Ferdinand VII of Spain

Ferdinand VII of Spain
King of Spain His Catholic Majesty
Portrait in the uniform of a captain general, by Vicente López Portaña (c. 1814–1815). Oil on canvas, 107.5 × 82.5 cm. Museo del Prado (Madrid).
King of Spain
Reign	March 19, 1808 – May 6, 1808
Predecessor	Charles IV
Successor	Joseph I
King of Spain
Reign	May 4, 1814 – September 29, 1833
Predecessor	Joseph I
Successor	Isabella II
Nominal King of Spain
Reign	August 11, 1808 – December 11, 1813
Predecessor	Joseph I
Successor	Himself (resumed power)
Born	(1784-10-14)October 14, 1784 Monastery of El Escorial, San Lorenzo de El Escorial, Spain
Died	September 29, 1833(1833-09-29) (aged 48) Royal Palace, Madrid, Spain
Burial	Royal Crypt of the Monastery of El Escorial
Spouse	Maria Antonia of Naples ​ ​ (m. 1802;  1806)​ Maria Isabel of Portugal ​ ​ (m. 1816;  1818)​ Maria Josepha Amalia of Saxony ​ ​ (m. 1819;  1829)​ Maria Christina of the Two Sicilies ​ ​ (m. 1829;  1833)​
Issue	María Isabel Luisa of Bourbon María Isabel Luisa of Bourbon Isabella II of Spain María Luisa, Duchess of Montpensier
House	Bourbon
Father	Charles IV of Spain
Mother	Maria Luisa of Parma
Signature
Abdication	Abdications of Bayonne
Conflicts	Napoleonic Invasion of Spain (1808–1813) Hispanic American wars of independence (1808–1833) French intervention in Spain (1823)

Ferdinand VII of Spain, called "the Desired" and "the Felon King" (San Lorenzo de El Escorial, October 14, 1784 – Madrid, September 29, 1833), was King of Spain in 1808 and then, again, from 1813 until his death in 1833. His reign was overshadowed by the French invasion that placed Joseph Bonaparte, brother of Napoleon, on the throne of Spain between May 1808 and December 1813. During that time, first the Supreme Central Junta (which declared war on Napoleon), and then the Council of Regency, governed in his name in the area controlled by the Spanish between 1808 and 1814.

The son of Charles IV and Maria Luisa of Parma, he acceded to the throne after the Mutiny of Aranjuez in March 1808, promoted by his supporters, which forced his father to abdicate in his favor, and he was proclaimed King with the title of Ferdinand VII. Two months later, under pressure from Napoleon, he renounced his rights to the Spanish Crown in Bayonne, returning it to his father, who in turn renounced it in favor of the French Emperor, who appointed his brother Joseph Bonaparte as the new King of Spain. Ferdinand was confined in the castle of Valençay, where he remained throughout the entire invasion.

Despite this, Ferdinand continued to be recognized as the legitimate King of Spain by the various Governing Juntas, the Supreme Central Junta and its successor the Council of Regency, and the Cortes of Cádiz. These proclaimed that they held national sovereignty, and by virtue of this principle they declared war on Napoleon and drafted and approved the Constitution of 1812. It was in this context that the Hispanic American wars of independence began.

After the defeat of the Napoleonic armies and Joseph I's departure from Spain, Napoleon recognized Ferdinand as King of Spain in the Treaty of Valençay of December 1813. Although the treaty was not ratified by the Regency or by the Cortes, Napoleon let him go, and Ferdinand VII, his brother Don Carlos and his uncle Don Antonio entered Spain on March 22, 1814, through Girona. After passing through Zaragoza, he headed to Valencia, where he planned the coup d'état of May 1814, which was carried out in Madrid on May 11 by the troops of General Francisco de Eguía. In the Manifesto of May 4, also known as the Decree of Valencia, he abolished the Constitution of 1812 and all the work of the Cortes of Cádiz, restoring absolutism and the Old Regime. He entered Madrid on May 13, two days after the triumph of the coup. In that same year, in a final act, Charles once again abdicated his rights to the Spanish throne in favor of his son Ferdinand VII, on October 1, 1814, signing the agreement in Rome, where he remained in exile.

Soon, the Desired revealed himself to be an absolutist sovereign and, in particular, one of those who least satisfied the wishes of his subjects, who considered him an unscrupulous, vindictive and treacherous person. Surrounded by a camarilla of flatterers, his policy was oriented, to a large extent, toward his own survival. After six years of war, the country and the Treasury were devastated, and the successive Fernandine governments failed to restore the situation. In reaction to his policies, in 1820, a military pronunciamiento began the so-called Liberal Triennium, during which the Constitution and the decrees of Cádiz were restored, and a new disentailment took place. The liberals then split into moderados and exaltados and, during that time, the King, who appeared to abide by the constitutional regime, never stopped conspiring to restore absolutism, which was achieved after the intervention of the Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis in 1823.

The last phase of his reign, called the Ominous Decade, was characterized by a fierce repression of the liberals, accompanied by a moderate absolutist or even liberal-doctrinaire policy that provoked deep discontent in "ultra-absolutist" circles, which formed a party around the King's brother, the Infante Carlos María Isidro. That unrest, together with a succession problem, provoked a civil war after Ferdinand's death and the accession to the throne of his three-year-old daughter Isabella II, who was not recognized as Queen by the Carlists. The regency was then assumed by the King's widow, Maria Christina.

In the words of a recent biographer, Rafael Sánchez Mantero:

If there is one thing that characterizes the image that Ferdinand VII has left to posterity, it is the unanimous negative judgment he has earned from the historians of yesterday and today who have studied his reign (...) It is logical to understand that liberal historiography was merciless toward the one who tried to put an end to the principles and laws that triumphed in the Cortes of Cádiz (...) Historiography on Ferdinand VII has evolved in such a way that recent studies have abandoned the nineteenth-century diatribes to present a more balanced picture (...) Recent History... considers Ferdinand VII simply as a king with very little capacity to face the times in which it fell to him to reign. Even so, it is difficult to find any study, whether of the past or of the present, in which the figure of this monarch generates the slightest sympathy or appeal. Without a doubt, he has been the monarch who has received the worst treatment from historiography in the entire History of Spain.

According to his most recent biographer, Emilio La Parra López:

From 1814 until his death, except for the constitutional interval of 1820–1823, his policy consisted of personal control of power, relying on the repression of all dissent and on servants whose only standard of conduct was blind loyalty to their lord. Ferdinand VII governed in his own way, as a despot, listening to whatever advice suited him on each occasion, without adhering to any specific precedent and as no one would do after him.

Biography

Childhood, education and family

Oath of the future Ferdinand VII as Prince of Asturias, taken in the church of the Royal Monastery of San Jerónimo in Madrid on September 23, 1789. Work by Luis Paret y Alcázar, Museo del Prado, Madrid.

Ferdinand of Bourbon came into the world during the lifetime of his grandfather Charles III, on October 14, 1784, in the Palace of El Escorial. He was baptized by Antonio Sentmenat y Cartella with the names Fernando, María, Francisco de Paula, Domingo, Vicente Ferrer, Antonio, Joseph, Joachîn, Pascual, Diego, Juan Nepomuceno, Genaro, Francisco, Francisco Xavier, Rafael, Miguel, Gabriel, Calixto, Cayetano, Fausto, Luis, Ramón, Gregorio, Lorenzo and Gerónimo. He was the ninth of the fourteen children of Prince Charles, the future Charles IV, and Maria Luisa of Parma. Of his thirteen siblings, eight died before 1800. He became Prince of Asturias when he was one month old, since on that date his elder brother Charles died, at only fourteen months of age. Ferdinand himself suffered a serious illness at the age of three and had delicate health throughout his life. As a child he was withdrawn and quiet, with a certain tendency toward cruelty. After his father's accession to the throne in 1788, Ferdinand was sworn in as heir to the Crown by the Cortes in a ceremony held at the Monastery of San Jerónimo in Madrid on September 23, 1789.

The Prince's first tutor was Father Felipe Scio, a religious of the Order of Saint Joseph Calasanz, a cultured and intelligent man who was already tutor to the infantas. Renowned as a great teacher, he taught the Prince to read and write and Latin grammar. In 1795 Father Scio was appointed Bishop of Sigüenza and his post came to be occupied by the Canon of the cathedral of Badajoz Francisco Javier Cabrera, who had just been preconized Bishop of Orihuela. The plan for the Prince's education that Cabrera presented to the King included deeper study of Latin and the study of "the other living languages that may be to the Royal liking of Your Majesty," as well as the History of Spain, Geography and Chronology, but the fundamental thing would be education "in matters of Religion," "so necessary for the Government of States and their subsistence," since "all the power of the prince over his subjects comes from God, who has given him this authority so that he may prepare for them on earth temporal happiness, as a means toward that which is hoped to be eternal." He also considered fundamental the practice of "those heroic virtues that make kings beloved of God and of their vassals," a proposal that coincided with the educational ideal of the Spanish men of the Enlightenment. The proposal that Bishop Cabrera be the replacement for Father Felipe Scio was the work of the favorite Manuel Godoy, who likewise placed alongside the Prince another fellow native of Badajoz, the likewise enlightened canon Fernando Rodríguez de Ledesma, in charge of teaching him Geography and History, but the latter lasted only a short time because of a serious attack of gout, and was replaced by Canon Juan Escoiquiz, also on Godoy's proposal. As drawing master Cabrera appointed the painter Antonio Carnicero, and as master of Latin and philosophy the priest Cristóbal Bencomo y Rodríguez, who together with Escoiquiz was the teacher most appreciated by the Prince, and both also became the people who exercised the most influence over him.

Opposition to Godoy

Main article: El Escorial conspiracy

In 1799 Bishop Cabrera died, and Escoiquiz replaced him as the Prince's tutor. Escoiquiz, together with the new ayo of Ferdinand's household, the Duke of San Carlos —who the previous year had replaced the Prince's first ayo, the Marquis of Santa Cruz—, set about turning Ferdinand against the favorite Godoy, who had just lost power, although he would regain it two years later —Canon Escoiquiz, as soon as Godoy fell, having flattered him to obtain the post he held in the education of the Prince of Asturias, hastened to write a harsh indictment against him entitled Memoria sobre el interés del Estado en la elección de buenos ministros—. One of the false arguments Escoiquiz used to denigrate Godoy was that the latter, after his marriage to María Teresa de Borbón y Vallabriga, the King's niece, aspired to occupy the throne after the death of Charles IV. However, shortly afterward both Escoiquiz and the Duke of San Carlos were dismissed from their posts as the Prince's master and as ayo of his household, respectively, by order of King Charles IV. The post of ayo passed to the Duke of la Roca, a man trusted by Godoy.

Encouraged by his young wife Maria Antonia of Naples, whom he had married in 1802 at the age of eighteen, Prince Ferdinand confronted Manuel Godoy and his mother, Queen Maria Luisa, with whom Princess Maria Antonia had a bad personal relationship —the animosity was mutual; Maria Luisa wrote to Godoy: "What shall we do with that diabolical serpent of a daughter-in-law and that cowardly shark of a son of mine?"—. It was not very difficult for Maria Antonia to win over her husband, among other reasons because he had no sympathy for Godoy either, nor were his relations with his mother very good. This is how the so-called "Neapolitan party" arose at the court of Madrid around the Princes of Asturias, in which a prominent role was played by the ambassador of the Kingdom of Naples, the Count of San Teodoro, and his wife, as well as several important Spanish nobles, such as the Marquis of Valmediano, his brother-in-law the Duke of San Carlos, the Count of Montemar and the Marquis of Ayerbe. This "Neapolitan party" began to launch all kinds of insidious attacks against Godoy and against Queen Maria Luisa, which the queen mother of Naples, Maria Carolina, instigator of her daughter's actions, took care to spread throughout Europe. Godoy's reaction was swift: in September 1805 he ordered the expulsion from court of several nobles from the circle of the Princes of Asturias, prominent among whom were the Duke of the Infantado and the Countess of Montijo. Godoy struck the decisive blow months later when, among other measures, he expelled the ambassador of Naples and his wife from Spain, shortly after the Kingdom of Naples was conquered by Napoleon at the end of December 1805 and Queen Maria Carolina was dethroned, with which the person who had been the main political point of reference for the Princes of Asturias disappeared.

In May 1806 the Princess of Asturias died, but this did not prevent Ferdinand from continuing his political activity clandestinely, relying on his former tutor, Canon Escoiquiz, and on the Duke of San Carlos, who headed the large group of nobles opposed to Godoy. Thus the "Neapolitan party" was transformed into the "Fernandine party," which according to the historian Sánchez Mantero was the heir of the old "Aragonese party." The discontented nobility tried to use the figure of the Prince, passed over by Godoy, as a rallying point for those at odds with the royal favorite. Although many of the nobles who supported the Prince sought only Godoy's fall, the ambitions of Ferdinand and his closest circle were aimed at obtaining the throne as soon as possible, regardless of the fate that King Charles IV might suffer. For this reason, they continued the campaign to discredit Godoy and Queen Maria Luisa, whom they considered the key obstacle to that plan, since she was Godoy's main support. With the full consent and participation of Prince Ferdinand they continued a vulgar campaign of discredit against Godoy and the Queen, which consisted of producing two series of thirty full-color prints each, accompanied by texts explaining or complementing the drawings, in which, in the words of the historian Emilio La Parra López, "in an obscene tone and on the basis of slander, the queen and Godoy were ridiculed beyond words." The first series was devoted to Godoy's rise —nicknamed in the prints "Manolo the First, otherwise known as Sausage-maker" or AJIPEDOBES (to be read from right to left)— thanks to the favors of Queen Maria Luisa, who was presented as a sexual deviant consumed by lust.

The overthrow of the Neapolitan Bourbons by Napoleon and the death of the Princess of Asturias brought about a reversal in the alignment of the Spanish factions with respect to the French Emperor. The possibility that Ferdinand might marry a relative of the latter led the Prince to negotiate with Napoleon, who, for his part, ceased to rely on Godoy, as he had done between 1804 and 1806. Ferdinand was willing to humble himself before the Emperor in order to obtain his favor and his assistance in getting rid of Godoy. The negotiations promoted by the French ambassador for Ferdinand to contract his second marriage with a Bonaparte lady coincided in 1807 with the worsening of Charles IV's health. The Prince of Asturias wanted to secure the succession and neutralize the favorite. Godoy and the Fernandine party had their first confrontation. Owing to a denunciation, the plot was discovered and Ferdinand was tried in what is known as the trial of El Escorial. The Prince denounced all his collaborators and asked his parents for forgiveness. The court acquitted the other defendants, but the King, unjustly and clumsily in the opinion of Alcalá Galiano, ordered the banishment of all of them.

The first accession to the throne: from the Mutiny of Aranjuez to the Abdications of Bayonne

Main articles: Mutiny of Aranjuez and Abdications of Bayonne

Ferdinand VII as Prince of Asturias (1800), work by Goya (Met, New York).

Shortly afterward, in March 1808, in view of the presence of French troops in Spain (dubiously backed by the Treaty of Fontainebleau), the court moved to Aranjuez, as part of a plan by Godoy to move the royal family to America from Andalusia should the French intervention require it. On the 17th, the people, instigated by Ferdinand's supporters, stormed Godoy's palace. Although Charles IV managed to save his favorite's life, an action in which Ferdinand played a crucial role, he abdicated in favor of his son on the 19th, ill, discouraged and unable to face the crisis. These events are known as the Mutiny of Aranjuez. For the first time in the history of Spain, a King was displaced from the throne by the machinations of his own son with the collaboration of a popular revolt.

Ferdinand returned to the court, where he was acclaimed by the people of Madrid, who celebrated not only his accession but also Godoy's fall. In other parts of the country the change of king was also celebrated, as it was hoped that he would set the situation right. Ferdinand hastened to form a new Government, composed of his supporters, and to proscribe Godoy's followers. However, French troops under the command of Joachim Murat had already occupied the capital the previous day, March 23.

View of the port of Bayonne from the Boufflers promenade. Claude Joseph Vernet, 1755.
National Navy Museum, Paris.

The deposed king and his wife placed themselves under the protection of Napoleon and were guarded by the troops of Murat who, for his part, harbored hopes of being raised to King of Spain by the Emperor. Napoleon, however, had other plans. He sent one of his most trusted collaborators, General Savary, to inform Murat of his decision to grant the throne of Spain to one of his brothers and to bring the entire royal family and Godoy to France, little by little. It was Savary who convinced Ferdinand of the advisability of going to meet the Emperor, who was traveling from Paris to Madrid, to which the King agreed in the hope that Napoleon would recognize and support him as King of Spain.

Before leaving, Ferdinand appointed a Governing Junta to manage affairs of State in his absence, and although the meeting was initially to be held in Madrid, Napoleon, citing unforeseen matters of great urgency, kept setting places farther north, to shorten the travel time from France: La Granja de San Ildefonso, Burgos, San Sebastián, ..., until he ended up drawing Ferdinand VII to Bayonne in France. To make sure he would come, the French used the veiled threat of not recognizing Charles IV's abdication and of supporting him against Ferdinand. Thus, on April 20 the latter crossed the border. Although he did not yet know it, he had just been taken prisoner. It was the beginning of an exile that would last six years. A disguised prison, in a palace whose surroundings he could not leave, and with the promise, always postponed, of receiving large sums of money. Charles IV had abdicated in favor of Ferdinand VII in exchange for the release of Godoy, and Napoleon had also invited him to Bayonne, on the pretext of getting Ferdinand VII to allow him to return to Spain and recover his fortune, which had been confiscated from him. Given the prospect of being reunited with their favorite and interceding on his behalf, the king's parents also asked to attend the meeting. Escorted by French troops, they arrived in Bayonne on April 30.

