by Susan Flantzer  © Unofficial Royalty 2019

Born as Philippe of France, Duke of Anjou on December 19, 1683, at the Palace of Versailles in France, he was the second of the three sons of Louis, Le Grand Dauphin, the heir apparent to the throne of France, and Maria Anna Victoria of Bavaria. At the time of his birth, his grandfather Louis XIV was King of France. Later Philippe was the first Bourbon King of Spain, reigning as Felipe V.

Philippe had one elder brother and one younger brother:

• Louis, Duke of Burgundy, Le Petit Dauphin (1682 – 1712) married Marie Adélaïde of Savoy, had three sons including Louis XV, King of France
• Charles, Duke of Berry (1686 – 1714), married Marie Louise Élisabeth of Orléans, had three children who all died before they were one month old

Philippe and his two brothers were placed in the care of the royal governess Louise de Prie de La Mothe-Houdancourt who had also been their father’s governess. The brothers were then placed under the care of Paul de Beauvilliers as their governor and tutored by François Fénelon, Archbishop of Cambrai. When Philippe was seven-years-old, his mother died at the Palace of Versailles on April 20, 1690, at the age of 29.

In 1700, Carlos II, King of Spain died childless with no immediate Habsburg heir. Philippe’s father Louis, Le Grand Dauphin had the strongest genealogical claim to the throne of Spain because his mother Maria Teresa, Infanta of Spain had been the half-sister of Carlos II. However, neither Philippe’s father nor his elder brother, Louis, Duke of Burgundy, could be displaced from their place in the succession to the French throne. Therefore, Carlos II, King of Spain, in his will, named 16-year-old Philippe of Anjou, Duke of Anjou as his successor.

On November 16, 1700, at the Palace of Versailles, the King’s Council agreed that Philippe would become King of Spain. The Spanish ambassador was called in and was introduced to his new king, King Felipe V, the first Bourbon King of Spain. The ambassador knelt before Felipe and made a long speech in Spanish which Felipe did not understand as he had not yet learned Spanish. King Felipe V of Spain left Versailles on December 4, 1700, entered Spain on January 22, 1701, and made his triumphal entry into Madrid on February 18, 1701.

However, disputes over the separation of the Spanish and French crowns, division of territories and commercial rights led to the War of the Spanish Succession (1701 – 1714) between the Bourbons who now ruled in France and Spain and the Grand Alliance (Holy Roman Empire, Great Britain, the Dutch Republic, and Habsburg Spain) whose candidate for the Spanish throne was Archduke Charles, younger son of Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor. Peace was finally made in 1714. In return for his confirmation as King of Spain, Felipe V renounced succession rights to the French throne for both himself and his descendants. Any union of the French and Spanish crowns was forbidden. Spain retained the majority of its possessions outside Europe but its territories in Italy and the Netherlands were divided between Austria, Great Britain, and Savoy. The Dutch Republic was granted its Barrier Fortresses which created a buffer zone between the Dutch Republic and the Kingdom of France.  France acknowledged the Protestant succession in Great Britain and agreed to end support for the Stuart exiles.

Soon after his arrival in Spain, Felipe’s grandfather King Louis XIV arranged a marriage for him. In order to strengthen Felipe’s shaky authority over Spain due to his French birth, Louis XIV decided to maintain ties with Vittorio Amadeo II, Duke of Savoy whose eldest daughter Marie Adélaïde of Savoy was already married to Felipe’s elder brother Louis, Duke of Burgundy, Le Petit Dauphin. Felipe was betrothed to thirteen-year-old Maria Luisa of Savoy. In Turin, Duchy of Savoy, Felipe and Maria Luisa were married by proxy on September 12, 1701. Maria Luisa then left for Spain where the young couple met for the first time on November 2, 1701, and were married in person at a local parish church in Figueres, Spain.

