Anne Marie d'Orléans

Anne Marie d'Orléans
Queen consort of Sardinia Duchess consort of Savoy
Anne Marie d'Orléans, possibly by Louis Ferdinand Elle
Spouse	Victor Amadeus II of Savoy
Detail Issue
Maria Adélaïde, Dauphine of France Maria Luisa, Queen of Spain Victor Amadeus, Prince of Piedmont Charles Emmanuel, King of Sardinia
Full name
French: Anne Marie d'Orléans Italian: Anna Maria de Orleans
House	House of Savoy House of Orléans
Father	Philippe I, Duke of Orléans
Mother	Princess Henrietta of England
Born	27 August 1669(1669-08-27) Château de Saint-Cloud, France
Died	26 August 1728(1728-08-26) (aged 58) Villa della Regina, Piedmont
Signature

Anne Marie as the Queen of Roses

Anne Marie d'Orléans (27 August 1669 – 26 August 1728) was the first Queen consort of Sardinia and the maternal grandmother of Louis XV of France. She is also an important figure in British history (see Jacobite Succession below).

Youth

She was the daughter of Philippe I, Duke of Orléans, younger brother of Louis XIV, and Princess Henrietta of England, the youngest daughter of Charles I of England. Her mother died at the Château de Saint-Cloud ten months after Anne Marie's birth. A year later, her father married 21-year-old Elizabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate, who became very close to her stepdaughters. Her half-brother Philippe d'Orléans, the future Regent of France, was born of her father's second marriage.

Her stepmother later described her as one of the most amiable and virtuous of women.^[1]

Marriage

Anne Marie prior to her marriage

To maintain French influence in the Italian states, her uncle King Louis XIV arranged her marriage, at the age of fifteen, to Victor Amadeus II of Savoy, then Duke of Savoy, later King of Sicily and then of Sardinia.

The proxy marriage of Anne Marie and Víctor Amadeus took place at Versailles on 10 April 1684, the day after the signature of the marriage contract. Her husband-to-be was represented by her cousin, Louis-Auguste de Bourbon, duc du Maine. Louis XIV gave her a dowry of 900,000 livres.^[2]

The Duke of Orléans accompanied his daughter as far as Juvisy-sur-Orge (18 kilometers south of Paris), and the comtesse de Lillebonne accompanied her all the way to Savoy. She met her husband Victor at Chambéry on 6 May, the nuptials being performed at the castle by the Archbishop of Grenoble. Two days later, the newlyweds made their "Joyous Entry" into Turin.

The first of the eight children she bore was Marie-Adélaïde, whose birth nearly cost Anne Marie her life, prompting administration of the viaticum.^[3] Marie-Adélaïde married Louis, Duke of Burgundy, grandson of Louis XIV in 1697, and was the mother of Louis XV. But both she and her husband died before he could succeed to the throne.

This marriage was arranged with the assistance of the maréchal de Tessé and of Jeanne Baptiste d'Albert de Luynes, comtesse de Verrué, who was Victor's mistress from 1689 till 1700.

Her husband had two children with Jeanne. Nonetheless, when he fell ill with smallpox, Anne Marie nursed him until his recovery.

Queen consort

At the death of her father in June 1701, her half-brother became the new Duke of Orléans. On 2 November 1701, her third daughter, Maria Luisa, then barely thirteen years old, married Philippe de France, duc d'Anjou, who had just become King Philip V of Spain. The young princess would become Regent of Spain while her husband was away campaigning in Italy.

Despite his marriage ties to France, Victor Amadeus joined the anti-French side in the War of the Spanish Succession. In 1706, Turin was besieged by French forces under the command of Anne Marie's half-brother Philippe d'Orléans, and Spanish forces of her cousin and son-in-law Philip V. She and her sons Victor Amadeus and Carlo Emanuele were forced to flee the city.

When the war was ended in 1713 by the Treaty of Utrecht, Victor Amadeus received the Kingdom of Sicily, formerly a Spanish possession. Anne Marie's stepmother, Madame, the Duchess of Orléans, wrote: I shall neither gain nor lose by the peace, but one thing I shall enjoy is to see our Duchess of Savoy become a queen, because I love her as though she were my own child...^[4] He was forced to exchange Sicily for the less important domain of Sardinia in 1720, but retained the title of King.

As the Savoyard consort, Anne-Marie had the use of the Royal Palace of Turin, the vast Palazzina di caccia di Stupinigi outside the capital, and the Vigna di Madama Reale.^[5]

Queen Anne-Marie died of heart failure at her villa on 26 August 1728, the day before her 59th birthday. She is buried at the Basilica of Superga in Turin, where all her children, except Marie-Adélaïde and Maria Luisa, are also buried.

Her husband, Víctor Amadeus II, abdicated in favour of his son in 1730, and died two years later in Moncalieri, after having remarried morganatically.

Jacobite succession

From 1714 to 1720, Anne Marie d'Orléans was the heiress presumptive to the Jacobite claim to the thrones of England, Scotland, and Ireland. These claims were held at the time by James Francis Edward Stuart ("the Old Pretender", son of James II). Ann Marie became heiress presumptive with the death of James' sister Queen Anne in 1714. She was displaced as heir by the birth of the Old Pretender's son, Charles Edward Stuart ("Bonnie Prince Charlie"), on 31 December 1720. Charles Edward and his brother Henry, Cardinal Stuart, both died without legitimate issue, so the descendants of Anne Marie d'Orléans inherited the Jacobite claim, i.e. they would have inherited the British crown had it not been for the Act of Settlement, which excluded the claims of the Catholic Stuarts and d'Orléans' and settled the throne on the nearest protestant relatives, the Hanoverians.

Issue

• Princess Marie Adélaïde of Savoy (1685–1712); married Louis, Duke of Burgundy and was the mother of Louis XV of France
• Princess Maria Anna of Savoy (1687–1690)
• Maria Luisa of Savoy (1688–1714); married Philip V of Spain, had issue
• Victor Amadeus, Prince of Piedmont (1699–1715)
• Charles Emmanuel III of Savoy (1701–1773); next King of Sardinia; married Anne Christine of Sulzbach, had issue; married Polyxena of Hesse-Rheinfels-Rotenburg, had issue; married Elisabeth Therese of Lorraine, had issue
• Prince Emanuele Philibert of Savoy (1705-1715), Duke of Chablais

Ancestors

Titles and styles

• 27 August 1669 – 30 August 1679 Her Royal Highness, Mademoiselle de Valois
• 30 August 1679 – 10 April 1684 Her Royal Highness, Mademoiselle
• 10 April 1684 – 22 September 1713 Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Savoy^[6]
• 22 September 1713 – 8 August 1720 Her Majesty the Queen of Sicily
• 8 August 1720 – 26 August 1728 Her Majesty the Queen of Sardinia

References

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