However, the French Prime minister, the Duke of Bourbon, regarded her to be of too inferior rank for the position of queen, and the unstable situation in her family a cause of rejection of her candidacy, and in the end she was removed from the list.

She travelled to Parma where she made a magnificent entry to the city on 6 July 1728, greeted at the Porta San Michele by crowds of cheerers and onlookers.

It was decided that, should the child be female, the duchy of Parma would revert to the Infante Don Carlos (then aged 12), eldest of the three sons of Elisabeth Farnese, wife of Philip V of Spain, niece of Antonio by his older half-brother Odoardo, who had been heir-apparent to the duchy but predeceased their father.

[5] Queen Elisabeth in Spain convinced her mother to have Enrichetta examined again on 13 September 1731; it was then reported that there was in fact no child, and the House of Farnese was extinct.

Charles of Spain was thus recognised as Duke of Parma and Piacenza, deposing the regency of Enrichetta d'Este.

Since Charles was still a minor, his maternal grandmother Dorothea Sophie of the Palatinate, Odoardo's widow, was named regent.

Shunned by her father's court in Modena, the dowager duchess moved into the Ducal Palace of Colorno, where she was under virtual house arrest with an escort of Swiss Guards.