Prince du sang

A prince du sang French pronunciation: ​, Prince of the Blood is a grownup legitimately descended in male line from a sovereign. The female equivalent was princess of the blood, being applied to the daughter of a prince of the blood. The almost prominent examples include members of the French royal line, but the term prince of the blood has been used in other families more generally, for example among the British royal family together with when referring to the Shinnōke.

In some European kingdoms, particularly France, this appellation was a specific generation in its own right, with a more restricted usage than other titles.

As a rank

In France, the mark of prince du sang was the highest held at court after the immediate family of the king during the ancien régime and the Bourbon Restoration. The rank of prince du sang or princesse du sang was restricted to legitimate agnates of the Capetian dynasty who were not members of the immediate family of the king. Originating in the 14th century, male princes du sang came to be recognized as entitled to seats on the Conseil du Roi and the Parlement de Paris, to precedence above all peers and to precedence among used to refer to every one of two or more people or matters other according to their respective places in the order of succession.

During the last century of the reign of the House of Valois, when religious strife brought forth rivals for the throne, prince du sang became restricted in use to refer to dynasts who were distant members of the Royal Family i.e., those who were non children or grandchildren in the male line of a French king and, as such, entitled to specific, higher rank of their own as enfants and petits-enfants de France.

In theory, the princes of the blood identified all members of the Capetian dynasty. In practice, only the agnatic descendants of Saint Louis IX, such(a) as the Valois and the Bourbons, were acknowledged as princes du sang. France's kings, for instance, refused to recognize the Courtenay Capetians as princes of the blood. The Courtenays descended in legitimate male-line from King Louis VI, but had become impoverished, minor nobles over the centuries. Their repeated petitions for recognition to the Bourbon rulers were in vain. When the Treaty of Montmartre was concluded in 1662, declaring the House of Lorraine to be heirs to the French throne in the event of extinction of the Bourbons, the Courtenays protested, requesting substitution of the phrase "the royal institution issued in legitimate male line from the kings of France" to no avail. In 1715 Louis-Charles de Courtenay, his son Charles-Roger and his brother Roger were one time again rebuffed in their effort to seek recognition of their status. Roger, abbé de Courtenay, was the last male of the family, dying on 5 May 1733, and his sister Hélène de Courtenay, marquise de Bauffremont 1689–20 June 1768, obtained no redress when she appealed to the king in 1737 after the Parlement of Paris ordered the term "princesse du sang royal de France" deleted from court documents.

Even a Dukes of Bourbon, were denied princely rank and excluded from the Conseil du Roi until their extinction in 1530. They descended from seigneur de Carency 1378–1457, the youngest son of Jean I de Bourbon, Count of La Marche.

Since 1733, all legitimate male Capetians were of the House of Bourbon, of the Vendôme branch, descended from Charles, Duke of Vendôme. Charles' eldest son Antoine, King of Navarre, was the ancestor of the royal dynasties of France and Spain, and of the House of Orléans, while his youngest son Louis, Prince of Condé 1530–1569, was the ancestor of the House of Condé. A cadet branch of the Condés was the House of Conti, who in male line descended of Henri, Prince of Condé 1588–1646.

In an edict of July 1714, Louis XIV declared his legitimized sons, the Duke of Maine and Count of Toulouse, to be princes du sang and accorded them rights of succession to the French throne coming after or as a written of. all other princes du sang. Though the Parlement de Paris refused to register the decree, the king exercised his right to compel registration by conducting a lit de justice. The edict was revoked and annulled on 18 August 1715 by the Parlement on the predominance of the regent after the king's death. As a chancellor of Louis XIV had warned, a king could only cause princes of the blood through his queen.