Resilience and Recovery at Royal Courts, 1200–1840 (Queenship and Power) 3031201221, 9783031201226

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Resilience and Recovery at Royal Courts, 1200–1840 Edited by Fabian Persson · Munro Price Cinzia Recca

Queenship and Power Series Editors

Charles E. Beem University of North Carolina Pembroke, NC, USA Carole Levin University of Nebraska Lincoln, NE, USA

This series focuses on works specializing in gender analysis, women’s studies, literary interpretation, and cultural, political, constitutional, and diplomatic history. It aims to broaden our understanding of the strategies that queens—both consorts and regnants, as well as female regents—pursued in order to wield political power within the structures of male-­dominant societies. The works describe queenship in Europe as well as many other parts of the world, including East Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Islamic civilization.

Fabian Persson  •  Munro Price Cinzia Recca Editors

Resilience and Recovery at Royal Courts, 1200–1840

Editors Fabian Persson Linnaeus University Småland, Sweden

Munro Price University of Bradford Bradford, UK

Cinzia Recca University of Catania Catania, Italy

ISSN 2730-938X     ISSN 2730-9398 (electronic) Queenship and Power ISBN 978-3-031-20122-6    ISBN 978-3-031-20123-3 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20123-3 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the ­publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and ­institutional affiliations. Cover credit line: Archivart / Alamy Stock Photo This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Contents

1 Resilience: An Introduction  1 Munro Price 2 Two  Sisters, Two Towns, Two Kings: Facing War and Still Ruling  7 Inês Olaia 3 Hungaria Hispanica: Resilient Hungary and Its Integration into the Spanish Habsburg System, 1558–1648 21 Tibor Monostori 4 The  Futility of Madame: Marguerite of Lorraine and Elisabeth-Charlotte of the Palatinate in the Service of Their Threatened Homelands 41 Jonathan Spangler 5 Francis  Taaffe, Third Earl of Carlingford, and the House of Lorraine’s Exile and Restoration, 1670–1704 65 Stephen Griffin 6 Ex vulnere vigor: Emblematic Representations of Resilience in the Royal Festivals in Honour of Pedro II (1648–1707), King of Portugal 85 Filipa Araújo v

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7 The  Eighteenth-Century Crisis in the European Order and Victor Amadeus II as a Model of Resilience for Italian Patriotism and Cultural Unity105 Adriana Luna-Fabritius 8 Charles  of Bourbon, King of Southern Italy (1734–1759): The Resilience of the Neapolitan ‘Nation’, the Development of Reformism and the Strength of the Reaction123 Roberto Tufano 9 The  European Catholic Dynasties and the Fight Against Smallpox: Bourbon Rulers Between Resilient and Resistant Actions141 Giacomo Lorandi and Cinzia Recca 10 Resilience  Born of Desperation: Keeping Dynasties Going in Eighteenth-Century Europe163 Fabian Persson 11 Resilience  and Revolution: The Defence of the Dynastic Interests of Charles IV and Maria Luisa of Parma in the Changing World of the Late Eighteenth Century185 Ainoa Chinchilla 12 The  Resilience and Resistance of the Bourbon Monarchy in the Kingdom of Naples (1799–1802)201 Giuseppina D’Antuono 13 ‘We  Alone Know’: How King Frederick VI of Denmark and His Regime Coped with Defeat in 1814215 Michael Bregnsbo 14 ‘Cholera  Adunque è Malattia Nervosa’: The 1836–1837 Cholera Epidemic in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies: Reception, Resilience, and Revolution233 Maria Gabriella Tigani Sava Index251

