FERDINAND VII, king of SPAIN.—B. at S. Ildefonso on 13 Oct. 1784, d. at Madrid on 29 Sept. 1833.
Son of Charles IV and Maria Luisa of Parma, FERDINAND drew to himself the hopes of the nation when he resolutely took a stand against Godoy, the hated minister of his father. Charles IV declared him a conspirator and rebel (30 Oct. 1807), but before the popular indignation the king was forced to abdicate and FERDINAND became king of Spain on 19 March 1808. Napoleon then intervened
Leo I, who, under the pretext of reconciling father and son, lured them both into the trap at Bayonne, compelling them to renounce their respective rights pending his own settlement of order in Spain: Napoleon, as is well known, transferred the Spanish crown to his brother Joseph.
During the ensuing war of independence, FERDINAND was acknowledged as the legitimate sovereign by the insurgents, and all Spain welcomed him with sincere enthusiasm when, after Napoleon’s defeat at Leipzig, he ascended the throne. Great was the disappointment, however, when on 4 May 1814 FERDINAND declared that he would not recognise the liberal constitution proclaimed at Cádiz in 1812 and established an absolute regime.
Civil strife and the loss of the American colonies provoked the revolt of 1820: the king yielded and swore fidelity to the constitutional charter, but at the same time he invoked the aid of the Holy Alliance. Imprisoned by the revolutionaries at Cádiz, he was freed by the French troops of the Duke of Angoulême, and despite formal promises of amnesty he embarked upon a repression that long bathed the country in blood.
From four successive marriages FERDINAND had no male issue, so he substituted the Salic law with the “Pragmatic Sanction” of 29 March 1830. The throne thus passed to the infanta Isabella, born of Maria Cristina of Naples on 10 Oct. 1830, to the detriment of the presumed heir, her brother Don Carlos, who was beloved by the people for his firm stance against Napoleonic usurpation. This was the beginning of the Carlist wars, which so long devastated Spain after FERDINAND’s death.