Two days later, in Madrid, the people would rise up in arms against the French, giving rise to the events of May 2, 1808, which mark the beginning of the war against the French invaders.

Eight escudos of Ferdinand VII minted in Bogotá in 1809. Lacking a model for the King's bust, the mints resorted to that of his father (as in the image) or designed other imaginary ones.

Meanwhile, the situation in Bayonne was taking on grotesque overtones. Napoleon prevented Godoy's arrival until everything had been consummated, so that he could not advise the Spanish royal family, which was completely deceived, although some historians assert that in reality they had no choice. He told Ferdinand VII that his father's renunciation of the throne, made after the Mutiny of Aranjuez, was null since it had been made under coercion, and therefore demanded that he return the throne to him. Napoleon forced Charles IV to cede him his rights to the throne, in exchange for asylum in France for himself, his wife and his favorite, Godoy, as well as a pension of 30 million reales a year. When news of the Madrid uprising and its repression reached Bayonne, Napoleon increased the pressure on Ferdinand to recognize his father as legitimate King, and offered him a castle and an annual pension of four million reales, which turned out to be another deception, since he never received it in full.

Ferdinand VII agreed to recognize Charles IV as legitimate King on May 6, 1808, although the fact that his father had already renounced the throne in favor of the Emperor was hidden from him. Napoleon then granted the rights to the Crown of Spain to his elder brother, who would reign under the name of Joseph I Bonaparte. This succession of illegitimate transfers of the Spanish Crown through deception is known as the "Abdications of Bayonne," and it lacked any legitimacy whatsoever, which is why it was completely ignored by everyone except the French.

Napoleon then convened in Bayonne an assembly of Spanish notables, the Spanish Junta of Bayonne. Although the assembly was a failure for Napoleon, since only seventy-five of the one hundred fifty expected notables attended, in July 1808 the Statute of Bayonne was approved with the approval of the Emperor, who allowed hardly any correction to the text he himself had drafted.

The Abdications of Bayonne were not recognized by anyone except the French. On August 11, 1808, the Council of Castile invalidated them, and on August 24 Ferdinand VII was proclaimed king in absentia in Madrid. The Cortes of Cádiz, which drafted and approved the Constitution of 1812, never questioned the person of the Monarch and declared him the sole and legitimate King of the Spanish Nation. In America, autonomous Governing Juntas were organized in some of its cities, which, under the same revolutionary principles of representation and popular sovereignty, also recognized Ferdinand VII as Monarch of their countries, identifying themselves as patriots.

Confinement in Valençay

Room in the castle of Valençay occupied by Ferdinand VII during his captivity.

Ferdinand saw how the Emperor did not even bother to honor the agreement and interned him, together with his brother Don Carlos and his uncle Don Antonio, in the Castle of Valençay, property of Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, Prince of Benevento, a former bishop, then Napoleon's Minister of Foreign Affairs, with whom he had plotted the coup d'état that brought him to power. He received them there on May 10. Valençay was a rural estate next to a village of some two thousand inhabitants, isolated in the center of France, some three hundred kilometers from Paris.

Ferdinand would remain in Valençay until the end of the Napoleonic Invasion of Spain. However, the conditions of his captivity were not very harsh; the King and his brother took dancing and music lessons, went riding or fishing, and organized balls and dinners. They had a good library at their disposal, but the Infante Don Antonio put up every possible obstacle to prevent them from reading French books that might exert a bad influence on his young nephews. From September 1, 1814, however, the departure of Talleyrand and Bonaparte's refusal to comply with what had been stipulated regarding the payment of their expenses —four hundred thousand francs a year plus the revenues of the castle of Navarre in Upper Normandy— made their way of life increasingly austere, with the household staff reduced to a minimum. Not only did Ferdinand make no attempt to escape captivity, but he even denounced an Irish Baron sent by the British Government to help him escape.

Believing that nothing could be done against the might of France, Ferdinand sought to join his interests to those of Bonaparte, and maintained a servile correspondence with the Corsican, to the point that the latter, in his exile on Saint Helena, recalled the conduct of the Spanish prince as follows:

Ferdinand never ceased asking me for a wife of my choosing: he wrote to me spontaneously to compliment me whenever I achieved some victory; he issued proclamations to the Spanish urging them to submit, and he recognized Joseph, which perhaps may have been considered the offspring of force, without being so; but in addition he asked me for his grand sash, he offered me his brother Don Carlos to command the Spanish regiments that were going to Russia, all things that he was in no way required to do. In short, he urged me keenly to let him come to my Court in Paris, and if I did not lend myself to a spectacle that would have attracted the attention of Europe, thereby proving the full stability of my power, it was because the gravity of circumstances called me outside the Empire and my frequent absences from the capital did not afford me the opportunity.

His servile humiliation went so far as to organize a lavish celebration with toasts, a banquet, a concert, special illumination and a solemn Te Deum on the occasion of Napoleon Bonaparte's wedding to Marie Louise of Austria in 1810. When the Emperor reproduced the correspondence Ferdinand sent him in Le Moniteur, so that everyone, especially the Spanish, could see his conduct, Ferdinand hastened to thank Napoleon for having made public in this way the love he professed for him. In one of the letters, addressed to the governor of Valençay and made public in Le Moniteur on April 26, 1810, Ferdinand expressed his wish to be Bonaparte's adopted son:

My greatest wish is to be the adopted son of H. M. the emperor our sovereign. I believe myself deserving of this adoption, which would truly make the happiness of my life, both because of my love and affection for the sacred person of H. M., and because of my submission and complete obedience to his intentions and wishes.

Despite this, this correspondence never became known to most Spaniards, for whom his status as Napoleon's prisoner created around Ferdinand the myth of the Desired, an "innocent" and patriotic victim of Napoleonic tyranny.

The return of "the Desired"

Main article: May 1814 coup d'état

Portrait of Ferdinand VII. Francisco de Goya, Museo del Prado.

In July 1812, the future Duke of Wellington entered Spain from Portugal at the head of an Anglo-Portuguese army and defeated the French at Arapiles, expelling them from Andalusia and threatening Madrid. Although the French counterattacked, a new withdrawal of French troops from Spain after the catastrophic campaign in Russia at the beginning of 1813 allowed the allied troops to expel King Joseph I Bonaparte from Madrid once and for all and to defeat the French at Vitoria and San Marcial. Joseph Bonaparte had to flee Spain hastily, and Napoleon prepared to defend his southern border until he could negotiate a way out.

Ferdinand VII, seeing that Bonaparte's star was beginning to wane, at first refused to deal with the ruler of France without the consent of the Spanish nation and the Regency, but fearing a revolutionary outbreak in Spain, he agreed to negotiate. By the Treaty of Valençay of December 11, 1813, Napoleon recognized Ferdinand VII as King, who thus recovered the throne and all the territories and properties of the Crown and its subjects prior to 1808, both in national territory and abroad; in exchange, he agreed to peace with France, the eviction of the British and his neutrality for the remainder of the war. He also agreed to pardon the supporters of Joseph I, the afrancesados.

Although the treaty was not ratified by the Regency, Ferdinand VII was released; he was granted a passport on March 7, 1814, left Valençay on the 13th, traveled toward Toulouse and Perpignan, crossed the Spanish border and was received at Bàscara, a town located between Figueres and Girona, by General Copons eight days later, on March 24. Ferdinand returned to Spain without a clear political plan, expectant about the situation he would find after his long absence, but with an attitude clearly opposed to the reforms embodied in the Constitution of 1812 which, although they reserved to him the exercise of executive power, deprived him of legislative power (which was reserved to the Cortes) and of sovereignty (which was attributed to the nation and not to the Monarch).

Depiction of Ferdinand VII praying for his people before the Patriarch Saint Joseph.

Entry of Ferdinand VII into Valencia on May 14, 1814. Painting by Fernando Brambila in the Palace of Cervelló.

Repeal of the Constitution of 1812

With respect to the Constitution of 1812, the decree of the Cortes of February 2, 1814, had established that "the king shall not be recognized as free, nor shall obedience therefore be rendered to him, until he takes, within the national Congress, the oath prescribed in article 173 of the Constitution."

Ferdinand VII refused to follow the route set by the Regency and at Reus he turned off toward Zaragoza, where he spent Holy Week as the guest of Palafox. From the Aragonese capital he went to Teruel and entered Valencia on April 16. There the Cardinal Archbishop of Toledo, Luis de Borbón, President of the Regency and favorable to the liberal reforms of 1812, was awaiting him. Also coming to Valencia was a delegation of the absolutist deputies of the Cortes of Cádiz headed by Bernardo Mozo de Rosales, tasked with delivering to the King a manifesto signed by sixty-nine "servile" deputies, which was what the liberals called the supporters of absolute monarchy. It was the so-called Manifesto of the Persians, which advocated the suppression of the Cádiz Chamber and justified the restoration of the Old Regime. On April 17, General Elío, in command of the Second Army, placed his troops at the King's disposal and invited him to recover his rights. It was the first pronunciamiento in the history of Spain, according to Stanley G. Payne.

