King Ferdinand VII of Spain
Posts about King Ferdinand VII of Spain written by liamfoley63
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European Royal History
Carlos IV (November 11, 1748 – January 20, 1819) was King of Spain and ruler of the Spanish Empire from 1788 to 1808.

Early life

Carlos IV was the second son of King Carlos III of Spain and his wife, Princess Maria Amalia of Saxony, the daughter of King Augustus III of Poland, (Prince-Elector Friedrich August II of Saxony) and Archduchess Maria Josepha of Austria, herself daughter of Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor. Her mother was the first cousin of Empress Maria Theresa.

Infante Carlos was born in Naples (November 11, 1748), while his father was King of Naples and Sicily. His elder brother, Don Felipe, was passed over for both thrones, due to his learning disabilities and epilepsy.

His father was also Duke of Parma and Piacenza, as Carlo I (1731–1735); King of Naples, as Carlo VII; and King of Sicily, as Carlo III (1735–1759). He was the fourth son of King Felipe V of Spain and the eldest son of Felipe’s second wife, Elisabeth Farnese.

In Naples and Sicily, Infante Carlos was referred to as the Prince of Taranto. He was called El Cazador (meaning “the Hunter”), due to his preference for sport and hunting, rather than dealing with affairs of the state. Carlos is considered by historian Stanley G. Payne as “good-hearted but weak and simple-minded.”

In 1762, Princess Maria Luisa of Parma became engaged to her cousin Infante Carlos, Prince of Asturias, later King Carlos IV of Spain. Maria Luisa of Parma the youngest daughter of Philip, Duke of Parma, the fourth son of King Felipe V of Spain, and Princess Louise Élisabeth of France, the eldest daughter of King Louis XV of France and Navarre and his Polish-born wife, Queen Marie Leczinska.

When Princess Maria Luisa’s elder sister, Princess Isabella died in 1763, there were suggestions that Princess Maria Luisa marry her sister’s widower, Emperor Joseph II, but the proposal was refused and her engagement to the Infante Carlos, Prince of Asturias was confirmed. The wedding took place on September 4, 1765 in La Granja Palace.

Infante Carlos succeeded to the Spanish throne in 1759 upon the death of his childless half-brother King Fernando VI. As King Carlos III of Spain, he made far-reaching reforms to increase the flow of funds to the crown and defend against foreign incursions on the empire.

In 1788, King Carlos III of Spain died and his second son, Infante Carlos, succeeded to the throne as King Carlos IV of and ruled for the next two decades. Even though he had a profound belief in the sanctity of the monarchy and kept up the appearance of an absolute, powerful king, Carlos IV never took more than a passive part in his own government.

The affairs of government were left to his wife, Maria Luisa, and the man he appointed first minister, Manuel de Godoy. Charles occupied himself with hunting in the period that saw the outbreak of the French Revolution, the executions of his Bourbon relative Louis XVI of France and his queen, Archduchess Marie Antoinette of Austria, and the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Riots, and a popular revolt at the winter palace Aranjuez, in 1808 forced the king to abdicate on March 19, in favor of his son. Infante Fernando, Prince of Asturias, took the throne as King Fernando VII of Spain, but was mistrusted by Napoleon, who had 100,000 soldiers stationed in Spain by that time due to the ongoing War of the Third Coalition.

The ousted King Carlos IV, having appealed to Napoleon for help in regaining his throne, was summoned before Napoleon in Bayonne, along with his son, in April 1808. Napoleon forced both King Carlos IV and his son, King Fernando VII to abdicate, declared the Bourbon dynasty of Spain deposed, and installed his brother, Joseph Bonaparte, as King Joseph I of Spain, which began the Peninsular War.

Aftermath

Although the French won the day and prevented a British-backed suitor from becoming Spain’s King Consort, they and their moderado allies in Spain had to pressure the young queen into the marriage, as Infante Francisco, Duke of Cádiz was thought to be impotent.

The affair was a source of embarrassment for France. The rapprochement between Britain and France was wrecked, and Guizot sought allies instead among the reactionary Northern courts led by Metternich. This movement toward conservatism drove liberals from the ruling coalition in France, and contributed to the final end of the Orleanist monarchy in France two years later in the Revolution of 1848.

