January 12, 1751: Birth of Ferdinand I, King of the Two Sicilies. Part I.

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Archduchess Marie Caroline of Austria, Carlos III of Spain, Empress Maria Theresa, Ferdinand I of the Two-Sicilies, Ferdinand IV-III of Naples and Sicily, Fernando VI of Spain, Holy Roman Emperor Franz I, Napoleonic Wars

Ferdinand I (January 12, 1751 – January 4, 1825), was the King of the Two Sicilies from 1816, after his restoration following victory in the Napoleonic Wars. Before that he had been, since 1759, Ferdinand IV of the Kingdom of Naples and Ferdinand III of the Kingdom of Sicily. He was also King of Gozo. He was deposed twice from the throne of Naples: once by the revolutionary Parthenopean Republic for six months in 1799 and again by Napoleon in 1805, before being restored in 1816.

Ferdinand was the third son of King Carlos VII of Naples and V of Sicily by his wife, Maria Amalia of Saxony. On August 10, 1759, Carlos succeeded his elder brother, Fernando VI of Spain, becoming King Carlos III of Spain, but treaty provisions made him ineligible to hold all three crowns. On October 6, he abdicated his Neapolitan and Sicilian titles in favour of his third son Ferdinand because his eldest son Felipe had been excluded from succession due to illnesses and his second son Carlos was heir-apparent to the Spanish throne. Ferdinand was the founder of the cadet House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies.

Childhood

Ferdinand was born in Naples and grew up amidst many of the monuments erected there by his father which can be seen today; the Palaces of Portici, Caserta and Capodimonte.

Since Ferdinand IV-III of Naples was eight upon his accession to both thrones, a regency council presided over by the Tuscan Bernardo Tanucci was set up. 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’s minority/childhood ended in 1767, and his first act was the expulsion of the Jesuits. The following year he married Archduchess Maria Carolina of Austria, the thirteenth child of Empress Maria Theresa and her husband, Holy Roman Emperor Franz I.

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.daughter of Empress Maria Theresa

Archduchess Maria Carolina was the de facto ruler of her husband’s kingdoms. Maria Carolina oversaw the promulgation of many reforms, including the revocation of the ban on Freemasonry, the enlargement of the navy under her favorite, Sir John Acton, and the expulsion of Spanish influence.

She was a proponent of enlightened absolutism until the advent of the French Revolution, when, in order to prevent its ideas gaining currency, she made Naples a police state.

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.

Ferdinand IV-III marched with his army against the French and entered Rome (November 29), but on the defeat of some of his columns he hurried back to Naples, and on the approach of the French, fled on December 23, 1798 aboard Nelson’s ship HMS Vanguard to Palermo, Sicily, leaving his capital in a state of anarchy.

When, a few weeks later the French troops were recalled to northern Italy, Ferdinand sent a hastily assembled force, under Cardinal Ruffo, to reconquer the mainland kingdom. Ruffo, with the support of British artillery, the Church, and the pro-Bourbon aristocracy, succeeded, reaching Naples in May 1800. After some months King Ferdinand returned to the throne.

The king, and above all the queen, were particularly anxious that no mercy should be shown to the rebels, and Maria Carolina (a sister of the executed Marie Antoinette, Queen of France) made use of Lady Hamilton, Nelson’s mistress, to induce Nelson to carry out her vengeance.

The Life of Archduchess Hermine of Austria

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Archduke Joseph of Austria, Archduke Stephen of Austria, Carlos III of Spain, Hermine of Austria, Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II, House of Habsburg-Lorraine, Infanta Maria Louisa of Spain, Kingdom of Hungary, Palatine of Hungary

Hermine of Austria (Hermine Amalie Marie, September 14, 1817 – February 13, 1842 ) was a member of the Hungarian branch of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine as an Archduchess of Austria.

Archduchess Hermine, with her twin brother Archduke Stephen, Palatine of Hungary, c. 1840.

Hermine of Austria was the daughter of Archduke Joseph of Austria, Palatine of Hungary and his second wife, Princess Hermine of Anhalt-Bernburg-Schaumburg-Hoym, and she was eldest daughter of Victor II, Prince of Anhalt-Bernburg-Schaumburg-Hoym, and Princess Amelia of Nassau-Weilburg.

Hermine’s father, Archduke Joseph of Austria, was one of fifteen children born to Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II and Infanta Maria Louisa of Spain, the fifth daughter, and second surviving child of King Carlos III of Spain, Naples and Sicily, and Maria Amalia of Saxony.

