Sep-05 Issue - The Heraldry Society

12
THE BOURBON-ANJOU ARMS IN SPANISH HERALDRY
At a ceremony in Paris last December 8th,
Henri d'Orléans, Count of Paris and claimant of
the French throne, stated that he was creating
one of his nephews Duc d'Anjou; and with
great fanfare presented him with a card
bearing the coat of arms historically associated
with that title, a differenced version of France
Modern: azure, three fleurs de lis or, a bordure
gules, shown in figure 1.
figure 1
The heraldic element of the event, at least,
may have annoyed more than one Spanish
peer. One of the most recognisable images in
all of heraldry, the fleur-de-lys arms flourish in
the peerage of the last kingdom ruled by the
dynasty.
Undifferenced, they appear on the arms of
the Dukes of Medinaceli quartering the arms of
Castille and León to denote descent from King
Louis IX, yet this appears to be anachronistic,
for the France Modern arms blazoned above
(versus the azure semy-de-lys or of Saint
Louis' era) were first adopted by King Charles
V in the late 1300s.
The remainder of the arms of Spanish peers
bearing France Modern all denote ultimate
descent from a single individual: Philippe,
Duke of Anjou (1683-1746) who in 1700
became Spain's first Bourbon King as Felipe V.
The bordure gules that he used as Duke of
Anjou to difference his arms from those of his
grandfather King Louis XIV has been
consistently retained by his descendants to
signal their ancestry. This is somewhat ironic
for differencing has never been uniformly used
in Spanish heraldry; an oft-mentioned royal
decree of 1669 introducing it can be found in
every Spanish heraldry primer and has been
resolutely ignored. The result of this is naturally
that in Spain a great many people bear
identical arms, and so any given coat may
identify an ancestor but not a specific bearer's
line of descent. Hence the proliferation of the
Bourbon-Anjou arms in Spanish heraldry
outside the royal family. In addition, there is no
rule concerning heraldic heiresses in Spanish
heraldry and indeed many noble and gentry
families quarter their arms with those of
ancestral lineages more or less at will,
regardless of whether or not those families
have become extinct in the male line.
The widowed Queen Regent María Cristina,
also a descendant of Spain's King Carlos III,
married her second husband, palace guard
Fernando Muñoz on 28 December 1833, just 2
months and 29 days after the death of her
uncle and first husband, King Fernando VII.
The births of children to the morganatic couple
were more or less secret and they held no rank
at court until their half-sister, Queen Isabel II,
was declared of legal age in 1843. Over the
next 5 years she showered her stepfather and
half-siblings with an array of titles. Muñoz was
created Duke of Riansares in 1844, and later
Marquess of San Agustín; the couple's children
eventually received the titles of Countess of
Vista Alegre, Marchioness of Castillejo, Duke
of Tarancón, Viscount of La Alborada, Count of
Casa Muñoz, Viscount of Rostrollano,
Marchioness of La Isabela, Viscountess of La
Dehesilla, Conde del Recuerdo, Viscount of
Villarubio, Count of Gracia and and Viscount of
La Arboleda. Several of the children died
young and their titles were redistributed among
their siblings. Tracing the titles' lines of descent
here would be complicated, but today the
Chronicler of Arms' annual guide to the
Spanish peerage shows that those who bear
the titles use one of two coats of arms. Both
varieties display the Bourbon-Anjou arms
inherited from Queen María Cristina, but the
present Viscount of La Alborada and Marquess
of Castillejo impale them with some ancient
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