, house =
Bourbon-Anjou
, father =
Charles IV of Spain
, mother =
Maria Luisa of Parma
, birth_date = 14 October 1784
, birth_place =
El Escorial
El Escorial, or the Royal Site of San Lorenzo de El Escorial ( es, Monasterio y Sitio de El Escorial en Madrid), or Monasterio del Escorial (), is a historical residence of the King of Spain located in the town of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, u ...
,
Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, i ...
, death_date =
, death_place =
Madrid,
Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, i ...
, burial_place =
El Escorial
El Escorial, or the Royal Site of San Lorenzo de El Escorial ( es, Monasterio y Sitio de El Escorial en Madrid), or Monasterio del Escorial (), is a historical residence of the King of Spain located in the town of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, u ...
, religion =
Roman Catholicism
, signature = Ferdinand VII of Spain signature.svg
Ferdinand VII ( es, Fernando VII; 14 October 1784 – 29 September 1833) was a
King of Spain during the early 19th century. He reigned briefly in 1808 and then again from 1813 to his death in 1833. He was known to his supporters as ''
el Deseado'' (the Desired) and to his detractors as ''
el Rey Felón'' (the Felon/Criminal King).
Born in Madrid at
El Escorial
El Escorial, or the Royal Site of San Lorenzo de El Escorial ( es, Monasterio y Sitio de El Escorial en Madrid), or Monasterio del Escorial (), is a historical residence of the King of Spain located in the town of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, u ...
, Ferdinand VII spent his youth as
heir apparent to the Spanish throne. Following the 1808
Tumult of Aranjuez, he ascended the throne. That year
Napoleon 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 reestablished the absolutist monarchy and rejected the
liberal constitution of 1812. A revolt in 1820 led by
Rafael del Riego forced him to restore the constitution thus beginning the
Liberal Triennium: a three-year period of liberal rule. In 1823 the
Congress of Verona
The Congress of Verona met at Verona on 20 October 1822 as part of the series of international conferences or congresses that opened with the Congress of Vienna in 1814–15, which had instituted the Concert of Europe at the close of the Napol ...
authorized a successful
French intervention
This is a list of wars involving France and its predecessor states. It is an incomplete list of French and proto-French wars and battles from the foundation of Frankish Kingdom, Francia by Clovis I, the Merovingian dynasty, Merovingian king who uni ...
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.
Under his rule,
Spain lost nearly all of its
American possessions, and the country entered into a
large-scale civil war upon his death. His political legacy has remained contested since his passing, with some historians regarding him as incompetent, despotic, and short-sighted.
Early life
Ferdinand was the eldest surviving son of
Charles IV of Spain and
Maria Luisa of Parma. Ferdinand was born in the palace of
El Escorial
El Escorial, or the Royal Site of San Lorenzo de El Escorial ( es, Monasterio y Sitio de El Escorial en Madrid), or Monasterio del Escorial (), is a historical residence of the King of Spain located in the town of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, u ...
near
Madrid. In his youth Ferdinand occupied the position of an heir apparent who was excluded from all share in government by his parents and their favourite advisor and Prime Minister,
Manuel Godoy. National discontent with the government produced a rebellion in 1805. In October 1807, Ferdinand was arrested for his complicity in the
El Escorial Conspiracy
The El Escorial Conspiracy (Spanish: ''Conspiración-proceso de El Escorial'') was an attempted coup d'état led by the Crown Prince Ferdinand that took place in 1807, but was quickly discovered and led to an investigation known as the Process o ...
in which the rebels aimed at securing foreign support from the French Emperor
Napoleon. When the conspiracy was discovered, Ferdinand submitted to his parents.
1st reign and abdication
Following a
popular riot at Aranjuez Charles IV abdicated in March 1808. 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 the
Château de Valençay
Château de Valençay is a château in the commune of Valençay, in the Indre department of France. It was a residence of the d'Estampes and Talleyrand-Périgord families. Although it is part of the province of Berry, its architecture invit ...
. Historian
Charles Oman records that the choice of Valençay was a practical joke by Napoleon on his former foreign minister
Talleyrand, the owner of the château, for his lack of interest in Spanish affairs.
While the upper echelons of the Spanish government accepted his abdication and Napoleon's choice of his brother
Joseph Bonaparte as king of Spain, the Spanish people did not. Uprisings broke out throughout the country, marking the beginning of the
Peninsular War. Provincial
juntas were established to control regions in opposition to the new French king. After the
Battle of Bailén proved that the Spanish could resist the French, the
Council of Castile
The Council of Castile ( es, Real y Supremo Consejo de Castilla), known earlier as the Royal Council ( es, Consejo Real), was a ruling body and key part of the domestic government of the Crown of Castile, second only to the monarch himself. It ...
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. Subsequently, on 14 January 1809, the British government acknowledged Ferdinand VII as king of Spain.
2nd reign
Restoration
Five years later after experiencing serious setbacks on many fronts, Napoleon agreed to acknowledge Ferdinand VII as king of Spain on 11 December 1813 and signed the
Treaty of Valençay
The Treaty of Valençay (11 December 1813), after the château of the same name belonging to former French foreign minister Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, was drafted by Antoine René Mathurin and José Miguel de Carvajal y Manrique on behalf of ...
, 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 welcomed ''Fernando''. Ferdinand soon found that in the intervening years a new world had been born of foreign invasion and domestic revolution. In his name Spain fought for its independence and in his name as well
''juntas'' 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 liberal
Constitution of 1812
The Political Constitution of the Spanish Monarchy ( es, link=no, Constitución Política de la Monarquía Española), also known as the Constitution of Cádiz ( es, link=no, Constitución de Cádiz) and as ''La Pepa'', was the first Constituti ...
. Before being allowed to enter 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.
On 24 March the French handed him over to the Spanish Army in
Girona, and thus began his procession towards Madrid. 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 a
Cortes 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 the
three estates: the clergy, the nobility and the cities.) Ferdinand initially promised to convene a traditional Cortes, but never did so, thereby reasserting the
Bourbon doctrine that sovereign authority resided in his person only.
Meanwhile, the
wars of independence
This is a list of wars of independence (also called liberation wars
Wars of national liberation or national liberation revolutions are conflicts fought by nations to gain independence. The term is used in conjunction with wars against for ...
had broken out in the Americas, and although many of the republican rebels were divided and
royalist sentiment was strong in many areas, the
Manila galleons and the
Spanish treasure fleet
The Spanish treasure fleet, or West Indies Fleet ( es, Flota de Indias, also called silver fleet or plate fleet; from the es, label=Spanish, plata meaning "silver"), was a convoy system of sea routes organized by the Spanish Empire from 1566 to ...
s – tax revenues from the Spanish Empire – were interrupted. Spain was all but bankrupt.
Ferdinand's restored autocracy was guided by a small ''
camarilla'' of his favorites, although his government seemed unstable. Whimsical and ferocious by turns, he changed his ministers every few months. "The king," wrote
Friedrich von Gentz
Friedrich von Gentz (2 May 1764 – 9 June 1832) was an Austrian diplomat and a writer. With Austrian chancellor Von Metternich he was one of the main forces behind the organisation, management and protocol of the Congress of Vienna.
Early ...
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."
The king did recognize the efforts of foreign powers on his behalf. As the head of the Spanish
Order of the Golden Fleece, Ferdinand made the
Duke of Wellington, head of the
British forces
The British Armed Forces, also known as His Majesty's Armed Forces, are the military forces responsible for the defence of the United Kingdom, its Overseas Territories and the Crown Dependencies. They also promote the UK's wider interests, su ...
on
the peninsula, the first
Protestant
Protestantism is a branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century against what its followers perceived to b ...
member of the order.
During the aftermath of the
Mexican War of Independence, the general of the
Army of the Three Guarantees
At the end of the Mexican War of Independence, the Army of the Three Guarantees ( es, Ejército Trigarante or ) was the name given to the army after the unification of the Spanish troops led by Agustín de Iturbide and the Mexican insurgent troo ...
,
Agustín de Iturbide, and Jefe Superior
Juan O'Donojú, signed the
Treaty of Cordoba, which concluded the war of independence and established the
First 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 in
personal union with Spain. However, Ferdinand, refusing to recognize Mexican independence or be bound by a constitution, decreed that the Mexican constitution was "void", and in addition to declining the Mexican crown himself, stated that no European prince could accede to the Mexican throne. The imperial crown was therefore given to Iturbide himself, but the Mexican Empire collapsed and was replaced by the
First Mexican Republic a few years later.
Revolt
In 1820 a revolt broke out in favor of the
Constitution of 1812
The Political Constitution of the Spanish Monarchy ( es, link=no, Constitución Política de la Monarquía Española), also known as the Constitution of Cádiz ( es, link=no, Constitución de Cádiz) and as ''La Pepa'', was the first Constituti ...
, beginning with a mutiny of the troops under Col.
Rafael del Riego. The king was quickly taken prisoner. Ferdinand had restored the
Jesuits 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, expulsions and reinstatements of the Jesuits would continue to be the hallmarks of liberal and authoritarian political regimes, respectively.
In the spring of 1823, the restored Bourbon French
King Louis XVIII of France
Louis XVIII (Louis Stanislas Xavier; 17 November 1755 – 16 September 1824), known as the Desired (), was List of French Monarchs, King of France from 1814 to 1824, except for a brief interruption during the Hundred Days in 1815. He spen ...
invaded Spain, "invoking the God of
St. Louis
St. Louis () is the second-largest city in Missouri, United States. It sits near the confluence of the Mississippi and the Missouri Rivers. In 2020, the city proper had a population of 301,578, while the bi-state metropolitan area, which e ...
, for the sake of preserving the throne of Spain to a fellow descendant of
Henry IV of France, and of reconciling that fine kingdom with Europe." In May of 1823, the revolutionary party moved Ferdinand to
Cádiz, where he continued to make promises of constitutional amendment until he was free.
When Ferdinand was freed after the
Battle of Trocadero
The Battle of Trocadero, fought on 31 August 1823, was the only significant battle in the French invasion of Spain in support of King Ferdinand VII. French forces defeated the Spanish liberal forces and restored the absolute rule of Ferdinand.
...
and the fall of Cádiz, reprisals followed. The
Duc d'Angoulême made known his protest against Ferdinand's actions by refusing the Spanish decorations Ferdinand offered him for his military services.
During his last years, Ferdinand's political appointments became more stable. The last ten years of reign (sometimes referred to as the
Ominous Decade) saw the restoration of absolutism, the re-establishment of traditional university programs and the suppression of any opposition, both of the Liberal Party and of the reactionary revolt (known as "War of the Agraviados") which broke out in 1827 in
Catalonia and other regions.
Death and succession crisis
As Ferdinand lay dying, his new wife
Maria Christina of Bourbon-Two Sicilies had him set aside the
Salic Law which would have made his brother
Don Carlos heir to the throne instead of any female. Ferdinand was thus succeeded by his infant daughter Isabella II. Carlos revolted and said he was the legitimate king. Needing support, Maria Christina (as Regent for her daughter Isabella) turned to the liberals. She issued a decree of amnesty on 23 October 1833. Liberals who had been in exile returned and dominated Spanish politics for decades, and the
Carlist Wars resulted.
Marriages
Ferdinand VII was married four times. In 1802, he married his first cousin
Princess Maria Antonia of Naples and Sicily
Maria Antonia of Naples and Sicily (14 December 1784 21 May 1806) was the youngest daughter of Ferdinand, King of Naples and Sicily, and Maria Carolina of Austria. As the wife of the future Ferdinand VII of Spain, then heir apparent to the Spani ...
