Ferdinand I of Naples

“ Should become Kings of Naples? O, rejoice
Beyond a common joy, and set it down
With gold on lasting pillars: in one voyage
Did Claribel her husband find at Tunis;
And Ferdinand, her brother, found a wife
Where he himself was lost; Prospero his dukedom
In a poor isle; and all of us ourselves
When no man was his own.
ALONSO. [To FERDINAND and MIRANDA] Give me your
hands.
Let grief and sorrow still embrace his heart
That doth not wish you joy.
GONZALO. Be it so. Amen!
[Re-enter ARIEL, with the MASTER and BOATSWAIN
amazedly following]
O look, sir ”

“ On the very eve of the day on which King Ferdinand II. was thus seeking his last refuge in the island of Ischia, Charles VIII. was entering Naples in triumph at the head of his troops, on horseback, beneath a pall of cloth of gold borne by four great Neapolitan lords, and “received,” says Guicciardini, “with cheers and a joy of which it would be vain to attempt a description; the incredible exultation of a crowd of both sexes, of every age, of every condition, of every quality, of every party, as if he had been the father and first founder of the city.” ”

“ The king returned to Naples soon afterwards, and ordered wholesale arrests and executions of supposed Liberals, which continued until the French successes forced him to agree to a treaty in which amnesty for members of the French party was included. When war broke out between France and Austria in 1805, Ferdinand signed a treaty of neutrality with the former, but a few days later he allied himself with Austria and allowed an Anglo-Russian force to land at Naples. The French victory at Austerlitz enabled Napoleon to despatch an army to southern Italy. ”

“ His oppressive government led in 1485 to an attempt at revolt on the part of the nobles, led by Francesca Coppola and Antonello Sanseverino and supported by Pope Innocent VIII.; the rising having been crushed, many of the nobles, notwithstanding Ferdinand’s promise of a general amnesty, were afterwards treacherously murdered at his express command. In 1493 Charles VIII. of France was preparing to invade Italy for the conquest of Naples, and Ferdinand realized that this was a greater danger than any he had yet faced. ”

“ In any event, he had pledged himself to such an indemnification of the Angevin faction in Naples, as must create inextricable embarrassment, and inflict great injury on his loyal partisans, into whose hands their estates had already passed. And last, though not least, he dishonored by this unsuitable and precipitate alliance his late illustrious queen, the memory of whose transcendent excellence, if it had faded in any degree from his own breast, was too deeply seated in those of her subjects, to allow them to look on the present union otherwise than as a national indignity. ”

“ The extremity of the Peninsula formed the kingdom of Naples, now in the hands of Ferrante I. (1458–1494) , illegitimate son of Alfonso the Magnanimous, of Aragon; while Sicily and Sardinia belonged, with Aragon, to the legitimate branch represented just now by Ferdinand the Catholic (1479–1516) . Always the most disturbed of the Italian states, Naples had in 1485 been the scene of a baronial revolt against the tyranny of Ferrante. The King, indeed, by cunning and ability had triumphed, but his faithlessness and inhuman cruelties had made him most unpopular, and his rule most insecure. ”

“ To secure Ferdinand more to his interests, the pope granted him the investiture, so long withheld, of Naples, on the same easy terms on which it was formerly held by the Aragonese line. His Holiness further released him from the obligation of his marriage treaty, by which the moiety of Naples was to revert to the French crown, in case of Germaine's dying without issue. This dispensing power of the successors of St. Peter, so convenient for princes in their good graces, is undoubtedly the severest tax ever levied by superstition on human reason. ”

“ Ferdinand's former distrust of his general was now augmented tenfold by this evidence of his unbounded popularity. He saw in imagination much more danger to Naples from such a subject, than from any enemy, however formidable. He had received intelligence, moreover, that the French were in full retreat towards the north. He hesitated no longer, but sent instructions to the Great Captain at Cordova, to disband his levies, as the expedition would be postponed till after the present winter; at the same time inviting such as chose to enlist in the service of Navarre. ”

