House of Bourbon

The House of Bourbon (English /ˈbɔːrbən/; French: [buʁˈbɔ̃]) is a European royal house of French origin, a branch of the Capetian dynasty (/kəˈpiːʃⁱən/). Bourbon kings first ruled France and Navarre in the 16th century. By the 18th century, members of the Bourbon dynasty also held thrones in Spain, Naples, Sicily, and Parma. Spain and Luxembourg currently have Bourbon monarchs.

The royal Bourbons originated in 1268, when the heiress of the lordship of Bourbon married a younger son of King Louis IX. The house continued for three centuries as a cadet branch, while more senior Capetians ruled France, until Henry IV became the first Bourbon king of France in 1589. Bourbon monarchs then unified France with the small kingdom of Navarre, which Henry's father had acquired by marriage in 1555, and ruled until the 1792 overthrow of the monarchy during the French Revolution. Restored briefly in 1814 and definitively in 1815 after the fall of the First French Empire, the senior line of the Bourbons was finally overthrown in the July Revolution of 1830. A cadet Bourbon branch, the House of Orléans, then ruled for 18 years (1830–1848), until it too was overthrown.