Person:Xavier, Duke of Parma (1)

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Xavier, Duke of Parma and Piacenza, known in France before 1974 as Prince Xavier de Bourbon-Parme, known in Spain as Francisco Javier de Borbón-Parma y de Braganza or simply as Don Javier (25 May 1889 – 7 May 1977), was the head of the ducal House of Bourbon-Parma and Carlist claimant to the throne of Spain.

He was the second son of the last reigning Duke of Parma Robert I and his second wife Infanta Maria Antonia of Portugal, although born after his father lost the throne. Educated with austerity at Stella Matutina, he grew up in France, Italy and Austria, where his father had properties. During World War I, he joined the Belgian army, fighting with distinction. With his brother Sixtus he was a go-between in the so-called Sixtus Affair, a failed attempt by his brother-in-law, Emperor Charles I of Austria to negotiate a separate peace with the Allies (1916–1917) through the Bourbon-Parma brothers.

In 1936 Don Alfonso Carlos de Borbón, Duke of Madrid died, ending the male line of Carlist pretenders to the Spanish throne descended from Infante Carlos, Count of Molina. Having no children with his wife, Maria das Neves of Portugal, Don Alfonso Carlos designated her nephew Xavier to succeed him as regent in exile of the Carlist Communion and as Grand Master of the Order of Prohibited Legitimacy.

During the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), he entered Spain twice and the Carlist troops, known as Requetés, sided with the nationalists of General Franco. He visited the North Front and Andalucia, but was expelled from Spain in 1938. He settled in France at the castle of Bostz, a property of his wife. During World War II, he reenlisted in the Belgian army. After Belgium and France were invaded by the Nazis, he moved to Vichy and took part in the French Resistance. Arrested by the Gestapo in 1941, he was condemned to death for espionage and terrorism. Pardoned by Pétain, he was confined in Clermont-Ferrand, Schirmeck, Natzwiller and lastly, in September, he was imprisoned in Dachau from which he was freed by the Americans in April 1945.

During the 1950s and 1960s he was active in the Carlist movement. In May 1952, persuaded of the need to be appointed king by the National Council of Traditionalist Communion, he agreed to conclude the sixteen years of his regency by being proclaimed King of Spain in Barcelona under the name Javier I. Soon thereafter he was expelled from Spain by order of the Francoist government. At the death of his unmarried nephew Robert of Parma in 1974, Prince Xavier became titular Duke of Parma. By then he was in frail health, having suffered life-threatening injuries in a 1972 traffic accident. He transferred all political authority to his eldest son, Prince Carlos Hugo of Bourbon-Parma, and formally abdicated as the Carlist king in his elder son's favor in 1975.

1. ↑ ^1.0 1.1 Xavier, Duke of Parma, in Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia.