Sire de Bourbon

The Sire de Bourbon or Seigneur de Bourbon, meaning Lord of Bourbon, was the title by which the rulers of "la Bourbonnais" were known, from 913 to 1327, and from which the cognomen of the illustrious royal House of the same name derives. Louis I, comté de Clermont, the ultimate holder, was created the first "duc de Bourbon" and made "comté de la Marche" by his cousin, King Charles IV of France, in exchange for Clermont-en-Beauvaisis, thus absorbing the title.

This title dates to at least the early Tenth-Century and Aymar de Bourbon. Aymar lived under the reign of the Carolingian overlord Charles III of France who gave to him, in the year 913, several strongholds on the river Allier, such as the castle in the medieval town of Bourbon-l'Archambault. Of Aymar's ten successors all but three took the name "d'Archambault". His line ended in 1200 with the death of Archambault VII, whose granddaughter, Mathilde, then became the first "dame de Bourbon" ("dame" being the feminine form of "seigneur/sire"), as she was Archambault's eldest living relative (the title being heritable by female family members). Mathilde's husband, Guy II de Dampierre, added Montluçon to the possessions of the Lords of Bourbon, which had expanded to the river Cher during the Eleventh and Twelfth-Centuries. Their son, Archambaud VIII "le Grand", seigneur de Bourbon from the year 1216 to the year 1242, rose to connétable de ("the constable of ...") France, the commander-in-chief of the French military.

Following the death of Archambaud IX in 1249 on crusade, the title then passed through his daughters; first, Mathilde II (also known as "Mahaut"), comtesse de Nevers, d'Auxerre et de Tonnerre and second, Agnès de Bourbon, whose husband, Jean de Bourgogne, was the second son of the duc de Bourgogne, Hugh IV, and therefore a male-line descendant of Hugh Capet. Jean, himself seigneur de Charolais became seigneur de Bourbon as well upon the death of Mathilde in 1262. He died five years later at the age of thirty-six and Agnès remained a widow. Jean's daughter by Agnès, Béatrice, after the death of her mother in 1287, became his heir both in Charolais and Bourbonnais. Her spouse, Robert of France was the sixth son of saint Louis IX Capet, king of the Franks and the founder of the line which was to reach the throne of France in the person of its 10th-degree descendant, Henri IV, roi de France. The son of Robert and Beatrice, Louis, became the first duc de Bourbon, superseding the previous rank of seigneur.