On May 4, 1814, Ferdinand VII signed a decree, drafted by Juan Pérez Villamil and Miguel de Lardizábal, that restored absolute monarchy and declared null and void the Constitution of 1812 and all the work of the Cortes of Cádiz. The Decree, also known as the Manifesto of May 4, was the first step of the coup d'état of May 1814 that restored his absolute powers, and it would not be published until May 11, when the coup had already triumphed.

Repeal of the Constitution of 1812 by Ferdinand VII in the Palace of Cervelló.

[...] my royal intention is not only not to swear to or accede to the said Constitution, nor to any decree of the Cortes [...] but to declare that Constitution and those decrees null and of no value or effect, now or at any time, as if such acts had never taken place and were removed from the midst of time, and without obligation on my peoples and subjects of whatever class and condition to comply with or observe them.

— Modesto Lafuente (1869), Historia general de España, volume XXVI, 2nd ed.

After recovering from an attack of gout, the King left Valencia for Madrid on May 5. He had appointed as Captain General of New Castile Francisco de Eguía, a staunch absolutist, who had been charged by the King with carrying out the coup d'état. On May 11 he organized the repression in the capital, arresting the deputies of the Cortes and clearing the way for the Monarch's triumphal entry. With the members of the Regency, the ministers and the supporters of national sovereignty detained, the coup d'état was consummated in the early hours of May 11 with the dissolution of the Cortes demanded by Eguía and carried out without opposition by its president Antonio Joaquín Pérez, one of the signatories of the Manifesto of the Persians.

On May 13, Ferdinand VII, who had remained in Aranjuez since the 10th waiting for the coup to triumph, at last entered Madrid triumphantly.

Reign

Main article: Absolutist Restoration in Spain

Gold coins from the absolutist and constitutional periods of Ferdinand VII.

1815. The legend, in Latin, states that Ferdinand VII is "king of the Spains and the Indies" "by the Grace of God" (Dei Gratia).

1823 (Liberal Triennium). The legend, in Castilian, proclaims Ferdinand VII "king of the Spains" "by the Grace of God and the Constitution".

First absolutist sexennium

Official bust of Ferdinand VII, by F. Elías (Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando, Madrid).

Plate 70 of The Disasters of War, by Francisco de Goya, showing a line of figures from all social classes: priests, nobles and the humble; tied to one another by a rope and crossing an arid and hostile landscape, the first in the line being a blind man. In this way, Spain, represented in the print in all its social classes, became a country in the hands of a Monarch guided by the principles of the Old Regime, who was moving away from the ideas of the Enlightenment and from the light of reason.

During the first stage of the reign, between 1814 and 1820, the King restored the absolutism that had preceded the constitutional period. The task awaiting Ferdinand was extremely complex. The country's economy had suffered great damage, and to this had to be added the political division of the population. The country was in poverty and had lost all its international importance. The nation, which had lost one million of the twelve million inhabitants it then had, had been devastated by the long years of fighting. To the difficult communications with America, already suffered at the end of the previous century, was added a deep deflation, caused fundamentally by the war against the French and that of the independence of the American territories. The loss of these had two main consequences: it sharpened the economic crisis (because of the loss of American products, of metal for coinage and of the market they represented for Iberian products) and it stripped the kingdom of its political importance, relegating it to the position of a second-rank power.

Despite having contributed substantially to Napoleon's defeat, Spain played a secondary role at the Congress of Vienna and in the treaties of Fontainebleau and Paris. Ferdinand would have needed exceptionally capable ministers to bring order to a country devastated by six years of war, but he had barely a couple of statesmen of some stature. Nor did he himself prove equal to the very serious problems afflicting the country. Government instability was constant, and failures to resolve problems adequately led to continuous ministerial changes.

Fernandine deflation.
Evolution of prices (100=1812)

Year	Index
1812	100
1820	49.5
1830	34.2
1833	35.6
According to Sánchez Mantero, p. 89.

The introduction of protectionism to try to foster national industry encouraged the spectacular growth of smuggling, which was carried on at all the borders and, especially, at that of Gibraltar. The decline of trade was compounded by the poor situation of agriculture and industry. One of the reasons for agricultural backwardness was the structure of agrarian property —in addition to the ravages of war—, which did not change during Ferdinand's reign.

Nor did farming methods improve. Production, however, generally recovered quickly, although agricultural prices did not, which caused hardship among the peasantry, forced to pay onerous rents and taxes. During this period the cultivation of maize and potatoes spread.

Livestock farming had also been badly harmed by the war and the sheep population fell considerably, which in turn affected the textile industry, which also lacked capital. This industry also lost its main source of cotton supply when the American territories became independent, which also deprived the tobacco industry of raw material.

Economically, Ferdinand's reign was characterized by prostration and crisis, further fostered by governmental immobility, which applied barely a few fiscal adjustments.

Main towns
during Ferdinand's reign
(in thousands of inhabitants)

#	Town	Population
1	Madrid	200
2	Barcelona	120
3	Seville	100
4	Valencia	82
5	Granada	80
6	Málaga	70
7	Cádiz	53
8	Córdoba	47
9	Zaragoza	40
According to Sánchez Mantero, p. 95.

Despite the continuous economic hardship, the population grew, although very unevenly. It is estimated that in the first third of the century it increased by at least one and a half million inhabitants, despite the effects of the wars. Sparsely populated compared with other European nations, the population was moreover concentrated in urban centers, with almost deserted rural areas, a situation that struck foreign observers. There was not, however, a profound transformation of society or the introduction of theoretical equality before the law. During Ferdinand's reign, the social structure of the Old Regime and the division of the population into estates characteristic of it were fundamentally maintained. The nobility and clergy were numerically small, and the bulk of the population was made up of the scant middle classes and the abundant peasantry. More than half the population was then engaged in agricultural labor and barely a tenth in crafts and industry. During Ferdinand's reign, the number of artisans decreased, the guilds disappeared and the industrial proletariat began to appear.

The first sexennium of the reign was a period of persecution of the liberals, who, supported by part of the Army, the bourgeoisie and secret organizations such as Freemasonry, tried to rise up several times to restore the Constitution. Their attempts repeatedly failed, since at that time the liberals were few and had little strength. They did, however, count on the collaboration of numerous guerrilla fighters, discharged or passed over in the reduced postwar Army. The support of the bourgeoisie was due, for its part, to the desire for social and economic reforms that would foster the growth of the Spanish market once the American colonies were almost given up for lost; the flourishing of domestic demand was considered indispensable for relaunching industrial and commercial activity. The small bourgeoisie therefore advocated reform of peasant property, to lift the countryside out of ruin and so that the farmers might replace the lost sources of demand; this ran counter to the conservatism of the King, who sought to maintain the situation of 1808. Although Ferdinand VII had promised to respect the afrancesados, as soon as he arrived he proceeded to banish all those who had held posts of any kind in the administration of Joseph I. By decision of the Monarch and behind the Government's back, the country joined the Holy Alliance.

During the period the free press, the constitutional provincial councils and town councils disappeared, and the universities were closed. The guild organization was restored and the properties confiscated from the Church were returned.

Temporary triumph of the liberals and constitutional government

Main article: Liberal Triennium

In January 1820 the Pronunciamiento of Riego took place, an uprising among the expeditionary forces stationed in the peninsula that were to leave for America to suppress the insurrection of the Spanish colonies. Although this pronunciamiento, led by Rafael de Riego, did not at first achieve the necessary success, the government was not able to suppress it either, and shortly afterward a succession of uprisings that began in Galicia spread throughout Spain.

Ferdinand VII was forced to swear to the Constitution in Madrid on March 9, 1820. The following day he uttered the historic phrase:

Let us march frankly, and I the first, along the constitutional path.

The collapse of the absolutist regime was due more to its own weakness than to the strength of the liberals. In six years, it had been unable to modernize state structures and increase fiscal resources without changing social structures or abolishing privileges, an objective it had set itself after the coup d'état of May 1814. Thus began the Liberal Triennium, or Constitutional Triennium. Ferdinand's submission to the Constitution and to the power of the liberals was, however, contrary to his will. His rejection of them grew more pronounced during the triennium in which the two sides had to share power.

Equestrian portrait of Ferdinand VII by José de Madrazo (1821), Museo del Prado.

During the Triennium, absolutism was brought to an end and, among other measures, the Inquisition was abolished. However, although the King appeared to abide by the constitutional regime, he secretly conspired to restore absolutism (uprising of the Royal Guard in July 1822, suppressed by the National Militia of Madrid; Regency of Urgell). He also used his constitutional powers to obstruct the approval of reforms the liberals wished to introduce. The King's objective throughout this stage was to recover the absolute power lost in 1820.

