace throne room; his godfather was Prince Regent Luitpold of Bavaria, and his godmother was his aunt, Infanta Isabella. A severe case of double mastoiditis led to an unsuccessful ear operation in 1912. Jacques consequently became deaf and temporarily lost the ability to speak. He later learned to read lips and, with the help of his second wife Charlotte, who had worked as a singer before their marriage, partially regained his speech. The Spanish monarchy in which Jacques grew up was politically contested. The Carlists in particular rejected it, invoking Salic succession law and supporting other Bourbon claims. In 1931, Alfonso XIII was overthrown by Spanish republicans, and the royal family went into exile. The former king initially lived in France, but in 1934 the family moved to Rome. Jacques was one of the witnesses at the wedding of his brother Juan, the future Count of Barcelona. After the deaths of several senior Bourbon relatives, Jacques’s dynastic position changed repeatedly. His elder brother Alfonso, the former Prince of Asturias, renounced his claims to the Spanish throne in 1933 under pressure from their father. As a result, Jacques was briefly regarded by supporters of Alfonso XIII as Prince of Asturias. Only a few days later, however, Jacques himself renounced his Spanish dynastic rights in writing, because his deafness and speech impairment were considered obstacles to a possible restoration of the monarchy. On March 4, 1935, his father granted him the courtesy title Duke of Segovia on the occasion of his marriage. After his brother’s death in 1938, Jacques became the legitimate heir to the French throne in the eyes of the Legitimists. When Alfonso XIII died in Rome on February 28, 1941, Jacques was regarded as the senior descendant of the French kings from the House of Bourbon. The Legitimists consequently recognized him as de jure King of France and Navarre under the name Jacques II. Shortly after his father’s death, Jacques moved with his wife and their two sons to Lausanne. There he came into closer contact with French Legitimists for the first time. His wife, Emmanuelle de Dampierre, encouraged him to engage with the monarchist movement. After the Second World War, Jacques publicly assumed his position as head of the French House of Bourbon. He adopted the courtesy title Duke of Anjou, used the full French royal arms, and declared before a notary in 1946 that he renounced neither his claims to the French throne nor his right to bear the royal lilies. That same year, he appointed Jacques de Bauffremont-Courtenay as his representative in France. From 1952 onward, Jacques presided each year in Paris over the memorial Mass for King Louis XVI, who had been executed in 1793. In 1957, he began signing his French documents as Jaime Henri or Jacques Henri. The Legitimists therefore thereafter referred to him as Henri VI. From 1949, Jacques lived in France again, first in Cannes and at Cap d’Antibes, and later in Rueil-Malmaison, Paris, and Neuilly-sur-Seine. He took part in dynastic and monarchist events, including a ceremony at the Basilica of Saint-Denis in 1956 and the unveiling of a memorial plaque for Jean d’Orléans in Angoulême in 1967. In 1950, he granted his sons the courtesy titles Duke of Bourbon and Duke of Burgundy, and Duke of Brittany respectively; the younger son later received the title Duke of Aquitaine. Jacques later revived his claims to the Spanish throne as well. In 1949, he publicly revoked his earlier renunciations, declaring that they had been made without a valid legal basis and under pressure from his father and, later, his brother. He considered himself the senior male heir of the last Spanish king. In 1963, he declared himself head and sovereign of the Order of the Golden Fleece. In 1964, he adopted the courtesy title Duke of Madrid and sought to unite the Carlist and Alfonsist traditions. After his mother’s death in 1969, he added the title Duke of Toledo. That same year, Jacques finally accepted the planned succession of his nephew Juan Carlos, although Juan Carlos was not the senior descendant of the Spanish kings. He justified his decision by referring to Spain’s common good, peace, and the prosperity of its people. His relationship with his younger brother Juan nevertheless remained strained, because Juan did not recognize Jacques’s French or Spanish claims. The estrangement became especially evident when Jacques was not invited to the wedding of Juan’s elder son, Juan Carlos, to Princess Sophia of Greece. On March 4, 1935, Jacques married Vittoria Jeanne Emmanuelle Joséphine Pierre-Marie de Dampierre in Rome. She came from a French-Italian aristocratic family. They had two sons, Alfonso and Gonzalve. In 1949, Jacques contracted a second civil marriage in Innsbruck with Charlotte Tiedemann, a German singer who had been divorced twice. For the Catholic Church and the Legitimists, however, Emmanuelle de Dampierre remained his principal wife and was later regarded as the widow of the Duke of Anjou and Segovia. In 1962, following an application by his sons, a judicial adviser was appointed to administer Jacques’s property; Jacques won the ensuing legal dispute. In 1970, he moved back to Lausanne. After falling in the street, he was admitted to hospital on February 27, 1975, and died at the Cantonal Hospital of St. Gallen on March 20 despite undergoing surgery. He was initially buried in Lausanne. In 1985, with the consent of his nephew, King Juan Carlos, his remains were transferred to the Pantheon of the Infantes at the Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial.