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Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies
| Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies | |
|---|---|
| King of the Two Sicilies | |
 Oil painting by Anton Raphael Mengs, c. 1772/3. | |
 King of the Two Sicilies | |
| Reign | December 8, 1816 – January 4, 1825 |
| Predecessor | None |
| Successor | Francis I |
| King of Naples (as Ferdinand IV) First time | |
| Reign | October 6, 1759 – January 23, 1799 |
| Predecessor | Charles VII |
| Successor | Parthenopean Republic |
| Second time | |
| Reign | June 13, 1799 – March 30, 1806 |
| Predecessor | Parthenopean Republic |
| Successor | Joseph I |
| Third time | |
| Reign | May 3, 1815 – December 8, 1816 |
| Predecessor | Joachim I |
| Successor | Kingdom of the Two Sicilies |
| King of Sicily (as Ferdinand III) | |
| Reign | October 6, 1759 – December 8, 1816 |
| Predecessor | Charles V |
| Successor | Kingdom of the Two Sicilies |
| Born | January 12, 1751 Naples, Kingdom of Naples |
| Died | January 4, 1825 (aged 73).svg){kind=small} Naples, Kingdom of the Two Sicilies |
| Burial | |
| Spouse | Maria Carolina of Austria Lucia Migliaccio of Floridia |
| Issue | see Marriage and issue |
| House | House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies |
| Father | Charles III of Spain |
| Mother | Maria Amalia of Saxony |
Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies ([Ferdinando I delle Due Sicilie] Error: {{Langx}}: text has italic markup (help)) (Naples, January 12, 1751 – Ibid., January 4, 1825) was a Spanish infante[1] of the House of Bourbon who occupied the thrones of Naples (as Ferdinand IV) and Sicily (as Ferdinand III) in three periods of time (1759–1799, 1799–1806 and 1815–1816). In 1816, both kingdoms were merged to form the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and Ferdinand ruled over this new state until his death in 1825.
He was the third son of Charles III of Spain and of Maria Amalia of Saxony. When his father inherited the Spanish Crown (his half-brother had died without issue), Ferdinand became the heir to his father's Italian kingdom, since international agreements prevented the two crowns from being united. None of his brothers or sisters outlived him, and he was moreover the son of Charles III who reigned the longest, specifically in Sicily uninterruptedly for 66 years, between 1759 and 1825.
Titles
Ferdinand was named at the same time Ferdinand III of Sicily (January 6, 1759 – December 8, 1816) and Ferdinand IV of Naples (October 6, 1759 – January 23, 1799; June 13, 1799 – March 30, 1806; May 3, 1815 – December 8, 1816).
On January 23, 1799, the Kingdom of Naples was declared abolished, to be replaced by the Neapolitan Republic or Parthenopean Republic, which would last only until June 13, 1799. Ferdinand was restored to the throne for a short span of time. On March 30, 1806, Napoleon I of France declared Ferdinand deposed and replaced him with his own brother Joseph Bonaparte. Ferdinand was restored a third time by his victory at the Battle of Tolentino (May 3, 1815) over the rival Monarch Joachim I. On December 8, 1816, he united the thrones of Sicily and Naples in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and continued ruling as sovereign until his death on January 4, 1825. Nevertheless, his reign was mainly dominated by his wife.
Childhood
Ferdinand was born in Naples. When his father ascended the Spanish throne in 1759, Ferdinand, in accordance with the treaties prohibiting the union of the two crowns, succeeded him as King of Naples, under a regency presided over by the Tuscan Bernardo Tanucci. Tanucci, a capable and ambitious politician, kept the greatest share of power in his own hands; he deliberately neglected the education of the young King, and encouraged him in his love of pleasure, his idleness and his excessive devotion to outdoor sports. Ferdinand had an athletic bearing, but was ignorant, ill-mannered and addicted to the lowest amusements; he delighted in the company of the lazzaroni, whose dialect and customs he adopted, and he even sold fish in the market, haggling over the price.
