Chapter 2

See the article onCharles V.and the bibliography appended thereto. Also, A. Ulloa,Vita del potentissimo e christianissimo imperatore Ferdinando primo(Venice, 1565); S. Schard,Epitome rerum in variis orbis partibus a confirmatione Ferdinandi I. (Basel, 1574); F.B. von Bucholtz,Geschichte der Regierung Ferdinands des Ersten(Vienna, 1831-1838); K. Oberleitner,Österreichs Finanzen und Kriegswesen unter Ferdinand I. (Vienna, 1859); A. Rezek,Geschichte der Regierung Ferdinands I. in Böhmen(Prague, 1878); E. Rosenthal,Die Behördenorganisation Kaiser Ferdinands I. (Vienna, 1887); and W. Bauer,Die Anfänge Ferdinands I. (Vienna, 1907).

FERDINAND II.(1578-1637), Roman emperor, was the eldest son of Charles, archduke of Styria (d. 1590), and his wife Maria, daughter of Albert IV., duke of Bavaria and a grandson of the emperor Ferdinand I. Born at Gratz on the 9th of July 1578, he was trained by the Jesuits, finishing his education at the university of Ingolstadt, and became the pattern prince of the counter-reformation. In 1596 he undertook the government of Styria, Carinthia and Carniola, and after a visit to Italy began an organized attack on Protestantism which under his father’s rule had made great progress in these archduchies; and although hampered by the inroads of the Turks, he showed his indifference to the material welfare of his dominions by compelling many of his Protestant subjects to choose between exile and conversion, and by entirely suppressing Protestant worship. He was not, however, unmindful of the larger interest of his family, or of the Empire which the Habsburgs regarded as belonging to them by hereditary right. In 1606 he joined his kinsmen in recognizing his cousin Matthias as the head of the family in place of the lethargic Rudolph II.; but he shrank from any proceedings which might lead to the deposition of the emperor, whom he represented at the diet of Regensburg in 1608; and his conduct was somewhat ambiguous during the subsequent quarrel between Rudolph and Matthias.

In the first decade of the 17th century the house of Habsburg seemed overtaken by senile decay, and the great inheritance of Charles V. and Ferdinand I. to be threatened with disintegration and collapse. The reigning emperor, Rudolph II., was inert and childless; his surviving brothers, the archduke Matthias (afterwards emperor), Maximilian (1558-1618) and Albert (1559-1621), all men of mature age, were also without direct heirs; the racial differences among its subjects were increased by their religious animosities; and it appeared probable that the numerous enemies of the Habsburgs had only to wait a few years and then to divide the spoil. In spite of the recent murder of Henry IV. of France, this issue seemed still more likely when Matthias succeeded Rudolph as emperor in 1612. The Habsburgs, however, were not indifferent to the danger, and about 1615 it was agreed that Ferdinand, who already had two sons by his marriage with his cousin Maria Anna (d. 1616), daughter of William V., duke of Bavaria, should be the next emperor, and should succeed Matthias in the elective kingdoms of Hungary and Bohemia. The obstacles which impeded the progress of the scheme were gradually overcome by the energy of the archduke Maximilian. The elder archdukes renounced their rights in the succession; the claims of Philip III. and the Spanish Habsburgs were bought off by a promise of Alsace; and the emperor consented to his supercession in Hungary and Bohemia. In 1617 Ferdinand, who was just concluding a war with Venice, was chosen king of Bohemia, and in 1618 king of Hungary; but his election as German king, or king of the Romans, delayed owing to the anxiety of Melchior Klesl (q.v.) to conciliate the protestant princes, had not been accomplished when Matthias died in March 1619. Before this event, however, an important movement had begun in Bohemia. Having been surprised into choosing a devoted Roman Catholic as their king, the Bohemian Protestants suddenly realized that their religious, and possibly their civil liberties, were seriously menaced, and deeds of aggression on the part of Ferdinand’s representatives showed that this was no idle fear. Gaining the upper hand they declared Ferdinand deposed, and elected the elector palatine of the Rhine, Frederick V., in his stead; and the struggle between the rivals was the beginning of the Thirty Years’ War. At the same time other difficulties confronted Ferdinand, who had not yet secured the imperial throne. Bethlen Gabor, prince of Transylvania, invaded Hungary, while the Austrians rose and joined the Bohemians; but having seen his foes retreat from Vienna, Ferdinand hurried to Frankfort, where he was chosen emperor on the 28th of August 1619.

To deal with the elector palatine and his allies the new emperor allied himself with Maximilian I., duke of Bavaria, and the Catholic League, who drove Frederick from Bohemia in 1620, while Ferdinand’s Spanish allies devastated the Palatinate. Peace having been made with Bethlen Gabor in December 1621, the first period of the war ended in a satisfactory fashion for the emperor, and he could turn his attention to completing the work of crushing the Protestants, which had already begun in his archduchies and in Bohemia. In 1623 the Protestant clergy were expelled from Bohemia; in 1624 all worship save that of the Roman Catholic church was forbidden; and in 1627 an order of banishment against all Protestants was issued. A new constitution made the kingdom hereditary in the house of Habsburg, gave larger powers to the sovereign, and aimed at destroying the nationality of the Bohemians. Similar measures in Austria led to a fresh rising which was put down by the aid of the Bavarians in 1627, and Ferdinand could fairly claim that in his hereditary lands at least he had rendered Protestantism innocuous.

The renewal of the Thirty Years’ War in 1625 was caused mainly by the emperor’s vigorous championship of the cause of the counter-reformation in northern and north-eastern Germany. Again the imperial forces were victorious, chiefly owing to the genius of Wallenstein, who raised and led an army in this service, although the great scheme of securing the southern coast of the Baltic for the Habsburgs was foiled partly by the resistance of Stralsund. In March 1629 Ferdinand and his advisers felt themselves strong enough to take the important step towards which their policy in the Empire had been steadily tending. Issuing the famous edict of restitution, the emperor ordered that all lands which had been secularized since 1552, the date of the peace of Passau, should be restored to the church, and prompt measures were taken to enforce this decree. Many and powerful interests were vitally affected by this proceeding, and the result was the outbreak of the third period of the war, which was less favourable to the imperial arms than the preceding ones. This comparative failure was due, in the initial stages of the campaign, to Ferdinand’s weakness in assenting in 1630 to the demand of Maximilian of Bavaria that Wallenstein should be deprived of his command, and also to the genius of Gustavus Adolphus; and in its later stages to his insistence on the second removal of Wallenstein, and to his complicity in the assassination of the general. This deed was followed by the peace of Prague, concluded in 1635, primarily with John George I., elector of Saxony, but soon assented to by other princes; and this treaty, which made extensive concessions to the Protestants, marks the definite failure of Ferdinand to crush Protestantism in the Empire, as he had already done in Austria and Bohemia. It is noteworthy, however, that the emperor refused to allow the inhabitants of his hereditary dominions to share in the benefits of the peace. During these years Ferdinand had also been menaced by the secret or open hostility of France. A dispute over the duchies of Mantua and Monferrato wasended by the treaty of Cherasco in 1631, but the influence of France was employed at the imperial diets and elsewhere in thwarting the plans of Ferdinand and in weakening the power of the Habsburgs. The last important act of the emperor was to secure the election of his son Ferdinand as king of the Romans. An attempt in 1630 to attain this end had failed, but in December 1636 the princes, meeting at Regensburg, bestowed the coveted dignity upon the younger Ferdinand. A few weeks afterwards, on the 15th of February 1637, the emperor died at Vienna, leaving, in addition to the king of the Romans, a son Leopold William (1614-1662), bishop of Passau and Strassburg. Ferdinand’s reign was so occupied with the Thirty Years’ War and the struggle with the Protestants that he had little time or inclination for other business. It is interesting to note, however, that this orthodox and Catholic emperor was constantly at variance with Pope Urban VIII. The quarrel was due principally, but not entirely, to events in Italy, where the pope sided with France in the dispute over the succession to Mantua and Monferrato. The succession question was settled, but the enmity remained; Urban showing his hostility by preventing the election of the younger Ferdinand as king of the Romans in 1630, and by turning a deaf ear to the emperor’s repeated requests for assistance to prosecute the war against the heretics. Ferdinand’s character has neither individuality nor interest, but he ruled the Empire during a critical and important period. Kind and generous to his dependents, his private life was simple and blameless, but he was to a great extent under the influence of his confessors.

Bibliography.—The chief authorities for Ferdinand’s life and reign are F.C. Khevenhiller,Annales Ferdinandei(Regensburg, 1640-1646); F. van Hurter,Geschichte Kaiser Ferdinands II. (Schaffhausen, 1850-1855);Korrespondenz Kaiser Ferdinands II. mit P. Becanus und P.W. Lamormaini, edited by B. Dudik (Vienna, 1848 fol.); and F. Stieve, in theAllegmeine deutsche Biographie, Band vi. (Leipzig, 1877). See also the elaborate bibliography in theCambridge Modern History, vol. iv. (Cambridge, 1906).

FERDINAND III.(1608-1657), Roman emperor, was the elder son of the emperor Ferdinand II., and was born at Gratz on the 13th of July 1608. Educated by the Jesuits, he was crowned king of Hungary in December 1625, and king of Bohemia two years later, and soon began to take part in imperial business. Wallenstein, however, refused to allow him to hold a command in the imperial army; and henceforward reckoned among his enemies, the young king was appointed the successor of the famous general when he was deposed in 1634; and as commander-in-chief of the imperial troops he was nominally responsible for the capture of Regensburg and Donauwörth, and the defeat of the Swedes at Nördlingen. Having been elected king of the Romans, or German king, at Regensburg in December 1636, Ferdinand became emperor on his father’s death in the following February, and showed himself anxious to put an end to the Thirty Years’ War. He persuaded one or two princes to assent to the terms of the treaty of Prague; but a general peace was delayed by his reluctance to grant religious liberty to the Protestants, and by his anxiety to act in unison with Spain. In 1640 he had refused to entertain the idea of a general amnesty suggested by the diet at Regensburg; but negotiations for peace were soon begun, and in 1648 the emperor assented to the treaty of Westphalia. This event belongs rather to the general history of Europe, but it is interesting to note that owing to Ferdinand’s insistence the Protestants in his hereditary dominions did not obtain religious liberty at this settlement. After 1648 the emperor was engaged in carrying out the terms of the treaty and ridding Germany of the foreign soldiery. In 1656 he sent an army into Italy to assist Spain in her struggle with France, and he had just concluded an alliance with Poland to check the aggressions of Charles X, of Sweden when he died on the 2nd of April 1657. Ferdinand was a scholarly and cultured man, an excellent linguist and a composer of music. Industrious and popular in public life, his private life was blameless; and although a strong Roman Catholic he was less fanatical than his father. His first wife was Maria Anna (d. 1646), daughter of Philip III. of Spain, by whom he had three sons: Ferdinand, who was chosen king of the Romans in 1653, and who died in the following year; Leopold, who succeeded his father on the imperial throne; and Charles Joseph (d. 1664), bishop of Passau and Breslau, and grand-master of the Teutonic order. The emperor’s second wife was his cousin Maria (d. 1649), daughter of the archduke Leopold; and his third wife was Eleanora of Mantua (d. 1686). His musical works, together with those of the emperors Leopold I. and Joseph I., have been published by G. Adler (Vienna, 1892-1893).

See M. Koch,Geschichte des deutschen Reiches unter der Regierung Ferdinands III. (Vienna, 1865-1866).

FERDINAND I.(1793-1875), emperor of Austria, eldest son of Francis I. and of Maria Theresa of Naples, was born at Vienna on the 19th of April 1793. In his boyhood he suffered from epileptic fits, and could therefore not receive a regular education. As his health improved with his growth and with travel, he was not set aside from the succession. In 1830 his father caused him to be crowned king of Hungary, a pure formality, which gave him no power, and was designed to avoid possible trouble in the future. In 1831 he was married to Anna, daughter of Victor Emmanuel I. of Sardinia. The marriage was barren. When Francis I. died on the 2nd of March 1835, Ferdinand was recognized as his successor. But his incapacity was so notorious that the conduct of affairs was entrusted to a council of state, consisting of Prince Metternich (q.v.) with other ministers, and two archdukes, Louis and Francis Charles. They composed theStaatsconferenz, the ill-constructed and informal regency which led the Austrian dominions to the revolutionary outbreaks of 1846-1849. (SeeAustria-Hungary.) The emperor, who was subject to fits of actual insanity, and in his lucid intervals was weak and confused in mind, was a political nullity. His personal amiability earned him the affectionate pity of his subjects, and he became the hero of popular stories which did not tend to maintain the dignity of the crown. It was commonly said that having taken refuge on a rainy day in a farmhouse he was so tempted by the smell of the dumplings which the farmer and his family were eating for dinner, that he insisted on having one. His doctor, who knew them to be indigestible, objected, and thereupon Ferdinand, in an imperial rage, made the answer:—“Kaiser bin i’, und Knüdel müss i’ haben” (I am emperor, and will have the dumpling)—which has become a Viennese proverb. His popular name ofDer Gütige(the good sort of man) expressed as much derision as affection. Ferdinand had good taste for art and music. Some modification of the tight-handed rule of his father was made by theStaatsconferenzduring his reign. In the presence of the revolutionary troubles, which began with agrarian riots in Galicia in 1846, and then spread over the whole empire, he was personally helpless. He was compelled to escape from the disorders of Vienna to Innsbruck on the 17th of May 1848. He came back on the invitation of the diet on the 12th of August, but soon had to escape once more from the mob of students and workmen who were in possession of the city. On the 2nd of December he abdicated at Olmütz in favour of his nephew, Francis Joseph. He lived under supervision by doctors and guardians at Prague till his death on the 29th of June 1855.

See Krones von Marchland,Grundriss der österreichischen Geschichte(Vienna, 1882), which gives an ample bibliography; Count F. Hartig,Genesis der Revolution in Österreich(Leipzig, 1850),—an enlarged English translation will be found in the 4th volume of W. Coxe’sHouse of Austria(London, 1862).

FERDINAND I.(1423-1494), also called Don Ferrante, king of Naples, the natural son of Alphonso V. of Aragon and I. of Sicily and Naples, was horn in 1423. In accordance with his father’s will, he succeeded him on the throne of Naples in 1458, but Pope Calixtus III. declared the line of Aragon extinct and the kingdom a fief of the church. But although he died before he could make good his claim (August 1458), and the new Pope Pius II. recognized Ferdinand, John of Anjou, profiting by the discontent of the Neapolitan barons, decided to try to regain the throne conquered by his ancestors, and invaded Naples. Ferdinand was severely defeated by the Angevins and the rebels at Sarno in July 1460, but with the help of Alessandro Sforzaand of the Albanian chief, Skanderbeg, who chivalrously came to the aid of the prince whose father had aided him, he triumphed over his enemies, and by 1464 had re-established his authority in the kingdom. In 1478 he allied himself with Pope Sixtus IV. against Lorenzo de’ Medici, but the latter journeyed alone to Naples when he succeeded in negotiating an honourable peace with Ferdinand. In 1480 the Turks captured Otranto, and massacred the majority of the inhabitants, but in the following year it was retaken by his son Alphonso, duke of Calabria. 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. With almost prophetic instinct he warned the Italian princes of the calamities in store for them, but his negotiations with Pope Alexander VI. and Ludovico il Moro, lord of Milan, having failed, he died in January 1494, worn out with anxiety. Ferdinand was gifted with great courage and real political ability, but his method of government was vicious and disastrous. His financial administration was based on oppressive and dishonest monopolies, and he was mercilessly severe and utterly treacherous towards his enemies.

Authorities.—Codice Aragonese, edited by F. Trinchera (Naples, 1866-1874); P. Giannone,Istoria Civile del Regno di Napoli; J. Alvini,De gestis regum Neapol. ab Aragonia(Naples, 1588); S. de Sismondi,Histoire des républiques italiennes, vols. v. and vi. (Brussels, 1838); P. Villari,Machiavelli, pp. 60-64 (Engl. transl., London, 1892); for the revolt of the nobles in 1485 see Camillo Porzio,La Congiura dei Baroni(first published Rome, 1565; many subsequent editions), written in the Royalist interest.

(L. V.*)

FERDINAND II.(1469-1496), king of Naples, was the grandson of the preceding, and son of Alphonso II. Alphonso finding his tenure of the throne uncertain on account of the approaching invasion of Charles VIII. of France and the general dissatisfaction of his subjects, abdicated in his son’s favour in 1495, but notwithstanding this the treason of a party in Naples rendered it impossible to defend the city against the approach of Charles VIII. Ferdinand fled to Ischia; but when the French king left Naples with most of his army, in consequence of the formation of an Italian league against him, he returned, defeated the French garrisons, and the Neapolitans, irritated by the conduct of their conquerors during the occupation of the city, received him back with enthusiasm; with the aid of the great Spanish general Gonzalo de Cordova he was able completely to rid his state of its invaders shortly before his death, which occurred on the 7th of September 1496.

For authorities see underFerdinand I.of Naples; for the exploits of Gonzalo de Cordova see H.P. del Pulgar,Crónica del gran capitano don Gonzalo de Cordoba(new ed., Madrid, 1834).

FERDINAND IV.(1751-1825), king of Naples (III. of Sicily, and I. of the Two Sicilies), third son of Don Carlos of Bourbon, king of Naples and Sicily (afterwards Charles III. of Spain), was born in Naples on the 12th of January 1751. When his father ascended the Spanish throne in 1759 Ferdinand, in accordance with the treaties forbidding the union of the two crowns, succeeded him as king of Naples, under a regency presided over by the Tuscan Bernardo Tanucci. The latter, an able, ambitious man, wishing to keep the government as much as possible in his own hands, purposely neglected the young king’s education, and encouraged him in his love of pleasure, his idleness and his excessive devotion to outdoor sports. Ferdinand grew up athletic, but ignorant, ill-bred, addicted to the lowest amusements; he delighted in the company of thelazzaroni(the most degraded class of the Neapolitan people), whose dialect and habits he affected, and he even sold fish in the market, haggling over the price.

His minority ended in 1767, and his first act was the expulsion of the Jesuits. The following year he married Maria Carolina, daughter of the empress Maria Theresa. By the marriage contract the queen was to have a voice in the council of state after the birth of her first son, and she was not slow to avail herself of this means of political influence. Beautiful, clever and proud, like her mother, but cruel and treacherous, her ambition was to raise the kingdom of Naples to the position of a great power; she soon came to exercise complete sway over her stupid and idle husband, and was the real ruler of the kingdom. Tanucci, who attempted to thwart her, was dismissed in 1777, and the Englishman Sir John Acton (1736), who in 1779 was appointed director of marine, succeeded in so completely winning the favour of Maria Carolina, by supporting her in her scheme to free Naples from Spanish influence and securing arapprochementwith Austria and England, that he became practically and afterwards actually prime minister. Although not a mere grasping adventurer, he was largely responsible for reducing the internal administration of the country to an abominable system of espionage, corruption and cruelty. On the outbreak of the French Revolution the Neapolitan court was not hostile to the movement, and the queen even sympathized with the revolutionary ideas of the day. But when the French monarchy was abolished and the royal pair beheaded, Ferdinand and Carolina were seized with a feeling of fear and horror and joined the first coalition against France in 1793. Although peace was made with France in 1796, the demands of the French Directory, whose troops occupied Rome, alarmed the king once more, and at his wife’s instigation he took advantage of Napoleon’s absence in Egypt and of Nelson’s victories to go to war. He marched with his army against the French and entered Rome (29th of November), but on the defeat of some of his columns he hurried back to Naples, and on the approach of the French, fled on board Nelson’s ship the “Vanguard” to Sicily, leaving his capital in a state of anarchy. The French entered the city in spite of the fierce resistance of thelazzaroni, who were devoted to the king, and with the aid of the nobles and bourgeois established the Parthenopaean Republic (January 1799). When a few weeks later the French troops were recalled to the north of Italy, Ferdinand sent an expedition composed of Calabrians, brigands and gaol-birds, under Cardinal Ruffo, a man of real ability, great devotion to the king, and by no means so bad as he has been painted, to reconquer the mainland kingdom. Ruffo was completely successful, and reached Naples in May. His army and thelazzaronicommitted nameless atrocities, which he honestly tried to prevent, and the Parthenopaean Republic collapsed.

The savage punishment of the Neapolitan Republicans is dealt with in more detail underNaples,NelsonandCaracciolo, but it is necessary to say here that the king, and above all the queen, were particularly anxious that no mercy should be shown to the rebels, and Maria Carolina made use of Lady Hamilton, Nelson’s mistress, to induce him to execute her own spiteful vengeance. Her only excuse is that as a sister of Marie Antoinette the very name of Republican or Jacobin filled her with loathing. 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. Ferdinand with his usual precipitation fled to Palermo (23rd of January 1806), followed soon after by his wife and son, and on the 14th of February the French again entered Naples. Napoleon declared that the Bourbon dynasty had forfeited the crown, and proclaimed his brother Joseph king of Naples and Sicily. But Ferdinand continued to reign over the latter kingdom under British protection. Parliamentary institutions of a feudal type had long existed in the island, and Lord William Bentinck (q.v.), the British minister, insisted on a reform of the constitution on English and French lines. The king indeed practically abdicated his power, appointing his son Francisregent, and the queen, at Bentinck’s instance, was exiled to Austria, where she died in 1814.

After the fall of Napoleon, Joachim Murat, who had succeeded Joseph Bonaparte as king of Naples in 1808, was dethroned, and Ferdinand returned to Naples. By a secret treaty he had bound himself not to advance further in a constitutional direction than Austria should at any time approve; but, though on the whole he acted in accordance with Metternich’s policy of preserving thestatus quo, and maintained with but slight change Murat’s laws and administrative system, he took advantage of the situation to abolish the Sicilian constitution, in violation of his oath, and to proclaim the union of the two states into the kingdom of the Two Sicilies (December 12th, 1816). He was now completely subservient to Austria, an Austrian, Count Nugent, being even made commander-in-chief of the army; and for four years he reigned as a despot, every tentative effort at the expression of liberal opinion being ruthlessly suppressed. The result was an alarming spread of the influence and activity of the secret society of the Carbonari (q.v.), which in time affected a large part of the army. 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 (seeEurope:History). After long diplomatic negotiations, it was decided to hold a congressad hocat Troppau (October 1820). The main results of this congress were the issue of the famous Troppau Protocol, signed by Austria, Prussia and Russia only, and an invitation to King Ferdinand to attend the adjourned congress at Laibach (1821), an invitation of which Great Britain approved “as implying negotiation” (seeTroppau,Laibach,Congresses of). At Laibach Ferdinand played so sorry a part as to provoke the contempt of those whose policy it was to re-establish him in absolute power. He had twice sworn, with gratuitous solemnity, to maintain the new constitution; but he was hardly out of Naples before he repudiated his oaths and, in letters addressed to all the sovereigns of Europe, declared his acts to have been null and void. An attitude so indecent threatened to defeat the very objects of the reactionary powers, and Gentz congratulated the congress that these sorry protests would be buried in the archives, offering at the same time to write for the king a dignified letter in which he should express his reluctance at having to violate his oaths in the face of irresistible force! But, under these circumstances, Metternich had no difficulty in persuading the king to allow an Austrian army to march into Naples “to restore order.”

The campaign that followed did little credit either to the Austrians or the Neapolitans. The latter, commanded by General Pepe (q.v.), who made no attempt to defend the difficult defiles of the Abruzzi, were defeated, after a half-hearted struggle at Rieti (March 7th, 1821), and the Austrians entered Naples. The parliament was now dismissed, and Ferdinand inaugurated an era of savage persecution, supported by spies and informers, against the Liberals and Carbonari, the Austrian commandant in vain protesting against the savagery which his presence alone rendered possible.

Ferdinand died on the 4th of January 1825. Few sovereigns have left behind so odious a memory. His whole career is one long record of perjury, vengeance and meanness, unredeemed by a single generous act, and his wife was a worthy helpmeet and actively co-operated in his tyranny.

Bibliography.—The standard authority on Ferdinand’s reign is Pietro Colletta’sStoria del Reame di Napoli(2nd ed., Florence, 1848), which, although heavily written and not free from party passion, is reliable and accurate; L. Conforti,Napoli nel 1799(Naples, 1886); G. Pepe,Memorie(Paris, 1847), a most valuable book; C. Auriol,La France, l’Angleterre, et Naples(Paris, 1906); for the Sicilian period and the British occupation, G. Bianco,La Sicilia durante l’occupazione Inglese(Palermo, 1902), which contains many new documents of importance; Freiherr A. von Helfert has attempted the impossible task of whitewashing Queen Carolina in hisKönigin Karolina von Neapel und Sicilien(Vienna, 1878), andMaria Karolina von Oesterreich(Vienna, 1884); he has also written a useful life ofFabrizio Ruffo(Italian edit., Florence, 1885); for the Sicilian revolution of 1820 see G. Bianco’sLa Rivoluzione in Sicilia del 1820(Florence, 1905), and M. Amari’sCarteggio(Turin, 1896).

(L. V.*)

FERDINAND I.,king of Portugal (1345-1383), sometimes referred to asel Gentil(the Gentleman), son of Pedro I. of Portugal (who is not to be confounded with his Spanish contemporary Pedro the Cruel), succeeded his father in 1367. On the death of Pedro of Castile in 1369, Ferdinand, as great-grandson of Sancho IV. by the female line, laid claim to the vacant throne, for which the kings of Aragon and Navarre, and afterwards the duke of Lancaster (married in 1370 to Constance, the eldest daughter of Pedro), also became competitors. Meanwhile Henry of Trastamara, the brother (illegitimate) and conqueror of Pedro, had assumed the crown and taken the field. After one or two indecisive campaigns, all parties were ready to accept the mediation of Pope Gregory XI. The conditions of the treaty, ratified in 1371, included a marriage between Ferdinand and Leonora of Castile. But before the union could take place the former had become passionately attached to Leonora Tellez, the wife of one of his own courtiers, and having procured a dissolution of her previous marriage, he lost no time in making her his queen. This strange conduct, although it raised a serious insurrection in Portugal, did not at once result in a war with Henry; but the outward concord was soon disturbed by the intrigues of the duke of Lancaster, who prevailed on Ferdinand to enter into a secret treaty for the expulsion of Henry from his throne. The war which followed was unsuccessful; and peace was again made in 1373. On the death of Henry in 1379, the duke of Lancaster once more put forward his claims, and again found an ally in Portugal; but, according to the Continental annalists, the English proved as offensive to their companions in arms as to their enemies in the field; and Ferdinand made a peace for himself at Badajoz in 1382, it being stipulated that Beatrix, the heiress of Ferdinand, should marry King John of Castile, and thus secure the ultimate union of the crowns. Ferdinand left no male issue when he died on the 22nd of October 1383, and the direct Burgundian line, which had been in possession of the throne since the days of Count Henry (about 1112), became extinct. The stipulations of the treaty of Badajoz were set aside, and John, grand-master of the order of Aviz, Ferdinand’s illegitimate brother, was proclaimed. This led to a war which lasted for several years.

FERDINAND I.,El Magnoor “the Great,” king of Castile (d.1065), son of Sancho of Navarre, was put in possession of Castile in 1028, on the murder of the last count, as the heir of his mother Elvira, daughter of a previous count of Castile. He reigned with the title of king. He married Sancha, sister and heiress of Bermudo, king of Leon. In 1038 Bermudo was killed in battle with Ferdinand at Tamaron, and Ferdinand then took possession of Leon by right of his wife, and was recognized in Spain as emperor. The use of the title was resented by the emperor Henry IV. and by Pope Victor II. in 1055, as implying a claim to the headship of Christendom, and as a usurpation on the Holy Roman Empire. It did not, however, mean more than that Spain was independent of the Empire, and that the sovereign of Leon was the chief of the princes of the peninsula. Although Ferdinand had grown in power by a fratricidal strife with Bermudo of Leon, and though at a later date he defeated and killed his brother Garcia of Navarre, he ranks high among the kings of Spain who have been counted religious. To a large extent he may have owed his reputation to the victories over the Mahommedans, with which he began the period of the great reconquest. But there can be no doubt that Ferdinand was profoundly pious. Towards the close of his reign he sent a special embassy to Seville to bring back the body of Santa Justa. The then king of Seville, Motadhid, one of the small princes who had divided the caliphate of Cordova, was himself a sceptic and poisoner, but he stood in wholesome awe of the power of theChristian king. He favoured the embassy in every way, and when the body of Santa Justa could not be found, helped the envoys who were also aided by a vision seen by one of them in a dream, to discover the body of Saint Isidore, which was reverently carried away to Leon. Ferdinand died on the feast of Saint John the Evangelist, the 24th of June 1065, in Leon, with many manifestations of ardent piety—having laid aside his crown and royal mantle, dressed in the frock of a monk and lying on a bier, covered with ashes, which was placed before the altar of the church of Saint Isidore.

FERDINAND II.,king of Leon only (d.1188), was the son of Alphonso VII. and of Berenguela, of the house of the counts of Barcelona. On the division of the kingdoms which had obeyed his father, he received Leon. His reign of thirty years was one of strife marked by no signal success or reverse. He had to contend with his unruly nobles, several of whom he put to death. During the minority of his nephew Alphonso VIII. of Castile he endeavoured to impose himself on the kingdom as regent. On the west he was in more or less constant strife with Portugal, which was in process of becoming an independent kingdom. His relations to the Portuguese house must have suffered by his repudiation of his wife Urraca, daughter of Alphonso I. of Portugal. Though he took the king of Portugal prisoner in 1180, he made no political use of his success. He extended his dominions southward in Estremadura at the expense of the Moors. Ferdinand, who died in 1188, left the reputation of a good knight and hard fighter, but did not display political or organizing faculty.

