Friday 30 September 2005

Royal Second Son Syndrome

When Prince Harry of Wales was born 21 years ago this month (15^th) he entered an exclusive royal group-that of the second son of the king or his heir. In Harry�s own family this spot in the succession has proved to be a curse. Both King George V and King George VI were second sons of the king and both, either due to the early death or weak character of his elder brother, ended up with a crown on his head. Neither had been prepared or educated for the role. During his first solo birthday interview Harry admitted, somewhat sheepishly, that William sometimes comes to him to talk over his problems, and that his advice is pretty good. The older the brothers become the closer they are getting. No fighting over whom would succeed the throne, no plotting, no revolts, no jealousy or court intriguing. If they had been born in the 17^th century the story would have been much different. Take the sorry tale of the second son of France�s King Louis XIII for example...           

Louis XIII and his Queen Anne had two sons, Louis in 1638 and Philippe in 1640. When Louis was five and Philippe three the king died. Louis XIV became king and Philippe his heir. For the next 18 years, as the boys grew up, Louis made it plain to all that he would brook no rivals for his throne and he made sure the future Duc d�Orleans knew exactly where he stood. Louis� arrival was a long-awaited �gift of God�, assuring the succession and Philippe�s arrival ensured it. Louis and his teenage Spanish princess bride had married in 1615, but because Louis was not, shall we say, �attracted� to women their marital relations were strained and very infrequent. He was preoccupied with affairs of state, at war or off hunting. Nevertheless he was always accusing her of affairs and dismissing her friends from court. Even after the birth the threats continued. True she was a bit of a hedonist. And she had been suspected of conspiring with Louis�s younger brother (naturally) Gaston, duke of Orleans, in a plot with Spain to place Gaston (then the heir) on the French throne. Gaston was everything his brother was not, and Gaston really did hope that he would outlive Louis and become King. He was rich enough to pose a serious challenge. Anne however matured into a deeply moral woman who showered all the love she could not give to her husband on her little boys-but mostly on Louis. At his christening little Philippe became duke of Anjou.           

His own nursery household was set up separate from his brother, but they shared the same governess, who would care for and teach him until he was seven. Since the governess, and not Anne, would be responsible for shaping their habits and looking after their health, this was a very important position, and one Anne had no say in. Despite the wet nurses and numerous other people taking care of them Anne maintained close loving relations with her boys. Seventeenth century attitudes to teaching children were in the midst of an evolution: gone were the severe corporal punishments that had been so much a part of Louis XIII�s childhood. Now it was learning by example, with praise, and should be enjoyable.            

From the day his father died in 1643, when Louis became king, Philippe found himself shunted further off into the shadows, from where he watched, ignored. Although she was Regent in name Anne did not have any actual power. Gaston had appointed a regency council who made the rules. Cardinal Richelieu and Louis and been working to consolidate all the political power in the King, who ruled by divine right and was therefore god on earth, but it was not yet done. Richelieu had died before Louis. Anne was believed to have little idea of how to protect her son from ravening relatives and Richelieu�s enemies looking for revenge. But four days later Anne was declared fully responsible for not only administration of the realm but for Louis� person. She set her own council and kept Gaston as lieutenant general, subject to the regent�s authority. Her life and practices became all about consolidating Louis XIV�s position as a great king. She was a Hapsburg but the daughter of Cosimo di Medici. All this change of heart and sudden political savvy was due to Richelieu's prot�g� and Louis� chief minister, one Cardinal Mazarin. 

Philippe knew that although he was a very important person, with the official title of Monsieur, he pulled a distant second to his brother The laws of primogeniture ruled all of European society, no matter the rank of the family. This was to ensure ease of tax collecting and other obligations every family owed the King. It was the second sons who were sacrificed to the army, whose interests put entirely toward the elder, who had no inheritance. With royalty it was more pronounced. Only one sovereign could sit on the throne at one time, and the power had to continue on through him and him only. Anne had shown a marked preference for her first born from the beginning. She called Philippe her �little girl�, left him to be with Louis even when he was very ill with smallpox. When Louis had smallpox it was a different story. As they grew Philippe was taught to obey Louis, to defer to him always and be submissive. Only in this way could he get Anne�s approval. His feelings of hatred for his brother and overwhelming guilt for feeling that way sent him on a downward psychological spiral from which he would never recover. 

Philippe grew into a short of stature but strong, well proportioned boy with dark hair, black eyes and an intelligent, sparkling way about him that made him very popular. He spoke his own mind when it suited him. Like his father and his Uncle Gaston before them Monsieur was everything the king was not. (To make things simple Philippe will be called M., the abbreviation for Monsieur, for the rest of this story). 