Notes on Contributors

Filipa Araújo  is a postdoctoral researcher in the Interuniversitary Center for Camonian Studies at the University of Coimbra, Portugal. In 2014, she completed her PhD with the thesis ‘Verba significant, res significantur: The reception of Alciato’s Emblemata in Portuguese Baroque literature’. She is working on the project ‘Mute Signs and Speaking Images: The Reception of Logo-Iconic Language in Portuguese Baroque Culture’, financed by the Portuguese National Foundation for Science and Technology. Michael Bregnsbo  is Associate Professor of History at the University of Southern Denmark, Odense. His research interests are early modern and nineteenth-century Danish and European political history, especially absolutism, state-building and political ideas. His most recent book (together with Kurt Villads Jensen) is The Rise and Fall of the Danish Empire (2022). Ainoa Chinchilla Galarzo  is a PhD student at the Complutense University of Madrid, Spain. She completed her MA in the history of the Hispanic monarchy with the dissertation ‘The San Ildefonso treaty of 1796: political pragmatism or Godoy error?’ Her doctoral project concerns Spanish–French diplomatic relations between 1795 and 1808, with a focus on official and informal diplomacy and the diplomatic role of women. Giuseppina D’Antuono  is Lecturer in Modern History at the University of Rome Tor Vergata. Her research interests cover the Kingdom of Naples in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the enlightenment, reforms and revolutions, and female sociability and political power in the Roman nobility. vii

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Stephen Griffin  is a PhD student at the University of Limerick where he is supervised by Richard Kirwan. He held a Richard Plaschka predoctoral fellowship (2017–2018), which allowed him to undertake a year of archival research in Vienna. His most recent publication is ‘“Irlandois de Nation”: Duke Leopold’s Irish subjects and Jacobitism in Lorraine, 1698–1727’, published in History Ireland (2018). Giacomo  Lorandi  is Lecturer of Social and Economic History in the Department of Early Modern and Contemporary History at the Università Cattolica del Sacro cuore di Milano. He is also a former fellow in early modern history (funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation) at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland. Adriana  Luna-Fabritius  is a researcher at the University of Helsinki. Her research interests include the early modern languages of republicanism, natural law and political economy in the Spanish monarchies of Naples, Catalonia and New Spain, examining the scientific, legal and political practices of imperialism’s communicating networks. Her most recent publication is a book co-edited with Ere Nokkala, Marten Seppel and Keith Tribe, Political Reason and the Language of Change. Reform and Improvement in Early Modern Europe (2022). She is the president of the European Society for the History of Political Thought. Tibor  Monostori is a research fellow in History, Economics and Philology at the Research Centre for the Humanities of the Institute of History, the Eötvös Loránd Research Network, Budapest (formerly the Hungarian Academy of Sciences). His primary research interests are global politics, diplomacy and ideas in early modern Europe and beyond. Inês  Olaia is an MA student in History in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the University of Lisbon, Portugal. Her research interests are the medieval history of provincial Portugal, looking at the spatial dispersion and different jurisdictions forced on the towns Alenquer and Aldeia Galega. As these were usually queens’ lands, she is also researching medieval queenship. Fabian Persson  is Associate Professor of History at Linnaeus University, Sweden, and currently a visiting scholar at the University of Oxford. His research interests are the early modern Swedish court and aristocracy. His recent books include Women at the Early Modern Swedish Court (2021) and Survival and Revival: Sweden’s Court and Monarchy, 1718 to 1930 (2020).

