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Ferdinand VI of Spain

 
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia: Ferdinand VI
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(born Sept. 23, 1713, Madrid, Spain — died Aug. 10, 1759, Villaviciosa de Odón) King of Spain (1746 – 59). He was the second son of Philip V and his first wife, Marie-Louise. The influence of his father's second wife, Isabella Farnese, kept Ferdinand out of politics during his father's reign. During his own reign he tried to avoid conflicts while relying on his father's minister to bring about reforms. Ferdinand, the second Bourbon Spanish king, and his wife, Maria Bárbara, were patrons of the arts and learning. On his death, the crown passed to his half brother, Charles III.

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Columbia Encyclopedia: Ferdinand VI
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Ferdinand VI, b. 1712 or 1713, d. 1759, king of Spain (1746-59), son of Philip V by his first queen, Marie Louise of Savoy. When Ferdinand succeeded his father, his stepmother, Elizabeth Farnese, lost her power at court and went into retirement. Ferdinand's chief ministers were José de Carvajal y Lancaster, who was pro-British, and Ensenada, who had for many years directed the affairs of Spain and strongly favored France. In the years preceding the Seven Years War (1756-63), both France and England sought a Spanish alliance. Carvajal died in 1754, and Ferdinand, desiring Spain to remain at peace, dismissed Ensenada, fearing that he might trap Spain in a French alliance. Richard Wall, an Irishman, succeeded Carvajal, and with his help Ferdinand kept Spain out of the war during his lifetime. In 1758, Ferdinand's queen, Maria Barbara de Braganza, died. Ferdinand did not recover from his grief and died soon afterward. He was succeeded by his half brother, Charles III.
History 1450-1789: Ferdinand VI
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Ferdinand VI (Spain) (1713–1759; ruled 1746–1759), king of Spain. Ferdinand VI, born in Madrid in 1713, continued the reformist policies of his predecessor. The son of Philip V (ruled 1700–1724, 1724–1746) and his first wife María Luisa of Savoy, Ferdinand married the Portuguese princess María Bárbara de Bragança in 1729 and remained devoted to her throughout their married life. Peace-loving and pious, he was fond of music, maintaining in his service the composer Domenico Scarlatti and the famous castrato singer Carlo Broschi, known as Farinelli. The latter organized the brilliant festivals and boating excursions on the Tagus River that were typical of courtly life during Ferdinand's reign, often in conjunction with the court's seasonal movements from palace to palace.

Heir to the political aims of his father and his stepmother, Isabel Farnese (1692–1766), Ferdinand continued to participate in the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748). The peace treaty in 1748 granted the duchies of Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla to his half-brother Philip, putting an end to thirty years of Spanish intervention in Italy. Those grants were ratified by the Treaty of Aranjuez (1752), which guaranteed the neutrality of the Italian Bourbons. Ferdinand retained his father's chief domestic secretary, Cenón Somodevilla, marqués de la Ensenada, as the head of several government departments, although he named José de Carvajal as his own chief foreign secretary to temper Ensenada's power.

Ferdinand's domestic policies continued those of his father as much in cultural affairs (foundation of the Royal College of Surgeons in Cádiz; the definitive creation of the Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando) as in the economy (support for the royal tobacco factory in Seville and the royal textile factory in Brihuega; support for exclusive trading privileges with America for the Barcelona Company and others; Carvajal's initiative to found companies devoted to commerce and manufacture, such as the Extremadura Company in Zarza la Mayor and the San Fernando Company in Seville). In matters of finance, a series of beneficial measures were adopted during his reign (direct administration of provincial taxes and the 1749 creation of the Royal Currency Exchange to limit dependence on foreign bankers). But the most important project in his reign—the establishment of a single tax (unica contribución) along Aragonese lines—was a complete failure. Nonetheless the cadastral survey known as the Catastro de la Ensenada, ordered in preparation for the tax, remains a valuable portrait of the demographic and material reality of Castile. In religious matters, the regalian tendency of the Concordat of 1737 was reinforced with the signing of the Concordat of 1753. Although it did not extend the power the crown exercised over the church in Granada and the American empire to the rest of the realm, the concordat governed relations between the monarchy and the church for the rest of the century.

