Monday, October 3, 2011

Don Jaime: Spanish pretender is dead

October 2, 1931

The Associated Press is reporting the death of Don Jaime de Borbon, Carlist pretender to the throne of Spain.  He died tonight at his Paris apartment  "of a heart attack."  He was 71 years old.

Don Jaime died "within a few days of his reconciliation with former King Alfonso" on September 14.   Members of Alfonso's entourage "emphasized" that the reconciliation was "purely of a family character" and the question of "renunciation of Don Jaime's claims was not involved."

Don Jaime's pretensions ot the Spanish throne go back to the reign of Ferdinando VIII, who succeeded to the throne in 1814.  He was succeeded by his daughter, Isabel, who formally abdicated in favor of her son, Alfonso XII, in 1870.   Alfonso XIII is Alfonso's posthumous son.

Ferdinando's brother, Don Carlos claimed the throne in 1833, and he "spent the rest of his life in efforts to make the claim good."

The Carlist claim was inherited by Don Carlos' son, Don Carlos, who in 1867 married Princess Marrgarita of Bourbn-Parma, daughter of the Duke of Parma.  

After the Spanish revolution in 1868, when Queen Isabel II was forced to leave the country, Don Jaime's father made "several attempts to claim the throne."   These attempts were unsuccessful as Isbael's son, Alfonso XII, was proclaimed king.

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