The Royal Household of Marie-Louise of Orleans, 1679–1689: The Struggle over Executive Offices¹

1 This article was translated from Spanish by Ruth MacKay.

Abstract

The marriage of Carlos II and the niece of Louis XIV, Marie-Louise of Orleans, was proposed and immediately confirmed after the two monarchies, Spain and France, signed the Peace of Nijmegen (1679), ending the pan-European conflict known as the Dutch War (1672–1678). On 13 January 1680, Marie-Louise entered the Spanish court in Madrid in an elaborate ceremony that marked the formal beginning of her reign; she encountered a court in the midst of a political transformation. The death of don Juan José of Austria, Carlos II’s influential half-brother, and the return from exile of Queen Mariana of Austria, Carlos II’s mother and former regent, in September 1679, followed several months later by the rise of Juan Francisco de la Cerda, 8^th duke of Medinaceli, to the position of prime minister, contributed to a major reconfiguration of Carlos II’s court. In this article, I analyse the organisation and evolution of the household of Marie-Louise of Orleans in the context of these political changes. I decipher the mechanisms and strategies deployed by the various power groups at court to achieve control over the principal posts in each of the areas of the Queen’s household.

Notes

1 This article was translated from Spanish by Ruth MacKay.

2 Among the most important contributions are the following: Henry Kamen, Spain in the Later Seventeenth Century, 1665–1700 (London and New York, 1980); Carmen Sanz Ayan, Los banqueros de Carlos II (Valladolid, 1989); Juan Antonio Sánchez Belén, La política fiscal en Castilla durante el reinado de Carlos II (Madrid, 1996); Luis Ribot, ‘Carlos II: el centenario olvidado’, Studia Histórica. Historia Moderna 20 (1999), pp. 19-43, part of a special volume on that reign; Christopher Storrs, The Resilience of the Spanish Monarchy, 1665–1700 (Oxford, 2006); and Luis Ribot (ed.), Carlos II: el rey y su entorno cortesano (Madrid, 2009).

3 Laura Oliván-Santaliestra, Mariana de Austria: Imagen, poder y diplomacia de una reina cortesana (Madrid, 2006); Silvia Z. Mitchell, ‘Mariana of Austria and Imperial Spain: Court, Dynastic and International Politics in Seventeenth-Century Europe,’ Ph.D. diss., University of Miami, 2013; Albrecht Graf von Kalnein, Juan José de Austria en la España de Carlos II: historia de una regencia (Lleida, 2001); María Dolores Álamo Martell, ‘El VIII duque de Medinaceli: primer ministro de Carlos II’, in José Antonio Escudero (ed.), Los validos (Madrid, 2004), pp. 547-72; José Manuel de Bernardo Ares, ‘El conde de Oropesa: El antifranquismo como causa de un proceso político’, in Josep Fontana and Gonzalo Pontón (eds), Los grandes procesos de la historia de España (Barcelona, 2002), pp. 172-92.

4 Adalberto de Baviera, Mariana de Neoburgo, Reina de España (Madrid, 1938); Gabriel Maura y Gamazo, María Luisa de Orleans, Reina de España. Leyenda e historia (Madrid, 1940). What few recent studies of Marie-Louise that do exist have focused on her entry at court and the funeral ceremonies after her death; see Juan Antonio Sánchez Belén, ‘La muerte de una reina sin hijos: la oratoria sagrada en las honras fúnebres de María Luisa de Orleans’, in Gloria Franco and María Ángeles Pérez Sámper (eds), Herederas de Clío (Madrid, 2014), pp. 477-92; Teresa Zapata, La entrada en la Corte de María Luisa de Orleans: arte y fiesta en el Madrid de Carlos II (Madrid, 2000).

5 Silvia Z. Mitchell, ‘Marriage Plots: Royal Women, Marriage Diplomacy and International Politics at the Spanish, French and Imperial Courts, 1665–1679’, in Glenda Sluga and Carolyn James (eds), Women, Diplomacy and International Politics since 1500 (London and New York, 2016), pp. 86-107, p. 94.