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Munro Price  is Professor of Modern European History at the University of Bradford, UK. He specialises in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-­ century French political and diplomatic history. Among his books are Louis XVI and the Comte de Vergennes: Correspondence, 1774–1787 (with John Hardman, 1998), The Fall of the French Monarchy: Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette and the Baron de Breteuil (2002) and Napoleon: The End of Glory (2014). Cinzia  Recca is Senior Lecturer of Early Modern History in the Department of Education at the University of Catania, Sicily. Her area of research is the European Enlightenment, and especially women’s roles and the Neapolitan Enlightenment at the Bourbon court of Ferdinand IV and Carolina, with ongoing research projects on the correspondence of Queen Maria Carolina of Naples and Habsburg influence on the kingdom of Naples in the mid-eighteenth century. Her recent publications include The Diary of Maria Carolina of Naples, 1781–1785: New Evidence of Queenship at Court (2017). Jonathan  Spangler is Senior Lecturer of History at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK.  Faculty of Arts, Department of History, University of Malta, Msida, Malta. His research interests are the courts of Versailles, Lorraine and border nobles and dynastic identity. He is the editor of The Court Historian and has recently published Monsieur: Second Sons in the Monarchy of France, 1550–1800 (2021) and, with Anna Kalinowska, Power and Ceremony in European History: Rituals, Practices and Representative Bodies Since the Late Middle Ages (2021). He is currently working on a biography of Marie-Thérèse of Austria, Queen of France. Maria Gabriella Tigani Sava  works at the University of Malta. She has MAs in Political Science from the University of Messina and in European History. [Research interests and recent publication to follow.] She is a postgraduate member of the Royal Historical Society, London, and a member of the International Association of Byron Societies. Roberto Tufano  is Associate Professor of Early Modern History in the Department of Education at the University of Catania, Sicily. His research interest is the European Enlightenment and he is currently editing the correspondence of Bernardo Tanucci and Ferdinando Galiani. His recent publications include Illuminismo e governamentalità: Riformismo e dispotismo nelle Sicilie da Filippo V e Ferdinando IV (2018).

List of Figures

Fig. 3.1

Fig. 5.1

Fig. 6.1 Fig. 6.2 Fig. 6.3 Fig. 8.1 Fig. 10.1

Péter Forgách, guard of the Holy Crown of Hungary and imperial colonel of the Croatian–Hungarian light cavalry units, who entered Spanish Habsburg service in 1637. Unknown artist. National Portrait Gallery (Hungary)/Slovak National Museum—Červený Kameň Castle 31 Following an illustrious career in the Imperial army, Francis Taaffe, third Earl of Carlingford, became premier minister to the restored Duke Leopold of Lorraine. Unknown artist, Taaffe, Earl of Carlingford, Francis, © Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna 67 The Arch of the Flemish in 1687. Copyright National Library of Portugal (https://purl.pt/26151/1/html/index. html#/15–16)91 Emblems on the Arch of the Germans in 1687. Copyright National Library of Portugal (https://purl.pt/26151/1/ html/index.html#/21–22)94 Emblems for the memorial service for King Pedro II in Rome in 1707b. Copyright National Library of Portugal (https:// purl.pt/4173/3/)98 Mariano Salvador Maella and Raphael Mengs, King Charles III of Spain (1716–1788). The king is dressed in the habit of the Order of Charles III which he founded in 1771. 126 Gustav III and Sophia Magdalena’s attempts to have an heir included the humiliation of Adolf Fredrik Munck’s presence. This was something contemporaries liked to mock. Carl August Ehrensvard, Erotisk scen. © Nationalmuseum, Stockholm172 xi

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List of Figures

Fig. 10.2

Fig. 13.1

The succession was secured and celebrated: even before his accession to the throne, little Crown Prince Gustav (future Gustav IV) was squeezed into a painting of the kings of Sweden underneath his father Gustav III Ulrika Fredrica Pasch, Regentlängd Gustav I–Gustav IV Adolf. © Nationalmuseum, Stockholm Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg, Frederik VI. © Nationalmuseum, Stockholm

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CHAPTER 1

Resilience: An Introduction Munro Price

Across several disciplines, the concept of resilience is increasingly familiar. The term has a long history, originating in the Latin resiliens, describing the elastic quality of a substance. Given its obvious relevance to science, it is not surprising the first modern disciplines to use it were physics and engineering. Its most widespread recent application, however, has been in psychology. Beginning in the 1970s and initially concerned with child development, it was introduced by such pioneers as Norman Garmezy, Michael Rutter and Lois Murphy. It has since expanded rapidly to include both adult psychology and medicine, and now forms a sub-discipline of its own, resilience science.1 Given the strong association with psychology and psychiatry, it is understandable that until now resilience science has principally focused on

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 Yates et al. (2015).

