Once I was a clever boy learning the arts of Oxford... is a quotation from the verses written by Bishop Richard Fleming (c.1385-1431) for his tomb in Lincoln Cathedral. Fleming, the founder of Lincoln College in Oxford, is the subject of my research for a D. Phil., and, like me, a son of the West Riding. I have remarked in the past that I have a deeply meaningful on-going relationship with a dead fifteenth century bishop... it was Fleming who, in effect, enabled me to come to Oxford and to learn its arts, and for that I am immensely grateful.


Thursday 19 June 2014

Meanwhile in another Bourbon kingdom


In addition to today's events in Spain in another Bourbon monarchy it is also accession day. Today is the fifteenth anniversary of the accession to the position of claimant of the de jure King Henri VII of France following the death on this day in 1999 of his father the de jure King Henri VI. Better known to the world as the Count of Paris, there is an online account of the present head of the Bourbon Orleanist house here, and one of his father here.



Prince Henri Philippe Pierre Marie d'Orleans, the Count of Paris and his second wife Princess Mickaela arrive at Senlis Cathedral to attend the wedding of his son Jean de France with Philomena de Tornos on May 2, 2009 in Senlis, France. 

Image:wc.rootsweb.ancestry.com/Photo by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images 

The French Royal House has struggled, with varying degrees of intensity, over the legitimist issue ever since Louis Philippe took the throne, rather than acting as Regent in 1830. Given the reconciliation - however much crossing of fingers there may have - been between King Henri V and Philippe of Orleans before the former's death in 1883, the succession should be clear. The issue has not been helped by some of the tensions within the Orleanist family nor by the claims in the nineteenth century of the Carlist Spanish line or, more recently, of the Spanish Angevin Bourbon to be King Louis XX. These various claims - some of which appear tenuous or highly partisan - have not helped the French monarchist cause, and, as I have pointed out on other occasions, that is one which shows surprising resilience.

File:Coat of Arms of the Bourbon Restoration (1815-30).svg

Image:Wikipedia 

Vive Le Roi!


 

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