6 Juan Antonio Sánchez Belén, ‘Las relaciones internacionales de la Monarquía Hispánica durante la regencia de Doña Mariana de Austria’, Studia Histórica. Historia Moderna 20 (1999), pp. 137-172, p. 139.

7 Most of these were implemented during the regency of Mariana of Austria, from 1665 to 1675, see Ibid., pp. 140-164.

8 José Martínez Millán and María Paula Marçal Lourenço (eds), Las relaciones discretas entre las Monarquías Hispana y Portuguesa: Las Casas de las Reinas (siglos XV–XIX), 3 vols (Madrid, 2009).

9 Theresa Earenfight, The King’s Other Body: Maria of Castile and the Crown of Aragon (Philadelphia, 2010); Idem, Queenship and Political Power in Medieval and Early Modern Spain (Aldershot, 2005).

10 Félix Labrador Arroyo, ‘From Castile to Burgundy: The Evolution of the Queen’s Households during the Sixteenth Century’, in Anne J. Cruz and Maria Galli Stampino (eds), Early Modern Habsburg Women: Transnational Contexts, Cultural Conflicts, Dynastic Continuities (London and New York, 2016), pp. 119-50.

11 Magdalena S. Sánchez, The Empress, the Queen and the Nun: Women and Power at the Court of Philip III of Spain (Baltimore, 1998).

12 Real Academia de la Historia (hereafter RAH), 9/3655 (62); Biblioteca Nacional de España (hereafter BNE), mss. 7862, 3927 and 2024; BNE, Varios Especiales (hereafter VE), mss. 24/92, 196/98, 1345/15; BNE, Raros (hereafter R), 4925. I also consulted issues of Mercure Galant, a French monthly publication accessible at www.gallica.bnf.fr.

13 Pierre de Villars, Mémoires de la cour d’Espagne de 1679 à 1681 (Paris, 1893).

14 Marie de Villars, Lettres de Madame de Villars à Madame de Coulanges (1679–1681) (Paris, 1868). See also Marie-Louise Lobato, ‘Miradas de mujer: María Luisa de Orleans, esposa de Carlos II, vista por la Marquesa de Villars (1679–1689)’, in Judith Farré Vidal (ed.), Teatro y poder en la época de Carlos II: Fiestas en torno a reyes y virreyes (Monterrey, 2007), pp. 13-44.

15 Among the most important of these accounts are BNE, R/22858; R/2634(6); R/10796; R/20081; R/20083(16); R.20085(47) and R/20088.

16 Archivo General del Palacio (hereafter AGP), Administración General (hereafter AG), leg. 627. There is a list of the Queen’s ladies in Francisca Enríquez de Velázquez’s personal file: AGP, Personal, caja 2620, expediente (hereafter exp.) 11. Information on the Queen’s Chapel can be found in Confessor Ayrault’s file: AGP, Personal, caja 1333, exp. 37. For information on the royal stables see the section called Reinado de Carlos II, caja 97, exp. 1, and the personal files of the Queen’s Masters of the Horse. Finally, information on household officials is in AGP, AG, legs 624 and 659.

17 On the mayordomo mayor of the Queen’s household, see Dalmiro de la Válgoma y Díaz Varela, Norma y ceremonia de las reinas de la Casa de Austria (Madrid, 1958), pp. 27, 52 and 78.

18 José Calvo Potayo, La vida y la época de Carlos II, el Hechizado (Madrid, 1996), pp. 408-9; Alfred de Courtis, ‘Introduction’, in Villars, Lettres de Madame de Villars, pp. 48-9; see also Gabriel Maura y Gamazo, Vida y reinado de Carlos II, vol. 1 (Madrid, 1954), p. 339.

19 For members of the Imperial network, see Oliván-Santaliestra, Mariana de Austria, pp. 152-7, 234-346.

20 Álamo Martell, ‘El VIII duque de Medinaceli’, pp. 557 and 566.