Archduke Joseph of Austria was born in Florence, where his father Leopold was ruling as Grand Duke of Tuscany at that time. In 1796, Archduke Joseph was made Palatine of Hungary. This old title was, in effect, a deputy of the King of Hungary, and ruled when the king was absent from the country. Archduke Joseph became the founder of the Hungarian branch of the Habsburg family

Archduke Joseph first married the Grand Duchess Alexandra Pavlovna of Russia (1783–1801), on October 30, 1799 at Saint Petersburg. Grand Duchess Alexandra Pavlovna was the third child and eldest daughter of Emperor Paul I of Russia and his second wife Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg (renamed Maria Feodorovna after her wedding). Archduke Joseph was 23 years old, while Grand Duchess Alexandra Pavlovna was 16. She died of puerperal fever at the age of 18 soon after delivering a short-lived daughter, the Archduchess Alexandrine of Austria, on March 9, 1801 in Buda.

Archduke Joseph married his second wife, Princess Hermine of Anhalt-Bernburg-Schaumburg-Hoym on August 30, 1815 at Schaumburg Castle. The princess was just 17 years old when she married the 39-year-old Archduke. This marriage was also short lived when she died in childbirth two years later at the age of 19, after giving birth to Archduchess Hermine of Austria and her faternal twin brother, Archduke Stephen of Austria, Palatine of Hungary.

Archduke Joseph’s third wife was the Duchess Maria Dorothea of Württemberg, the daughter of Duke Ludwig of Württemberg (1756–1817) and Princess Henriette of Nassau-Weilburg (1780–1857) whom he wed on August 24, 1819 at Kirchheim unter Teck. He was 43 years old, and she was 21. They were the parents of five children, Hermine’s half-siblings.

Hermine of Austria was brought up by her stepmother, and spent much of her childhood in Buda and at the family estate in Alcsútdoboz and received an excellent education.

Contemporaries described Archduchess Hermine as a pretty, kind and modest. However, she was a slim young woman, frail body, and prone to diseases. Hermine was Princess-Abbess of the Theresian Royal and Imperial Ladies Chapter of the Castle of Prague (1835-1842), and she died February 13, 1842 in Vienna, Austria at the young age of aged 24. However, I have been unable to find the cause of her death. She never married.

Her full brother, Archduke Stephen was appointed governor of Bohemia by Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria. He stayed in that capacity until, in January 1847, his father died. Stephen succeeded him as Palatine of Hungary on November 12, 1847, but resigned in September 1848 as a result of the Hungarian Revolution. Archduke Stephan died in 1867, unmarried and without issue at the age of 49.

A bit of genealogical trivia for you. Princess Amelia of Nassau-Weilburg, the mother of Archduke Joseph’s second wife, Princess Hermine of Anhalt-Bernburg-Schaumburg-Hoym, and Princess Henriette of Nassau-Weilburg, mother of Archduke Joseph’s third wife, Duchess Maria Dorothea of Württemberg, were siblings, the daughters of Charles Christian, Prince of Nassau-Weilburg and his wife Princess Carolina of Orange-Nassau.

This means that Archduke Joseph’s second and third wives were first cousins.

Also, the parents of these two Nassau-Weilburg siblings, were Charles Christian, Prince of Nassau-Weilburg and his wife Princess Carolina of Orange-Nassau, and they were from separate branches of the House of Nassau. The Nassau-Weilburg branch ruled the Duchy of Nassau until 1866 and from 1890 the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. The younger (Ottonian) branch of the House of Nasau, (Orange-Nassau) gave rise to the Princes of Orange and later the monarchs of the Netherlands, whom also ruled Luxembourg for a while.

This date in History: August 6, 1806. Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire.

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Austrian Empire, Carlos III of Spain, Congress of Vienna, Emperorvof the French, Holy Roman Emperor, Holy Roman Emperor Francis II, Holy Roman Empire, Joseph II, Leopold II, Louis XIV, Marie Antoinette, Napoleon, Napoleon Bonaparte

Although I’m in the middle of a series of posts examining the origins of the Holy Roman Empire, I’d like to discuss the dissolution of the Empire on the 213th Anniversary of the ending of the Empire.

The dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire occurred de facto on August 6, 1806, when Emperor Franz II abdicated his Imperial title and released all imperial states and officials from their oaths and obligations to the empire. Although the abdication was considered legal, the dissolution of the imperial bonds was not and several states refused to recognise the end of the empire at the time.