Both of the marriages proved to be unhappy ones.

In 1847, a major scandal took place when Queen Isabella II, age seventeen, publicly showed her love for General Serrano and her willingness to divorce her husband Francisco de Asís; though Narváez and Isabella’s mother Maria Christina solved the problem posed to the monarchical institution—Serrano was shifted away from the capital to the post of Captain General of Granada in 1848—, the deterioration of the public image of the queen increased from then on. Following the near-revolution of 1848, Narváez was authorised to rule as dictator to repress insurrectionary attempts up until 1849.

In late 1851, Isabella II gave birth to her first daughter and heir presumptive, who was baptised on December 21, as Infanta María Isabel Francisca de Asís. Historians have attributed the Princess of Asturias’ biological parenthood to José Ruiz de Arana, Gentilhombre de cámara.

Queen Isabella II’s heir, Infante Alfonso de Asís, was born in Madrid on November 28, 1857. His official father, Isabella’s husband Francisco de Asís, has been generally viewed as effeminate, impotent or homosexual, leading historians to question his biological paternity.

There is speculation that Alfonso’s biological father may have been Enrique Puigmoltó y Mayans, a captain of the guard. The relationship of the queen with Puigmoltó was so much of a public hearsay at the time that Francisco de Asís initially refused to attend the baptism ceremony of Alfonso (the heir apparent) even if he was eventually forced to do so.

These rumours were used as political propaganda against Alfonso by the Carlists, and he came to be widely nicknamed “Puigmoltejo” in reference to his supposed father. Others have assigned the fatherhood to Federico Puig Romero, a colonel who was murdered under unclear circumstances in 1866.

In order to protect their political position, the moderados moved to carry out the French-backed marriages, over Palmerston’s protestations, who insisted that the marriages were a breach of the 1712 Treaty of Utrecht.

Palmerston’s efforts failed – on October 10, 1846, Queen Isabella’s 16th birthday, the Spanish Queen was married to her cousin, Infante Francisco de Asís, Duke of Cádiz, while her sister Luisa Fernanda was married to Prince Antoine of Orléans, Duke of Montpensier, her first cousin once removed, and the youngest son of King Louis-Philippe of France and his wife Maria Amelia Teresa of the Two Sicilies, the tenth of eighteen children of Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies and Archduchess Maria Carolina of Austria.

Infante Francisco de Asís, Duke of Cádiz, was born at Aranjuez, Spain, the second son (first to survive infancy) of Infante Francisco de Paula of Spain, and of his wife (and niece), Princess Luisa Carlotta of the Two Sicilies. He was named after Saint Francis of Assisi.

Infante Francisco de Paula of Spain was the youngest son of King Carlos IV of Spain and Princess Maria Luisa of Parma. He was a brother of King Fernando VII of Spain, Queen Isabella II’s father.

Infante Francisco de Paula of Spain’s mother, Princess Luisa Carlotta of the Two Sicilies, was the eldest child of King Francis I of the Two Sicilies from his second wife, Infanta María Isabella of Spain, the youngest daughter of King Carlos IV of Spain and his wife Maria Luisa of Parma.

This means when Infante Francisco de Asís married Queen Isabella II of Spain, they were double first cousin.

There is evidence that Queen Isabella would rather have married his younger brother, Infante Enrique, Duke of Seville, and complained bitterly about her husband’s effeminate habits after their first night together.

Infanta María Luisa Fernanda of Spain, Duchess of Montpensier (1832 – 1897) was the younger daughter of King Fernando VII of Spain and his fourth wife and niece, Maria Christina of the Two Sicilies.

When her elder sister Queen Isabella II of Spain succeeded to the throne, Infanta Luisa Fernanda was heir presumptive to the crown between 1833 and 1851, when Isabella’s oldest surviving daughter was born.

Infanta Luisa Fernanda, was only 14 years old, and Antoine, 22, had their nuptials on October 10, 1846 as a double wedding with Queen Isabella and Francisco, and young Antoine was elevated to the rank of an Infante of Spain. Infante Francisco became King Consort of Spain upon his marriage to the Queen. The couple moved to Paris and later to Sevilla. The relationship between Queen Isabella II and her sister was tense, due to Antoine’s conspiracies against the queen.