21 On the inability to establish a French influence around Marie-Louise see Marie Françoise Macquart, L’Espagne de Charles II et la France: 1665–1700 (Toulouse, 2000). Luis Ribot also fails to find a French group in the 1680s; see Luis Ribot, El arte de gobernar: Estudios sobre la España de los Austrias (Madrid, 2006), p. 267. In the opinion of José Manuel Bernardo Ares, Oropesa’s clearly anti-French and pro-Portuguese stance sabotaged any chance of a French group forming at the Madrid court; Bernardo Ares, ‘El conde de Oropesa’, pp. 172-92.

22 José Manuel Bernardo Ares, Luis XIV, rey de España: De los imperios plurinacionales a los estados unitarios (1665–1714) (Madrid, 2008), pp. 125-30.

23 Marie-Louise Lobato, ‘Miradas de mujer’, pp. 18-19.

24 Arturo Echavarren, ‘El caso de la Cantina: Un escándalo palaciego en el Madrid de Carlos II’, Cuadernos de Historia Moderna 40 (2015), pp. 125-52.

25 Jaime Contreras, Carlos II el Hechizado: Poder y melancolía en la corte del último Austria (Madrid, 2003), pp. 193-239.

26 On the French kitchen staff, see María de los Ángeles Pérez Sámper, ‘Los oficios de boca en la corte española de los Austrias’, in José Eloy Hortal Múñoz and Félix Labrador Arroyo (eds), La Casa de Borgoña: la Casa del Rey de España (Leuven, 2014), p. 341; on the wardrobe see AGP, Histórica, caja 20.

27 Astorga’s political trajectory is described in the petition he submitted to become member of the Order of Calatrava, see Archivo Histórico Nacional (hereafter AHN), Ordenes Militares, Caballeros Calatrava, exp. 1067. Also see, Santiago Martínez Hernández, ‘Antonio Pedro Álvarez Osorio Gómez Dávila y Toledo’, Diccionario Biográfico Español, Madrid. http://dbe.rah.es/biografias/9346/antonio-pedro-alvarez-osorio-gomez-davila-y-toledo.

28 AHN, Estado, leg. 2796.

29 Koldo Trápaga Monchet, ‘La reconfiguración política de la Monarquía Católica: la actividad de don Juan José de Austria (1642–1649)’, Ph.D. diss., Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 2015, p. 19.

30 Mitchell, ‘Marriage Plots’, pp. 86-107.

31 Villars, Mémoires de la cour d’Espagne, p. 17.

32 Juan de Vera Tassis y Villarroel, Noticias historiales de la enfermedad, muerte y exequias de la esclarecida reyna de las Españas doña Maria Luisa de Orleans …  (Madrid, 1689), BNE, R/22858, fols 191-2.

33 Alain Bègue, Carlos II (1665–1700): la defensa de la Monarquía Hispánica en el ocaso de una dinastía (Paris, 2017), p. 190.

34 According to the marquis of Villars, Astorga kept Oropesa’s principal enemies — Joaquín Ponce de León, duke of Arcos; Cardinal Portocarrero, archbishop of Toledo and member of the Council of State; Pedro Damián de Meneses Portocarrero y Noroña, duke of Caminha; Diego María Felipe de Guzmán, marquis of Leganés; Francisco Ronquillo, corregidor of Madrid — and their clients, outside Marie Louise’s household and circle; Villars, Mémoires de la cour d’Espagne, pp. 24 and 296. On Oropesa’s enemies, see José Manuel de Bernardo Ares, ‘El conde de Oropesa: El antifranquismo como causa de un proceso político’, in Josep Fontana and Gonzalo Pontón (eds), Los grandes procesos de la historia de España (Barcelona, 2002), pp. 172-92.

35 AGP, Administrativa, leg. 894.

36 On the post of contralor, see José Jurado Sánchez, ‘La financiación de la Casa Real, 1561–1808’, PhD diss., Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 1996, pp. 44-5.

37 AGP, Personal, caja 1, expedientes (hereafter exps.) 101 and 112. The ‘Personal’ section in the Archivo del Palacio are individual files, containing a wealth of information related to employment of members of the court in the royal households.

