He enjoyed great support among the population in 1808 and 1814; he was called “the Desired” in the sessions of the Cortes of Cádiz, when he was acclaimed as the legitimate king of Spain. Even so, Fernando VII is possibly one of the Spanish monarchs with the worst image. The nicknames with which he has been known were not, and are not today, nothing flattering, although very descriptive: “traitor king” or “felon king”. His contemporaries compared his reign to the rule of the “Grand Turk”, making him akin to the Ottoman sultan in terms of despotism and tyranny. Recently, historical studies on his image, such as the biography written by Emilio La Parra, have critically revisited his figure, as has happened with some of his descendants, such as Isabel II or Alfonso XIII, they have qualified many of the clichés that fell about the character and have placed him, more precisely, within a context as complex (political, social, economic…) as was the disintegration of the Spanish Empire in the first third of the 19th century.
a withdrawn child
He was born on October 14, 1784 in the El Escorial Palace. He was the ninth of the fourteen children born to María Luisa de Parma and the one who would later be Carlos IV. However, the premature death of his older brother Carlos de él, made him become the heir in the line of succession with one month to live. Of his thirteen siblings, eight died at a young age. Biographers of the character characterize him as a withdrawn and quiet child. His education was directed by various ecclesiastics, the first of whom, Felipe Scío, taught the prince to read, write and Latin grammar. Scío was succeeded by Francisco Javier Cabrera, canon of Badajoz. At that point, the prince’s education was already directed by Manuel Godoy, who selected most of the teachers, including Cabrera, from his circle of trust, giving the prince’s education an eminently religious bias, but aimed at the educational ideal of the Spanish Enlightenment. When the prince was ten years old, Cabrera opposed Fernando receiving French classes until he was fluent in Spanish and some Latin, arguing that “we Spaniards all have such a different way of thinking than the French”. His last tutor was the also ecclesiastical Juan Escóiquiz. In this last phase of his formative stage, the animosity and enmity between Fernando and the favorite Godoy was clearly manifested. In general, it does not seem that Fernando VII had a special propensity towards reading or intellectual activity, neither during his childhood nor during his maturity.
In 1802, Prince Ferdinand married his cousin María Antonia de Nápoles. At this time, he began to conspire against Godoy and against María Luisa, his own mother. The ambitions of the young Fernando were maximum; the objective was not only to remove Godoy from power, but to occupy the throne, excluding Carlos IV. In the Spanish Court the so-called Neapolitan party arose to oppose the political preponderance of Godoy. It was made up of the princes of Asturias, various nobles from the Court who were opposed to the favourite, and also had the support of the Queen of Naples, María Carolina, Fernando’s mother-in-law. The objective was to weaken Godoy’s position by airing his relationship with Queen María Luisa. This plan suffered a series of setbacks: Godoy managed to expel several of his opponents and the ambassador of Naples from the Court, the Kingdom of Naples was occupied by France in 1805 and, in 1806, Ferdinand VII’s first wife died. However, the prince clandestinely continued his conspiratorial activities. The Neapolitan party was renamed the Fernandino party, since it was evident that Fernando led a large group of noble opponents of Godoy. The smear campaign against Godoy and María Luisa intensified, presenting them as depraved and lecherous. The first serious attempt to overthrow Carlos IV and politically nullify Godoy, with Napoleon Bonaparte as a privileged observer, occurred in 1807 in the El Escorial plot. However, the plan was discovered, Prince Fernando in the process known as El Escorial denounced his collaborators and apologized to his parents.
Victim of his own ambition
The next episode in his rise to power occurred as a result of the entry into the peninsula of French troops in 1808, the result of the Treaty of Fontainebleau. Godoy ordered that the Court go to Aranjuez before a possible transfer of the royal family to America, due to the worrying evolution of the French intervention in the peninsula. Events happened quickly and the people, urged on by Fernando’s followers, staged the riot in Aranjuez, including the assault on the Godoy palace. Finally, on March 19, Carlos IV abdicated in favor of his son Fernando VII. Fernando immediately returned to Madrid, acclaimed by the popular classes, and formed a government made up of his supporters. However, the capital was already under the control of the French army under General Murat.