In foreign policy, several contentious matters were resolved. In 1750 Madrid bought back the concessions granted by the Peace of Utrecht (1713) for England to supply slaves (the asiento) and send a limited amount of trade goods (the navío de permiso) to Spanish America. That same year the Treaty of Limits settled most of the boundary disputes between Spain and Portugal in South America. The death of Carvajal in 1754 impelled the king to appoint as his first secretary Ricardo Wall, an Anglophile who worked with the English ambassador Benjamin Keene to bring about the fall of Ensenada. As a result, Ensenada's ambitious plans to strengthen the Spanish navy against England, embodied in ordinances related to timber supplies (Ordenanza de Montes; 1748), naval construction, and the mandatory registration of mariners (Matrícula de Mar; 1751), were paralyzed. Spain shifted to a foreign policy of pacifism and neutrality, even after the eruption of the Seven Years' War in 1756. In this context conflicts affecting Spain's delicate power relations with North African states were influenced by commercial pressures, as in the case of Spanish responses to alliances formed with Algeria by the Hanseatic city of Hamburg and later by Denmark.

The death of the queen (1758) plunged the king into a deep depression, which degenerated into madness until his death in Villaviciosa de Odón in 1759. His remains rest, with those of his wife, in the Convent of the Royal Salesians in Madrid.

Bibliography

Morales Borrero, Consolación. Fiestas reales en el reinado de Fernando VI. Madrid, 1972.

Pieper, Renate. La real hacienda bajo Fernando VI y Carlos III (1753–1788): Repercusiones economicas y sociales. Madrid, 1992.

Voltes Bou, Pedro. La vida y la época de Fernando VI. Barcelona, 1998.

—CARLOS MARTÍNEZ-SHAW (TRANSLATED FROM THE SPANISH

Wikipedia: Ferdinand VI of Spain
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Ferdinand VI
King of Spain
Reign 9 July 1746–10 August 1759
Predecessor Philip V
Successor Charles III
Spouse Barbara of Portugal
House House of Bourbon
Father Philip V of Spain
Mother Maria Luisa of Savoy
Born 23 September 1713
Real Alcázar de Madrid, Madrid, Spain
Died 10 August 1759 (aged 45)
Villaviciosa de Odón, Madrid, Spain

Ferdinand VI, (23 September 1713 – 10 August 1759), King of Spain from 9 July 1746 until his death. He was the fourth son of the previous monarch Philip V and his first wife Maria Luisa of Savoy. Ferdinand, the second member of the Spanish Bourbon dynasty, was born in Madrid on 23 September 1713.

Contents

Early life

Born at the Real Alcázar de Madrid in Madrid, his youth was depressed. His father's second wife, Elisabeth of Parma, was a domineering 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 Elisabeth mistress of the palace.

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 in the conflict between France and Britain, 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 Zenón de Somodevilla y Bengoechea, Marquis of Ensenada by dismissing and imprisoning him. He was called Ferdinand the Learned for his refined pursuits.

Shooting and music were his only pleasures, and he was the generous patron of the famous singer Farinelli, whose voice soothed his melancholy.

Marriage

His father, King of Spain (Jean Ranc)

His wife, Barbara, was a beauty in her youth, but became quite overweight in her later years

Elisabeth of Parma, his famous step-mother (Jean Ranc)

Ferdinand was married in 1729 to Infanta Barbara of Portugal, daughter of John V of Portugal and Mary Anne of Austria. 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.

Beginning of the Reign

When he came to the throne, Spain found itself in the War of the Austrian Succession which ended without any benefit to Spain. He started his reign by eliminating the influence of the widow Queen Elisabeth of Parma and her group of Italian courtesans. As king he followed a steady policy of neutrality in the conflict between France and Britain, and refused to be tempted by the offers of either into declaring war on the other.

Prominent figures during his reign were the Marquis of Ensenada, a Francophile; and José de Carvajal y Lancaster, a supporter of the alliance with Great Britain. The fight between both ended in 1754 with the death of Carvajal the fall of Ensenada, after which Ricardo Wall became the most powerful advisor to the monarch.