During the Spanish revolution of 1868, Duke Antoine supported the insurgents under Juan Prim against Queen Isabel II, his own sister-in-law.

In 1870 he fought a duel against Infante Enrique, Duke of Seville, the brother of King Francisco, and killed him. Antoine was convicted and sentenced to one month in prison.

The Affair of the Spanish Marriages was a series of intrigues between France, Spain, and Great Britain relating to the marriages of Queen Isabella II of Spain and her sister the infanta Luisa Fernanda in 1846.

Britain and France took opposing roles with British foreign minister, Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, Lord Palmerston (later Prime Minister) as hostile to France. However France was successful in promoting a French husband for the Queen of Spain. The affair led to a deterioration of relations between France and Britain in the final years of the July Monarchy

François Guizot, the French foreign minister, had been a supporter of friendly relations with Britain and had served as France’s ambassador in London in 1840. During Guizot’s tenure in London, the two countries had been brought to the brink of war on the matter of the Syrian Question, before France’s king Louis-Philippe intervened to de-escalate the crisis.

The Syrian Question was actually the The Second Egyptian–Ottoman War which lasted from 1839 until 1841 and was fought mainly in Syria. It has sometimes been referred to as the Syrian War or Second Syrian War.

The war was the climax of the long power-struggle between the Ottoman Empire and the Pasha of Egypt, Muhammad Ali, which had reached a point of crisis that threatened to destabilize the whole of the Levant.

The second Soult government was formed in autumn of 1840 in France with Guizot as foreign minister, and Guizot set himself to the task of restoring friendly relationships with other European powers – including Britain – who had sided with the Ottoman Empire in the crisis. Guizot became a personal friend of the British foreign minister, Lord Aberdeen. Relations between Britain and France warmed significantly during the tenure of the Conservative Peel government.

Peel and Aberdeen resigned from their posts in 1846 over disputes relating to the Corn Laws, where they were succeeded by a Liberal government led by Lord John Russell, with Lord Palmerston serving as foreign minister. Guizot’s relationships with this new government were strained at best – Palmerston had been Britain’s foreign minister during the Syrian crisis, and had directed an aggressive strategy to bolster the Ottoman Empire in direct contradiction to France’s designs. Palmerston’s reappointment as foreign minister in 1846 was seen in France as a threat.

British fears of a union between the French and Spanish crowns were long-held; they had been central to the War of the Spanish Succession a century and a half earlier. Guizot, intent on rebuilding relations with Britain and his friend Lord Aberdeen in the early 1840s, had come to an understanding with his British counterpart that Isabella II, the Spanish Queen, would marry a Bourbon of the Spanish or Neapolitan branches, rather than a Bourbon of France.

Palmerston rejected this understanding which had been made with his predecessor, and instead revived the suggestion of Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha-Koháry as a suitor.

Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha-Koháry (1824 – 1884) was a German Prince of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (the Koháry branch). He was the third son of Ferdinand, Prince of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and Princess Maria Antonia Koháry de Csábrág et Szitnya, the founders of the Koháry branch.

Leopold was a younger son and was unlikely to inherit titles or land, so he entered the Army in the service of the Austrian Empire. At one point Leopold was considered as a potential husband for Queen Isabella II of Spain.

The House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was closely linked to the British Royal House of Hanover; Queen Victoria’s mother was born Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld and her husband, since 1840, was her first cousin Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

Another Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, sister of Queen Victoria’s mother, Princess Victoria, Duchess of Kent, married in 1816, Princess Charlotte of Wales, the only child of the Prince Regent (the future King George IV). Leopold and Charlotte’s marriage was happy, but it ended after a year and a half when Charlotte died after delivering a stillborn son. Leopold continued to enjoy considerable status in Britain.

The British had backed the candidature of Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha when he was elected King of the Belgians in 1830, and although he had married King Louis-Philippe’s eldest daughter, Princess Louise of Orléans, the French were confronted with the possibility of facing a Britain-aligned dynasty on both of France’s northern and southern borders if Palmerston succeeded in his enterprise. Guizot therefore determined to adamantly oppose any Coburg marriages.

The affair connected also with the chaotic politics of mid-nineteenth century Spain. The French backed the ruling conservative moderados, while the British backed the opposition liberal progresistas, who desired to reinstate the liberal Spanish Constitution of 1812.