38 AGP, Personal, caja 729, exp. 10.

39 AGP, Administrativa, leg. 627. See also the interesting and thorough article by María Victoria López Cordón Cortezo, ‘Entre damas anda el juego: las camareras mayores de palacio en la edad moderna’, Cuadernos de Historia Moderna. Anejos: Monarquía y corte en la España moderna 2 (2003), pp. 123-52; and the classic article by María del Carmen Simón Palmer, ‘Notas sobre la vida de las mujeres en el Real Alcázar’, Cuadernos de Historia Moderna 19 (1997), pp. 21-37.

40 López Cordón, ‘Entre damas anda el juego’, p. 152.

41 AGP, Personal, caja 109, exp. 29.

42 On the backlash against the appointment of Terranova (‘poco aplaudida y bituperada por los interesados en los que la pretendían’), see BNE ms. 9399, f. 83r. quoted in Mitchell, ‘Mariana of Austria,’ p. 393. The unsuccessful candidates for the post were the marquise of Los Vélez, who had been the King’s governess; the widow of the duke of Pastrana who was also duchess of Infantado in her own right; the duchess of Alburquerque; the duchess of Alba; and the countess of Villaverde, a member of the Guzmán noble clan; see Maura y Gamazo, Vida y reinado de Carlos II, p. 306.

43 López Cordón, ‘Entre damas anda el juego’, pp. 136 and 148.

44 Maura y Gamazo, Vida y reinado de Carlos II, pp. 306-7.

45 Mitchell, ‘Mariana of Austria and Imperial Spain’, pp. 292-5; Antonio Álvarez-Ossorio Alvariño, ‘Versailles inversé: Charles II, ou la monarchie sous l’empire des nobles’, in Gérard Sabatier and Margarita Torrione (eds), ¿Louis XIV espagnol? Madrid et Versailles, images et modèles (Paris, 2009), pp. 137-54; Laura Oliván-Santaliestra, ‘Mariana de Austria en la encrucijada política del siglo XVII’, Ph.D. diss., Universidad Complutense de Madrid, 2006, pp. 275-80.

46 Bègue, Carlos II, p. 164.

47 López Cordón Cortezo, ‘Entre damas anda el juego’, pp. 48, 136 and 148.

48 Mercure Galant, November 1679, p. 229.

49 López Cordón, ‘Entre damas anda el juego’, p. 152.

50 Maura y Gamazo, Vida y reinado de Carlos II, pp. 337-40.

51 Oliván-Santaliestra, ‘Mariana de Austria en la encrucijada política’, p. 410.

52 Oliván-Santaliestra, ‘Mariana de Austria en la encrucijada política’, pp. 410-11.

53 Royal decree by Carlos II, signed on 16 September 1680, AGP, Personal, caja 109, exp. 29.

54 Royal decree by Mariana of Austria, signed on 2 October 1691, AGP, Personal, caja 109, exp. 29.

55 AGP, Personal, caja 109, exp. 29.

56 Oliván-Santaliestra, ‘Mariana de Austria en la encrucijada política’, pp. 278-9, 410-12.

57 Villars, Lettres de Madame, p. 175.

58 AGP, Reinado Carlos II, caja 92, exp. 3

59 Oliván-Santaliestra, ‘Mariana de Austria en la encrucijada política’, pp. 278-9.

60 AGP, Personal, caja 2620, exp. 11.

61 AGP, Personal, caja 143, exp. 12.

62 Corinne Thépaut-Cabasset, ‘María Luisa de Orleans, reina de España’, in Amalia Descalzo and José Luis Colomer (eds), Vestir a la española en las cortes europeas (siglos XVI y XVII) (Madrid, 2014), pp. 267-92.

