Ferdinand VII of Spain

“ The rights of Ferdinand, and the legitimate representation of them on the part of the intrusive governments of Spain on the one side, [Pg 101] demonstrations of compassion and gratitude on the other, have been the two favourite springs alternately played on to support our illusion, to decrease our substance, to prolong our degradation, to multiply our evils, and ignominiously to prepare us to receive that passive fate prepared for us by those who have dealt with us so kindly for three centuries. Ferdinand VII. is the universal watch-word for tyranny, as well in Spain as in America. ”

“ When free, he revenged himself with a ferocity which disgusted his allies. In his last years he prepared a change in the order of succession established by his dynasty in Spain, which angered a large part of the nation, and made a civil war inevitable. We have to distinguish the part of Ferdinand VII. in all these transactions, in which other and better men were concerned. It can confidently be said to have been uniformly base. He had perhaps no right to complain that he was kept aloof from all share in government while only heir apparent, for this was the traditional practice of his family. ”

“ Had Ferdinand VII. been a wise and truthful man, or had there been Spanish statesmen capable of governing both monarch and monarchy, the days of Alberoni would have been repeated before 1820. But there was neither an honest monarch nor a great statesman in the kingdom, and Spain daily became weaker and more contemptible. Her colonial empire disappeared, with a few exceptions, such as Cuba and the Philippines. The sun ceased to shine constantly on that empire which had been warmed by his beams through three centuries, and transferred that honor to England. ”

“ No Spanish monarch ever had a firmer hold upon the Indies than Ferdinand VII. when Spain was lost to him in July and August, 1808.
But soon there came that inevitable question, first in the catechism of all human society: Whom shall we obey? The King, whose hand had weighed not over lightly these many years, an abdicated prisoner at Bayonne; Ferdinand yielding his authority into the hand of a nameless Regency, and his capital to the brother of the Corsican Emperor; Spain overrun by two hundred thousand foreign troops ”

“ Poor Spain, she has had kings who would have wrecked a less vigorous race. At La Granja, in 1832, Ferdinand VII changed his will and made his infant daughter, Isabel II, his heir, instead of his brother, Don Carlos, whom he had previously acknowledged, thus leaving behind him an inheritance of civil war. From the days of Urraca and Isabella the Catholic, women could inherit the throne in Spain, just as they can in England. But in the 18th century under the Bourbon kings, who loved all things French, the Salic Law was introduced and continued in force till Ferdinand VII changed it at La Granja. ”

“ Of Ferdinand VII or Joseph I, of politics domestic or foreign, there is not a word. Two days later the Council at last makes up its mind, and, after a week of most uncomfortable sitting on the fence, suddenly bursts out into an ‘Address to the honourable and generous people of the capital of Spain,’ in the highest strain of patriotism: ‘Our loved King is in chains, but his loyal subjects have risen in his name. Our gallant armies have achieved triumphs over “the invincibles of Marengo, Austerlitz, and Jena.” All Europe stands surprised at their rapid victories. ”

“ But, unfortunately, proceedings still more arbitrary were commenced against their leaders individually, of a nature unknown, even in Spain, till then, and in comparison with which the rule of the Prince of the Peace was a pattern of toleration. As those leaders had not been guilty of any act which could make them amenable to any legal tribunal, Ferdinand VII. took on himself to pass the sentences he chose to inflict on them for the opinions they had held, and the conduct they had pursued, in the momentous struggle for national independence, resulting in his restoration. ”

“ Louis that they may preserve the throne of Spain to the grandson of Henri IV. They shall save that fair kingdom from ruin and reconcile it to French invasion of Spain Europe." By the middle of March, the Duke of Angoulême and his staff left Paris. On April 7, the French vanguard crossed the Bidassoa, and the Duke entered Irun, welcomed by Spanish royalists. About the same time the Cortes and Constitutional Ministry left Madrid, and compelled King Ferdinand VII. to accompany them to Seville. The forces of the Spanish Government fell back without striking a blow. ”