Isabella II (October 10, 1830 – April 9, 1904) was Queen of Spain from 1833 until her deposition in 1868. She is the only Queen Regnant in the history of unified Spain.

Infanta Isabella was born in the Royal Palace of Madrid in 1830, the eldest daughter of King Fernando VII of Spain, and of his fourth wife and niece, Princess Maria Christina of the Two Sicilies, the daughter of King Francis I of the Two Sicilies by his second wife, Infanta Maria Isabella of Spain, the youngest daughter of King Carlos IV of Spain and his wife Maria Luisa of Bourbon-Parma and sister of King Fernando VII of Spain.

Infanta Isabella was entrusted to the royal governess María del Carmen Machín y Ortiz de Zárate.

Shortly before Infanta Isabella’s birth, her father issued the Pragmatic Sanction to revert the Salic Law and ensure the succession of his firstborn daughter, due to his lack of a son.

The Pragmatic Sanction of 1830, issued on March 29, 1830 by King Fernando VII of Spain, ratified a Decree of 1789 by Carlos IV of Spain, which had replaced the semi-Salic system established by Felipe V of Spain with the mixed succession system that predated the Bourbon monarchy.

The Spanish succession Decree of 1789 consisted of a series of debates and decisions, taking place and adopted prior, during, and after the Cortes sittings. They were initiated by King Carlos IV, who had suggested that the succession law in force be altered; the change would consist of giving preference to females of main descendant lines over males of collateral lines.

The proposal was accepted and formally adopted as the Cortes’ petition to the king. Still, a corresponding law was not published until 1830, which triggered a Dynastic conflict and a series of civil wars known as the Carlist Wars. Whether the succession law was effectively changed in 1789 became a heated juridical, historical, and political debate and continued well into the 20th century.

When French Prince, Philippe, Duke of Anjou, grandson of King Louis XIV of France and Navarre, of the House of Bourbon acceded to the Spanish throne as King Felipe V of Spain triggering the War of the Spanish Succession, he brought with him the Salic law, which restricted succession to the throne to only the direct male line.

However, King Fernando VII had fathered only two daughters, Infanta Isabella and Infanta Luisa Fernanda of Bourbon of Spain. Since the Decree of 1789 by Fernando VII’s father, King Carlos IV of Spain, was debated whether or not the Decree actually legally removed the Salic Law, King Fernando VII brought forth the Pragmatic Sanction of 1830, so that his oldest daughter would inherit the throne and be declared Queen upon his death, as was the older Castilian custom.

The Pragmatic Sanction removed King Fernando VII’s brother, Infante Carlos de Bourbon of Spain, Count of Molina, as the next in the line of succession under Salic Law. Infante Carlos pressured King Fernando VII to repeal the Pragmatic Sanction.

A severe attack of gout, however, incapacitated King Fernando VII and, when he died on September 29, 1833, Infanta Isabella was proclaimed Queen Isabella II of Spain. As she was still a minor, the Kingdom fell under the regency of her mother Maria Christina of the Two Sicilies.

Queen Isabella II came to the throne a month before her third birthday, and despite the Pragmatic Sanction being legal, the succession was disputed by her uncle Infante Carlos de Bourbon of Spain, Count of Molina, refused to recognize a female sovereign and this led to the Carlist Wars.

Under the regency of her mother, Spain transitioned from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy, adopting the Royal Statute of 1834 and Constitution of 1837.

Queen Isabella II was declared of age and began her personal rule in 1843. Her effective reign was a period marked by palace intrigues, back-stairs and antechamber influences, barracks conspiracies, and military pronunciamientos.

In September 1868, a naval mutiny began in Cadiz, marking the beginning of the Glorious Revolution. The defeat of her forces by Marshal The 1st Duke of la Torre brought her reign to an end, and she went into exile in France.

In 1870, she formally abdicated the Spanish throne in favour of her son, Infanta Alfonso, Prince of Asturias. In 1874, the First Spanish Republic was overthrown in a coup. The Bourbon monarchy was restored, and Infanta Alfonso ascended the throne as King Alfonso XII. Isabella returned to Spain two years later but soon again left for France, where she resided until her death in 1904.