The impressive history of the royal House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies

The House of Bourbon - Two Sicilies descends from Philippe de Bourbon, Duke of Anjou. He was a grandson of King Louis XIV of France. He  founded the Bourbon dynasty of Spain.

It was Philippe's grandson, Ferdinand who became in 1759 King of Naples and Sicily.

His descendants occupied the joint throne, merged as the "Kingdom of the Two Sicilies" in 1816, until 1861, claimed it thereafter from exile, and constitute the extant Bourbon-Two Sicilies family.

A dispute

The succession of the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies has, since 1960, been disputed between the senior Calabrian line, which is currently being represented by Prince Pedro, Duke of Calabria (born 1968)

and the junior Castro line, which is currently being represented by Prince Carlo, Duke of Castro (born 1963). 

Since Prince Carlo, Duke of Castro, has only daughters, in accordance with the traditional male-line succession of the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, the succession in theory should go to the senior Calabrian line since Prince Pedro, Duke of Calabria has male heirs. Efforts of reconciliation were carried out in 2014, but have been followed by continuing arguing within the family as Prince Carlo, Duke of Castro, insists on a break with tradition by transmitting succession to his eldest daughter.

Where does the name came from?

The name of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies came from the unification of the Kingdom of Sicily with the Kingdom of Naples (called the kingdom of peninsular Sicily), by King Alfonso V of Aragon in 1442. 

The two had been separated since the Sicilian Vespers of 1282. At the death of King Alfonso in 1458, the kingdoms became divided between his brother John II of Aragon, who kept Sicily, and his bastard
son Ferdinand, who became King of Naples. The crowns of Naples and Sicily remained functionally separate, albeit often ruled by the same monarch, until their formal union in 1816.

In 1860–61 with influence from Great Britain and William Ewart Gladstone's propaganda, the kingdom was absorbed into the Kingdom of Sardinia, and the title dropped.  It is still claimed by the head of the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies.

Who is who?

It always is very interesting who were the famous members of the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies.

Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies

Ferdinand I (12 January 1751 – 4 January 1825) was the King of the Two Sicilies from 1816, after his restoration following victory in the Napoleonic Wars.  Before that he had been, since 1759, Ferdinand IV of the Kingdom of Naples and Ferdinand III of the Kingdom of Sicily. He was also King of Gozo. He was deposed twice from the throne of Naples: once by the revolutionary Parthenopean Republic for six months in 1799 and again by Napoleon in 1805, before being restored in 1815.

Ferdinand was the third son of King Charles VII of Naples and V of Sicily by his wife, Maria Amalia of Saxony. On 10 August 1759, Charles succeeded his elder half-brother, Ferdinand VI, becoming
King Charles III of Spain, but treaty provisions made him ineligible to hold all three crowns. On 6 October, he abdicated his Neapolitan and Sicilian titles in favour of his third son, because his eldest son
Philip had been excluded from succession due to imbecility and his second son Charles was heir-apparent to the Spanish throne. Ferdinand was the founder of the cadet House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies.

👉 One of the daughters of King Ferdinand I was Princess Maria Amalia. She married to Louis Philippe I, King of the French. They were the parents of Louise, the first Queen of Belgium.

Francis I of Bourbon-Two Sicilies

Francis was born the son of Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies and his wife Archduchess Maria Carolina of Austria in Naples.  He was also the nephew of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI, the last King and Queen of France before the first French Republic. In 1796 Francis married his double first cousin Archduchess Maria Clementina of Austria, daughter of Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor. When she died in 1801, he married his paternal first cousin María Isabella, youngest daughter of King Charles IV of Spain.

After the Bourbon family fled from Naples to Sicily in 1806, Lord William Bentinck, the British resident, had drafted a new constitution along British and French lines. Ferdinand agreed to abdicate
his throne, with Francis being appointed regent in 1812.

On the abdication of Napoleon I, his father returned to Naples and suppressed the Sicilian constitution, incorporating his two kingdoms into that of the Two Sicilies (1816); Francis then assumed the revived
title of duke of Calabria. 

While still heir apparent he professed liberal ideas, and on the outbreak of the revolution of 1820 he accepted the regency, apparently in a friendly spirit towards the new constitution, although he was
actually as conservative as his father.

Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies

Ferdinand II (12 January 1810 – 22 May 1859) was King of the Two Sicilies from 1830 until his death in 1859. Ferdinand was born in Palermo to King Francis I of the Two Sicilies and his second wife Maria Isabella of Spain.