FERDINAND III.,El Santoor “the Saint,” king of Castile (1199-1252), son of Alphonso IX. of Leon, and of Berengaria, daughter of Alphonso VIII. of Castile, ranks among the greatest of the Spanish kings. The marriage of his parents, who were second cousins, was dissolved as unlawful by the pope, but the legitimacy of the children was recognized. Till 1217 he lived with his father in Leon. In that year the young king of Castile, Henry, was killed by accident. Berengaria sent for her son with such speed that her messenger reached Leon before the news of the death of the king of Castile, and when he came to her she renounced the crown in his favour. Alphonso of Leon considered himself tricked, and the young king had to begin his reign by a war against his father and a faction of the Castilian nobles. His own ability and the remarkable capacity of his mother proved too much for the king of Leon and his Castilian allies. Ferdinand, who showed himself docile to the influence of Berengaria, so long as she lived, married the wife she found for him, Beatrice, daughter of the emperor Philip (of Hohenstaufen), and followed her advice both in prosecuting the war against the Moors and in the steps which she took to secure his peaceful succession to Leon on the death of his father in 1231. After the union of Castile and Leon in that year he began the series of campaigns which ended by reducing the Mahommedan dominions in Spain to Granada. Cordova fell in 1236, and Seville in 1248. The king of Granada did homage to Ferdinand, and undertook to attend the cortes when summoned. The king was a severe persecutor of the Albigenses, and his formal canonization was due as much to his orthodoxy as to his crusading by Pope Clement X. in 1671. He revived the university first founded by his grandfather Alphonso VIII., and placed it at Salamanca. By his second marriage with Joan (d. 1279), daughter of Simon, of Dammartin, count of Ponthieu, by right of his wife Marie, Ferdinand was the father of Eleanor, the wife of Edward I. of England.

FERDINAND IV.,El Emplazadoor “the Summoned,” king of Castile (d. 1312), son of Sancho El Bravo, and his wife Maria de Molina, is a figure of small note in Spanish history. His strange title is given him in the chronicles on the strength of a story that he put two brothers of the name of Carvajal to death tyrannically, and was given a time, aplazo, by them in which to answer for his crime in the next world. But the tale is not contemporary, and is an obvious copy of the story told of Jacques de Molay, grand-master of the Temple, and Philippe Le Bel. Ferdinand IV. succeeded to the throne when a boy of six. His minority was a time of anarchy. He owed his escape from the violence of competitors and nobles, partly to the tact and undaunted bravery of his mother Maria de Molina, and partly to the loyalty of the citizens of Avila, who gave him refuge within their walls. As a king he proved ungrateful to his mother, and weak as a ruler. He died suddenly in his tent at Jaen when preparing for a raid into the Moorish territory of Granada, on the 7th of September 1312.

FERDINAND I.,king of Aragon (1373-1416), called “of Antequera,” was the son of John I. of Castile by his wife Eleanor, daughter of the third marriage of Peter IV. of Aragon. His surname “of Antequera” was given him because he was besieging that town, then in the hands of the Moors, when he was told that the cortes of Aragon had elected him king in succession to his uncle Martin, the last male of the old line of Wilfred the Hairy. As infante of Castile Ferdinand had played an honourable part. When his brother Henry III. died at Toledo, in 1406, the cortes was sitting, and the nobles offered to make him king in preference to his nephew John. Ferdinand refused to despoil his brother’s infant son, and even if he did not act on the moral ground he alleged, his sagacity must have shown him that he would be at the mercy of the men who had chosen him in such circumstances. As co-regent of the kingdom with Catherine, widow of Henry III. and daughter of John of Gaunt by his marriage with Constance, daughter of Peter the Cruel and Maria de Padilla, Ferdinand proved a good ruler. He restrained the follies of his sister-in-law, and kept the realm quiet, by firm government, and by prosecuting the war with the Moors. As king of Aragon his short reign of two years left him little time to make his mark. Having been bred in Castile, where the royal authority was, at least in theory, absolute, he showed himself impatient under the checks imposed on him by thefueros, the chartered rights of Aragon and Catalonia. He particularly resented the obstinacy of the Barcelonese, who compelled the members of his household to pay municipal taxes. His most signal act as king was to aid in closing the Great Schism in the Church by agreeing to the deposition of the antipope Benedict XIV., an Aragonese. He died at Ygualada in Catalonia on the 2nd of April 1416.

