The King Louis XIV family tree, from Henri IV to Louis XV

Henri IV was the first Bourbon king of France. His second wife, Marie de’ Medici, bore the children who stand in the second row.³ He was assassinated in Paris in 1610 by a Catholic zealot, and his son Louis XIII became king at the age of eight.⁴

Three of their children are drawn on the Louis XIV family tree. Elisabeth became queen of Spain and Gaston became Duke of Orléans. Two daughters are left off the chart, Christine, Duchess of Savoy, and Henrietta Maria, queen of England as the wife of Charles I.³

Louis XIII married Anne of Austria, a daughter of the king of Spain, on 24 November 1615.⁵ For twenty-three years the marriage had no living child, and his brother Gaston stood next in line. The sources disagree on the losses. The article on Louis XIII counts four stillbirths, and the article on Anne counts five miscarriages.^5,6

Louis XIV was born at Saint-Germain-en-Laye on 5 September 1638, and his brother Philippe followed in 1640.³ Louis XIII died in 1643, and Louis XIV became king at four, with his mother as regent.¹ Philippe became Duke of Orléans, and his son Philippe II was regent for Louis XV from 1715 to 1723.¹²

The King Louis XIV family tree draws two marriages between France and Spain in one generation. Louis XIII married Anne of Austria, and his sister Elisabeth married Anne’s brother, Philip IV of Spain. Their daughter Maria Theresa was born in 1638, the same year as Louis XIV, so the two shared all four grandparents and were double first cousins.³

They married on 9 June 1660 at Saint-Jean-de-Luz, near the border with Spain.^7,1 They had six children, and only the eldest, Louis, the Grand Dauphin, lived to adulthood.¹ After the death of the queen in 1683 the king married Madame de Maintenon in secret.¹ That marriage and the children of his mistresses are not drawn, because they stand outside the line of the crown.

The Grand Dauphin was born at Fontainebleau in 1661 and married Maria Anna Victoria of Bavaria in 1680.⁸ They had three sons, who fill the fifth row of the Louis XIV family tree.

The eldest, Louis, Duke of Burgundy, was born in 1682 and married Marie Adélaïde of Savoy.⁹ The second, Philip, Duke of Anjou, became Philip V of Spain. His accession set off the War of the Spanish Succession, and the Treaty of Utrecht that ended it forbade any union of the French and Spanish crowns.¹¹ The youngest, Charles, Duke of Berry, was born in 1686 and died in 1714.¹⁴

The Grand Dauphin died of smallpox at Meudon on 14 April 1711, and the Duke of Burgundy became Dauphin.⁸ In February 1712 Marie Adélaïde caught measles and died on 12 February. Her husband caught it from her and died at Marly six days later.⁹

Their elder son, Louis, Duke of Brittany, was then Dauphin. He died of measles on 8 March 1712, aged five.¹⁰ The younger son, Louis, born in 1710, survived and became the heir of his great-grandfather, at the foot of the Louis XIV family tree.²

Louis XIV died at Versailles on 1 September 1715, after a reign of seventy-two years, and was buried at Saint-Denis.¹ His great-grandson became king as Louis XV at the age of five, and the Duke of Orléans ruled as regent.² In 1725 Louis XV married Marie Leszczyńska, who was seven years older than him.²

The King Louis XIV family tree ends with him, but the line went on. Louis XV reigned until 1774, and his grandson was Louis XVI.^2,13 Philip V, the second grandson, was the first Bourbon king of Spain.¹¹