Although today is the date the empire was dissolved, in many ways it was a mere formality as the empire had been deteriorating since the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 that ended the Thirty Years War. The treaty gave the numerous states within the empire autonomy, ending the empire in all but name. The Swiss Confederation, which had already established quasi-independence in 1499, as well as the Northern Netherlands, also left the Empire at this juncture. The Habsburg Emperors then began to focus on consolidating their own estates in Austria and elsewhere.

By the reign of Louis XIV of France in the mid 17th and early 18th centuries, France began to surpass the Holy Roman Empire as the dominant power in Europe. Also, the Habsburgs were chiefly dependent on their hereditary lands to counter the recent rise of Prussia; some of whose territories lay inside the Empire. Throughout the 18th century, the Habsburgs were embroiled in various European conflicts, such as the War of the Spanish Succession, the War of the Polish Succession, and the War of the Austrian Succession. The German dualism between Austria and Prussia dominated the empire’s history in the 18th century as the two states vied for supremecy over the German lands.

From 1792 onwards, revolutionary France was at war with various parts of the Empire intermittently. 1792 was also the year Holy Roman Emperor Leopold II died and was succeeded by his son as Emperor Franz II, the last Holy Roman Emperor.

Franz II, Holy Roman Emperor and Emperor of Austria.

Franz II (February 12, 1768 – March 2, 1835) born in Florence, the capital of Tuscany, where his father reigned as Grand Duke at the time. His parents were Emperor Leopold II (1747–1792) and his wife Maria Luisa of Spain (1745–1792), (daughter of King Carlos III of Spain, Naples and Sicily and Princess Maria Amalia of Saxony, a daughter of the newly elected Polish king Augustus III and his (ironically) Austrian wife Maria Josepha of Austria.) Though Franz had a happy childhood surrounded by his many siblings, his family knew He was likely to be a future Emperor (his uncle Emperor Joseph II had no surviving issue from either of his two marriages), and so in 1784 the young Archduke Franz was sent to the Imperial Court in Vienna to educate and prepare him for his future role.

As Emperor and the leader of the large multi-ethnic Habsburg Empire, Franz II felt threatened by Napoleon’s social and political reforms, which were being exported throughout Europe with the expansion of the first French Empire. Franz had a fraught relationship with France. His aunt Marie Antoinette, the wife of Louis XVI and Queen consort of France, was guillotined by the revolutionaries in 1793, at the beginning of his reign. Franz, on the whole, was indifferent to her fate (she was not close to his father, Leopold II and although Franz had met her, he had been too young at the time to have any memory of his aunt). Georges Danton attempted to negotiate with the Emperor for Marie Antoinette’s release, but Franz was unwilling to make any concessions in return.

Napoleon, Emperor of the French.

In 1804, with the growing ambitions of Napoleon, who had himself proclaimed Emperor of France that year, Franz, knowing the end of the Holy Roman Empire was drawing nigh, established the Austrian Empire and became Franz I, the first Emperor of Austria, ruling from 1804 to 1835. This act made him the only Doppelkaiser (double emperor) in history.For the two years between 1804 and 1806, Franz used the title and style by the Grace of God elected Roman Emperor, ever Augustus, hereditary Emperor of Austria and he was called the Emperor of both the Holy Roman Empire and Austria. He was also Apostolic King of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia as Franz I.

With Napoleon’s victory over Austria at the Battle of Austerlitz on December 2, 1805, the French Emperor “transformed himself from the guarantor of the Reich to the arbiter of its fate.” The subsequent Peace of Pressburg (December 26) created deliberate ambiguities in the imperial constitution. Bavaria, Baden and Württemberg were to have full sovereignty while remaining a part of the Germanic Confederation, a novel name for the Empire.

With the the signing of the Peace of Pressburg Emperor Franz II recognized the kingly titles assumed by the Electors of Bavaria and Württemberg, which foreshadowed the end of the Holy Roman Empire. At this point, he believed his position as Holy Roman Emperor to be untenable, so on August 6, 1806, he abdicated the throne, declaring the empire to be already dissolved in the same declaration. This was a political move to impair the legitimacy of the new entity, the Confederation of the Rhine, which had been created by Napoleon.