63 AGS, Personal, caja 26, exp. 13

64 On this issue pertaining the French princesses that became queens of Spain, see José María Perceval, ‘Jaque a la reina. Las princesas francesas en la corte española, de la extranjera a la enemiga’, in Chantal Grell and Benoit Pellistrandi (eds), Les Cours d'Espagne et de France au XVIIe siècle (Madrid, 2007), pp. 41-60; Henar Pizarro Llorente, ‘La Casa Real de Isabel de Borbón’, in José Martínez Millán and José Eloy Hortal Muñoz (eds), La corte de Felipe IV (1621–1665): reconfiguración de la Monarquía Católica (Madrid, 2015), pp. 1391-1457.

65 ‘Mémoire pour servir d’instruction au sieur marquis de Feuquières Conseiller ordinaire du Roi en son Conseil d’État … ’ Archives du Ministère des Affaires Étrangères (hereafter AMAE), Paris, Correspondance Politique, Espagne 71, fols 12-35.

66 Echavarren, ‘El caso de la Cantina’, p. 148.

67 Juan Vera Tassis y Villaroel, Noticias historiales de la enfermedad …  p. 282.

68 AGP, Personal, caja 2620, exp. 11.

69 Antonio Álvarez-Ossorio Alvariño has analysed the political nature of sermons in the King’s Chapel during funeral ceremonies. When the queen of France, Maria Theresa, died, the honorary chaplain Rodríguez de Monforte reminded Carlos and Marie-Louise during the funeral masses about how important it was to ensure the succession; see Álvarez-Ossorio Alvariño, ‘La sacralización de la dinastía en el púlpito de la Capilla Real en tiempos de Carlos II’, Criticón 84-85 (2002), pp. 313-32; Idem, ‘Ceremonial de la Majestad y protesta aristocrática: La Capilla Real en la Corte de Carlos II’, in Juan José Carrera Ares and Bernardo José García García (eds), La Capilla Real de los Austrias: música y ritual de Corte en la Europa moderna (Madrid, 2001), pp. 345-410.

70 Nicole Reinhardt, Voices of Conscience: Royal Confessors and Political Counsel in Seventeenth-Century Spain and France (Oxford, 2016), pp. xvii-xviii.

71 Julián Lozano Navarro, ‘Confesionario e influencia política: la Compañía de Jesús y la dirección espiritual de las princesas y soberanas durante el barroco’, in José Martínez Millán, Henar Pizarro Llorente and Esther Jiménez Pablo (eds), Los jesuitas: religión, política y educación (siglos XVI-XVIII), vol. 1 (Madrid, 2012), pp. 183-206.

72 Magdalena S. Sánchez, ‘Confession and Complicity: Margarita de Austria, Richard Haller, S.J., and the Court of Philip III’, Cuadernos de Historia Moderna 14 (1993), pp. 133-8.

73 Henar Pizarro Llorente, ‘Fray Pedro de Urraca, confessor de la Reina Isabel de Borbón (1624–1628)’, in José Martínez Millán, Manuel Rivero Rodríguez and Gijs Versteegen (eds), La corte en Europa: Política y religión (siglos XVI-XVIII), vol. 1 (Madrid, 2012), pp. 305-32.

74 AGP, AG, leg. 629.

75 Aloys de Backer, Agustin de Backer, Carlos Sommervogel and Auguste Carayon, Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jésus, vol. 1 (Brussels, 1890), pp. 715-6; Camille de Rochmonteix, Un collège de jésuites aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles: le collège Henri IV de La Flèche, vol. 2 (Le Mans, 1889), pp. 212 and 250; Gabriel Dupineau, Coustumes du pays et duché d’Anjou: conferées avec les coustumes voisines, vol. 2 (Paris, 1725), p. 1026; Gilles Ménage, Vitae Petri Aerodii quaestitoris Andegavensis et Guillelmi Megagii advocati Reggi Andegavensis (Paris, 1675), pp. 41, 257 and 497.