(1784–1806), daughter of
Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies
Ferdinand I (12 January 1751 – 4 January 1825) was the King of the Two Sicilies from 1816, after his restoration following victory in the Napoleonic Wars. Before that he had been, since 1759, Ferdinand IV of the Kingdom of Naples and Ferdinand I ...
and
Marie Caroline of Austria
Maria Carolina Louise Josepha Johanna Antonia (13 August 1752 – 8 September 1814) was Queen of Naples and Sicily as the wife of King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies. As ''de facto'' ruler of her husband's kingdoms, Maria Carolina oversaw the p ...
. There were no children, because her two pregnancies (in 1804 and 1805) both ended in
miscarriages.
In 1816, Ferdinand married
his niece Maria Isabel of Portugal (1797–1818), daughter of his older sister
Carlota Joaquina and
John VI of Portugal. They had two daughters, the first of whom lived only five months and the second of whom was stillborn.
On 20 October 1819, in
Madrid, Ferdinand married Princess
Maria Josepha Amalia of Saxony
Maria Josepha Amalia of Saxony (Maria Josepha Amalia Beatrix Xaveria Vincentia Aloysia Franziska de Paula Franziska de Chantal Anna Apollonia Johanna Nepomucena Walburga Theresia Ambrosia; 6 December 1803 – 18 May 1829) was Queen of Spain as t ...
(1803–1829), daughter of
Maximilian, Prince of Saxony, and
Caroline of Parma. No children were born from this marriage.
Lastly, on 27 May 1829, Ferdinand married another niece,
Maria Christina of the Two Sicilies (1806–1878), daughter of his younger sister
Maria Isabella of Spain
Maria may refer to:
People
* Mary, mother of Jesus
* Maria (given name), a popular given name in many languages
Place names Extraterrestrial
* 170 Maria, a Main belt S-type asteroid discovered in 1877
* Lunar maria (plural of ''mare''), large, ...
and
Francis I of the Two Sicilies
Francis I of the Two Sicilies ( it, Francesco Gennaro Giuseppe Saverio Giovanni Battista; 19 August 1777 – 8 November 1830) was King of the Two Sicilies from 1825 to 1830 and regent of the Kingdom of Sicily from 1806 to 1814.
Biography
Fran ...
, who was his first cousin and the brother of his first wife. They had two surviving daughters,
the older of whom succeeded Ferdinand upon his death.
Issue
Honours
Legacy
Ferdinand VII's reign is typically criticized by historians. Historian
Stanley 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 commonweal."
[Payne, p. 428]
Ancestry
References
Works cited
* Carr, Raymond. ''Spain, 1808–1975'' (1982)
*
* Payne, Stanley G. ''History of Spain and Portugal: v. 2'' (1973) pp 415–36
Further reading
* Clarke, Henry Butler. ''Modern Spain, 1815–1898'' (1906) pp 1–92; old but full of factual detai
online*
*
External links
Fernando VII at Historia Antiqua
, -
, -
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ferdinand 07
1784 births
1833 deaths
19th-century Spanish monarchs
19th-century Navarrese monarchs
Nobility from Madrid
Princes of Asturias
House of Bourbon (Spain)
Burials in the Pantheon of Kings at El Escorial
19th-century Roman Catholics
19th century in Spain
Spanish captain generals
Grand Masters of the Order of the Golden Fleece
Knights of the Golden Fleece of Spain
Grand Masters of the Order of Isabella the Catholic
Collars of the Order of Isabella the Catholic
Knights Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic
Laureate Cross of Saint Ferdinand
Grand Masters of the Royal and Military Order of San Hermenegild
Grand Crosses of the Royal and Military Order of San Hermenegild
Grand Masters of the Order of Calatrava
Knights of Calatrava
Grand Masters of the Order of Santiago
Knights of Santiago
Grand Masters of the Order of Alcántara
Knights of the Order of Alcántara
Grand Masters of the Order of Montesa
Knights of the Order of Montesa
Extra Knights Companion of the Garter
Grand Crosses of the Order of Saint Stephen of Hungary
3
3
3