FERDINAND VL, eldest son of Philip V. of Bourbon, king of Spain, succeeded his father in 1746. He made several useful reforms in the administration, and gave encouragement to commerce and manufactures. He had the character of a good and prudent prince, willing to administer impartial justice, and to redress the grievances of his subjects. He died without issue in August 1759, and was succeeded by his brother Don Carlos, king of the Two Sicilies, who assumed the title of Charles Ill. of Spain.
FEltDINAND VIL, eldest eon of Charles IV., king of Spain, and of Maria Louisa of Parma, was born on the 14th of October 1781. When six years of age, he was proclaimed Prince of Asturias. At that time Godoy, afterwards called the Prince of Peace, was the favourite minister and ruler at the Spanish court. Both he and the queen kept young Ferdinand, who was of a sickly constitution, in a state of thraldom and seclusion little suited to the heir-apparent of the throne, lie had however some wellinfortned preceptors; among others the canon Escoiquiz, who figured afterwards in the political events of his reign. In 1302 Ferdinand married his first cousin, Maria Antoinette, daughter of Ferdinand IV., king of the Two Sicilies, a princess of a superior mind, who endeavoured to restore her husband to his proper sphere and influence at court; in attempting which she drew upon herself the dislike of the queen and of the favourite, and from that time both she and her husband were kept in a state of retirement and humiliation. She died suddenly in May 1806, under suspicious circumstances, and left no issue.
In the meantime the administration of Spain was in a wretched state ; everything was done through bribery or favour; the monarchy was sinking lower and lower in the estimation of Europe, having become a mere dependent of France, and the people were highly dissatisfied. Some triennia of Ferdinand, and among others his pre ceptor Eacoiquiz, formed a plan for overthrowing the favourite Godoy. Being in want of powerful support, they unwarily advised Ferdinand to address himself to the Emperor Napoleon, to whom the prince wrote a letter, dated I lth of October 1807, in which he com plained of Godoy's influence and the state of thraldom in which both the king his father and himself were kept, and expressed a desire to form a connection with a princess of Napoleon's family, and to pines himself under his protection. A memorial was at the same time penned by Escoiquiz, and copied by Ferdinand with his own hand, pointing out in vivid language the mal-adminietration of the king dom, and asking, as the first remedy, the dismissal of the favourite. Ferdinand was to have read this memorial to the king his father, but Godoy being apprised of the plot, hastened to Charles, and told him that his son was conspiring both against his crown and his life. Upon this Ferdinand was arrested, his papers were seized, and after some days of close confinement he was frightened into an acknow ledgment of what there appears reason to believe he really was inno cent—a conspiracy to dethrone his own father. This scandalous affair caused great excitement in the country, and tho peoplo in general, who disliked Godoy, took the part of the young prince, who from his infancy had been the victim of court intrigues. Meanwhile French troops had entered Spain under the pretence of marching against Portugal—had taken possession by eurpri-e of several fortressee, and Napoleon's; further intentions becoming more alarming, the emu t. decided upon abandoning Spain and retiring to Mexico. The 17th of March ISOS was fixed for the departure, when a revolt broke our among the guards at Araujnez, and Godoy was in danger of his life ; but Ferdinand himself came to rescue him from the hands of the mutineers, saying that he would answer for his appearance before the proper court. Ring Charles being alarmed for Me own safety, and
perceiving the popularity of his son, abdicated on the 19th of March in favour of Ferdinand, who assumed the titlo of King of Spain and the Indies. But this did not suit Napoleon, who contrived under specious pretexts to draw both father and sou to Bayonne, and there obliged them both to resign in his favour. Ferdinand and his brother Dun Carlos were sent to Talleyraud's country residence at Valet:testy, where they were treated with outward marks of respect, hut kept under a strict watch. There Ferdinand remained passive and resigned till the end of 1813, when the reverses of the French both in Spain and in Germany induced Napoleon to restore Ferdinand to tho throne of Spain, on condition that he should send the English out of the peninsula, who were, as Napoleon said, spreading anarchy and jacebinistn in the country. A treaty to that effect was signed at Valeocay between the two parties, but the Cortcs of Madrid refused to ratify it, and wrote to Ferdinand that they would receive him in his capital as their lawful king, provided he would sign the constitu tion which had been proclaimed at Cadiz in 1812 by the repre sentativea of the nation. Ferdinand set off from Valencay in March 1814, and it was only on the road that he read for the first time a copy of the new constitution, having been kept in ignorance till then of the proceedings of the Cortes, except what he had read in the garbled accounts of the French newspapers. On arriving at the frontiers of Spain, instead of proceeding direct to Madrid, he went to Zaragoza, and thence to Valencia, where he was surrounded by a host of people, military and civilians, churchmen and laymen, who were hostile to the constitution, and who advised him to reign, as his fathers had done before him, an absolute king : advice with which his own inclination fully accorded. The lower classes, excited by the clergy, and especially by the friars, were loud in their denunciations of the constitution, which they called heretical, and Ferdinand easily per suading himself that the constitution was unpopular, determined not to sanction it. At Valencia he appointed a ministry from among the serviles, or absolutiste; and on the 4th of May 1814, he issued a decree annulling the constitution and all the enactments of the Cortes made in his absence. Soon afterwards ho made his entrance into Madrid among the acclamations of the populace and of the absolutists, or clergy party ; an event which was speedily followed by a violent proscription of the constitutionalists, or liberals, as they were styled, including the members of the Cortes. As the British ambassador had obtained from Ferdinand at Valencia a promise that the punish ment of death should not bo inflicted for past political conduct, the courts appointed to try the leading constitutionalists resorted to every kind of subterfuge in order to find them guilty of some imprudent demonstration or expression since the king's return, and senteuces of imprisonment, exile, banishment to the presidios in Africa, and con fiscation, were freely awarded. The military insurrections of Porlier, Lad, and others, came to add fresh fuel to the spirit of persecution. All the abuses of the old administrative and judicial system now re-appeared ; the finances were in a wretched state, the American colonists were in open revolt. Ferdinand was partly overawed by the clergy and absolutist party, who, at that time, seemed to have on their side the great mass of the population, but ho feared and hated the literals.