According to Sánchez Mantero, the liberals showed their inexperience in affairs of State and a mistaken confidence that the restoration of the Constitution would by itself put an end to the pro-independence aspirations in America. With the King they maintained a constant relationship of mutual distrust. Within their ranks divisions soon arose between the moderados and the exaltados; the former, according to Sánchez Mantero, tended to have more experience, age and education, while the latter had played a prominent role in the liberal triumph of 1820. The former were content with lesser reforms and were more willing to cooperate with the old ruling classes, while the latter yearned for greater changes. This division complicated the liberals' governmental task. Again according to Sánchez Mantero, another obstacle to their work was the inclination toward absolutism of the bulk of the common people, mostly illiterate. The main adversary of the constitutional government, besides the clergy, was a part of the peasantry, which made up seventy-five percent of the Spanish population, attached to traditions and old institutions and harmed by some of the liberals' measures.

The absolutists organized the royalist bands, guerrilla movements similar to those that had existed during the war against the French, and also staged some uprisings, as poorly planned and as unsuccessful as those of the liberals of the previous sexennium. The royalist bands, which multiplied in 1822, adopted a fundamentally reactionary position and harassed the regular army during the Royalist War.

As regards the economy, the liberal governments were no more fortunate than the absolutist ones, mainly because of the short duration of their government, as well as because of the impracticable utopian measures they tried to implement.

Intervention of the powers and absolutist restoration

Main article: Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis

Painting by José Aparicio depicting the landing of Ferdinand VII at El Puerto de Santa María after having been "freed" from his "captivity" in Cádiz. He is received by the Duke of Angoulême, Commander of the Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis who have invaded Spain to "rescue" him, and by the Duke of the Infantado, President of the absolutist Regency appointed by the French.

The Monarch urged the European powers, chiefly France and Russia, to intervene in Spain against the liberals. After the Congress of Verona, the powers did indeed ask the Spanish Government to amend the Constitution, a request that was flatly rejected.

Finally France, with the tacit support of the Holy Alliance and the United Kingdom, agreed to invade Spain in a well-planned operation designed to avoid the mistakes of the earlier Napoleonic invasion. Command was given to the Duke of Angoulême, nephew of the French sovereign, at the head of the "Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis."

The invasion, which began in April, was relatively swift and met fierce resistance only in Catalonia from the army commanded by Francisco Espoz y Mina. The King was "dragged along" by the liberals in their retreat to the south and, because of his opposition to leaving Seville and going to Cádiz, he was even temporarily declared incapacitated.

In August the French siege of Cádiz began; the city capitulated on September 30, after the royal promise of safety for those who had defended the Constitution. The King did not keep the promise and began a harsh repression against the liberals, many of whom had to go into exile to avoid persecution. Ferdinand VII abolished all the changes of the Liberal Triennium, with the sole exception of the suppression of the Inquisition, and proclaimed that during the three years he had had to share power with the liberals he had not enjoyed "freedom." Ferdinand returned to Madrid in a triumphal march that retraced, in reverse, the route he had followed when forced by the liberal Government. To guarantee Ferdinand's throne, the French maintained a set of garrisons in Spain.

Absolutism and moderate reformism

Main article: Ominous Decade

Thus began the final period of his reign, the so-called "Ominous Decade" (1823–1833), in which there was a very harsh repression of liberal elements, accompanied by the closure of newspapers and universities (spring of 1823). A victim of this repression was Juan Martín Díez, "El Empecinado", who had fought on behalf of Ferdinand VII during the Napoleonic Invasion of Spain, and who was executed in 1825 for his liberal position.

The Royal Decree of August 1, 1824, "absolutely" prohibited in Spain and the Indies the societies of Freemasons and any other secret societies. Paradoxically, one of the first measures of the new absolutist Government was the creation of the Council of Ministers, which in its early years showed little cohesion and power, but which was a novelty in the system of government.

The liberal attempts to regain power, which followed one another in the last stage of the reign (in 1824, 1826, 1830 and 1831), failed. Alongside the repression of the liberals, however, a series of moderate reforms was also carried out that partially modernized the country and that heralded the end of the Old Regime and the establishment of the liberal State, which was consummated after Ferdinand's death. The creation of the Council of Ministers was joined, in 1828, by the publication of the first state budget. To encourage the growth of national wealth and of the State's meager revenues, the Ministry of Development was created, with little success. The replacement in the Secretariat of State of the Count of Ofalia by Francisco Cea Bermúdez in July 1824 put a brake on reforms. The following year saw an intensification of the persecution of the liberal opposition, the formation of royalist volunteer corps and the creation of the first juntas of faith, substitutes for the defunct Inquisition.

In November 1824, however, the universities reopened and were given a common curriculum. Primary education was also regulated. The moderate attitude of the French and the restraint of Cea Bermúdez disappointed the most extremist monarchists, who were disillusioned with the situation after the liberal defeat of 1823 and began to form an opposition to the Government from 1824 onward. There were absolutist uprisings instigated by the clergy and by supporters of the Infante Carlos María Isidro, Ferdinand's brother, who was shaping up as successor. The various plots in favor of the Infante Don Carlos failed, and the investigations into the conspiracies always avoided investigating the King's brother.

The virtual disappearance of the Spanish Empire was also consummated. In a process parallel to that of the peninsula after the French invasion, most of the American territories declared their independence and began a tortuous path toward liberal republics, which was hindered by the plundering of their Treasuries by the English, who completely decapitalized them and forced them to sign clearly disadvantageous agreements with other European powers. Only the Caribbean islands of Cuba and Puerto Rico, together with the Philippines, the Marianas (including Guam) and the Carolines, in the Pacific, remained under Spanish rule.

In 1829 an expedition set out from Cuba with the intention of reconquering Mexico under the command of Admiral Isidro Barradas. The undertaking was ultimately defeated by Mexican troops.

In 1827 the government had to suppress a revolt in Catalonia. The discontent of the monarchists over the distribution of posts and favors after the absolutist restoration of 1823, the fall in agricultural prices that fueled peasant unrest, and the rejection of the presence of French troops in the region combined to favor the cause of the pretender Don Carlos. Most of those who rose up were simple people, fed up with the abuses of the administration, who were used by the ultraconservatives. Although belated, the government's response was effective. In September 1827 the Count of España received command of an army of twenty thousand soldiers to crush the revolt and Ferdinand prepared to visit the region. At the end of the month he arrived in Tarragona, and by October the rebels had surrendered their arms. In the following weeks, the French units evacuated the territory, and on December 3 Ferdinand arrived in Barcelona. He remained there until spring; in April he returned to Madrid, visiting several cities of the northeast of the country on the way.

The failure of the uprising gave the Government a certain stability, and it then undertook a series of reforms: in October 1829 it approved the commercial code; that same year a corps of coast and border carabineers was created to try to curb the abundant smuggling, and Cádiz was granted the status of free port, to compensate for the decline of its trade with America. In these last years of the reign the project for the creation of the Bank of San Fernando and the Organic Law of the Stock Exchange took shape.

In October 1830, the royal troops thwarted a new attempt at a liberal invasion, this time from France, led, among others, by Espoz y Mina. The same happened with the project of Torrijos from Gibraltar the following year.

During his reign he granted, between titles of Spain and titles of the Indies, one hundred twenty-three titles of nobility, twenty-two of which were grandees of Spain.

Death and succession of Ferdinand VII

Portrait of Ferdinand VII (1833), by José Arrau Barba, held at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Sant Jordi in Barcelona.

The death of Queen Maria Amalia on May 18, 1829, and the King's poor health seemed to favor the aspirations to the throne of his brother, Don Carlos, which the most extreme monarchists desired. The Infante was the heir should the King die without issue. Ferdinand, however, chose to marry immediately for the fourth time, with his niece Maria Christina, sister of his sister-in-law, Luisa Carlota, wife of his brother Francisco de Paula. The marriage took place on December 9, 1829. On October 10 of the following year the heiress to the throne, Isabella, was born. He had another daughter, the Infanta Luisa Fernanda, in 1832.

Ferdinand VII in the habit of the Order of the Golden Fleece. Vicente López Portaña. 1831. Palace of Spain in Rome.

On March 31, 1830, Ferdinand promulgated the Pragmatic Sanction, approved on September 30, 1789, under Charles IV, but which had not been put into effect for reasons of foreign policy. The Pragmatic established that if the King had no male heir, the eldest daughter would inherit. In practice, this excluded the Infante Carlos María Isidro from the succession, since whether a boy or a girl was born, the child would be the King's direct heir. In this way, his daughter Isabella (the future Isabella II), born shortly afterward, was recognized as heiress to the crown, to the great displeasure of the supporters of Don Carlos, the King's brother.

