Ferdinand succeeded his fatherFrancis I upon his death on 2 March 1835. He was incapable of ruling the empire because of severeepilepsy, so his father, before he died, made a will promulgating that Ferdinand should consult his uncleArchduke Louis on all aspects of internal policy and urged him to be influenced byPrince Metternich, Austria'sForeign Minister.[3]
Double portrait of Ferdinand and Maria Anna of SavoyCoronation of King Ferdinand V in 1836 in Prague
Ferdinand suffered from epilepsy. Although he has been depicted as feeble-minded and incapable of ruling, he kept a coherent and legible diary and has even been said to have had a sharp wit. However, suffering as many as twenty seizures per day severely restricted his ability to rule with any effectiveness. Though he was not declared incapacitated, aRegent's Council (Archduke Louis,Count Kolowrat, andPrince Metternich) steered the government.
Thaler minted during the reign of Ferdinand I,c. 1840
When Ferdinand married PrincessMaria Anna of Savoy, the court physician considered it unlikely that he would be able toconsummate the marriage.[6] When he tried to consummate the marriage, he had five seizures. He is also remembered for his command to his cook: when told he could not have apricotdumplings (Marillenknödel) becauseapricots were out of season, he said "I am the Emperor, and I want dumplings!" (German:Ich bin der Kaiser und ich will Knödel!).[7][8]
Ferdinand I in the uniform of an Austrian field marshal, by Eduard Edlinger, 1843
As the revolutionaries of 1848 were marching on the palace, he is supposed to have asked Metternich for an explanation. When Metternich answered that they were starting a revolution, Ferdinand is supposed to have said "But are they allowed to do that?" (Viennese German:Ja, dürfen's denn des?) He was convinced byPrince Felix of Schwarzenberg to abdicate in favour of his nephew,Franz Joseph (the next in line was Ferdinand's younger brotherFranz Karl, but he was persuaded by his wifeSophie to renounce his succession rights in favour of his son) who would occupy the Austrian throne for the next 68 years.
Ferdinand recorded the events in his diary:
The affair ended with the new Emperor kneeling before his old Emperor and Lord, that is to say, me, and asking for a blessing, which I gave him, laying both hands on his head and making the sign of the Holy Cross ... then I embraced him and kissed our new master, and then we went to our room. Afterwards I and my dear wife heard Holy Mass ... After that I and my dear wife packed our bags.
Photograph of the aged Ferdinand by the 1860sFerdinand's sarcophagus in theImperial Crypt, Vienna
Ferdinand was the lastKing of Bohemia to be crowned as such. Due to his sympathy with Bohemia (where he spent the rest of his life inPrague Castle) he was given theCzech nickname "Ferdinand V, the Good" (Ferdinand Dobrotivý). In Austria, Ferdinand was similarly nicknamed "Ferdinand der Gütige" (Ferdinand the Benign), but also ridiculed as "Gütinand der Fertige" (Goodinand the Finished).
Ferdinand's parents weredouble first cousins as they shared all four grandparents (Francis' paternal grandparents were his wife's maternal grandparents and vice versa). Therefore, Ferdinand only had four great-grandparents, being descended from each of them twice. Further back in his ancestry there is morepedigree collapse due to the close intermarriage between the Houses of Austria and Spain and other Catholic monarchies.
^van der Kiste, John.Emperor Francis Joseph London: Sutton Publishing, 2005ISBN0-7509-3787-4. p 2
^According to A.J.P. Taylor, he was in fact asking fornoodles - "But it is an unacceptable pun in English for a noodle to ask for noodles" -The Habsburg Monarchy 1809–1918
^Hessen-Darmstadt (1858),"Großherzogliche Orden und Ehrenzeichen",Hof- und Staatshandbuch des Großherzogtums Hessen: für das Jahr ... 1858 (in German), Darmstadt, p. 8, retrieved12 March 2020{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^Liste der Ritter des Königlich Preußischen Hohen Ordens vom Schwarzen Adler (1851), "Von Seiner Majestät dem Könige Friedrich Wilhelm III. ernannte Ritter"p. 19
Generations are numbered by male-line descent from the first archdukes. Later generations are included although Austrian titles of nobility were abolished in 1919.
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