Reign
When Ferdinand's minority ended in 1767, his first act was the expulsion of the Jesuits. The following year he married Maria Carolina, daughter of the Empress Maria Theresa of Austria and sister of the Emperor Joseph II and of Marie Antoinette, future Queen of France. Under the marriage contract the Queen was to have a voice in the Council of State after the birth of her first son, and she was not slow to benefit, in this way, from her political influence. Beautiful, clever and haughty, like her mother, but cruel and treacherous, her ambition grew until she attained a position of great power in the Kingdom of Naples; she soon came to wield complete power over her stupid and lazy husband, and was the true ruler of the kingdom.
Tanucci, who tried to counter her, was dismissed in 1777, and an Englishman, Sir John Acton, who in 1779 was appointed director of the navy, succeeded him, thereby winning Maria Carolina's complete favor. To help her in her plans to free Naples from Spain under the influence of an alliance with Austria and England, he soon became prime minister. Although he was not a mere usurping adventurer, he was largely responsible for reducing the internal administration of the kingdom to a system of espionage, corruption and cruelty.
At the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 the Neapolitan court was not hostile to the movement, and the Queen at the same time sympathized with the revolutionary ideas of those days. But when the French monarchy was abolished and the King and Queen (her sister Marie Antoinette) were executed, Ferdinand and Maria Carolina were seized by a sense of danger and horror, and joined the First Coalition against France in 1793.
French occupation
Even though peace was made with France in 1796, the demands of the French Directory, whose troops occupied Rome, alarmed the King once more. His wife urged him to take advantage of Napoleon's absence in Egypt and of Nelson's victories in the war. He marched with his armies against the French and entered Rome (November 29). However, with the defeat of some of his columns he hastily returned to Naples, and with the approach of the French troops he fled, embarking with Nelson aboard the Vanguard for Sicily, leaving his capital in a state of anarchy.
The French entered the city amid the fierce resistance of the lazzaroni, who were followers of the King, and with the help of the nobles and bourgeois they established the Neapolitan Republic (January 1799). When, a few weeks later, the French troops returned to northern Italy, Ferdinand sent to Calabria an expedition made up of peasants and bandits under the command of Cardinal Ruffo, a man of real capacity, very devoted to the King, and by no means as bad as he has been painted, to reconquer the mainland kingdom. Ruffo's expedition was a complete success, and it reached Naples in May 1800. His armies and the lazzaroni committed nameless atrocities, which he honestly tried to prevent, and the Parthenopean Republic collapsed.
The King, and above all the Queen, were especially eager that no mercy be shown to the rebels, and Maria Carolina made use of Lady Hamilton, Nelson's mistress, to induce the latter to carry out her own spiteful vengeance. Maria Carolina used as her only excuse that she was the sister of Marie Antoinette. The very word "republicans" or "Jacobins" filled her with hatred.
Third Coalition
The King returned to Naples shortly afterward and ordered wholesale arrests and executions of supposed liberals, which continued to flourish under the French, forcing him to concede a treaty that included an amnesty for the supporters of the French. When war broke out between France and Austria in 1805, Ferdinand signed a neutrality treaty with the former, but a few days later allied himself with Austria and allowed Anglo-Russian forces to pass through Naples (see First Coalition).
The French victory at the Battle of Austerlitz on December 2, 1805, allowed Napoleon to send an army to southern Italy. Ferdinand fled hastily to Palermo (January 23, 1806), soon followed by his wife and son. A few days later, on February 14, 1806, the French entered Naples. Napoleon declared that the Bourbon dynasty had lost the throne, proclaiming his elder brother, Joseph, as King of Naples and Sicily. However, Ferdinand continued his reign in Sicily, under British protection. Parliamentary institutions of feudal stamp had long existed on the island, and the British minister, Lord William Bentinck, insisted on a constitutional reform along the lines of the English and French constitutions. The King in effect abdicated his power to his son Francis, who acted as regent, and the Queen, at Bentinck's urging, was exiled to Austria, where she died in 1814.
