Spanish:Fernando Francisco de Paula Domingo Vincente Ferrer Antonio José Joaquín Pascual Diego Juan Nepomuceno Januario Francisco Javier Rafael Miguel Gabriel Calisto Cayetano Fausto Luis Raimundo Gregorio Lorenzo Jerónimo de Borbón y Borbón-Parma
Ferdinand VII (Spanish:Fernando VII; 14 October 1784 – 29 September 1833) wasKing of Spain during the early 19th century. He reigned briefly in 1808 and then again from 1813 to his death in 1833. Before 1813, he was known asel Deseado (the Desired), and after, asel Rey Felón (the Criminal King).
Born in Madrid atEl Escorial, Ferdinand washeir apparent to the Spanish throne in his youth. Following the 1808Tumult of Aranjuez, he ascended the throne. That yearNapoleon overthrew him; he linked his monarchy to counter-revolution and reactionary policies that produced a deep rift in Spain between his forces on the right and liberals on the left. Back in power in December 1813, he re-established the absolutist monarchy and rejected theliberal constitution of 1812. A revolt in 1820 led byRafael del Riego forced him to restore the constitution, starting theLiberal Triennium, a three-year period of liberal rule. In 1823, theCongress of Verona authorised a successfulFrench intervention, restoring him to absolute power for the second time. He suppressed the liberal press from 1814 to 1833, jailing many of its editors and writers.
Ferdinand was the eldest surviving son ofCharles IV of Spain andMaria Luisa of Parma. He was born in the palace ofEl Escorial nearMadrid. In his youth he occupied the position of an heir apparent excluded from any participation in government by his parents and their favourite advisor and Prime Minister,Manuel Godoy. National discontent with the government produced a rebellion in 1805.[5] In October 1807, Ferdinand was arrested for his complicity in theEl Escorial Conspiracy in which the rebels aimed at securing foreign support from the French EmperorNapoleon. When the conspiracy was discovered, he submitted to his parents.
Following apopular riot at Aranjuez, Charles IV abdicated in March 1808.[5] Ferdinand ascended the throne and turned to Napoleon for support. He abdicated on 6 May 1808, and thereafter Napoleon kept Ferdinand under guard in France for six years at theChâteau de Valençay.[6] HistorianCharles Oman records that the choice of Valençay was a practical joke by Napoleon on his former foreign ministerTalleyrand, the owner of the château, for his lack of interest in Spanish affairs.[7]
While the upper echelons of the Spanish government accepted his abdication and Napoleon's choice of his brotherJoseph Bonaparte as king of Spain, the Spanish people did not. Uprisings broke out throughout the country, marking the beginning of thePeninsular War.[8] Provincialjuntas were established to control regions in opposition to the new French king. After theBattle of Bailén proved that the Spanish could resist the French, theCouncil of Castile reversed itself and declared null and void the abdications of Bayonne on 11 August 1808. On 24 August, Ferdinand VII was proclaimed king of Spain again, and negotiations between the council and the provincial juntas for the establishment of a Supreme Central Junta were completed. On 14 January 1809 the British government acknowledged Ferdinand VII as king of Spain.[9]
Five years later after experiencing serious setbacks on many fronts, Napoleon agreed on 11 December 1813 to acknowledge Ferdinand VII as king of Spain, and signed theTreaty of Valençay so that the king could return to Spain. The Spanish people, blaming the policies of the Francophiles (afrancesados) for causing the Napoleonic occupation and the Peninsular War by allying Spain too closely to France, at first welcomedFernando.[10] Ferdinand soon found that in the intervening years a new world had been born of foreign invasion and domestic revolution.[5] In his name Spain fought for its independence and in his name as welljuntas had governed Spanish America. Spain was no longer the absolute monarchy he had relinquished six years earlier. Instead he was now asked to rule under the liberalConstitution of 1812. Before being allowed onto Spanish soil, Ferdinand had to guarantee the liberals that he would govern on the basis of the constitution, but only gave lukewarm indications he would do so.[11]
On 24 March the French handed him over to the Spanish Army inGirona, and thus began his procession towards Madrid.[12] During this process and in the following months, he was encouraged by conservatives and the Church hierarchy to reject the constitution. On 4 May he ordered its abolition, and on 10 May had the liberal leaders responsible for the constitution arrested. Ferdinand justified his actions by claiming that the constitution had been made by aCortes illegally assembled in his absence, without his consent and without the traditional form. (It had met as a unicameral body, instead of in three chambers representing thethree estates: the clergy, the nobility and the cities.)[citation needed] Ferdinand initially promised to convene a traditional Cortes, but never did so, thereby reasserting theBourbon doctrine that sovereign authority resided in his person only.[5]
Meanwhile, thewars of independence had broken out in the Americas, and although many of the republican rebels were divided androyalist sentiment was strong in many areas, theSpanish treasure fleets – carrying tax revenues from the Spanish Empire – were interrupted. Spain was all but bankrupt.
Ferdinand's restored autocracy was guided by a smallcamarilla of his favourites, although his government seemed unstable. Whimsical and ferocious by turns, he changed his ministers every few months. "The king," wroteFriedrich von Gentz in 1814, "himself enters the houses of his prime ministers, arrests them, and hands them over to their cruel enemies;" and again, on 14 January 1815, "the king has so debased himself that he has become no more than the leading police agent and prison warden of his country."[5]
During the aftermath of theMexican War of Independence, the general of theArmy of the Three Guarantees,Agustín de Iturbide, and Jefe SuperiorJuan O'Donojú, signed in 1821 theTreaty of Córdoba, which concluded the war of independence and established theFirst Mexican Empire. The imperial constitution contemplated that the monarch would be "a Spanish prince," and Iturbide and O'Donojú intended to offer the Mexican Imperial Crown to Ferdinand VII himself to rule Mexico inpersonal union with Spain. However, Ferdinand, refusing to recognise Mexican independence or be bound by a constitution, decreed that the Mexican constitution was "void", declined the Mexican crown, and stated that no European prince could accede to the Mexican throne.[13] The imperial crown was consequently given to Iturbide himself, but the Mexican Empire collapsed and was replaced by theFirst Mexican Republic a few years later.