“ While negotiations were still in progress shots were fired. The troops now threw themselves upon the people; there was a struggle, short in duration, but sanguinary and merciless; the barricades were captured, some hundreds of the insurgents slain, and Ferdinand was once more absolute master of Naples. The Assembly was dissolved on the day after that on which it should have met. Orders were at once sent by the King to General Pepe, commander of the troops that were on the march to Lombardy, to return with his army to Naples. ”

“ In July 1820 a military revolt broke out under General Pepe, and Ferdinand was terrorized into subscribing a constitution on the model of the impracticable Spanish constitution of 1812. On the other hand, a revolt in Sicily, in favour of the recovery of its independence, was suppressed by Neapolitan troops.
The success of the military revolution at Naples seriously alarmed the powers of the Holy Alliance, who feared that it might spread to other Italian states and so lead to that general European conflagration which it was their main preoccupation to avoid (see Europe: History) . ”

“ The royal infants were immediately to assume the titles of King and Queen of Naples, and Duke and Duchess of Calabria. Until the consummation of the marriage, the French division of the kingdom was to be placed under the administration of some suitable person named by Louis the Twelfth, and the Spanish under that of the archduke Philip, or some other deputy appointed by Ferdinand. ”

“ Naples was the conquest of Aragon; or, at least, made on behalf of that crown. The queen appears to have taken no part in the conduct of that war, whether distrusting its equity, or its expediency, in the belief that a distant possession in the heart of Europe would probably cost more to maintain than it was worth. In fact, Spain is the only nation, in modern times, which has been able to keep its hold on such possessions for any very considerable period; a circumstance implying more wisdom in her policy than is commonly conceded to her. ”

“ It would probably have been small loss to his kingdom if Ferdinand the First of the Two Sicilies had in a fit of horror plunged overboard to seek relief in a watery grave; but he was much more like to lose his kingdom over it than his kingdom was to lose him, for if ever Caracciolo reached Naples in that terrible position, which gave one the idea of a swimming man, all our eighteen ships of the line might not have been able to restrain the feelings of the populace. ”

“ Charles VIII wished to revive the Angevin claim to the Neapolitan territory held at the time by the illegitimate branch of Alfonso V of Aragon, related by blood to Ferdinand the Catholic. Alleging that Naples was a fief of the pope and therefore excepted from the treaty of 1493, Ferdinand resisted the pretensions of Charles, and formed an alliance with the pope, the emperor, Venice, and Milan against him. ”

“ The hopes of political liberty which all nations entertained when the armies of the allies quailed before those of republican France, found an echo in Naples; while Ferdinand and his queen, who before the French Revolution had shown an inclination to imitate Joseph and Leopold of Austria, in reforming the laws of their kingdom, taking sudden fright, indulged in such acts of arbitrary power as incited rather than repressed the desire for change. Many Neapolitans, therefore, welcomed the French with enthusiasm, and rejoiced in the flight of their sovereign. ”

“ A fundamental change in the institutions of Naples became requisite to accommodate them to its new relations. Its great offices of state and its legal tribunals were reorganized. Its jurisprudence, which, under the Angevin race, and even the first Aragonese, had been adapted to French usages, was now modelled on the Spanish. The various innovations were conducted by the Catholic king with his usual prudence; and the reform in the legislation is commended by a learned and impartial Italian civilian, as breathing a spirit of moderation and wisdom. ”

“ The generous conduct of Charles of Bourbon to his heirs is not so well known. Soon after his accession to the throne of Naples, that prince settled a liberal pension on the son of the historian, declaring, that "it did not comport with the honor and dignity of the government, to permit an individual to languish in indigence, whose parent had been the greatest man, the most useful to the state, and the most unjustly persecuted, that the age had produced." ”

