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After Ferdinand’s extraordinary long reign,
his son Francis reigned for a very short period, five
years only, and perhaps he was the least important
king among the sovereigns of the Bourbon family of
the Two Sicilies.
Born in Naples on 14 August 1777, he died in that
city on 8 November 1830. In 1778, due to the death
of his elder brother Charles Titus, he became the
Crown Prince and Duke of Calabria. In 1797 he married
Maria Clementina Archduchess of Austria, daughter of
Emperor Leopold II, who gave him a daughter, Carolina;
after the death of Maria Clementina in 1801, he married
Maria Isabella of Spain, daughter of King Charles
IV of Bourbon. She gave him other twelve children
and some of her daughters married other sovereigns.
Francis
I of Bourbon by Giuseppe Cammarano (attr.)
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In
his youth he was surely conditioned by his mother’s
strong personality; only when he moved to Sicily
- due to the fact that the continental kingdom
was occupied by Murat - could he start to show
his personality. In fact, those were difficult
years and the Court was influenced by the British,
especially by Lord Bentick, whose policy fully
opposed that of Maria Carolina to the extent
that Bentick succeeded in convincing Ferdinand
to exile his wife, leave the govern to his son
Francis and appoint him as his vicar. The myth
of Francis liking for liberalism originated
in that period. In fact, he granted the Constitution
of 1812 in Sicily, but we have to bear in mind
the difficult situation of that time: in those
years the British played the lords and masters
since they were helping the Bourbon to fight
Murat and also because they were supported by
the autonomist Sicilian aristocracy. |
In
November 1813 Bentick left the island; Ferdinand,
back in Palermo, resumed the control of the situation,
but left Francis as his lord-lieutenant while he went
back to Naples after the fall of Napoleon. The Duke
of Calabria remained in Sicily until 1820, the year
of the constitutionalist Carbonari risings; in fact
his father called him to Naples to give him the regency
while he was travelling to Ljubljana to meet the Holy
Alliance and ask their help.
Francis apparently came to terms with the revolutionaries
and accepted the constitution, but only to take time
and see the evolution of the general situation in
favour of the Bourbon cause.
When his father died in 1825, he ascended the Throne;
he was 48, no longer in his prime.
A Short Kingdom
Basically, he was a pious and calm person. Just after
his ascension, he grave amnesty to deserters and traitors.
Then he commuted life imprisonment into hard labour,
reduced prison sentences, but not to those convicted
for robbery. He granted audience to everybody, as
far as possible, and he tried to meet people’s
needs.
He and the Queen made a journey to Milan to get the
Austrian forces - present since 1820 - leave the Kingdom,
which happened in 1827 and brought great economic
benefit to both govern and citizens.
When his son, the Earl of Trapani, was born in 1827,
he gave full amnesty to all prisoners (including political
prisoners, and commuted capital sentences given to
some Carbonari and conspirators) and all deserters
and those who had refused to serve in the Army.
Francis
I of Bourbon |
Usually
we consider Charles as first King of Naples
from the Bourbon dynasty. He is, of course,
the great restorer of the Kingdom, but not the
first King to reign over Southern Italy. In
fact his father Philip V became King of Naples
when he ascended the Throne of Madrid in 1700.
During the events of the long War for the Spanish
Succession, it happened that in 1707 Philip
- though being the winner of the war and therefore
lawful king of Spain - lost the vice-royalty
of Naples to the Hapsburg who kept it until
1734. In that year Charles of Bourbon, son of
Philip V and his second wife Elisabeth Farnese,
conquered the vice-royalty of Naples thanks
to the diplomatic help of his mother, took the
title of Charles King of Naples, restored the
autonomy of the Kingdom and transformed it into
an independent and sovereign State. |
Charles
built new vessels, established insurance companies
to foster maritime trade, protected and improved the
industrial sector (he established rewards and biennial
exhibitions) and fostered the creation of a clothing
factory that provided jobs for thousands of people:
he ordered the prisoners to work at the factory and
they could redeem their prison sentences through an
honest work. He also signed a commercial treaty with
Turkey to obtain the transit through the Dardanelles
for the Neapolitan vessels.
Despite the difficult economic situation, he fostered
agriculture, drained lakes, built the Ponte de' Gigli
(Lilies Bridge) near Maddalena Bridge, erected the
Town Hall with 800 rooms and 40 alleys, constructed
roads, resumed with promptness excavations at Pompeii,
encouraged the study of Herculaneum papyri and promoted
the opening of dance and design schools, constructed
hospitals, established an orphanage in Palermo and
the Order of Knighthood of Francis I, a meritocratic
order granted only to those who had acquired civil,
military and cultural merits.
Francis
I of Bourbon
and his family |
Unfortunately
he, too, had to face revolutionary risings,
especially in the Cilento region, which he easily
and harshly put down, also because, as usual,
they didn’t get any popular following.
Before his death, he healed up the Sicilian
economy. Giuseppe Coniglio wrote: «It
was a useful provision since it established
taxation and gave the people the certainty that
it would not be increased at least for a decade» .
He also tried to assure the Throne of Athens
to his second son, but only if the Greeks had
allowed him to keep his Catholic faith or the
Pope had given him a special dispensation. But
then it all ended up into nothing. He died just
when revolutionary risings shook Europe over
again, in 1830 (the year in which the French
branch of the Bourbon lost the Throne). He left
a difficult heritage to his young son, then
aged only 20. But his son showed he was up to
the task. |
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