Just before he turned eight he was publicly baptized, with his godparents Uncle Gaston and Queen Henriette (the queen of the now deposed Charles I of England). Anne was extremely devout and took M. around to all the shrines and observed all offices of the church. From this the boy got not so much a love of religion but a love of the ceremonies and riches displayed during them. Public affairs were all he was allowed to attend and he wanted them done right. 

The boys� education was taken over by male governors. Louis was taught to hunt, dance, speak Latin, Greek and learned about affairs of state and diplomacy. Mazarin wanted him to learn to rule wisely, to fight bravely but be cultured at the same time. M�s governors were also military men, but as they were away at war most of the time it was not until he was 13 that his formal training began. But M. soon proved he was brighter than Louis was, so Mazarin stopped his lessons. Mazarin was in a tough spot. He couldn�t let M. outshine the king, but neither could he neglect teaching him how to rule in case Louis had no male heir. M. Like everyone else, relative or not, was first and foremost still a subject of the King. Left to his own devices M. never progressed much beyond the literacy level of a ten-year-old. His handwriting was nearly illegible. He wrote nothing but letters and gave little thought to much else except pleasure, dressing up like a woman, and avoiding any kind of physical activity at all times. 

In 1652 Louis turned 15 and Anne renounced her regency. King Louis XIV was now ruler in all ways. M. had his own household distinct from his brother�s and rarely saw him. Even Mazarin no longer paid much attention. 

Louis had been married to the Spanish Infanta Maria Theresa, daughter of King Philip IV, by proxy years before. The first time they saw each other was at the cathedral in Paris when they were officially married. A year later Mazarin was dead and Maria, whose sole role here was to provide a male heir, did her duty. M., now knocked down a rung on the succession ladder, found himself left completely out of the loop. Louis made sure his constant humiliations were done in public so all would know Louis, and only Louis, was in charge. However Uncle Gaston had also died, which left his title and the money and land that went with it available. Gaston�s only child was their cousin Anne Marie, known as La Grande Mademoiselle, who could not inherit. Louis and Mazarin had already decided to make M. the next Duc d�Orleans, although Louis wasn�t too happy about his brother not being completely financially dependent on him. Once he had the title it could never be taken from him, and he was free to make and keep all the money made from the land. 

Mazarin had also been searching for a suitable bride for M. and his sights fell on a girl who had been at court since she was two- his cousin Henriette. As the daughter of England�s Charles I and baby sister of Charles II, she and her mother had been in exile at the French court for 15 years. She had long ago given up the idea of her Minette marrying Louis, but since the kids had known each other all their lives, she agreed to the marriage. Henriette must have known about her future husband�s sexual preferences and his affinity for men his own age who treated him like dirt, but still she married him in 1661 when she was 16 and he 20. Thrilled to be free from her impoverished background and her overbearingly religious mother, the new Madame set out to establish their court. 

The advantages far outweighed the fact there was no love between them. They had much in common. They both hated the outdoors, they both loved entertaining and throwing elaborate spectacles that lasted days and sometimes weeks. They were both accomplished equestrians but hated hunting. They collected artworks and threw massive banquets in their rooms at the Tuileries palace, and for a few weeks all went well. But with our medical knowledge now it is clear that Henriette was suffering from both tuberculosis and anorexia nervosa. She rarely ate, hardly slept and was always looking frantically for diversion. And she could think of no better diversion than to break men�s hearts, and no better heart to break than her brother-in-law�s! Louis, weary of his grumpy pregnant wife decided this might be fun. Both mothers tried in vain to stop the flirtation. When Louis pulled a switch with one of Madame�s ladies as a decoy, the decoy became one of his secret mistresses. Madame was not pleased. So her next conquest was one Guiche. Her husband�s favourite, he was his strong, masculine-looking lover who walked all over M. in public and made a fool of him-something M. could not seem to get enough of. In revenge and out of jealousy, M. decided to demand his marital rights, something he had not previously shown much proficiency in. The result was a pregnancy that (as did the subsequent ones) depleted her already fragile resources. The four-month-old marriage was over. M. was now left completely demoralized, betrayed and full of hate for his wife and his brother. The result was that his previous bisexual tendencies were, for the time being, settled on the distaff side. But they were stuck with each other. 

