Infante Jaime, Duke of Segovia

Infante Jaime of Spain, Duke of Segovia, Grandee of Spain (Jaime Leopoldo Isabelino Enrique Alejandro Alberto Alfonso Víctor Acacio Pedro Pablo María de Borbón y Battenberg) (23 June 1908 – 20 March 1975), was the second son of King Alfonso XIII of Spain and his wife Princess Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg. He was born in the Royal Palace of La Granja de San Ildefonso in Segovia Province.

Succession

Because he was deaf and mute,^[1] as the result of a childhood operation, he renounced his rights to the Spanish throne for himself and his descendants on 21 June/23 June 1933.^[2] He then became the Duke of Segovia.^[3] After his father's death in 1941, he proclaimed himself the senior legitimate male heir of the House of Capet, heir to the French throne, and head of the House of Bourbon. He then took the title of Duke of Anjou and became, in the opinion of some scholars , de jure King of France. He was known to the French legitimists as Henri VI (after 1957, he signed all documents as Jacques Henri).

In 1921, he became the 1,153rd Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece .

Marriage and issue

On March 4, 1935, in Rome, Jaime married Victoire Jeanne Joséphine Pierre Marie Emmanuelle (Emanuela) de Dampierre (born Rome, 8 November 1913), a noblewoman, daughter of the French nobleman Roger de Dampierre, 2nd Duke of San Lorenzo Nuovo and Viscount of Dampierre, Nobleman of Viterbo (1892–1975) and of the Italian noblewoman Donna Vittoria Ruspoli (1892–1982), daughter of Emanuele Ruspoli, 1st Prince of Poggio Suasa and his third wife English American Josephine Mary Curtiss.^[4] Don Jaime and Donna Emanuela had two sons, named for Jaime's hemophiliac brothers, Alfonso and Gonzalo:

• Alfonso, Duke of Anjou and Cádiz (1936–1989)
• Gonzalo, Duke of Aquitaine (1937–2000)

Don Jaime and Emmanuelle de Dampierre Ruspoli divorced on 4 May 1947 in Bucharest (recognized by the Italian courts in 1949 but never recognized in Spain) and, on 3 August 1949 in Innsbruck, Don Jaime remarried civilly to divorced singer Charlotte Luise Auguste Tiedemann (Königsberg, 2 January 1919 – Berlin, 3 July 1979), daughter of Otto Eugen Tiedemann and wife Luise Klein.^[5] In the eyes of the Roman Catholic Church and of the French legitimists, Emmanuelle de Dampierre remained always his wife. The second marriage produced no children. His first wife remarried in Vienna, on 21 November 1949, to Antonio Sozzani (Milan, 12 July 1918 – Milan, 6 January 2007), son of Cesare Sozzani and wife Cristina Alemani, without issue.

Renunciation

On 6 December 1949, Don Jaime took back his renunciation of the throne of Spain. On 3 May 1964,^[6] he took the title Duke of Madrid as head of the carlist branch of the Spanish succession (recognized as King Jaime IV of Spain by a group of Carlists). On 19 July 1969, Don Jaime definitively renounced the Spanish succession in favour of his nephew, current King Juan Carlos I of Spain, by petition of his son Alfonso de Borbón.

Don Jaime died in St. Gall Cantonal Hospital in Switzerland on 20 March 1975. He is buried at the Royal Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial.

Ancestry

Notes

Bibliography

Zavala, José M. Don Jaime, el trágico Borbón: la maldición del hijo sordomudo de Alfonso XIII. Madrid: La Esfera de los Libros, 2006. ISBN 8497345657. Aranguren, Begoña. Emanuela de Dampierre: memorias, esposa y madre de los Borbones que pudieron reinar en España. Madrid: Esfera de los Libros, 2003. ISBN 8497341414.

External links

• Royal House of Spain
• Royal House of France
• Princely House of Ruspoli