“ Again fortune intervened from abroad, this time directly from Spain itself. Ferdinand VII, who had gathered an army of twenty thousand men at Cadiz, was ready to deliver a crushing blow at the colonies when in January, 1890, a mutiny among the troops and revolution throughout the country entirely frustrated the plan. But although that reactionary monarch was compelled to accept the Constitution of 1819, the Spanish liberals were unwilling to concede to their fellows in America anything more substantial than representation in the Cortes. Independence they would not tolerate. ”

“ But in 1814 Ferdinand VII. violated the oath which he had sworn to observe the constitution; the inquisition was re-established; the feudal exactions on real property were restored; and the fatal policy of violent reaction and of ruthless vengeance on political opponents was inaugurated which has wrought such deadly harm to the cause of progress in Spain. After an absolute government of six years, Riego raised the standard of revolt at Cadiz, and again Ferdinand swore to observe the constitution of 1812: further reforms were established. ”

“ Bosnia and Herzegovina were given to Austria by the Congress of Berlin; the independence of Roumania, Servia, and Montenegro was made more complete; the island of Cyprus was turned over to Great Britain for administration. Spain in the last half Century. A few words will tell sufficiently the story of Spain since the successor of Joseph Bonaparte quitted the scene. Ferdinand VII. died in 1833, and his infant daughter was proclaimed queen, as Isabella II., with her mother, Christina, regent. ”

“ Ferdinand, without being a truly great man, was unquestionably the greatest monarch of an age not prolific in greatness, the only contemporary whom he did not wholly eclipse being Henry VII of England. ”

“ Ferdinand is without doubt the greatest hero of the Spanish nation; to his military genius, manifested in many great expeditions which he brought to a successful termination, he united two qualities rarely combined—a prudent policy and an acute sense of justice, which caused him to be loved and respected by all the kings of Spain and even by his enemies. It was through the fame of his rectitude that Murcia submitted to him without warfare, and that from an enemy the king of Granada became his loyal and submissive vassal. ”

“ He assured him of the satisfaction which the king of Aragon had experienced, at receiving intelligence of his projected expedition against the infidel. Nothing gave his master so great contentment, as to see his brother monarchs employing their arms, and expending their revenues, against the enemies of the Cross; where even failure was greater gain than success in other wars. He offered Ferdinand's assistance in the prosecution of such wars, even though they should be directed against the Mahometans of Africa, over whom the papal sanction had given Spain exclusive rights of conquest. ”

“ The people can feel no sympathy with a man who has no sort of title to their ancient crown; who is a perfect stranger to them, and almost to the world; who after the hawking of their throne about Europe, was forced upon them against their will. Besides, the Italians, of all European nations, are despised in Spain. They are considered there as good singers, dancers, cooks, and such like, but not the men for anything manly or great: how much less for the throne of Ferdinand the Catholic! ”

“ In 1812 the Spanish Cortes enacted a constitution which embodied many such reforms as the freedom of the press, the suppression of the Inquisition, the closing of monasteries and convents, the expulsion of the Jesuits and the cutting off of all privileges belonging exclusively to the army and the nobility. To crown all, the people were invested with power. But long before the ignorant peasantry of Spain could realize their high privileges a counter-revolution had seated Ferdinand on the throne, as firm a believer as ever in
"The right divine of kings to govern wrong." ”

“ In the same palace lived Ferdinand, prince of Asturias, heir to the throne, a man who was grossly artificial and wicked, yet one whom Spain was disposed to obey if only to show hatred to the Prince of the Peace. Ferdinand’s chief counsellors were the duke de Infantado, strongly attached to all the prejudices of an ancient régime, ambitious, but with all the inflexibility of an honest man, and his tutor Escoiquiz, of a supple and dreamy disposition, ambitious to play the rôle of Ximenes or at least of Cardinal Fleury. ”

