by Susan Flantzer © Unofficial Royalty 2018
Éléonore de Bourbon-Condé, Princess of Orange; Credit – Wikipedia
The wife of Filips Willem, Prince of Orange, Éléonore de Bourbon-Condé, was born on April 30, 1587, St-Jean-d’Angély, Saintonge, France. She was the elder of the two children of Henri I, Prince de Condé and his second wife Charlotte Catherine de La Tremoille. The House of Condé was a French princely house and a cadet branch of the House of Bourbon. The title of Prince of Condé was originally assumed around 1557 by Éléonore’s grandfather Louis de Bourbon, a prominent Huguenot (French Protestant) leader and general and first cousin of King Henri IV of France. The title was held by his male-line descendants.
Éléonore had one younger brother who was named heir presumptive to the French throne by King Henri IV and remained the heir until the birth of the king’s son, the future King Louis XII, in 1601:
- Henri II, Prince de Condé (1588–1646), married Charlotte Marguerite de Montmorency, had three children
Éléonore had a half-sister from her father’s first marriage to Marie of Cleves:
- Catherine de Bourbon-Conde, (1574–1595), died unmarried
Éléonore’s father died when she was nearly a year old. Henri I, Prince de Condé had been wounded in battle several months earlier and was recuperating when he suddenly died on March 3, 1588, at the age of 35. An autopsy indicated that he may have been poisoned. Éléonore’s mother Charlotte Catherine was three months pregnant at the time and there was talk that the father was her page. Thought to have a motive, Charlotte Catherine was arrested for murder. She was held in the tower of the family castle where she gave birth to her son Henri on September 1, 1588. Charlotte Catherine was tried and condemned to death. She appealed her conviction but she remained imprisoned. After seven years, Charlotte Catherine’s conviction was overturned and she was released from her imprisonment.
On November 23, 1606, at the Château de Fontainebleau in France, 19-year-old Éléonore married 51-year-old Filips Willem, Prince of Orange, son of Willem I (the Silent), Prince of Orange and his first wife Anna van Egmont. The marriage had been arranged by Louise de Coligny, the fourth wife and widow of Willem I. Louise was the daughter of a French nobleman, admiral, and Huguenot leader Gaspard II de Coligny who had been killed during the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre in 1572 when thousands of Huguenots were murdered.
Filips Willem, Prince of Orange; Credit – Wikipedia
Willem I (the Silent), Prince of Orange, Filips Willem’s father, was the leader of Dutch forces during the wars of independence against the Spaniards who held the land we now know as the Netherlands. In 1568, when the 13-year-old Filips Willem was a student at the University of Leuven (now in Belgium), he had been abducted and taken to Spain, where he had been held hostage by King Philip II of Spain. In Spain, Filips Willem was made to convert to Roman Catholicism and educated as a Spaniard. He never saw his father again. In 1584, his father was assassinated and Filips Willem inherited the Principality of Orange (which was in France). He did not return to the Netherlands until 1596, 28 years after he was kidnapped. As a Catholic, Filips Willem often collided with his younger Protestant half-brother Maurits, who had succeeded his father as Stadtholder (Governor) of several Dutch provinces. The brothers were at odds with each other until 1609 when King Henri IV of France succeeded in reconciling them.
Éléonore and Filips Willem dancing at a ball; Credit – Wikipedia
Éléonore and Filips Willem had a happy marriage despite their age difference and the absence of children. Filips Willem died on February 20, 1618, at the age of 63 at the Palace of Nassau in Brussels after a botched medical procedure. He was buried at Saint Sulpice Church, a Roman Catholic parish church in Diest, now in Belgium. Éléonore did not inherit anything since her husband had willed all his possessions to his half-brother Maurits who became the next Prince of Orange.
Éléonore survived her husband by barely a year, dying at the age of 31 on January 20, 1619, in Muret-le-Château, France. She was buried at the Eglise Saint-Thomas de Cantorbery in Vallery, France, the traditional burial place of the Princes of Condé and their descendants.
Eglise Saint-Thomas de Cantorbery; Photo Credit – Par François GOGLINS — Travail personnel, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=28084982
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