M. Price (*) University of Bradford, Bradford, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 F. Persson et al. (eds.), Resilience and Recovery at Royal Courts, 1200–1840, Queenship and Power, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20123-3_1

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the individual. It seeks to understand why some succumb to major life challenges, while others possess ‘the ability to bounce back from adversity, frustration and misfortune’. Of course, ‘bouncing back’ encompasses a variety of outcomes. One is simple survival, though this may be in an impaired state. Another is recovery: the individual may recover sufficiently from a crisis to resume his or her previous level of functioning. The optimal outcome is ‘thriving’, a positive strengthening of an individual’s resilience—‘a transformation that includes a cognitive shift in response to a challenge’.2 It is becoming clear, however, that resilience can be applied not just to the individual but beyond, to communities and societies. As one of the leaders in this field, Anne Masten, puts it, resilience can be more broadly defined as ‘the capacity of a dynamic system to adapt successfully to disturbances that threaten system function, viability, or development’, which ‘emerges from many interactions within and between systems in a given cultural, developmental, and historical context’.3 The historical study of resilience is a new and exciting field. It uses the insights of resilience science as it has developed over the last fifty years to shed new light on how and why societies in the past succumbed to or surmounted existential challenges, particularly environmental and medical disasters. So far, though, it has had much less to say about how political institutions have responded. This state of affairs is now changing, and The Resilience of Monarchy is a contribution to that change. It does so by examining how over the centuries one key political institution, monarchy, has dealt with crisis and catastrophe. Building on the Royal Studies Network’s 2019 conference at the University of Catania, the book deliberately covers a long chronological range, stretching from the thirteenth to the nineteenth centuries, to ensure a wide coverage rare in modern studies of monarchy. However, given the contributors’ specialisms it concentrates geographically on Europe, and chronologically on the early modern period: one essay stretches across the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, one is on the cusp of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and five concern the eighteenth century. The book’s focus is the political challenges European monarchies have faced, and the factors that have enabled them to survive, recover from or even thrive by surmounting them. Two of the essays examine their 2 3

 Ledesma (2014, 3).  Masten (2014, 6).

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political response to these challenges. Tibor Monostori’s essay, ‘Hungaria Hispanica: Resilient Hungary and Its integration into the Spanish Habsburg System (1558–1648)’, adopts an international perspective: it reveals how Hungary, ruled by the Austrian Habsburgs, ensured its security in a turbulent era by attaching itself firmly to the substantially more powerful Spanish Habsburg empire. Giuseppina D’Antuono’s ‘The Resilience and Resistance of Bourbon Monarchy in the Kingdom of Naples (1799–1800)’, centred on eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century Italy, uses an important unpublished source, the Memoires of key ministers of King Ferdinand IV and Queen Maria Carolina, to analyse how the Neapolitan Bourbons met the existential threat posed by the French Revolution. Two further essays discuss other types of monarchical response to political challenges: the cultural and the intellectual. Filipa Araújo’s ‘Ex vulnere vigor: Emblematic Representations of Resilience in the Royal Festivals in Honour of Pedro II (1648–1707), King of Portugal’ studies how the imagery of the public celebrations in honour of King Pedro II sought to project a strong image of the Portuguese crown as the kingdom sought international recognition of its independence from Spain. Adriana Luna-­ Fabritius’ ‘The Eighteenth-Century Crisis in the European Order and Victor Amadeus II as a Model of Resilience for Italian Patriotism and Cultural Unity’ discusses intellectual responses to the political upheaval the war triggered in Italy. It examines one of these responses, the reflections of the Genoese political philosopher Paolo Mattia Doria, who proposed what was, for the time, a novel solution: Italian unification, beginning with cultural integration. A significant element in the study of historical resilience, reflecting the growing salience of environmental issues in today’s world, is how states and societies in the past have responded to natural disasters.4 Two of the contributions to this volume focus on this subject, analysing how some monarchies dealt with devastating epidemics. Giacomo Lorandi and Cinzia Recca discuss the resilience strategies employed by several branches of the Bourbon dynasty against the threat of smallpox, above all in their adoption after 1756 of the new practice of inoculation. Gabriella Tigani Sava examines how the kingdom of the Two Sicilies under Ferdinand II addressed the terrifying new disease of cholera in the epidemic of 1835–1837. In particular, she reveals the political consequences of the 4

 Van Bavel et al. (2020).

