Charles I, the Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, was born in 1887 and succeeded his grand uncle, Francis Joseph I, in November, 1916. His way to the throne lay through tragedy, for he came into the crown immediately through the assassination of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir-apparent, and his morganatic wife Countess Sophie Chotek, in Bosnia, and which crime was the signal for the war. Nor would Charles have been entitled to succeed to the throne but for the fact that the Archduke Rudolf, heir-apparent to the throne, committed suicide in 1889.
The right of succession went with his death to the second brother of the then Emperor Francis Joseph, or Archduke Charles Louis, father of the assassinated Archduke Francis Ferdinand. It passed then after the tragedies to Archduke Otto, brother of Francis Ferdinand, Charles I being the son of the Archduke Otto. The young Emperor married Princess Zita of Bourbon Parma in 1911. She is the daughter of Duke Robert of Parma, and sister of the first wife of Czar Ferdinand of Bulgaria. The Emperor has four children: Francis Joseph Otto, Adelaide Marie, Robert Charles Ludwig and Felix Frederic August.
Ferdinand of Bulgaria, Czar, is son of the late Prince Augustus of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and late Princess Clementine of Bourbon-Orleans, daughter of King Louis Philippe. He was born in 1861 and succeeded Prince Alexander, who abdicated. He married Marie Louise, daughter of Robert of Parma, and after her death married Princess Eleanore of Reuss-Kostritz. There are four children by the first marriage: Prince Boris, heir-apparent; Prince Cyril, Princess Eudoxia, Princess Nadejda.
Alfonso XIII, King of Spain, was born May 17, 1886, his father, King Alfonso XII, having died nearly six months previous to his birth. Maria Christina, mother of the heir to the Spanish throne, was an Austrian princess. In 1906 King Alfonso XIII married the English Princess Victoria Eugenie, daughter of the late Henry of Battenberg and Princess Beatrice, a daughter of the late Queen Victoria.
KING ALFONSO'S SONS.
King Alfonso XIII has four sons: Alfonso, Prince of the Asturias, heir to the Spanish throne; Prince Jaime, who is deaf and dumb; Prince Juan, and Prince Gonzalo. There are two daughters, Princess Beatrice, and Princess Maria Christina.
The King's sisters were Maria de las Mercedes, who married Prince Carlos of Bourbon, in February, 1901, and died in 1904, and Infanta Maria Teresa, who died suddenly from the effects of childbirth. She was the wife of Prince Ferdinand, who afterward remarried Dona Maria Luisa Pie de Concha, who was created Duchess of Talavera de la Reina, and given the courtesy title of Highness by Alfonso. Don Carlos, who was born in 1848, and was the pretender to the Spanish throne, was a second cousin to the King. He died in 1909, leaving a son, Prince Jamie, born in 1870, and who is the present pretender, and four daughters.
The Spanish reigning family are the Bourbons, descendants of King Louis XIV of France.
Ferdinand, King of Roumania, was born in 1865, and is a nephew of the late King Carol, who died in 1914. In 1893 he married Princess Marie of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and two sons and four daughters were born to the royal couple as follows: Charles, who was born in 1893, and who is heir-apparent; Nicholas, Elizabeth, Marie, Ileana and Mircia, the latter dying when four years old.