The Projects of Ensenada

Royal styles of
King Ferdinand VI

Escudo del rey de España abreviado antes de 1868.svg
Reference style His Majesty
Spoken style Your Majesty
Alternative style Sire

The most important tasks during the reign of Ferdinand VI were carried out by the Marquis of Ensenada, the Secretary of the Treasury, Navy and Indies. He suggested that the state help modernize the country. To him, this was necessary to maintain a position of exterior strength so that France and Great Britain would consider Spain as an ally without supposing Spain's renunciation of its claim to Gibraltar.

Reforms

Among his reform projects were:

  • New model of the Treasury suggested by Ensenada in 1749. He proposed substitution of the traditional taxes with a special tax, the cadastre, that weighed the economic capacity of each contributor based on their property holdings. He also proposed a reduction of subsidies to by the state to the Cortes and the army. The opposition by the nobility caused the abandonment of the project.
  • The creation of the Giro Real in 1752, a bank favoring the transfer of public and private funds outside of Spain keeping all of the foreign exchanges in the hands of the Royal Treasury, enriching the State. It is considered the predecessor to the Bank of San Carlos, introduced during the reign of Charles III.
  • The stimulation of commerce in the Americas, which tried to end the monopoly in the Indies and eliminate the injustices of colonial commerce. Thus he leaned toward registered ships rather than fleets of ships. The new system consisted of the substitution of the fleets and galleons so that a Spanish ship, previously authorized, could conduct trade freely in the Americas. This increased the revenues and decreased the fraud. Even so, this system provoked many protests among merchants in the private sector.
  • The modernization of the Navy. According to Ensenada, a powerful navy was fundamental to a power with an overseas empire and aspirations of being respected by France and Great Britain. He increased the navy's budget and expanded the capacity of the shipyards of Cádiz, Ferrol, Cartagena and Havana which marked the starting point of the Spanish naval power in the eighteenth century.
  • Church relations which were really tense from start of the reign of Philip V because of the recognition of Charles VI as the King of Spain by the Pope. A regalist policy was maintained that pursued as much political as fiscal objectives and whose decisive achievement was the Concord of 1753. From this the right of Universal Patronage was obtained from Pope Benedict XIV, giving important economic benefits to Crown and a great control over the clergy.
  • Cultural advancement. He helped create the Royal Academy of the Fine Arts of San Fernando in 1752. The noted composer Domenico Scarlatti, music teacher to Barbara, wrote many of his 555 harpsichord sonatas at Ferdinand's court.

Foreign policy

Carvajal

Half escudo gold coin of Ferdinand VI, dated 1756

During the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years' War, Spain reinforced its military might.

The main conflict was its confrontation with Portugal over the colony of Sacramento, from which British contraband was transferred down the Río de la Plata. In 1750 José de Carvajal helped Spain and Portugal strike a deal. Portugal agreed to renounce the colony and its claim to free navigation down the Río de la Plata. In return, Spain ceded to Portugal two regions on the Brazilian border, one in the Amazon and the other to the south, in which seven of the thirty Jesuit Guaraní towns. The Spanish had to expel the missionaries, generating a conflict with the Guaraní people that lasted eleven years.

The conflict over the towns provoked a crisis in the Spanish Court. Ensenada, favorable to the Jesuits, and Father Rávago, confessor of the King and members of the Society of Jesus, were fired, accused of hindering the agreements with Portugal.

Death

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 August of 1758 and his own on 10 August 1759, he fell into a state of prostration in which he would not even dress, but wandered unshaven, unwashed and in a nightgown about his park. The memoirs of the count of Fernan Nuñez give a shocking picture of his deathbed.

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.

Ancestry

Titles and styles

  • 23 September 1713 - 31 August 1724 His Royal Highness Don Ferdinand, Infante of Spain
  • 31 August 1724 - 9 July 1746 His Royal Highness Don Ferdinand, Prince of Asturias, Infante of Spain
  • 9 July 1746 - 10 August 1759 His Majesty the King of Spain
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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 2006 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/.  Read more
History 1450-1789. Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World. Copyright © 2004 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.  Read more
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