Bourbon
Bourbona European royal family. The Bourbons ruled France (with interruptions) from 1589 to 1848 and have been the royal family of Spain since 1700. A branch of the Spanish Bourbons ruled in Naples from 1734 to 1860 and another in the duchy of Parma, 1748–1860.
The Bourbons first became prominent in the ninth century as a noble family in central France. In 1272 a Bourbon heiress married the sixth son of King Louis IX. In 1589, after all senior branches of the ruling Capetian dynasty had died out, Henry of Navarre, a Bourbon, came to the throne of France as Henry IV.
Louis XIV (reigned 1643–1715) was the most famous Bourbon king. The dynasty was deposed in 1792 during the French Revolution but was restored in 1814. The Revolution of 1830 ended the rule of the senior Bourbon line. Louis Philippe of the Bourbon-Orleans line ruled from 1830 to 1848, when he was forced to abdicate.
The Spanish Bourbons began with Philip V, a grandson of Louis XIV. He became king of Spain in 1700. They continued to rule until 1868, when Isabella II was deposed. The Bourbons were restored in 1874, deposed again in 1931, and restored again in 1975 when Juan Carlos came to the throne.
After the restoration of the French Bourbons in 1814 it was said of them that they had “forgotten nothing and learned nothing.” In politics the term bourbons is applied to extreme conservatives.