In 1832, while the King was gravely ill at La Granja de San Ildefonso, courtiers who supported the Infante got Ferdinand VII to sign a Decree repealing the Pragmatic, in what came to be called the Events of La Granja. With the improvement of the King's health, the Government of Francisco Cea Bermúdez, which immediately replaced the previous one and relied on both liberals and reformists, put it back into force at the end of the year. Its main task was to secure Isabella's succession and frustrate the hopes of the Infante Don Carlos. To secure royal authority, Ferdinand, still convalescent, delegated it to his wife on October 6. After this, Don Carlos left for Portugal. Meanwhile, Maria Christina, appointed Regent during the King's grave illness (the heiress Isabella was barely three years old at the time), began a rapprochement with the liberals and granted a broad amnesty to exiled liberals, prefiguring the political shift toward liberalism that would take place on the King's death. The attempts by his brother's supporters to seize power, at the end of 1832 and the beginning of 1833, failed. The Monarch had his daughter Isabella sworn in as heiress to the crown on June 20, 1833. After a surprising but brief recovery at the beginning of 1833, Ferdinand died without male children on September 29. He had been ill since July. He was buried on October 3, in the Monastery of El Escorial. The Infante Don Carlos, together with other royalists who considered that the legitimate heir was the King's brother and not his firstborn daughter, rose up, and the First Carlist War began. With it Carlism made its appearance.

Legacy

Spain changed profoundly during the reign of Ferdinand VII. The Old Regime, characterized by the almost absolute power of the Monarch, was giving way to liberal monarchy, despite Ferdinand's fierce opposition; the King's power was being limited and sovereignty was passing to the nation. Liberal ideology was also beginning to affect the economy, until then quite rigid and controlled by the State. The bourgeoisie emerged as a thriving social group and economic engine.

The country lost almost all the American territories and with them its role as a leading power. The King's attitude was one of vain opposition to the reforming and revolutionary currents of the time. His economic, political and social immobility worsened the serious crises that afflicted the country during the reign. Nor did he manage to reconcile the supporters of radical change and those who preferred to preserve the old ways, who were increasingly at odds.

Marriages and issue

Ferdinand VII and his fourth wife, Maria Christina of Bourbon, portrayed by Luis de la Cruz y Ríos (1832).

The first candidate to marry Prince Ferdinand would have been Maria Augusta of Saxony, but this never materialized.

Ferdinand VII married four times:

• In 1802 he married his cousin Maria Antonia of Naples (1784–1806), daughter of Ferdinand IV of Naples and Maria Carolina of Austria. The wedding, held in Barcelona on October 4, 1802, was a double union between the two branches of the Bourbons of Spain and of Naples since, at the same time, the Infanta María Isabel of Bourbon married the Crown Prince Francis of Naples. According to the historian Emilio La Parra López, "the marriage of Ferdinand to Maria Antonia was a suggestion, or rather a demand, of the Neapolitan court in order to allow the other union [...] In the end, dynastic reasoning prevailed and the Spanish monarchs accepted the 'imposition' of Maria Carolina of Naples because they aspired to form a solid bloc with the family's two Italian kingdoms [that of Naples and that of Etruria, whose sovereign was married to Maria Luisa of Bourbon, daughter of Charles IV]. This bloc could count on the help of England, and in this way Spain would be in a position to counter the increasingly onerous demands of Bonaparte." Maria Antonia suffered two miscarriages and there was no issue. She died of tuberculosis on May 21, 1806.
• In 1816 Ferdinand married for the second time his niece Maria Isabel of Braganza, Infanta of Portugal (1797–1818), daughter of his elder sister Carlota Joaquina and of John VI of Portugal. She was neglected by Ferdinand, who during his marriage to her carried on numerous love affairs. She gave birth to a daughter, María Luisa Isabel, who lived little more than four months. Shortly afterward, while pregnant again, she died as a result of a botched cesarean section, which did not save the daughter either. Modesto Lafuente says that she died of an attack of alferecía and he was the first to echo the rumors to which the event gave rise: "being in an advanced state of pregnancy and believing her dead, the doctors proceeded to extract the fetus, at which moment the unfortunate mother let out a sharp cry of pain that showed she was still alive."
  • María Luisa Isabel Fernanda (August 21, 1817 – January 9, 1818).
  • A miscarriage (December 26, 1818).
• In 1819 he married for the third time Maria Josepha Amalia of Saxony (1803–1829), daughter of Maximilian of Saxony and Carolina of Bourbon-Parma. They had no issue.
• Finally, in 1829, he married another of his nieces, Maria Christina of the Two Sicilies (1806–1878), daughter of his younger sister María Isabel of Bourbon and Francis I of the Two Sicilies. They had two daughters:
  • Isabella II (1830–1904), queen of Spain (1833–1868).
  • Luisa Fernanda (1832–1897), infanta of Spain, married to the Duke of Montpensier.

Ancestors

Ancestors of Ferdinand VII of Spain

• 1. Ferdinand VII of Spain
• 2. Charles IV of Spain
• 3. Maria Luisa of Parma
• 4. Charles III of Spain
• 5. Maria Amalia of Saxony
• 6. Philip I of Parma
• 7. Louise Élisabeth of France
• 8. Philip V of Spain
• 9. Elisabeth Farnese
• 10. Augustus III of Poland
• 11. Maria Josepha of Austria
• 12. Philip V of Spain (=8)
• 13. Elisabeth of Parma (=9)
• 14. Louis XV of France
• 15. Maria of Poland-Lithuania
• 16. Louis, Grand Dauphin of France
• 17. Maria Anna of Bavaria
• 18. Odoardo II Farnese
• 19. Dorothea Sophie of the Palatinate-Neuburg
• 20. Augustus II of Poland
• 21. Christiane Eberhardine of Brandenburg-Bayreuth
• 22. Joseph I of Austria
• 23. Wilhelmine Amalia of Brunswick-Lüneburg
• 24. Louis, Grand Dauphin of France (=16)
• 25. Maria Anna of Bavaria (=17)
• 26. Odoardo II Farnese (=18)
• 27. Dorothea Sophie of the Palatinate-Neuburg (=19)
• 28. Louis of France
• 29. Marie Adélaïde of Savoy
• 30. Stanislaus I of Poland
• 31. Duchess Catherine of Lithuania

Personality

Appearance and physical problems

Portrait of Ferdinand VII by the painter Vicente López, made in 1828 on commission from the Banco de San Carlos. The historian Emilio La Parra López describes it thus: "Dressed as captain general, with all the important decorations and the scepter in his right hand, the King is seated, an unusual posture in the Spanish history of royal portraits, with his left hand resting on some books placed on a table. On the spine label of one of them can be read: 'R. CÉDULA DEL BANCO DE S. FERNANDO'. The obesity and the pronounced receding hairline are clearly evident. This canvas, J.L. Díez has said, offers 'undoubtedly the most sincere image of the bloated monarch in his mature age'. It is also that of the reformist king, concerned with promoting the economy of the kingdom."

The King does not seem to have been physically attractive. In the portraits of Ferdinand VII made by Goya and other artists (it is logical to think that the artists tried to flatter their sitters as much as possible), one sees an obese man, with a sunken upper lip, a prognathous lower jaw, a prominent forehead, a large, fleshy and curved nose, and small, cross-eyed eyes. His contemporaries attributed to him a "medium" height, which for those years means about 165 cm. He suffered from gout (it is believed that he ate too much, especially red meats) and it is said that he also suffered from a genital hypertrophy, a malformation that made sexual intercourse very difficult. His first wife, Maria Antonia of Naples, left a written account of how, feeling deceived, she nearly fainted the first time she saw Ferdinand VII, upon realizing with horror that the rather ugly "lad" of the portrait was in reality little short of a monstrosity. The Princess told her mother that months went by and Ferdinand had still not consummated their marriage. When, after almost a year, he finally did so, Queen Maria Carolina wrote: "At last 'he is a husband now'". According to Emilio La Parra López, "apparently, what really upset Maria Antonia and, consequently, her mother, was the prince's lack of affection and his sexual impotence. Ferdinand was an immature young man, affected by macrogenitosomia (excessive development of the genitals), the cause of the late appearance of secondary sex characteristics; he did not shave until six months after the wedding. His marked shyness and his abulia, which so annoyed his wife, left him incapable of facing a situation he had not foreseen." In addition, the King was an inveterate cigar smoker, which gave him foul breath.

His most recent biographer, the historian Emilio La Parra López, describes him as "a man of medium height, corpulent (in 1821 he weighed 103 kilos...) A great eater, his obesity increased over time, a circumstance that his favorite painter, Vicente López, could not hide. In the excellent portraits made by this artist one observes the growing obesity, the loss of hair and the premature aging of the monarch, whose appearance becomes ever more bloated. In all the images, whether by López or by other painters, Ferdinand's prognathism is evident, with many features that liken him to the syndrome described by Crouzon as craniofacial dysostosis: an elongated face and sunken upper jaws, which causes the apparent increase in the size of the lower jaw (prognathism) and the lack of dental occlusion." A foreign journalist who met him in 1823 noted the "deformity" of his face, especially evident in the protuberance of his chin and lower lip, "which seem to form part of the upper features", among which a disproportionately large nose stood out. But he also said he had been very impressed by "the mixture of intelligence, haughtiness and weakness in his gaze". A French officer who also dealt with the King in person sensed "his hard and even brutal character [behind that] wholly unpleasant physiognomy".