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disaster, which produced social divisions quickly exploited by the dynasty’s liberal opponents. The volume’s largest section, however, centres on the resilience of individual monarchs and their servants in the face of challenges to their authority and even their survival. They thus build on the origins of resilience studies in psychology, and extend its insights into the past. The examples of resilience discussed cover a wide historical range. The first is from the thirteenth century, Inês Olaia’s study of two sisters, the infantas Teresa and Sancha, during the civil war they fought against King Afonso II of Portugal. She sheds new light on their aims and actions by examining the legacy they left in the two towns which they claimed, Alenquer and Montemor-o-Velho. Moving to the late seventeenth century, the particular contribution of Jonathan Spangler’s essay is to reassess the conquests of Louis XIII and Louis XIV not from the French perspective, as has traditionally been the case, but from that of the smaller states in their path. It does so by illuminating the strategies used by two highly resilient women, Marguerite of Lorraine and Liselotte of the Palatinate, to preserve their homelands by exploiting the fact that both had married into the French royal family. Stephen Griffin’s essay shifts the focus away from monarchs themselves to a distinguished royal servant, Francis Taaffe, Earl of Carlingford, who until his death in 1704 was first minister of Duke Leopold of Lorraine. Griffin highlights Taaffe’s neglected contribution to the House of Lorraine’s dogged efforts to regain its dukedom, which finally succeeded in 1698. The relations between monarchs and their advisers are further examined in Roberto Tufano’s essay about the crucial collaboration between King Charles VII of the Two Sicilies (the future Charles III of Spain) and his wife Maria Amalia, and their chief minister Bernardo Tanucci, which produced an impressive series of enlightened reforms of the state. It in turn reinforces a key psychological observation in resilience studies: ‘the importance of supportive, confiding relationships’ to successful leaders.5 This has not been sufficiently stressed in studies of monarchy. Too often a strong kingdom or empire has been associated with a single dominant ruler, on the model of Louis XIV or Frederick the Great. This view risks ignoring that similar results were often achieved by the alternative model of a monarch working closely with a trusted chief

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 Ledesma (2014, 6).

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minister—one has only to think of Louis XIII and Richelieu, or Gustav II Adolf and Oxenstierna. Fabian Persson’s essay concerns a fundamental aspect of resilience— simple survival. Throughout history many dynasties have been threatened with extinction through inability to produce a surviving heir. An unusual and extreme example of this was the decade-long inability or unwillingness of Gustav III of Sweden to consummate his marriage with his wife, Sophia Magdalena of Denmark, an impasse that ultimately required the physical intervention of Gustav’s Master of the Horse Count Munck. This desperate solution did prolong the rule of the Vasa dynasty, if only for one more generation. The final two essays analyse the reactions of individual rulers to the huge menace posed by the French Revolution and Napoleon. The response to this threat by the Spanish king Charles IV and his wife Maria Luisa of Parma is usually held to have been weak and vacillating. But Ainoa Chincilla’s essay argues that the royal couple maintained ‘a firm and welldefined policy towards France’, aimed at preserving the territorial integrity of Spain and her empire. The challenge Frederick VI of Denmark faced in 1814 was rather different: how to prevent his kingdom, which had allied itself with defeated France, from collapse in the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars. This was surmounted by a two-pronged strategy: police surveillance and repression on the one hand, but on the other, as Michael Bregnsbo shows, by a shrewd propaganda campaign emphasising the king’s modesty and sense of duty, virtues with which his ordinary subjects could readily identify. How have European monarchies resolved the existential crises that periodically confronted them over the centuries? How far is their response reflected by the three categories identified by resilience science: succumbing, surviving and thriving? These outcomes are shaped by one common factor. If it is anything, monarchy is a traditional form of government. This is at once a strength and a weakness. The power of tradition confers on it great durability; it anchors in its populations a loyalty and obedience that can withstand even the most terrible disasters. Usually it has taken a profound, systemic upheaval to uproot an established European monarchy. Yet tradition can also prove a double-edged sword. Monarchy is generally a conservative institution, but too great a reverence for the past can tip it into reaction, leading to inflexibility—the opposite of resilience—and swift collapse in the face of a serious challenge.

