New Weekly Quest: The Sept 17th Birth Of Kings and Queen.
This week we present The Sept 17th Birth Of Kings and Queen. On this day, three great kings and queen were born:
- 879 – King Charles III of France
- 1688 – Maria Luisa of Savoy, first queen of Philip V of Spain
- 1819 – Marthinus Wessel Pretorius, first President of the South African Republic
Great things happened on this same day!
879 – King Charles III of France
Charles III (17 September 879 – 7 October 929), called the Simple or the Straightforward (from the Latin Karolus Simplex), was the undisputed King of France from 898 until 922 and the King of Lotharingia from 911 until 919/23. He was a member of the Carolingian dynasty, the third and posthumous son of Louis the Stammerer by his second wife, Adelaide of Paris. As a child, Charles was prevented from succeeding to the throne at the time of the death in 884 of his half-brother Carloman. The nobles of the realm instead asked his cousin, Charles the Fat, to rule them. He was also prevented from succeeding the unpopular Charles, who was deposed in November 887 and died in January 888, although it is unknown if his deposition was accepted or even made known in West Francia before his death. The nobility elected Odo, the hero of the Siege of Paris, king, though there was a faction that supported Guy III of Spoleto. Charles was put under the protection of Ranulf II, the Duke of Aquitaine, who may have tried to claim the throne for him and in the end used the royal title himself until making peace with Odo. Finally, in 893 Charles was crowned by a faction opposed to Odo at Reims Cathedral. He only became the effectual monarch with the death of Odo in 898.
In 911 Charles defeated the Viking leader Rollo, had him sign the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte that made Rollo his vassal and converted him to Christianity. Charles then gave him land around Rouen, the heart of what would become Normandy and his daughter Gisela in marriage. In the same year as the treaty with the Vikings, Louis the Child, the King of Germany, died and the nobles of Lotharingia, who had been loyal to him, under the leadership of Reginar Longneck, declared Charles their new king, breaking from Germans who had elected Conrad of Franconia king. Charles tried to win their support by marrying a Lotharingian woman named Frederuna, who died in 917. He also defended the country against two attacks by Conrad, King of the Germans. On 7 October 919 Charles re-married to Eadgifu, the daughter of Edward the Elder, King of England. By this time Charles’ excessive favouritism towards a certain Hagano had turned the aristocracy against him. He endowed Hagano with monasteries which were already the benefices of other barons, alienating these barons. In Lotharingia he earned the enmity of the new duke, Gilbert, who declared for the German king Henry the Fowler in 919. Opposition to Charles in Lotharingia was not universal, however, and he retained the support of Wigeric. In 922 some of the West Frankish barons, led by Robert of Neustria and Rudolph of Burgundy, revolted. Robert, who was Odo’s brother, was elected by the rebels and crowned in opposition to Charles, who had to flee to Lotharingia. On 2 July 922, Charles lost his most faithful supporter, Herve, Archbishop of Rheims, who had succeeded Fulk in 900.
He returned the next year (923) with a Norman army but was defeated on 15 June near Soissons by Robert, who died in the battle. Charles was captured and imprisoned in a castle at Péronne under the guard of Herbert II of Vermandois. Rudolph was elected to succeed him. In 925 the Lotharingians accepted Rudolph as their king. Charles died in prison on 7 October 929 and was buried at the nearby abbey of Saint-Fursy. Though he had had many children by Frederuna, it was his son by Eadgifu who would eventually be crowned in 936 as Louis IV of France. In the initial aftermath of Charles’s defeat, Eadgifu and Louis fled to England.
1688 – Maria Luisa of Savoy, first queen of Philip V of Spain
Maria Luisa of Savoy (Maria Luisa Gabriella; 17 September 1688 – 14 February 1714) was a Savoyard princess and the first wife of Philip V of Spain. She acted as Regent of Spain and had great influence over her husband. She is closely associated with Princesse des Ursins. She was the third daughter and second surviving child of Victor Amadeus II, Duke of Savoy and his French-born wife Anne Marie d’Orléans, the youngest daughter of Philippe of France and Henrietta of England. Throughout her life, Maria Luisa remained close to her older sister Maria Adelaide who later married Louis, Duke of Burgundy, the eldest grandson of Louis XIV. In her youth, Maria Luisa was described as playful and fun loving and had received a good education.