The Restoration
After the fall of Napoleon, Joachim Murat, who had succeeded Joseph Bonaparte as King of Naples in 1808, was dethroned and later shot (1815), and Ferdinand returned to Naples. By a secret treaty he had bound himself not to advance any constitutional tendency beyond what Austria wished to approve at any moment; but, although in general terms he acted in accord with Metternich and with the policy of preserving the status quo, it was maintained with slight changes. But he took advantage of Murat's laws and administrative system to abolish the constitution of Sicily, in violation of his own oath, and to proclaim the union of the two states in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies on December 12, 1816.
Ferdinand was now completely subordinate to Austria. An Austrian, Count Nugent, was appointed Commander-in-chief of the army; and for four years he reigned as a despot. All tentative efforts toward freedom of expression and opinion were ruthlessly repressed.
The Revolution of 1820
The suppression of freedom of expression and opinion provoked an alarming spread of the influence and activity of the secret society of the Carbonari, which in time came to affect a large part of the army in turn. In July 1820 a military uprising broke out under the command of General Guglielmo Pepe, and Ferdinand, terrified, subscribed to a constitution on the model of the Spanish Constitution of 1812. On the other hand, a revolt in Sicily, in favor of recovering its independence, was suppressed by Neapolitan troops.
The success of the military revolution in Naples seriously alarmed the powers of the Holy Alliance, who feared that it would spread to other Italian states and thus give rise to the general European conflagration whose avoidance was their chief concern. After lengthy diplomatic negotiations it was decided to hold the Congress of Troppau (October 1820). The main results of this congress were the negotiations of the famous Troppau Protocol, signed only by Austria, Prussia and Russia, and an invitation to King Ferdinand to attend the closing of the Congress of Laibach (1821), an invitation which the United Kingdom approved "in the sense of negotiation". At Laibach, Ferdinand played so sorry a part as to provoke the contempt of those whose policy he would use to re-establish himself in absolute power. He had twice sworn, with gratuitous solemnity, to uphold the new Constitution; but no sooner had he left Naples than he repudiated his oaths, and in letters addressed to all the sovereigns of Europe declared that his acts were null and void. Such an unseemly attitude threatened to overthrow the very objectives of the reactionary forces, and Friedrich von Gentz directed the Congress that these protests should be shut away in the archives, offering at the same time to write for the King a dignified letter in which he would express his reluctance at having to violate his oaths, pleading irresistible force. But, under these circumstances, Metternich had no difficulty in persuading the King to let an Austrian army march on Naples "to restore order".
The campaign that followed did little credit to either the Austrians or the Neapolitans. The latter, under the command of General Pepe, made no attempt to defend the difficult passes of the Abruzzo, where they were defeated after a half-hearted fight at Rieti (March 7, 1821), whereupon the Austrians entered Naples. The parliament was now dismissed, and Ferdinand inaugurated an era of savage persecution, with the support of spies and informers, against the Liberals and the Carbonari. The Austrian Commander protested in vain against the barbarity that his presence made possible.
Ferdinand died in Naples on January 4, 1825.
Marriage and issue
In 1768 Ferdinand married his distant relative Maria Carolina (1752–1814), daughter of the Empress (Maria Theresa); the marriage produced the following children:
- Maria Theresa (1772–1807), wife of Francis II of the Holy Roman Empire.
- Luisa Maria (1773–1802), wife of the Grand Duke Ferdinand III of Tuscany.
- Charles Francis (1775–1778), Duke of Calabria, died in childhood.
- Maria Anna (1775–1780), died in childhood.
- Francis Januarius, Duke of Calabria (1777–1830), later King Francis I.
- Maria Cristina (1779–1849), wife of King Charles Felix of Sardinia.
- Maria Cristina Amelia (1779–1783), twin of the preceding, died in childhood.