After the defeat of Napoleon the major European powers convened the Congress of Vienna. The objective of the Congress was to provide a long-term peace plan for Europe by settling critical issues arising from the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars. The goal was not simply to restore old boundaries but to resize the main powers so they could balance each other and remain at peace. The last Holy Roman Emperor Franz II, in his role as Emperor of Austria served as the first president of the German Confederation following its confirmation by the Congress in 1815.

Confederation of the Rhine

By any other name. Part II.

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Carlos III of Spain, Don Juan Count of Barcelona, Ferdinand VII of Spain, General Francisco Franco, Isabel II of Spain, Juan Carlos I of Spain, Louis XVIII of France, Madrid, monastery of San Lorenzo del Escorial, Spain

It isn’t just the British monarchy that has names that would not be well received by future monarchs, Spain also seems to have a rather large share of names that would not be welcomed once again.

In Britain, as I mentioned last week, the name John is not a favorable name. In Spain the name Juan may be a little controversial in the future. The present king, Juan-Carlos, chose the double name instead of Juan III, in deference to his father Don Juan, Count of Barcelona. Don Juan was the heir to his father King Alfonso XIII but was bypassed for the throne by Francisco Franco for being too liberal. Instead Franco chose Juan-Carlos, the eldest son of the Count of Barcelona, as the heir to the Spanish throne. This did cause some breakdown in the relationship between Juan-Carlos and his father. The Count of Barcelona had a difficult time letting go of his place in the succession. Don Juan formally renounced his rights to the Crown eight years after being displaced as recognised heir to the throne by Franco, and two years after his son Don Juan Carlos had become king. In return, his son officially granted him the title of Count of Barcelona, which he had claimed for so long.

There were many monarchists who saw Don Juan as the rightful king. Had he reigned as king he would have been King Juan III. When the count of Barcelona died on April 1, 1993 he was treated as if he had been a reigning monarch and was buried as Juan III with honours and trappings due a king, in the Royal Crypt of the monastery of San Lorenzo del Escorial, near Madrid. Although this doesn’t negate the fact that a king may rule in Spain with the name Juan, the question would be will he rule as Juan III or as Juan IV? Even though Juan III was a nominal king and never actually reigned, I feel they will follow the usual Bourbon tradition of recognizing nominal rulers. In France Prince Louis Stanislas Xavier de Bourbon ruled as King Louis XVIII despite the fact that his nephew, Louis XVII, never actually ruled France.

The Count of Barcelona’s father, King Alfonso XIII, bore a name that may no longer be popular for a Spanish monarch. Alfonso XIII lost his throne in the unrest in Spain in the 1930s. In 1923 General Miguel Primo de Rivera took control of the government in a coup with the support of King Alfonso XIII. Rivera was very unpopular in Spain and in 1931 after some economic upheavals when he was told the army no longer supported him, he fled the country. A few weeks later the king also left the country as he had become the symbol for all that was wrong in Spain at the time. Alfonso XIII never abdicated and the Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed after he left. He eventually abdicated in 1941 shortly before his death in 1941, leaving the throne to Don Juan, Count of Barcelona. However, when Franco restored the monarchy in 1947 he chose the option of naming a successor later. Instead of the Count of Barcelona he chose the count’s son. Spain’s current king, Juan Carlos. Because of his actions with Rivera and the news that he was a bit of a womanizer has left the name Alfonso an unlikely choice in the near future.

Another name that may not be used for a long time is Fernando. The last king by that name, Fernando VII, was king during the Napoleonic wars. In March of 1808 King Carlos IV of Spain was forced to abdicate and by May of that Year his son and successor, Fernando VII, was forced to turn Spain over to Napoleon who placed his own brother, Joseph, onto the Spanish throne. When Joseph’s rule began falling apart in 1813 Napoleon was forced to recognize Fernando VII as king once again. Upon his restoration he abolished the liberal Constitution of 1812 and restoring the monarchy to an absolutist form. He died in 1833 and prior to his death had overturned the Salic Law which King Felipe V had instituted when the Bourbons came to power in Spain. The Salic Law barred women from inheriting the throne or passing on claims of succession. With the law overturned this allowed Fernando’s daughter, Isabel, to rule as queen of Spain in her own right. This angered the kings brother, Carlos, Duke of Madrid, who would have succeeded him. By not accepting this verdict the Duke of Madrid plunged Spain into a series of Civil Wars known as the Carlist’s Wars. This war lasted for several generations.

In 1868 and unpopular Isabel II also abdicated and her name, along with that of her fathers, may not be used again for a long long time as the name of another reigning monarch.