There were severalpronunciamientos, or military uprisings, during the king's second reign. The first came in in September 1814, three months after the end of thePeninsular War, and was led by GeneralEspoz y Mina in Pamplona.Juan Díaz Porlier revolted at La Coruña in the following year. GeneralLuis Lacy led an uprising in Barcelona in 1817, and GeneralJuan Van Halen did the same in Valencia in 1818.[14] In 1820Rafael del Riego undertook the most successfulpronunciamiento, leading to theTrienio Liberal.
In 1820 a revolt broke out in favour of theConstitution of 1812, beginning with a mutiny of the troops under Riego. The king was quickly taken prisoner. Ferdinand had restored theJesuits upon his return, but now they had become identified with repression and absolutism among the liberals, who attacked them: twenty-five Jesuits were slain in Madrid in 1822. For the rest of the 19th century, liberal political regimes expelled the Jesuits, and authoritarian regimes reinstated them.
Ferdinand VII was an ardent opponent ofFreemasonry in Spain, seeing it as a vehicle for secular liberal revolutions, an enemy of the Spanish Crown, aristocracy and the Catholic faith, subordinated to foreign interests (theGrand Orient of France primarily).[15] After reinstating the Spanish Inquisition and the Jesuits, on 4 May 1814 he publicly declared all Spanish freemasons to be traitors.[15] The same yearPope Pius VII issued a decree against Freemasonry, approved by Ferdinand VII and became an edict of the Spanish Inquisition. Freemasons in high places in Spanish society were arrested and the Masonic Lodges suppressed. Ferdinand blamed Freemasonry for the 1820 coup, theTrienio Liberal, as well as for the loss ofSpanish colonies inLatin America, with his return to the throne for the so-called "Ominous Decade", theAnti-Masonic campaign stepped up and members who would not renounce Freemasonry were hanged.[15] He had his police compile reports on Freemasons and former Freemasons active in Spanish society.[16]
In the spring of 1823, the restored Bourbon French KingLouis XVIII of Franceinvaded Spain, "invoking the God ofSt. Louis, for the sake of preserving the throne of Spain to a fellow descendant ofHenry IV of France, and of reconciling that fine kingdom with Europe." In May 1823 the revolutionary party moved Ferdinand toCádiz, where he continued to make promises of constitutional amendment until he was free.[17]
When Ferdinand was freed after theBattle of Trocadero and the fall of Cádiz, reprisals followed. TheDuc d'Angoulême made known his protest against Ferdinand's reneging on his promise of amnesty for the people of Cadiz by refusing the Spanish decorations Ferdinand offered him for his military services.[17]
During his last years, Ferdinand's political appointments became more stable.[17] The last ten years of his reign (sometimes referred to as theOminous Decade) saw the restoration of absolutism, the re-establishment of traditional university programs and the suppression of any opposition, both by the Liberal Party and by the reactionary revolt (known as "War of theAgraviados") which broke out in 1827 inCatalonia and other regions.
In May 1830, Ferdinand VII published thePragmatic Sanction, again allowing daughters to succeed to the Spanish throne as well as sons. This decree had originally been approved by theCortes in 1789, but it had never been officially promulgated. On 10 October 1830, Ferdinand's wife gave birth to a daughter,Isabella, who thereupon displaced her uncle,Infante Carlos María Isidro of Spain, in the line of succession.[18] After Ferdinand's death in late September 1833, Carlos revolted and said he was the legitimate king. Needing support, Maria Christina, as regent for her daughter, turned to the liberals.[19] She issued a decree of amnesty on 23 October 1833. Liberals who had been in exile returned and dominated Spanish politics for decades, leading to theCarlist Wars.[20][21]
Ferdinand VII's reign is typically criticised by historians, even in his own country. HistorianStanley G. Payne wrote that Ferdinand was "in many ways the basest king in Spanish history. Cowardly, selfish, grasping, suspicious, and vengeful, D. Fernando seemed almost incapable of any perception of the commonwealth."[22]
Ferdinand VII married four times. His first wife died oftuberculosis, the second died inchildbirth, and the third died of "a fever".[23] His fourth wife outlived him by 45 years.
^Trigueiros, António Miguel (1999),D. João VI e o seu Tempo(PDF) (in Portuguese), Ajuda National Palace, Lisbon: Portuguese Commission on Discoveries, p. 232, archived fromthe original(PDF) on 29 October 2013, retrieved10 May 2020
^M. & B. Wattel. (2009).Les Grand'Croix de la Légion d'honneur de 1805 à nos jours. Titulaires français et étrangers. Paris: Archives & Culture. p. 446.ISBN978-2350771359.
^Liste der Ritter des Königlich Preußischen Hohen Ordens vom Schwarzen Adler (1851), "Von Seiner Majestät dem Könige Friedrich Wilhelm III. ernannte Ritter"p. 17
Woodward, Margaret L. (1968). "The Spanish Army and the Loss of America, 1810–1824".The Hispanic American Historical Review.48 (4):586–607.doi:10.2307/2510900.JSTOR2510900.
The generations indicate descent fromCarlos I, under whom the crowns of Castile and Aragon were united, forming the Kingdom of Spain. Previously, the title Infante had been largely used in the different realms.
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