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History has many examples of monarchies succumbing. Two obvious cases are those of ancien régime France and imperial Russia. The fragility of the French monarchy in the face of revolution is striking. But though perhaps by 1900 tsarism was doomed in the long term, it took a global catastrophe, the First World War, to deal it the final blow. What is most remarkable about the monarchies discussed here is the resilience they displayed. Those of Portugal, Parma, the Two Sicilies, Lorraine and the Palatinate, survived for decades, sometimes centuries, after the crises we analyse. If endurance until the present day can be classified as thriving, then the monarchies of Spain, Britain, Sweden and Denmark fall into this category. The title of the conference that gave rise to this book, Resilio Ergo Regno, still has relevance today.

References Ledesma, Janet. 2014. Conceptual frameworks and research models on resilience in leadership. SAGE Open 2014: 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 2158244014545464. Masten, Anne S. 2014. Global perspectives on resilience in children and youth. Child Development 12: 6–20. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.12205. van Bavel, Bas, Daniel R. Curtis, Jessica Dijkman, Matthew Hannaford, Maika De Keyser, Eline van Onacker, and Tim Soens, eds. 2020. Disasters and history: The vulnerability and resilience of past societies. Cambridge: CUP. Yates, Tuppett M., Fanita A. Tyrell, and Ann S. Masten. 2015. Resilience theory and the practice of positive psychology from individuals to societies. In Positive psychology in practice: Promoting human flourishing in work, health, education and everyday life, ed. Stephen Joseph. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.

CHAPTER 2

Two Sisters, Two Towns, Two Kings: Facing War and Still Ruling Inês Olaia

In May 1212, Sancha (c.1180–1229), a daughter of King Sancho I (r.1185–1211) and Queen Dulce of Aragon (r.1185–1198) (Dias 2012), issued a charter to her town of Alenquer.1 She was in Montemor-o-Velho, a town over 100 kilometres north of Alenquer, accompanied by her older sister, Teresa (c.1176–1250). They were also in the thick of a civil war,

 The author wishes to thank Professor Ana Maria S. A. Rodrigues (Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Lisbon) for her assistance with this essay.  The original document was found recently inside a book binding in a poor condition; see Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal (Portuguese National Library), Lisbon (BNP), PGS. 64 V, available at purl.pt/28333. Luckily, King Dinis (r.1279–1325) used an exact copy of the charter for another region in 1305. 1

I. Olaia (*) Centre for History, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 F. Persson et al. (eds.), Resilience and Recovery at Royal Courts, 1200–1840, Queenship and Power, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20123-3_2

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fighting their brother, King Afonso II (r.1211–1223). Teresa probably went on to help dethrone her nephew, King Sancho II (r.1223–1248). However, by the eighteenth century they were beatified by the Church, a thing which in light of these circumstances might seem unexpected. The historical record gives us signs of worship down the centuries. Their sanctity was linked with another aspect of their lives: their deep connection with the religious life, and particularly with the female branch of the Cistercian Order, and their help in establishing the mendicant orders in Portugal. I am going to evaluate their resilience, looking at their lives after the war and how they survived politically and reinvented themselves.