His first stage as King of Spain only lasted from March to May 1808. He was the victim of his own ambition, since he aspired for Bonaparte to recognize him as the legitimate King of Spain. In addition, he fell into the networks of a plan prepared by Napoleon for the Spanish royal family to go to France; this is how Ferdinand came to Bayonne. So would his father Carlos IV, his mother and Manuel Godoy. The coercion and repeated deceptions of Napoleon, in addition to the clumsiness of the Spanish royal family, led to the transfer of Carlos IV of his rights to the Spanish throne in favor of Napoleon and Ferdinand’s recognition of his father as legitimate king, on 6 May 1808. These events are known as the Bayonne abdications and would end with the emperor’s brother reigning in Spain as Joseph I Bonaparte. All this in parallel to the Dos de Mayo Uprising and the start of the War of Independence in Spain against the French invader.
Ferdinand remained in “exile” from the castle of Valençay for six years, until the end of the War of Independence (1808-1814). There he lived in a de facto prison, he did not have freedom of movement, he could not leave and he always hoped to receive the amounts of money promised in the negotiations that had culminated in the Bayonne abdications, unsuccessfully. He fawned over Napoleon Bonaparte, constantly trying to be accepted at the Court of Paris. Ferdinand aspired to unite his destiny with the Bonapartes, going so far as to ask the emperor to find him a wife of his choice and even asked him to declare him his adoptive son. In Spain, in full swing of the war, he was “The Desired” for his subjects. In the Cortes of Cádiz, where the first Spanish constitution based on the idea of national sovereignty was drawn up, the full legitimacy of his right to the throne was recognized. In these Cortes, with a liberal majority, there was a small but visible group of absolutist deputies who opposed the principles of the Constitution of 1812 and the legislative work of Cádiz, as can be seen in the Manifesto of the Persians. In the war, the patriot side was fighting against the French, but they were also fighting for the return of their king, Ferdinand VII. His prisoner status in Valençay, victim of Bonaparte’s tyranny, increased the myth of “The Desired”. Upon retaking the Spanish throne in 1814, Fernando returned to reign with the endorsement of undisputed popular support.
The French defeat in the war made Napoleon return the throne of Spain to Ferdinand through the Treaty of Valençay. El Deseado entered Madrid on May 13, 1814. For the liberals, the monarch immediately went from wanted to traitor (or felon), by annulling the Cádiz legislative work and reinstating absolutism in Spain, beginning a period of persecution of important figures of the Cortes of Cádiz linked to Spanish liberalism. Likewise, those accused of collaborating with the Napoleonic regime, the so-called afrancesados, were harshly persecuted. Spain was entering a dark age. The country was exhausted by the war, and its resources were also exhausted due to the conflict and the wars of Independence that broke out in the American dominions. The country’s geopolitical position weakened further, if possible. Apart from all these difficulties, the first Fernandina restoration was characterized by a harsh and relentless persecution of his political rivals, something that characterized all stages of him as an absolute monarch. This repression led to exile in Europe and America both liberals and afrancesados.
stop liberalism
In 1820, the Riego uprising in Las Cabezas de San Juan started a sociopolitical movement that allowed a change of course in the country. The liberals again reached power beginning the Constitutional Triennium. Between 1820 and 1823, the Constitution of 1812 and the legal work of Cádiz were recovered, and the Cortes displayed intense activity, advancing in the construction of the liberal State in Spain. In 1820, the liberals at no time considered doing without Fernando VII. He adapted to the situation and swore to the Constitution of Cádiz. However, throughout the Triennium his behavior was completely disloyal to the new rulers, before what he considered an imposition against his legitimate rights as absolute monarch. He acted in an obstructionist manner…