FERDINAND V.of Castile and Leon, and II. of Aragon (1452-1516), was the son of John I. of Aragon by his second marriage with Joanna Henriquez, of the family of the hereditary grand admirals of Castile, and was born at Sos in Aragon on the 16th of March 1452. Under the name of “the Catholic” and as the husband of Isabella, queen of Castile, he played a great part in Europe. His share in establishing the royal authority in all parts of Spain, in expelling the Moors from Granada, in the conquest of Navarre, in forwarding the voyages of Columbus, and in contending with France for the supremacy in Italy, is dealt with elsewhere (seeSpain:History). In personal character he had none of the attractive qualities of his wife. It may fairly be said of him that he was purely a politician. His marriage in 1469 to his cousin Isabella of Castile was dictated by the desire to unite his own claims to the crown, as the head of the younger branch of the same family, with hers, in case Henry IV. should die childless. When the king died in 1474 he made an ungenerous attempt to procure his own proclamation as king without recognition of the rights of his wife. Isabella asserted her claims firmly, and at all times insisted on a voice in the government of Castile. But though Ferdinand had sought a selfish political advantage at his wife’s expense, he was well aware of her ability and high character. Their married life was dignified and harmonious; for Ferdinand had no common vices, and their views in government were identical. The king cared for nothing but dominion and political power. His character explains the most ungracious acts of his life, such as his breach of his promises to Columbus, his distrust of Ximenez and of the Great Captain. He had given wide privileges to Columbus on the supposition that the discoverer would reach powerful kingdoms. When islands inhabited by feeble savages were discovered, Ferdinand appreciated the risk that they might become the seat of a power too strong to be controlled, and took measures to avert the danger. He feared thatJiménezand theGreat Captain would become too independent, and watched them in the interest of the royal authority. Whether he ever boasted, as he is said to have boasted, that he had deceived Louis XII. of France twelve times, is very doubtful; but it is certain that when Ferdinand made a treaty, or came to an understanding with any one, the contract was generally found to contain implied meanings favourable to himself which the other contracting party had not expected. The worst of his character was prominently shown after the death of Isabella in 1504. He endeavoured to lay hands on the regency of Castile in the name of his insane daughter Joanna, and without regard to the claims of her husband Philip of Habsburg. The hostility of the Castilian nobles, by whom he was disliked, baffled him for a time, but on Philip’s early death he reasserted his authority. His second marriage with Germaine of Foix in 1505 was apparently contracted in the hope that by securing an heir male he might punish his Habsburg son-in-law. Aragon did not recognize the right of women to reign, and would have been detached together with Catalonia, Valencia and the Italian states if he had had a son. This was the only occasion on which Ferdinand allowed passion to obscure his political sense, and lead him into acts which tended to undo his work of national unification. As king of Aragon he abstained from inroads on the liberties of his subjects which might have provoked rebellion. A few acts of illegal violence are recorded of him—as when he invited a notorious demagogue of Saragossa to visit him in the palace, and caused the man to be executed without form of trial. Once when presiding over the Aragonese cortes he found himself sitting in a thorough draught and ordered the window to be shut, adding in a lower voice, “If it is not against thefueros.” But his ill-will did not go beyond such sneers. He was too intent on building up a great state to complicate his difficulties by internal troubles. His arrangement of the convention of Guadalupe, which ended the fierce Agrarian conflicts of Catalonia, was wise and profitable to the country, though it was probably dictated mainly by a wish to weaken the landowners by taking away their feudal rights. Ferdinand died at Madrigalejo in Estremadura on the 23rd of February 1516.

The lives of the kings of this name before Ferdinand V. are contained in the chronicles, and in theAnales de Aragonof Zurita, and the History of Spain by Mariana. Both deal at length with the life of Ferdinand V. Prescott’sHistory of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, in any of its numerous editions, gives a full life of him with copious references to authorities.

FERDINAND VI.,king of Spain (1713-1759), second son of Philip V., founder of the Bourbon dynasty, by his first marriage with Maria Louisa of Savoy, was born at Madrid on the 23rd of September 1713. His youth was depressed. His father’s second wife, Elizabeth Farnese, was a managing woman, who had no affection except for her own children, and who looked upon her stepson as an obstacle to their fortunes. The hypochondria of his father left Elizabeth mistress of the palace. Ferdinand was married in 1729 to Maria Magdalena Barbara, daughter of John V. of Portugal. The very homely looks of his wife were thought by observers to cause the prince a visible shock when he was first presented to her. Yet he became deeply attached to his wife, and proved in fact nearly as uxorious as his father. Ferdinand was by temperament melancholy, shy and distrustful of his own abilities. When complimented on his shooting, he replied, “It would be hard if there were not something I could do.” As king he followed a steady policy of neutrality between France and England, and refused to be tempted by the offers of either into declaring war on the other. In his life he was orderly and retiring, averse from taking decisions, though not incapable of acting firmly, as when he cut short the dangerous intrigues of his able minister Ensenada by dismissing and imprisoning him. Shooting and music were his only pleasures, and he was the generous patron of the famous singer Farinelli (q.v.), whose voice soothed his melancholy. The death of his wife Barbara, who had been devoted to him, and who carefully abstained from political intrigue, broke his heart. Between the date of her death in 1758 and his own on the 10th of August 1759 he fell into a state of prostration in which he would not even dress, but wandered unshaven, unwashed and in a night-gown about his park. The memoirs of the count of Fernan Nuñez give a shocking picture of his death-bed.

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