Character

It is more difficult to describe the Monarch's psyche and his virtues and defects. Apart from blatantly adulatory panegyrics, the general assessment by historians and chroniclers of the qualities of the Desired is very unfavorable, if not clearly dreadful. He was endowed with normal intelligence, not lacking in cunning and quick-wittedness, but his character seems to have been subject to cowardice, duplicity and a kind of hedonistic selfishness. One of his most implacable critics was the diplomat and historian the Marquis of Villaurrutia, who states that from childhood the King showed himself insensitive to the affection of his parents or of anyone else, cruel and sly; and as King, and despite "there never having been a more desired monarch, he was cowardly, vindictive, merciless, ungrateful, disloyal, lying, womanizing and boorish... and in short, devoid of any aptitude for being king".

There are several contemporary testimonies about Ferdinand VII that speak of his spiteful and vindictive character. One of the main ones is that of the celebrated seaman Cayetano Valdés, who escorted the King and his family in the falúa that took them from Cádiz to El Puerto de Santa María on 1 October 1823, this brief journey being the final act of the Liberal Triennium and the definitive success of the invasion of the so-called Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis. Once all had disembarked at El Puerto de Santa María, as the constitutional government, on the point of dissolving, had agreed with the Duke of Angoulême, the King turned to Valdés to cast at him "one of those looks that threaten and terrify, to which greater effect was given by the countenance and eyes of that prince, full of malign expression, in which the ferocious and the two-faced appeared alike". According to a French witness of those events, the admiral read in that look "his death sentence. Thus, remaining aloof from the scene before him, amid the acclamations that resounded on the shore, without saluting His Majesty or asking anyone's permission, he hastened to turn the falúa around and put out to sea with strokes of the oars". Valdés's hasty return to Cádiz proved prudently wise. Before that same day, 1 October, was over, the King drew up a decree in which he retracted his commitments to moderation and clemency, put in writing the day before, repealed everything approved by the Cortes since 1820 and unleashed the repression of the liberals, beginning with the death sentence of the three members of the provisional regency appointed in Seville on the previous 11 June, when the Cortes had temporarily suspended Ferdinand VII from his functions. One of those three regents was none other than Valdés, the other two being the seaman Gabriel Císcar and General Gaspar de Vigodet. It is worth pointing out that practically up until 1 October itself the King had flattered Valdés several times, even going so far as to tell him "that he esteemed him much more than he believed", and that on that very day, just a few hours earlier, Ferdinand had set as a condition for making the journey from Cádiz to El Puerto by sea that the falúa be captained by Valdés, "telling him that with him he would not fear the crossing in the boat". When his French ally (and a Bourbon, like him), the Duke of Angoulême, urged him to decree an amnesty, Ferdinand answered by urging him to listen to the shouts of "Long live the absolute king and the Holy Inquisition!" that were being uttered in the street, adding that this was the will of the people. On hearing this, Angoulême left that first meeting with the Spanish monarch with "poorly concealed displeasure".

Portrait of Ferdinand VII, pastel by Vicente Rodes y Aries.

Authors such as Comellas or Marañón, who have worked to better understand the reign of Ferdinand VII and to offer an even-handed view of his actions and personality, do not differ much from the preceding opinions. Marañón says of the monarch that he was "if not intelligent, at least a rogue". Comellas, kinder in his portrait of the King, defines him as a commonplace person without imagination, "spirit" or brilliant ideas, and, citing witnesses, notes that he dealt with his ministers every day, although well into the afternoon; for this author he would have been a simple, mild-mannered, good-humored and home-loving person (despite his continual infidelities), capable of being moved by the need of the humblest and sensitive to atrocities such as torture (one of his first decisions as king was the confirmation of the abolition of torture decreed by the Cortes of Cádiz), qualities that were not enough to replace the need the nation had for a monarch very different from Ferdinand. The most recognized virtue, even by his enemies, was his simplicity and affability, although this simplicity often lapsed into the merely coarse and vulgar. He was closer to popular manners and simple customs than to the rigidity of traditional court ceremony. He lacked a solid education and intellectual curiosity, but he was fond of handicrafts, music, painting, reading and bullfighting.

However, despite the occasional displays of generosity toward the most needy pointed out by Comellas (which fed the love that the common people felt for the Desired), and despite the methodical way in which he dealt with his cabinet, he is accused of a lack of interest in affairs of State, which he preferred to leave to his ministers and which he subordinated to his greed or personal interest: Ángel Fernández de los Ríos notes that before his death Ferdinand VII had 500 million reales deposited in the Bank of London, while the national debt had increased during his reign by 1,745,850,666 reales.

Isabel Burdiel, professor at the University of Valencia, writes that "his way of reigning always consisted of dividing and setting against one another all those around him, so that, through bewilderment and terror, he fostered in all of them the most abject servility. Crafty, distrustful and cruel, given to coarse humor and nocturnal adventures, the king could be very easily manipulated if one knew how to attend well to his wishes".

Accepting the worst accusations as valid, the psychiatrist and historian Luis Mínguez Martín recognizes in Ferdinand VII a "superficial charm, glibness and a seductive and accommodating attitude" that concealed a dissocial, antisocial or psychopathic personality, manifested in "contempt for the rights and feelings of others, cynicism and deceit, lying and manipulation, lack of social responsibility and of feelings of guilt, and projective mechanisms".

His most recent biographer, the historian Emilio La Parra López, points out his coarseness in expressing himself, since he frequently used vulgar expressions and swear words, such as the exclamation "¡carajo!" in front of ministers and high officials, going so far on one occasion, on 18 February 1822, as to snap at his ministers, even in the presence of an envoy of the Duke of Wellington: "¡Carajo! I have more balls than God. I have enough balls to eat [sic] all of you. Out, out, ¡carajo!". This tendency toward coarse and vulgar language was probably due to his fondness for using the colloquial and earthy style of the palace servants. La Parra also points to "dissimulation, distrust, cruelty and a vengeful spirit" as dominant traits of his character. He also notes his affability, which, together with his vulgarity and his capacity for dissimulation, "allowed him to present himself as a king close to his subjects, even kind", an impression that Ferdinand fed with gestures of various kinds when he took walks through Madrid and through the cities he visited, during private audiences or when he attended public spectacles, such as the bullfights, his great passion, or the theater. La Parra considers that he was "weak of character and of spirit", which made him very easily influenced by the people around him and also meant that he only took initiatives "when he considered that his opponents were weakened, for courage in the face of adverse situations was not one of his qualities". According to La Parra López, "the most devastating judgment on the personality of Ferdinand VII was expressed by Napoleon during their meeting in Bayonne. This is how he presented him to Talleyrand: 'He is indifferent to everything, very material, eats four times a day and has no idea about anything'; 'he is very stupid (bête) and very mean (méchant)'." La Parra adds: "But Ferdinand was not a fool or an idiot. It is likely that in that situation, surprised and disoriented, he made use of his characteristic dissimulation and shielded himself in silence, one of his habitual resources in adverse situations."

As for his pastimes, Ferdinand was never a good horseman, nor was he interested in hunting as his father and grandfather were. Over time he became a good billiards player, and his main passion was reading and acquiring books, to the point of forming an important library. He loved cutting the folded sheets of uncut books. He also had the habit of writing, in very careful handwriting, about the journeys he made in the form of a diary, beginning with the one he made with his parents between 4 January and 22 March 1796 to Seville, passing through Badajoz, when he was not yet twelve years old.

The image of King Ferdinand among his subjects

Portrait of Ferdinand VII painted by Francisco de Goya in 1814 on commission from the Santander City Council. The historian Emilio La Parra López describes the painting thus: "[Goya] presented him full-length in the uniform of colonel of the royal guards, leaning on a pedestal on which a female figure crowned with the laurel of victory, a representation of Spain, welcomes the monarch with open arms. He is the desired and necessary king. On the pedestal are the attributes of royalty (crown, scepter and mantle) and at the King's feet, a lion (symbol of the monarchy) fiercely breaks with its jaws the chains with which Napoleon sought to bind it.".

According to the historian Emilio La Parra López, "Ferdinand was always loved by the generality of his subjects", who saw in him the "innocent and virtuous prince", an image constructed during the War of Independence by the "patriots" who fought in his name against Napoleon and against the Monarchy of Joseph I Bonaparte. Hence the nickname "the Desired". "The exaltation of Ferdinand VII was at the center of the intense activity aimed at creating an atmosphere of generalized belligerence, because the King symbolized the institutional aggression perpetrated by the French emperor. Consequently, Ferdinand was presented to public opinion as the opposite of the one responsible for the internal crisis (Godoy) and of the one who sought to change the dynasty (the tyrant Napoleon). Ferdinand embodied Good and the others Evil. From there, a fabulous image of Ferdinand VII was constructed." This image endured after his return from "captivity" in Valençay, even among the liberals whom he persecuted ruthlessly, and although his popularity progressively lost strength, at the end of his reign he still aroused popular enthusiasm, as was shown during the journey he made through Catalonia and the north of Spain in 1827–1828 or on the occasion of his marriage to María Cristina de Borbón in 1830.