Marriage
Philip V of Spain, a French prince, was recently crowned King of Spain upon the death of childless Charles II. In order to enforce his shaky authority over Spain due to his French birth, Philip V decided to maintain ties with Victor Amadeus II, Duke of Savoy. Philip V’s brother, Louis, Duke of Burgundy, had married the elder sister of Maria Luisa several years earlier, and in mid 1701, Philip V asked for Maria Luisa’s hand with the permission of his grandfather Louis XIV. Maria Luisa was wed by proxy to Philip V on 12 September 1701 at the age of barely thirteen and was escorted to Nice, arriving there on 18 September. While in Nice, she was greeted by Pope Clement XI who gave her the Golden Rose on 20 September as a ritualistic gift for the young princess. Within a week, she sailed from Nice for Antibes and was taken to Barcelona. The official marriage took place on 2 November 1701. The princesse des Ursins was a member of the household of the Queen. She would maintain great influence over Maria Luisa as her Camarera Mayor, chief of the household to the young queen, who was still a child.
The couple were deeply in love. In 1702, Philip V was obliged to leave Spain to fight in Naples as part of the ongoing War of Spanish Succession. During her husband’s absence, Maria Luisa acted as Regent from Madrid. She was praised as an effective ruler, having successfully implemented various changes in government and insisted upon all complaints being investigated and reports made direct to her. Her leadership encouraged the reorganization in the junta and, in doing this, inspiring people and their cities to make donations towards the war effort. Despite her young age, Maria Luisa’s effective regency made her admired in Madrid and throughout Spain. After her husband’s return in 1703, she resumed her role as queen consort. In 1704, the Princesse des Ursins was exiled at the order of Louis XIV, devastating Maria Luisa. However, in 1705, the Princesse des Ursins returned to Madrid, much to the joy of the young queen.
Maria Luisa gave birth to the couple’s first child, Infante Luis Felipe in 1707. After the birth of her eldest child, Maria Luisa went on giving birth to three more children, two of whom would survive infancy. Towards the end of her life, the Queen became ill with tuberculosis. She eventually died from the effects of tuberculosis on 14 February 1714. She was buried at San Lorenzo de El Escorial. Maria Luisa died in her 25th year. In December 1714, just months after Maria Luisa’s death, her widower Philip V remarried, to Elisabeth Farnese, the only child and heiress of Duke of Parma. All of Maria Luisa’s children were to die without issue, leaving behind no descendants of Maria Luisa of Savoy.
1819 – Marthinus Wessel Pretorius, first President of the South African Republic
The son of the famous Voortrekker leader Andries Pretorius, Marthinus Wessel Pretorius (17 September 1819 – 19 May 1901) was the first president of the South African Republic, and also compiled the constitution of the Republic. After the death of his father in 1853, he was appointed as the Commandant-General of the ZAR (South African Republic) and moved from his farm Kalkheuwel, near Broederstroom, to the city of Potchefstroom. He was the last Head of State of Potchefstroom between 1853 and 1856. In an endeavor to establish a new town, he bought two farms named Elandspoort en Daspoort between 1854 and 1855, on which he founded the city of Pretoria in 1855. He originally named the town Pretoria Philadelphia, in honour of his father and his father’s brothers, but the name of the town was later shortened to just Pretoria.
Five years later the capital of the ZAR (South African Republic) was moved from Potchefstroom to Pretoria. He served as the first president of Transvaal from 1857 to 1860. However in 1859, in an effort to create closer bonds of relationship with the Orange Free State, he simultaneously held the office of State President of the Orange Free State and that of president of the ZAR (South African Republic). This however created tension in Transvaal and he resigned the presidency of the South African Republic in 1860. After serving in the presidency of the Orange Free State until 1863, he was reelected as president of the ZAR (South African Republic) in 1864 and served a second term until 1871. Finally, he served a third term as joint head of state (triumvirate) of Transvaal between 1880 and 1883. He died in 1901 at Potchefstroom.