“ NAPLES.—In Naples, Ferdinand I., who was established on his throne by the defeat of his competitors in 1462, provoked a revolt of his barons by his tyranny, invited them to a festival to celebrate a reconciliation with them, and caused them to be seized at the table, and then to be put to death. He treated the people with equal injustice and cruelty. ”

“ A message to the Assembly was accordingly made public, in which the King expressed his desire to mediate with the Powers on this basis. But the Ministers had not reckoned with the passions of the people. As soon as it became known that Ferdinand was about to set out, the leaders of the Carbonari mustered their bands. A host of violent men streamed into Naples from the surrounding country. The Parliament was intimidated, and Ferdinand was prohibited from leaving Naples until he had sworn to maintain the Constitution actually in force, that, namely, which Naples had borrowed from Spain. ”

“ There a new trait of human baseness awaited him. The governor of the island and of an old castle, built, as is said, by the Saracens, which then stood on the island, attempted to parley with the prince to whom he owed all, refusing to receive him with more than one attendant. Ferdinand sprang ashore alone, seized the villain by the throat, and, casting him under his feet, trampled upon him in presence of his own forces and the garrison. The castle was soon in his possession, but he remained not long in Ischia.
On the 21st February, 1495, the French monarch approached the city of Naples. ”

“ Wherever he went his heedless ignorance, and the gross misconduct of his followers, left behind implacable hostility, and turned all friendship into bitterness. At last he entered Naples, and seemed to have asserted to the full the French claim to be supreme in Italy, whereas at that very time his position had become completely untenable. A league of Italian States was formed behind his back; Lodovico il Moro, Ferdinand of Naples, the Emperor, Pope Alexander VI., Ferdinand and Isabella, who were now welding Spain into a great and united monarchy, all combined against France ”

“ Neapolitan Branch.—The first Bourbon who wore the crown of Naples was Charles III. of Spain, who on his succession to the Spanish throne in 1759, resigned his kingdom of Naples to his son Ferdinand. Ferdinand was deposed by Napoleon, but afterwards regained his throne, and took the title of Ferdinand I., king of the Two Sicilies. ”

“ The king sent to him, and offered fifty millions of francs and the surrender of the whole Neapolitan navy, if he would halt his men and stop the invasion. He knew little of the man who had sworn never to sheath his sword till Victor Emmanuel was King of Italy!
Ferdinand remained in Naples while Garibaldi and General Coyenzi entered it in an open carriage, followed by the chief officers of his staff. The air was rent with the shouts of the people, who thronged in thousands to hail their deliverer. The Neapolitan police—the hated Sbirri—looked on in sullen silence. ”

“ With this affront, the king received also the alarming intelligence, that the emperor Maximilian and his son Philip were tampering with the fidelity of the Great Captain; endeavoring to secure Naples in any event to the archduke, who claimed it as the appurtenance of Castile, by whose armies its conquest, in fact, had been achieved. There were not wanting persons of high standing at Ferdinand's court, to infuse suspicions, however unwarrantable, into the royal mind, of the loyalty of his viceroy, a Castilian by birth, and who owed his elevation exclusively to the queen. ”

“ The regency ended in 1767, and the following year Ferdinand married the masterful and ambitious Maria Carolina, daughter of the empress Maria Theresa. She had Tanucci dismissed and set herself to the task of making Naples a great power. With the help of John Acton, an Englishman whom she made minister in the place of Tanucci, she freed Naples from Spanish influence and secured a rapprochement with England and Austria.
On the outbreak of the French Revolution the king and queen were not at first hostile to the new movement ”

“ When Ferdinand returned to Naples in 1815 he found the kingdom, and especially the army, honeycombed with Carbonarism, to which many noblemen and officers were affiliated; and although the police instituted prosecutions and organized the Revolution in Naples, 1820.counter-movement of the Calderai, who may be compared to the “Black Hundreds” of modern Russia, the revolutionary spirit continued to grow, but it was not at first anti-dynastic. The granting of the Spanish constitution of 1820 proved the signal for the beginning of the Italian liberationist movement ”