Therefore, the image of Ferdinand VII among his subjects was always that of the brave king who stood up to the tyrant Napoleon, refusing to renounce his crown during the six years of his captivity (much more pleasant than the Spaniards thought). This heroic attitude, despite being completely false (after all, it had cost Napoleon nothing to obtain from Ferdinand his renunciation of the throne in the abdications of Bayonne), seemed to be consistent with that of "the patriots" who were fighting the French in Spain, as if the young king sought to be loyal to the loyalty of his subjects. But the truth was that Ferdinand wrote to Napoleon numerous times congratulating him on his victories in Spain and even going so far as to ask him to adopt him as his son.

Monument to Ferdinand VII in Barcelona, destroyed during the riots of 1835.

Thus, the Napoleonic Invasion of Spain established the myth of the "desired king" who would return to take charge of his long-suffering kingdom if the Spaniards fought tenaciously for it. This myth, which would endure throughout his reign, gave Ferdinand VII a popularity among the people (not among the liberals, especially the émigrés) much greater than that of any of his ancestors, which remained broadly unchanged until his death, despite the disasters and political repression that in other circumstances would have sufficed to disappoint the high expectations placed in him since the time of his confrontation with Godoy and his parents.

Ferdinand VII in the arts and sciences

King Ferdinand VII had the good fortune to count on good painters and maintained the Bourbon patronage of artists such as Francisco de Goya, Vicente López Portaña or José Madrazo. According to Mesonero Romanos, "in the last days of his life, trembling and weary, he still attended the solemn award ceremony of the Royal Academy of San Fernando". He promoted artistic and intellectual activities and the improvement of primary education (mainly during the Liberal Triennium) and secondary education (during the Ominous Decade). The opposite happened with the universities, which lost students and found themselves watched by the Government, which considered them hotbeds of liberalism.

Supported by his second wife, Maria Isabel of Braganza, Ferdinand took up again Joseph I's idea of creating a Royal Museum of Paintings, and decided to turn into one the building that Juan de Villanueva had created as a Cabinet of Natural History. Thanks to his initiative and personal funding, the present-day Prado Museum was thus born, inaugurated in the presence of the Monarch himself and his third wife on 19 November 1819. He was likewise fond of music.

Despite the supposed deterioration of Spanish science and the flight of important scientists during his reign, a series of major initiatives are owed to Ferdinand VII. The flight of scientists was mainly due to political reasons: the exiles sympathized with the French or with the liberals. In 1815 he ordered the restoration of the Astronomical Observatory, badly damaged during the "francesada". At that time the Royal Cabinet of Machines was also restructured into the so-called Conservatory of Arts. In 1815 the Museum of Natural Sciences and the Botanical Garden of Madrid were also created.

On the other hand, Ferdinand VII is the protagonist of some celebrated historical novels, such as Memoria secreta del hermano Leviatán (1988), by Juan Van-Halen, and El rey felón (2009), by José Luis Corral.

Contemporary biographies of Ferdinand VII

While the Monarch was still alive, various biographical sketches were published, generally very hostile to him, all of them banned in Spain. The Irishman Michael Joseph Quin was in Spain during the last days of the Liberal Triennium, and, besides publishing an account of this journey in 1823, in 1824 he printed his translation of a Spanish original, which Juan Bautista Vilar attributes to the liberal émigré José Joaquín de Mora, of some Memoirs of Ferdinand VII, translated that same year into French; it even had a third edition in Spanish in 1840, rendered by Joaquín García Jiménez and expanded with two historical essays by "Luis de Carné", undoubtedly Count Louis-Marie-Joseph de Carné-Marcein (1804–1876). Banned immediately was that of Charles Le Brun, Vida de Fernando VII... (Philadelphia, 1826).

Orders

Kingdom of Spain

• Grand Master of the Order of the Golden Fleece.
• Grand Master of the Order of Charles III.
• Grand Master of the Order of Isabella the Catholic.
• Grand Master of the military orders of Santiago, Calatrava, Alcántara and Montesa.
• Grand Master of the Royal and Military Order of Saint Ferdinand.
• Grand Master of the Royal and Military Order of Saint Hermenegild.

Foreign

• 1814: Knight of the Order of the Holy Spirit. ( Kingdom of France)
• 1814: Knight of the Order of Saint Michael. ( Kingdom of France)
• 1815: Knight of the Order of the Seraphim (Kingdom of Sweden, 17 March 1815).
• 1815: Knight of the Order of the Garter. (United Kingdom)
• Knight of the Order of Saint Januarius. (Kingdom of the Two Sicilies)
• Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Order of Saint Ferdinand and of Merit. (Kingdom of the Two Sicilies)
• Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Legion of Honour. ( Kingdom of France)
• Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Saint Stephen of Hungary. (Austrian Empire)
• Knight of the Order of the Elephant. (29 August 1818, Kingdom of Denmark)

Anecdotes

The Monarch was the protagonist of numerous anecdotes, some of which have taken root in Spanish popular lore:

• According to Pérez Galdós in his Episodios nacionales, when Napoleon had escaped from the island of Elba and returned to France, the valet, nervous, was unable to manage to dress Ferdinand for the cabinet meeting called to deal with the problem, and the King said: "Dress me slowly, for I am in a hurry."
• Mesonero Romanos relates that in 1818, on the occasion of his visit to the Public Exhibition of Spanish Industry, when the Catalan textile manufacturers showed him their goods and asked for protectionist measures, the King exclaimed: "Bah! These are all women's things." And he went off for a stroll in the Retiro.
• The King was a great lover of billiards, and used to play with the members of his camarilla. These, eager to please the sovereign, always took care to miss their shots and leave the balls in an ideal position so that the Monarch could make successive caroms. From this comes the set phrase "Así se las ponían a Fernando VII" ("That is how they set them up for Ferdinand VII").
• Ferdinand VII of Spain maintained a close complicity with his confessor, the Canarian priest Cristóbal Bencomo y Rodríguez. This can be deduced from the numerous titles the King granted him, among which stand out that of member of the council and chamber of Castile, Inquisitor General of Spain (a post turned down by Bencomo himself) and the Grand Cross of the Order of Charles III. Moreover, when Ferdinand VII returned to Madrid after the abdications of Bayonne, he called for the presence of his confessor at court and ordered a warship to be sent to the island of Tenerife for the sole purpose of bringing him back to court with all possible pomp.

Bibliography

Book against Napoleon Bonaparte and in favor of Ferdinand VII, 1808.

• "El engaño de Napoleon descubierto y castigado; obra en que se manifiesta la infidelidad del Emperador de los franceses en sus convenios con la España, y su perfidia con el Rey Fernando VII y demás familia real. Alcalá de Henares: oficina de la Real Universidad; 1808.
• Arzadun, Juan (1942). Fernando VII y su tiempo (in español). Madrid: Summa. OCLC 163267052.
• Cayuela Fernández, Gregorio; Gallego Palomares, José Ángel (2008). La guerra de la independencia : historia bélica, pueblo y nación en España (1808-1814) (in español). Salamanca: Universidad de Salamanca. ISBN 978-84-7800-334-1. OCLC 470561075.
• Fernández de los Ríos, Ángel (1880). Estudio histórico de las luchas políticas en la España del siglo XIX (in español).
• Hocquellet, Richard (2008). Resistencia y revolución durante la guerra de la Independencia : del levantamiento patriótico a la soberanía nacional (in español). Zaragoza: Prensas Universitarias de Zaragoza. ISBN 978-84-7733-011-0. OCLC 494070951.
• Lafuente, Modesto (1869). Historia general de España (in español). Vol. XXVI (2nd ed.). Madrid. Retrieved 9 May 2012.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• La Parra López, Emilio (2018). Fernando VII. Un rey deseado y detestado (in español). XXX Premio Comillas de Historia, Biografía y Memorias. Barcelona: Tusquets. ISBN 978-84-9066-512-1.
• Payne, Stanley G. (1977). Ejército y sociedad en la España liberal (1808-1936) (in español). Madrid: Akal. ISBN 84-7339-215-9. OCLC 637325133.
• Peña González, José (2006). Historia política del constitucionalismo español (in español). Madrid: Dykinson. ISBN 978-84-9772-906-2. OCLC 212905232.
• Ramírez, Pedro J. (2014). La desventura de la libertad (in español). Madrid: La esfera de los libros. ISBN 978-84-9060-097-9.
• Sánchez Mantero, Rafael (2001). Fernando VII. Borbones, 6 (in español). Madrid: Arlanza. ISBN 84-95503-23-9.
• Vázquez Dodero, J. L. (14 November 1959). "Romanticismo y revolución". Blanco y Negro (in español): 83. Retrieved 23 January 2015.

External links

• Diccionario Biográfico. Real Academia de la Historia Fernando VII
• Napoleon's judgment on Ferdinand VII of Spain
• Biography of Ferdinand VII offered by the Biblioteca M. Cervantes Archived 18 November 2010 at the Wayback Machine