“ They built wisely in many things, they advanced Spain from obscurity to become a power among nations; they earned the love and regard of their Christian subjects by works promoting their welfare; but at the same time they vitiated the good deeds by their barbarous treatment of “heretics.”
It is no matter of wonder that an attempt was made on Ferdinand’s life, in Catalonia, soon after the capture of Granada, and that even Isabella was not safe from covert attack. ”

“ During the sixteenth century, the throne was occupied by two princes of eminent ability, who pursued a similar course. Charles V., who succeeded Ferdinand in 1516, governed Spain for forty years, and the general character of his administration was the same as that of his predecessors. In regard to his foreign policy, his three principal wars were against France, against the German princes, and against Turkey. Of these, the first was secular; but the two last were essentially religious. In the German war, he defended the church against innovation ”

“ Next, we should consider the impression which the last twenty years had left on the thinking part of the community. Under the most profligate and despicable Court in Europe, a sense of political degradation had been produced among such of the Spaniards as were not blinded by a nationality of mere instinct. The true source of the enthusiasm which appeared on the accession of Ferdinand, was joy at the removal of his father; for hopes of a better government, under a young Prince of the common stamp, seated on an arbitrary throne, must have been wild and visionary indeed. ”

“ In 1497 Ferdinand, with the support of his wife, Foreign Policy of Ferdinand and Isabella. entered on those wars of Italy in which the Spanish regular soldiers first gained their reputation, and which made Spain for a time the dominant power in the Italian peninsula (see Córdoba, Gonzalo F. de) . They endeavoured to strengthen themselves against France by marriages with the royal family of England (see Catherine of Aragon) and the Habsburgs. The marriage of Juana, called the Mad, with Philip of Habsburg, son of the emperor Maximilian (q.v.) brought a new dynasty to Spain. ”

“ Spaniards had spent more time in framing a Constitution than in fighting, and this guarantee of the people’s rights was a very liberal instrument—on paper. If Ferdinand had kept his pledges to sustain it, his would have been a very limited instead of the very absolute monarchy it was. But he did not keep his word, for the Inquisition, which had been abolished, was restored; the Jesuits were recalled; and of the liberal statesmen, who had at heart the good of Spain, some were sent to the galleys, and others executed. In fact, the despicable Ferdinand had learned nothing in his exile ”

“ This period of rest it found during the reign of Philip’s successor and son, Ferdinand VI, who entered upon the kingly state at the death of his father, in 1746.
As so frequently happens, the best king has the shortest reign, and Ferdinand lived but thirteen years after falling heir to the crown. But these were years of tranquility and progress, during which impoverished Spain deigned to take stock of her own resources and did not go abroad to rob her [171] neighbours. ”

“ The acquisition of an important kingdom in the heart of Europe, and of the New World beyond the waters, which promised to pour into her lap all the fabled treasures of the Indies, was rapidly raising Spain to the first rank of European powers. But, in this noontide of her success, she was to experience a fatal shock in the loss of that illustrious personage, who had so long and so gloriously presided over her destinies. We have had occasion to notice more than once the declining state of the queen's health during the last few years. ”

“ Ferdinand openly assumed for himself and his ministers the responsibility of maintaining this vicious institution, and subsequently issued an ordinance to that effect, accompanied, however, by a variety of humane and equitable regulations for restraining its abuse. The license was embraced in its full extent; the regulations were openly disregarded. Several years after, in 1515, Las Casas,r moved by the spectacle of human suffering, returned to Spain, and pleaded the cause of the injured natives, in tones which made the dying monarch tremble on his throne. ”

“ A LEGEND OF SPAIN.
With a moody air, from morn till noon, King Ferdinand paces the royal saloon; From morn till eve He does nothing but grieve; Sighings and sobbings his midriff heave, And he wipes his eyes with his ermined sleeve, And he presses his feverish hand to his brow, And he frowns, and he looks I can't tell you how; And the Spanish Grandees In their degrees, Are whispering about in twos and in threes, And there is not a man of them seems at his ease, But they gaze on the monarch, as watching what he does, With their very long whiskers, and longer Toledos. ”