Infante Carlos, Duke of Calabria

Marriage

In April 1961 Carlos met his future wife, Princess Anne of Orléans, in Madrid, at the wedding of his elder sister, Princess Teresa, with Don Iñigo Moreno, future Marquès de Laula.^[5] In May 1962 they met again at the wedding in Athens of Infante Juan Carlos to Princess Sophia, daughter of the Greek king Paul of the Hellenes, appearing together at each of several occasions over the course of the week-long wedding celebrations.^[5] Two months later, Anne was invited to and visited the home of Carlos's parents at Toledana.^[5] By the end of 1963, the secret was out: French news media pictured the couple together and speculated about the date when the engagement of the royal couple would be announced publicly.^[5]

Although both were Roman Catholic Bourbons by male-line descent, a disagreement now erupted between the couple's fathers about the dynastic claim of Carlos's father to the legacy of the deposed Bourbon-Sicily dynasty, whose last undisputed head, Ferdinand, Duke of Calabria, had died childless in January 1960.^[5] Carlos's father, Infante Alfonso, had asserted himself as rightful heir because his late father, Carlo of Bourbon-Sicily (1870-1949), had been Calabria's next oldest brother.^[5] Anne's father Henri, Comte de Paris, however, upheld the claim of Ferdinand's next younger brother, Prince Ranieri, Duke of Castro (1883-1973) to the headship of the house, contending that Carlo had renounced his and his future descendants' Sicilian rights when he married the Spanish heiress presumptive, Mercedes of Asturias, in 1901, no doubt being mindful that his own claim to be head of the royal House of France depended upon the validity of the 1713 renunciation of a senior Bourbon prince, Philippe, Duc d'Anjou, in favor of the junior House of Orléans. The Comte de Paris withheld his consent, thus plans for the couple's marriage were dropped.^[5]

Carlos's father died in 1964, and with patience, persistence and compromise from afar, he eventually obtained the hand of his bride.^[5] The 250 guests received one of two different invitations from either the bride's parents or the groom; the former referred to the bride's marriage to "HRH Prince Carlos of Bourbon", while the latter announced the wedding of "Princess Anne of France" to the "Duke of Calabria". On 11 May 1965 at Louveciennes the "lovers of the Gotha" (as the press dubbed the couple) were married in a civil ceremony and the following day, the Comte de Paris escorted his daughter to the altar at the Chapelle royale de Dreux, the Orléans' traditional parish chapel and necropolis, for Catholic nuptials.^[5]

Issue

The couple had five children^[2] and twenty grandchildren:

• Princess Cristina of Bourbon-Two Sicilies (15 March 1966); married Pedro Lopez-Quesada y Fernandez-Urrutia (cousin of Queen Fabiola of Belgium) on 15 July 1994. They have two children:
  • Victoria López-Quesada y de Borbón-Dos Sicilias (1997)
  • Pedro López-Quesada y de Bórbon-Dos Sicilias (2003)
• Princess María of Bourbon-Two Sicilies (5 April 1967); married Archduke Simeon of Austria on 13 July 1996. They have five children.
• Prince Pedro of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Duke of Calabria (16 October 1968); married Sofia Landaluce y Melgareja on 30 March 2001. They have seven children.
• Princess Inés María of Bourbon-Two Sicilies (20 April 1971); married Nobile Michele Carrelli Palombi dei Marchesi di Raiano on 13 October 2001. They have two daughters:
  • Nob. Teresa Carrelli Palombi dei Marchesi di Raiano (6 December 2003)
  • Nob. Blanca Carrelli Palombi dei Marchesi di Raiano (11 December 2005)
• Princess Victoria of Bourbon-Two Sicilies (24 May 1976); married Markos Nomikos on 27 September 2003. They have four children:
  • Anastasios Nomikos (27 May 2005)
  • Ana Nomikos (August 2006)
  • Carlos Nomikos (22 September 2008)
  • Simeon Nomikos (20 December 2012)

Titles and styles

• 16 January 1938 - 7 January 1960: His Royal Highness Prince Carlos of Bourbon-Two Sicilies
• 7 January 1960 - 3 February 1964: His Royal Highness Prince Carlos, Duke of Noto
• 3 February 1964 - 16 December 1994: His Royal Highness Prince Carlos, Duke of Calabria
• 16 December 1994 - 5 October 2015: His Royal Highness Infante Carlos of Spain, Prince of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Duke of Calabria^{[7][note 1]}

Honours

•  Spain: Dean Knight with Collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece^[8][9]
•  Spain: Chancellor Knight with Collar of the Royal Military Order of Alcántara^[10][11]

Protector of the Real Cuerpo de la Nobleza of Madrid, Maestrante of Sevilla, Zaragoza, Granada, Valencia and Ronda,^[12] Member of the Real Cuerpo de la Nobleza of Catalonia, Member of the Cofradía del Santo Cáliz of Valencia, and Patron-President of the Foundation of the Military Order's Hospital of Santiago de Cuenca (Patrono-Presidente de la Fundación de las Ordenes Militares Hospital de Santiago de Cuenca). Infante Carlos was also President of the Spanish Foundation of the United World College,^[13] President of the Patronato of the Naval Museum, President of the Spanish Confederation of Foundations,^[14] President of the Iberoamerican Confederation of Foundations,^[15] President of the Foundation of San Benito de Alcántara,^[16] and President of the Foundation for the Protection of Nature (Fundación Fondo para la Protección de la Naturaleza). He died on 5 October 2015 at the age of 77.^[17]

Under the traditional succession laws of the Kingdom of Navarre, Carlos's mother Infanta Alicia, born a Princess of Bourbon-Parma, was the claimant to that throne, which was formally united with the Kingdom of France in the seventeenth century. She was also the closest known genealogical representative of King Edward the Confessor, and the direct genealogical representative of King David I of Scotland.^[18]