Princess Beatrice, Princess of Roviano

Princess Béatrice of Bourbon (; ; 21 March 1874 – 1 November 1961) was the third daughter and fourth child of Prince Carlos, Duke of Madrid, the Carlist claimant to the throne of Spain and the Legitimist claimant to the throne of France, and Princess Margherita of Bourbon-Parma. Princess of Bourbon by birth and, by marriage to the head of a cadet branch of the House Massimo, the Princess of Roviano, Duchess of Anticoli Corrado. Although her hand in marriage was sought at various times for the sovereigns to the thrones of Bulgaria and Portugal (Miguelist claim), no such marriage or alliance materialized, as Béatrice was in loved with her futur husband Fabrizio.

Early life

Princess María Beatriz Teresa Carlotta was born in Pau, France, during the Third Carlist War. Her mother stayed there at the time because of its proximity to the Spanish border. After the war was lost, Beatrice went to live in Paris with her parents and four siblings Blanca (1868), Jaime (1870), Elvira (1871) and Alice (1876). After the war, they lived in Paris for five years, until the French government banished them because of Carlos's political activities, in 1881.

Her parents separated around that time. Beatrice's father went to live in Venice, while Marghertia and the children went to live in the Tenuta Reale, the ancient Tuscan residence of the Dukes of Parma in Viareggio. Beatrice and her sisters attended the Sacre Coeur convent school in Florence. The children were very close to their mother, who had decided to place generosity and kindness at the heart of her children's education.

Potential matches

On 3 January 1897, aged 22, Princess Beatrice announced her engagement to the Italian nobleman Fabrizio Massimo, Prince of Roviano and Duke of Anticoli Corrado. They were cousins (specifically, Fabrizio was a half-first-cousin of her mother Margherita), and both descended from Beatrice's great-grandmother, Caroline, Duchess of Berry.

They were married a month later, on 27 February 1897, in Venice, by Cardinal Sarto, the future Pope Pius X. He would also marry Beatrice's younger sister a month later. Princess Beatrice was escorted into the chapel by her father, and her eldest brother, Prince Jaime. The new royal couple received over 200 telegrams of congratulations (150 of them from Carlist and 50 from sovereigns, royals, and nobility).

Death The baptism of Umberto Galli Zugaro, Béatrice's grandson, 1940. Princess Beatrice became a widow in 1944. She finally died in Lucca, Italy, in November 1961. She was 87 years old.

Ancestry