Maria Sophie of Bavaria

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Marie Sophie, Queen of Naples
Photograph by Franz Hanfstaengl (1859)

Maria Sophie Amalie, Duchess in Bavaria, (4 October 1841, Possenhofen Castle -19 January 1925, Munich) was the last Queen consort of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. She was one of the ten children of Maximilian Joseph, Duke in Bavaria and Princess Ludovika of Bavaria. Maria Sophia was the younger sister of the better-known Elisabeth of Bavaria ("Sissi") who married Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria.

On 3 February 1859 Maria Sophie married Francis II of the Two Sicilies, the son of Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies, King of Naples. Within the year, with the death of the king, her husband ascended to the throne as Francis II of the Two Sicilies, and Maria Sophie became queen of a realm that was shortly to be overwhelmed by the forces of Giuseppe Garibaldi and Italian unity.

In September of 1860, as the Garibaldine troops were moving towards Naples, his capital, Francis II decided to leave the city. At the beginning, he planned to organise a resistance in Capua. However, after that city had also been lost to the Garibaldines in the aftermath of the battle of the Volturnus (October), he and Marie Sophie took refuge in the strong coastal fortress of Gaeta, 80 km north of Naples.

During the Siege of Gaeta in late 1860 and early 1861, the forces of Victor Emmanuel II bombarded and eventually overcame the defenders. It was this brief "last stand of the Bourbons" that gained Maria Sophia the reputation of the strong "warrior queen" that stayed with her for the rest of her life. She was tireless in her efforts to rally the defenders, giving them her own food, caring for the wounded, and daring the attackers to come within range of the fortress cannon.

With the fall of Gaeta and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, Maria Sophia and her husband went into exile in Rome, the capital of what for 1,000 years had been the sizeable Papal States, a large piece of central Italy but which, by 1860, had been reduced to the city of Rome, itself, as the armies of Victor Emanuel II came down from the north to join up with Garibaldi, the conqueror of the south. King Francis set up a government in exile in Rome that enjoyed diplomatic recognition by most European states for a few years as still the legitimate government of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

In 1870, Rome fell to the forces of Italy and the King and Queen moved into exile elsewhere. The king died in 1894. Maria Sophia spent time in Munich, and then moved to Paris where she presided over somewhat of an informal Bourbon court-in-exile. It was rumored she was involved in the anarchist assassination of King Humbert in 1900 in hopes of destabilizing the new nation-state of Italy. Recent historians have resurrected that rumor based on the apparent credence given to this conspiracy theory by the then Prime Minister of Italy, Giovanni Giolitti. Others regard it as anecdotal. In any event, the case against Maria Sophia is circumstantial.

During World War I, Maria Sophie was actively on the side of the German Empire and Austria-Hungary in their war with the Kingdom of Italy. Again, the rumors claimed she was involved in sabotage and espionage against Italy in the hope that an Italian defeat would tear the nation apart and that the kingdom of Naples would be restored. She died in 1925 in Munich.

Her wealth and privilege were, to a certain extent, overshadowed by personal tragedies. In 1862, she had twins. She was still married to Francis but the father was Armand de Lawayss, a Belgian count. Both twins survived but were taken from her by her scandal-conscious royal Bavarian relatives. It is not clear that she ever saw them again, except once or twice, briefly and under supervision. On 24 December 1869, and after ten years of marriage, Marie Sophie gave birth a daughter, Cristina, the only legitimate child with her husband. The girl only lived three months and died on 28 March 1870.

In 1897, her younger sister, Sophie, died heroically while trying to help others from a burning building. Shortly thereafter, in 1898, her older sister, Elisabeth, the wife of Francis Joseph, the next-to-last Austrian emperor, was stabbed to death by Luigi Lucheni, an anarchist.

During her life, she generated an almost cult-like air of admiration even among her political enemies. Gabriele D'Annunzio called her the "stern little Bavarian eagle" and Marcel Proust spoke of the "soldier queen on the ramparts of Gaeta."

[edit] Ancestry

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Ancestors of Maria Sophie of Bavaria

16. John, Count Palatine of Birkenfeld-Gelnhausen

8. William, Duke in Bavaria

17. Wildgravine and Rhinegravine Sophie Charlotte of Dhaun

4. Pius August, Duke in Bavaria

18. Count Palatine Frederick Michael of Zweibrücken (= 12)

9. Countess Palatine Maria Anna of Zweibrücken-Birkenfeld

19. Countess Palatine Maria Franziska of Sulzbach (= 13)

2. Maximilian Joseph, Duke in Bavaria

20. Charles, Duke of Arenberg

10. Louis-Marie, Duke of Arenberg

21. Louise Margarete de la Marck-Schleiden, Countess of Vardes

5. Princess Amélie Louise of Arenberg

22. Louis Joseph de Mailly, Marquis of Nesle

11. Marie Adélaïde Julie de Mailly

23. Adélaïde Julie d'Hautefort

1. Maria Sophie of Bavaria

24. Christian III, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken

12. Count Palatine Frederick Michael of Zweibrücken

25. Caroline of Nassau-Saarbrücken

6. Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria

26. Joseph Karl Emanuel August, Count Palatine of Sulzbach

13. Countess Palatine Maria Franziska of Sulzbach

27. Countess Palatine Elizabeth Augusta Sophie of Neuburg

3. Princess Ludovika of Bavaria

28. Charles Frederick, Grand Duke of Baden

14. Charles Louis, Hereditary Prince of Baden

29. Landgravine Karoline Luise of Hesse-Darmstadt

7. Caroline of Baden

30. Louis IX, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt

15. Landgravine Amalie of Hesse-Darmstadt

31. Countess Palatine Caroline of Zweibrücken

Preceded by Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria	Queen Consort of the Two Sicilies 22 May 1859-17 December 1860	Succeeded by None

[edit] Notes and citations

This item originated as an abridged and edited version of an article that appears in an online encyclopedia of Naples and has been inserted here by the author and copyright holder of that article.