Princess Alice of Bourbon

Princess Alice of Bourbon (29 June 1876 – 20 January 1975) was the youngest child of Prince Carlos, Duke of Madrid, the Carlist pretender to the Spanish throne, and his wife, Princess Margherita of Bourbon-Parma. Prince Carlos was also the Legitimist pretender to the French throne. Princess Alice, though initially, respectfully married Prince Friedrich of Schönburg-Waldenburg, but she divorced him to marry her lover, a commoner she already had two children with, which caused a scandal.

Alice was born in Pau, near the Spanish border, just after the Third Carlist War^[1]. After the war, Princess Alice’s family lived in Paris for five years, until the French government banished them because of Don Carlos's political activities. In 1881, when Alice was five years old, her parents separated. Her father moved to Venice, while her mother Princess Margherita took Alice and her siblings to Tuscany, where they settled in the Tenuta Reale, the ancient villa of the Dukes of Parma in Viareggio. Alice and her sisters attended the Sacre Coeur convent school in Florence. The children were very close to their mother, who had decided to place generosity and kindness at the heart of her children's education.^[2] Later, Alice and her sister Beatrice finished their education at the Trinità dei Monti in Rome. ^[3]

Her mother died in January 1893, when Alice was sixteen years old. Her father married Princess Berthe de Rohan only a year later, to the dislike of his children, who were around the same age as their new stepmother.^[4]

In 1896, her sister Elvira ran away with a Florentine painter, leaving her family for more than a decade^[5]. On September 30, 1896, while attending the Te Deum at the closing of the First Anti-Masonic Congress of Trent with her father and stepmother, Alice met Prince Friedrich of Schönburg-Waldenburg, a lieutenant in the Bavarian army and a Knight of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, who shortly thereafter proposed marriage.

They were wed on 26 April 1897, when Alice was twenty years old. They were married in Venice, by Cardinal Sarto, the future Pope Pius X, who had married her sister Beatrice two months earlier. Friedrich's witnesses were Archduke Leopold Salvator of Austria (husband of Alice's older sister Blanca) and Prince Fabrizio Massimo (husband of Alice's older sister Beatrice). Alice's witnesses were her brother Don Jaime, and her uncle Alphonse. After a honeymoon, they settled in Gauernitz Castle in Saxony. The young princess became popular in Dresden, where she was nicknamed "Good Alice".

Princess Alice joined her brother Jacques during the Boxer Rebellion in 1900. She participated as a "Russian Red Cross Charity Sister," with the Empress's approval.  Alice also served in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904 as a nurse. It was during this time that Alice became friends with the future Tsarina of Bulgaria, Eleonora Reuss von Köstritz, who was also a nurse.

In November 1903, the "disappearance" of the princess and her coachman made headlines in European newspapers^[6]. It was assumed that Alice had run away with her lover; however, she denied this and confessed in an interview with the Luxembourg newspaper L'Indépendance. Alice stated that her husband "brutalized and insulted her about everything," was a violent man, and was constantly short of money. She therefore chose to run away and file for divorce. The princess also announced her intention to settle in Naples and not to remarry.^[7]

Alice and her husband subsequently sought an annulment of the marriage, which was granted on May 26, 1906, by the Holy See. The princess's elopement and subsequent divorce received significant media coverage, given the high birth of the couple. The divorce, granted in Dresden in 1903, was based on "assault and violence as well as confinement".^[8] Friedrich would later marry morganatically Franziska Maison von Lobenstein, member of the minor Austrian nobility, later created "Gräfin von Bug".^[9].

Finally, on June 2, 1906, after giving birth to two children, Alice married Lino del Prete (1877–1956) in the chapel of Viareggio. The couple would have another son, and six more daughters. Most of her siblings caused a scandal of some sorts. In 1896, her sister Elvira eloped with an Italian painter and had three illegitimate children. Her older sister Beatrice attempted suicide in public in 1902. Her brother Don Jaime, a womaniser who refused to marry and continue the family line, fell out with their father after the latter's marriage to the much-younger Berthe de Rohan.

• Karl Leopold of Schönburg-Waldenburg (2 June 1902 – 19 February 1992), who first married Ornella Ravaschieri Fieschi dei duchi di Roccapiemonte (1904–2004), then Varaiterai a Neti (1915–1997). Hence five children.

• Margarita del Prete (11 December 1904-?), who married Michele Signorini (1887–1938), without issue.
• Giorgio del Prete (21 November 1905 – 13 April 1928), died aged 22.
• Cristina del Prete (18 February 1907 – 26 July 1982), who married Alberto Picchiani (1908–1943). They had two sons.
• Beatriz del Prete (13 February 1908 – 1944), who married Raffaele Casertano (1915–1979). From this union came three sons and a daughter.
• Luisa del Prete (4 March 1909-?) ;
• Francisca del Prete (13 January 1911–1941), who married Domenico Ravera (1907-...). From this union came two daughters.
• Ernestina del Prete (1915-?);
• Francisco Grigori Simon del Prete (27 March 1918 – 20 July 1995), who married Maria Palestrino (1918–1997). They had two sons.
• Valentina del Prete (4 February 1922 – 2021), who married Carlo Arezzo della Targia (*1914). From this union came two daughters and a son.

Her husband died in 1956. Princess Alice was the last of her immediate family to die, living to the age of 98 (as would her youngest daughter).