76 Jacques Maillard, Le pouvoir municipal à Angers de 1657 à 1789, vol. 1 (Angers, 1984).

77 Pierre Bayle, Dictionnaire Historique et Critique (Paris, 1820), vol. 1, pp. 329-35.

78 BNE, R/22858, fol. 23.

79 AGS, Personal, caja 1333, exp. 37.

80 Adolfo Carrasco Martínez, ‘Los Grandes, el poder y la cultura política de la nobleza en la España de Carlos II’, Studia Histórica. Historia Moderna 20 (1999), pp. 77-136.

81 Macquart, L’Espagne de Charles II, pp. 102-24; Bernardo Ares, Luis XIV, p. 195.

82 Little has been written about this post for Spain in the seventeenth century. For the earlier era, see Félix Labrador Arroyo and Alejandro López Álvarez, ‘Las caballerizas de las reinas en la monarquía de los Austria: cambios institucionales y evolución de las etiquetas, 1559–1611’, Studia histórica. Historia moderna 28 (2006), pp. 87-140. On transferring the post see Elena Serrano García, ‘Los empleos en la caballeriza de la reina durante el reinado de Carlos II: mecanismos de transmisión’, Anuario de Historia del Derecho Español 63-64 (1993-94), pp. 1041-64.

83 AGP, Personal, caja 1084, exp. 19.

84 BNE, mss/7862, fol. 3; Mercure Galant, December 1679, pp. 284-6.

85 Letter from Count of La Vauguyon to Louis XIV, 18 February 1686, in AMAE, CP, Espagne, vol. 68, fol. 315-v.

86 AGP, Personal, caja 435, exps. 12 and 23.

87 Arturo Echavarren, ‘El gran destierro de Gaspar Téllez-Girón’, Bulletin Hispanique 116-1 (2014), p. 177.

88 AMAE, CP, Espagne, vol. 68, fol. 425-r.

89 Manuel de Guerra y Ribera, Crisol de la verdad, de la causa sin causa, dedicado a la fama, consagrado a la suprema justicia (Zaragoza, 1684).

90 Echavarren, ‘El gran destierro’, pp. 186-9.

91 Lorna Jury Gladstone, ‘Aristocratic Landholding and Finances in Seventeenth-Century Castile: the Case of Gaspar Tellez Girón, duke of Osuna (1656–1694)’, PhD diss., University of Virginia, 1977, pp. 28-79.

92 AGS, Personal, caja 1084, exp. 19.

93 Mitchell, ‘Marriage Plots’, pp. 85-8.

94 Relación de la fiesta que el marqués de los Balbases dio a la reina Doña María Luisa de Borbón en París a 7 de septiembre de 1679 …  (Madrid).

95 On Balbases’s life after returning to Madrid in 1679, see Antonio Álvarez-Ossorio Alvariño and Manuel Herrero Sánchez, ‘La aristocracia genovesa al servicio de la Monarquía Católica: el caso del III marqués de los Balbases (1630–1699)’, in Manuel Herrero Sánchez et al. (eds), Génova y la Monarquía Hispánica (1528–1713), vol. 1 (Genoa, 2011), pp. 331-66.

96 Franco Arese Lucini, ‘Feudi e titoli nello stato di Milano alla morte di Carlo II (1700)’, Storia di Milano 11 (1958), p. 13.

97 AGP, Personal, caja 2676, exp. 58.

98 On the relationship between the Habsburgs and the nobility as one of collaboration, negotiation, and integration, see José Martínez Millán, ‘La corte de la monarquía hispánica’, Studia Histórica. Historia Moderna, 28 (2006), pp. 17-61.

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Ezequiel Borgognoni

Ezequiel Borgognoni received his Ph.D. in History from the Universidad Torcuato Di Tella, Buenos Aires (Argentina) in 2017. He is currently Assistant Professor of Spanish History at the University of Buenos Aires and a Postdoctoral Fellow at the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET) of the Universidad Pontificia Católica de Buenos Aires. He was a visiting researcher at Instituto Universitario La Corte en Europa, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (2016) and Companhia das Índias- Núcleo de História Ibérica e Colonial na Época Moderna, Universidade Federal Fluminense de Brasil (2018), among others. His main area of research is the history of Spanish monarchy, queenship and court studies, women and gender.