Paris, on the other hand, was crazy about him. Their new court at the Palais Royal was the center and there M. was indeed king. Louis preferred Versailles more and more, disliking Paris. Their first child was born in 1662. Their only son Philippe de Valois died in 1665 at the age of two. In 1666 Henriette�s mother died of TB and Anne died, painfully, from breast cancer. Through it all though, no matter how they might have grieved in private, the parties never stopped. M. whose favourite diversion was the theatre, is credited with the discovery of the playwright Moliere, and became his patron in 1658. 

Anne, increasingly disgusted with Louis� innumerable affairs, had grown closer to M. and he acutely felt her loss. There had been a brief reconciliation but with their mother�s restraining force gone Louis went about flaunting his mistresses in public and legitimizing at will all the children they provided him. Madame had lost her major censor too. 

In 1667, acting on the premise that he was regaining the Spanish Netherlands for his wife, which he wanted anyway, set off to occupy them. M. set off for Flanders, but as the French were so well equipped and organized there wasn�t much of a fight. Anyway his military career was over when he rushed home after learning Madame had nearly died in childbirth. They met, got pregnant, and started the fighting all over again. That was not the type of battle M. had gotten a taste for though. Madame continued her flirtations with men of all rank and marital state. She didn�t care. She went after soldiers, bishops and even James, Duke of Monmouth, illegitimate son of her brother. Despite several pregnancies only two daughters survived into adulthood 

With Louis� consent the man who would come to dominate and become an inseparable part of the rest of his brother�s life came into the picture. Philippe, chevalier de Lorraine, like Guiche before him, bore a striking resemblance to Louis himself. The difference was that, unlike M.�s previous lovers, Lorraine preferred women. However if it got him what he wanted� 

Lorraine and his cohorts moved into the Orleans� world and took over M. He adored being subjugated by them. Madame was not pleased about this either. Neither was her brother Charles, King of England. 

Louis wanted to keep her as a means to holding onto his alliance with England. Charles needed a French subsidy to buck up his drained treasury. It was therefore politically expedient to keep Madame in a place of power. The treaty between the two countries was to be signed in 1669, and Madame was approached to travel in secret to England to see it done. Madame, thinking she was indispensable decided to exploit the situation. She begged her brother to get him to persuade Louis to get rid of Lorraine. Lorraine was arrested, and when M�s protests went unheard he picked up his court and hauled it all off in a huff to his province of Languedoc. Madame pretended to be outraged, but after 25 days a deal was struck where Lorraine would be freed but had to stay away from Paris (he moved to Rome). M.�s fury at Louis was taken out on his wife. 

Louis and Charles kept up their plots against the Dutch and plans were made to sneak Madame into England, against M.�s wishes. He was outflanked of course. The family road trip to Dunkirk was not a pleasant journey. Madame hadn�t been feeling too well but when she returned from England in triumph three weeks later she felt much better. Then on June 29, after drinking a cup of chicory, she felt a dreadful pain in her abdomen. With M. watching she screamed that she had been poisoned. That was not unusual, poison was the extermination method of choice at the time. Although accusing eyes glanced his way M. was not to blame. After she was given last rites she died at 3am on June 26, 1670, aged 26. Louis went to great pains to prove by an autopsy that the death was due to natural causes. Knowing what we know of her diseases now doctors who have studied her history believe she died of a perforated duodenal ulcer, as a result of the anorexia, and are indeed astounded she lived as long as she did. 

M. had her buried with all due pomp and ceremony, but right after she died he had wasted no time grabbing her keys and taking all Charles� letters to her detailing the treaty negotiations. He had them translated into French from the English and then pocketed the gold pieces Charles had sent her for a reward. Gifts had always been the best way to mollify him, and now he gifted himself in his version of getting even. His score with his wife was settled. 

Louis sincerely mourned his sister-in-law for a few minutes, and then asked his cousin Anne Marie, aged 43 and still unmarried, if she would like to be the next Madame? 

She didn�t, but as you will see in Part 2, for the 30-year-old Phillippe, Duc d�Orleans, life would never be the same again. And just for a little while the King let the Sun shine on his younger brother. But just for a little while. 

Happy Birthday, Prince Harry! You are turning into a mature, well spoken, professional who is not afraid to show your playful side or express your opinions. Nobody wants anything to happen to William, but I have a feeling that if you're ever put into the position of your great-great and great grandfathers you will rise to the occasion and surprise everyone. You are in our prayers and please don�t let Second Son Syndrome stop you from attaining your dreams. 

For my readers in Canada, Happy Thanksgiving on October 10.

Anon.

Click here for Part 2

- The Court Jester