- Charles Januarius (1780–1789), died in childhood.
- Joseph Charles (1781–1783), died in childhood.
- Maria Amalia (1782–1866), wife of King Louis Philippe I of France.
- A daughter who died at birth (1783).
- Maria Antonia (1784–1806), wife of King Ferdinand VII of Spain.
- Maria Clotilde (1786–1792), died in childhood.
- Maria Henrietta (1787–1792), died in childhood.
- Charles Januarius (1788–1789), died in childhood.
- Leopold John (1790–1851), Prince of Salerno, married to the Archduchess Maria Clementina of Austria, daughter of his sister, the Archduchess Maria Theresa.
- Albert Louis (1792–1798), died in childhood.
- Maria Isabel (1793–1801), died in childhood.
Ancestors
Generation 1
- 1. Ferdinand I, King of the Two Sicilies
Generation 2 (parents)
Generation 3 (grandparents)
- 4. Philip V, King of Spain
- 5. Princess Elisabeth of Parma
- 6. Augustus III, King of Poland
- 7. Archduchess Maria Josepha of Austria
Generation 4 (great-grandparents)
- 8. Louis, Dauphin of France
- 9. Duchess Maria Anna of Bavaria
- 10. Edward II, Duke of Parma
- 11. Countess Palatine Dorothea Sophie of Palatinate-Neuburg
- 12. Augustus II, King of Poland
- 13. Christiane Eberhardine of Brandenburg-Bayreuth
- 14. Joseph I of Habsburg
- 15. Wilhelmine Amalia of Brunswick-Lüneburg
Generation 5 (great-great-grandparents)
- 16. Louis XIV of France
- 17. Maria Theresa of Austria
- 18. Ferdinand Maria of Bavaria
- 19. Henriette Adelaide of Savoy
- 20. Ranuccio II Farnese
- 21. Isabella d'Este
- 22. Philip William, Elector Palatine
- 23. Elisabeth Amalie of Hesse-Darmstadt
- 24. John George III of Saxony
- 25. Anne Sophie of Denmark
- 26. Christian Ernst, Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth
- 27. Sophie Louise of Württemberg
- 28. Leopold I of Habsburg
- 29. Eleonore Magdalene of Palatinate-Neuburg
- 30. John Frederick, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg
- 31. Benedicta Henrietta of Simmern
Succession
| Royal Titles | ||
| Predecessor: Charles VII of Naples and V of Sicily |
 King of Naples and Sicily (Kingdom of Sicily) 1759–1816 under British protection (1805–1815) |
Successor: Himself as King of the Two Sicilies |
 King of Naples and Sicily (Kingdom of Naples) 1759–1816 opposed by the Parthenopean Republic (1799); Joseph I (1806–1808) and Joachim (1808–1815) | ||
| Predecessor: Himself as King of Naples and Sicily |
King of the Two Sicilies 1816–1825 |
Successor: Francis I |
Bibliography
- Storia del Reame di Napoli (2nd ed., Florence, 1848) by Pietro Colletta
- Napoli ... , (Naples, 1886) L. Conforti,
- G. Pepe, Memorie (Paris, 1847),
- C. Auriol, La France, l'Angleterre, et Naples (Paris, 1906);
- G. Bianco, La Sicilia durante l'occupazione Inglese (Palermo, 1902),
- Freiherr A. von Helfert, Königin Karolina von Neapol und Sicilien (Vienna, 1878), Maria Karolina von Oesterreich (Vienna, 1884)
- G. Bianco's La Rivoluzione in Sicilia del 1820 (Florence, 1905), and M. Arnali's Carteggio (Turin, 1896).
References
- ↑ Campo, Carlos Robles do (2007). "Los Infantes de España bajo la Ley Sálica" (PDF). Anales de la Real Academia Matritense de Heráldica y Genealogía (in español) (10): 305–356. ISSN 1133-1240. Retrieved August 19, 2019.