In his early years he was fairly popular. Progressives credited him with Liberal ideas and, in addition, his free and easy manners endeared him to the so-called lazzaroni, the lower classes of Neapolitan society. In 1837, he violently suppressed Sicilian demonstrators demanding a constitution and maintained strict police surveillance in his domains.

In September 1847, violent riots inspired by Liberals broke out in Reggio Calabria and in Messina, which were put down by the military. On 12 January 1848 a rising in Palermo spread throughout
the island and served as a spark for the Revolutions of 1848 all over Europe.

During this period, Ferdinand showed his attachment to Pope Pius IX by granting him asylum at Gaeta. The Pope had been temporarily forced to flee from Rome following similar revolutionary disturbances.

Between 1848 and 1851, the policies of King Ferdinand caused many to go into exile. Meanwhile, an estimated 2,000 suspected revolutionaries or dissidents were jailed.

He died on 22 May 1859, shortly after the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Sardinia had declared war against the Austrian Empire. This would later lead to the invasion of his Kingdom by Giuseppe Garibaldi and Italian unification in 1861.

Francis II of the Two Sicilies

Francis II 16 January 1836 – 27 December 1894 was King of the Two Sicilies from 1859 to 1861. He was the last King of the Two Sicilies, as successive invasions by Giuseppe Garibaldi and Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia ultimately brought an end to his rule, as part of Italian unification. After he was deposed, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and the Kingdom of Sardinia were merged into the newly formed Kingdom of Italy. He was married to Maria Sophie of Bavaria, sister of Empress

Elisabeth of Austria (Sisi).

Prince Alfonso, Count of Caserta

Prince Alfonso, Count of Caserta (28 March 1841 – 26 May 1934) was the third son of Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies and Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria. He was pretender to the throne of the Two Sicilies in succession of his older half-brother, Francis II of the Two Sicilies. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Ferdinand Pius. He was married to his niece Princess Maria Antoinetta of Bourbon-Two Sicilies. 

Prince Philip of Bourbon-Two Sicilies

Prince Philip (10 December 1885 – 9 March 1949)  was the tenth child of Prince Alfonso of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Count of Caserta, and his wife, Princess Maria Antonietta of Bourbon-Two Sicilies.

Philip married firstly to Princess Marie Louise of Orléans, eldest daughter and child of Prince Emmanuel, Duke of Vendôme and his wife Princess Henriette of Belgium, on 12 January 1916 in Neuilly-sur-Seine. The couple had one child before their divorce in 1925. 

Prince Ferdinand Pius, Duke of Castro

Prince Ferdinand Pius (Ferdinando Pio Maria), Duke of Castro (25 July 1869, Rome – 7 January 1960, Lindau), was head of the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies and pretender to the throne of the extinct Kingdom of the Two Sicilies from 1934 to 1960.

Infante Alfonso, Duke of Calabria

Infante Alfonso of Spain, Prince of the Two Sicilies, Duke of Calabria (30 November 1901 – 3 February 1964) was one of two claimants to the title of the head of the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies from

1960 until his death in 1964. Alfonso was the son of Prince Carlos of Bourbon-Two Sicilies (1870–1949) and his wife, María de las Mercedes, Princess of Asturias (1880–1904). He was born and
died in Madrid, Spain.

Alfonso's mother was María de las Mercedes, Princess of Asturias, but she died in childbirth in 1904. Alfonso XIII, King of Spain was unmarried at the time so as the Princess of the Asturias's eldest son,
the young infante became heir-presumptive to the Spanish crown, though, unlike his mother, he never held the title of Prince of Asturias. He was heir-presumptive until the birth of his cousin, Alfonso in
1907, to Alfonso XIII and Queen Victoria Eugenie. He was married to his second cousin Princess Alice of Bourbon-Parma.

 Prince Louis, Count of Trani

Prince Louis Maria of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Count of Trani (1 August 1838, Naples – 8 June 1886, Paris) was the eldest son of Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies and his second wife Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria. On 5 June 1861, Louis married Duchess Mathilde Ludovika in Bavaria, the fourth daughter of Maximilian, Duke in Bavaria and Princess Ludovika of Bavaria. 

Two of Mathilde's sisters were Elisabeth of Bavaria, married to the Emperor of Austria, and Marie Sophie of Bavaria, wife of Louis's older half-brother Francis II of the Two Sicilies. The marriage was unsuccessful almost from the start, and while Louis took refuge in alcohol, Mathilde spent most of
her life traveling from place to place, often accompanied by her sisters. More about Prince Louis, Count of Trani on this link.

The House of Bourbon - Two Sicilies

As this article brought you through the big lines of the amazing history of the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, it doesn't tell  everything. That's really impossible. However this history is  very impressive!

Source pictures: Wikipedia