Felipe and Maria Luisa had four sons but only two survived childhood and they both had childless marriages:

• Luis I, King of Spain (1707 – 1724), married Louise Élisabeth of Orléans, no children
• Felipe, Infante of Spain (born and died 1709)
• Felipe, Infante of Spain (1712 – 1719)
• Fernando VI, King of Spain (1713 – 1759), married Bárbara of Portugal, no surviving children

Felipe and Maria Luisa had a loving, happy marriage. She acted as Regent of Spain from 1702 until 1703 during Felipe’s absence due to the War of the Spanish Succession and had great influence over him as his adviser. Sadly, Maria Luisa died from tuberculosis at the age of 25 on February 14, 1714. She was buried in the Pantheon of Kings in the Royal Crypt of the Monastery of El Escorial.

On December 24, 1714, ten months after the death of Maria Luisa, Felipe married again to Elisabeth Farnese of Parma, the only surviving child of Odoardo Farnese, Hereditary Prince of Parma and Dorothea Sophie of Neuburg. Because of the lack of male heirs of Elisabeth’s father, her uncle-stepfather, and her youngest uncle, who all succeeded one another as Duke of Parma, changes were legally made for the succession of the Duchy of Parma in the female line through Maria Luisa. Eventually, her second son Felipe became the Duke of Parma and founded the House of Bourbon-Parma.

Felipe and Elisabeth had six children:

• Carlos III, King  of Spain (1716 – 1788), married Maria Amalia of Saxony, had thirteen children including Carlos IV, King of Spain
• Mariana Victoria, Infanta of Spain (1718 – 1781), married José I, King of Portugal, had four daughters
• Felipe, Infante of Spain, Duke of Parma (1720 – 1765), married Louise Élisabeth of France, had three children, Felipe was founder of the House of Bourbon-Parma
• Maria Theresa Rafaela, Infanta of Spain (1726 – 1746), married Louis, Dauphin of France, had one daughter who did not survive childhood
• Louis, Count of Chinchón (1727 – 1785), Archbishop of Toledo, Primate of Spain and Cardinal renounced his ecclesiastical titles, married morganatically María Teresa de Vallabriga, had four children
• Maria Antonietta Fernanda, Infanta of Spain (1729 – 1785), wife of Vittorio Amadeo III, King of Sardinia, had twelve children

On January 14, 1724, Felipe abdicated the Spanish throne to Luis, his seventeen-year-old eldest son from his first marriage, for reasons that are still unclear. Perhaps it was because Felipe suffered from mental instability and did not wish to reign due to his increasing mental decline. Another theory is that Felipe was concerned about the succession to the French throne due to several deaths. Although the treaty which ended the War of the Spanish Succession forbade a union of the French and Spanish crowns, perhaps Felipe hoped that by abdicating the Spanish throne, he could succeed to the French throne if necessary. However, seven months later, Felipe was forced to once again ascend to the Spanish throne because King Luis I died of smallpox and Felipe’s younger son, the future King Fernando VI, was not yet of legal age.

As he grew older, Felipe’s mental issues worsened and his wife Elisabeth became the de facto ruler of Spain. Only the singing of the Italian castrato opera singer Farinelli (born Carlo Maria Michelangelo Nicola Broschi) brought any peace to Felipe. Farinelli would sing eight or nine arias for the king and queen every night, usually with a trio of musicians.

Felipe V, King of Spain died of a stroke at the age of 62 on July 9, 1746, in El Escorial, Spain. He expressly requested not to be buried at the traditional burial site, the Pantheon of Kings in the Royal Crypt of the Monastery of El Escorial. Instead, Felipe was buried in the Collegiate Church of the Holy Trinity at the Royal Palace of La Granja de San Ildefonso, known as La Granja, in the province of Segovia in central Spain. The architecture of La Granja reminded him of the longed-for French court of his childhood. His second wife Elisabeth survived him by twenty years, dying on July 11, 1766, at the age of 73, and was buried with her husband.

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Works Cited

• De.wikipedia.org. (2018). Philipp V. (Spanien). [online] Available at: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philipp_V._(Spanien) [Accessed 31 Oct. 2018].
• En.wikipedia.org. (2018). Elisabeth Farnese. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisabeth_Farnese [Accessed 31 Oct. 2018].
• En.wikipedia.org. (2018). Maria Luisa of Savoy. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Luisa_of_Savoy [Accessed 31 Oct. 2018].
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• Fraser, A. (2006). Love and Louis XIV. New York: Nan A. Talese Doubleday.