Marie Louise d'Orléans
1662 – 1689 · Generation XV · Consort
Marie Louise (1662 – 1689). Consort. Married Charles in 1679. First wife of Charles II; niece of Louis XIV; no issue. Born at the Palais-Royal to Philippe, Duke of Orléans, and Henrietta of England, she was her father’s favourite and kept up a warm correspondence all her life with her stepmother, Elisabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate. Told in July 1679 that she was to marry the king of Spain, she wept, having lost her heart to her cousin the dauphin; Spanish ministers were wary of her mother’s kinship with England’s Protestant royal house, but accepted her for the sake of peace with France. After a proxy wedding at Fontainebleau she married Charles in person near Burgos that November and never saw France again. He adored her to the end, but Madrid’s rigid etiquette and ten childless years weighed on her. Seized by abdominal pain after a ride in February 1689, she died the following night; rumours of poison were answered by an autopsy, and she was buried at the Escorial.
Place in the family
- Marie Louise d'Orléans married Charles II of Spain, a great-great-grandson of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor.
Partners
- Married Charles II of Spain (1661 – 1700) in 1679
Life
- 1662 — Born
- 1679 — Married Charles
- 1689 — Died