Two Sisters, Teresa and Sancha Teresa is likely to have been the firstborn of Sancho I and Dulce, born around 1176.2 She was married to Alfonso IX of Leon in 1191, but the marriage was annulled on grounds of consanguinity a few years later when the couple already had three children. Teresa was sent back to Portugal, leaving only her elder daughter Sancha at the Leonese court. The annulment of her marriage was not without its complications: her dower had to be sorted out, and the future of her children was an open problem. In 1194 a treaty arranged between the kingdoms of Leon and Castile, with the participation of Portuguese emissaries, organised a new marriage for Alfonso IX and solved some of the issues. Teresa was granted a set of rents and rights in the kingdom of Leon, and the right to choose where she wanted to live. In 1195 we know that she was already in Portugal. Her life in Portugal at the turn of the thirteenth century was marked by one event: her involvement in the change of Lorvão Abbey from a male Benedictine monastery to a female Cistercian one.3 The memory of her involvement and that of her sister Sancha’s would be deeply rooted in the convent and is still alive to this day, even though the monastic community is long gone. The process of change took a few years and involved appeals to various ecclesiastical authorities. The bishop of Coimbra aligned with Teresa against the monks of Lorvão. The change made Lorvão the first of its order in Portugal. When the nuns took over the monastery, Teresa was 2  Unless stated otherwise, this section draws on the small biographical study of the sisters, Marques (2011). 3  About both women and their involvement with the Cistercian order see: Yañéz (1991) and Cocheril (1976).

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already involved in the events that led to the first civil war in which she participated in Portugal, rooted in her and her sisters’ disagreement with their brother Afonso II about their father’s will, of which more later. In 1214, Teresa’s only son Fernando died and was buried in Compostela in the presence of his mother and the Leonese court. A troubled succession for the Leonese kingdom was on the horizon, with King Alfonso IX having offspring from three marriages, two of which had been annulled. When the king died in 1230, the succession was secured by King Fernando III of Castile in a treaty in which his half-sisters Sancha and Dulce, daughters of Teresa, acknowledged him as the rightful successor to their father. Teresa’s daughters died around 1240, Teresa herself only ten years later. It is unsure whether Teresa ever visited Leon again, and if so, when. By the mid-1240s Portugal was far from being at peace. A second civil war—considered by some historians to be an extension of the first—was taking shape. It ended with the deposition of King Sancho II by papal order, and his replacement by his brother, Afonso, who was count of Boulogne by his marriage to Countess Matilda II. When Afonso arrived in Portugal to rule, it sparked an armed response. Teresa was said to have supported her younger nephew, Afonso, against the elder, Sancho II. Teresa had settled in Coimbra by 1249 and was known to have supported several religious institutions. She died the following year. Sancha had a shorter life, and one less scrutinised by historians, but we know that she sided with her sister Teresa in the events of the first civil war. Her memory is tied to that of her sister. It is likely that Sancha was born in 1183, the second girl in the long list of children born to King Sancho I and Queen Dulce. Some historians believe she was Sancho’s favourite daughter, which is suggested by the personal bequests he made to her in his second will: a few rings (but not the ones destined to the heir of the throne), fabric, clothing, and belts, and an ambiguously named object that may have been a musical instrument. We do not know if any marriage arrangements were ever made for her, and her story revolves around the civil war with her brother, King Afonso II. There is a reason I have not mentioned the sisters’ royal titles up to this point. Portuguese scholars call them infantas, the title given in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries to the princesses who were not heirs to the throne. That title, however, is an anachronism. The thirteenth-century documents named them queens. In Teresa’s case it was easy to explain, as she had been queen consort of Leon for a while, but Sancha was consistently titled as queen even though she never married a king. It was recently

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argued by Miriam Shadis that they are a different type of queen, conceivable in early Portugal: that of a ‘queen–daughter’.4 Royal women were important for the stability of the kingdom, and as such they were given the queenly title and were expected to help their fathers and brothers to rule. This had been the case since the days of Queen Teresa, the mother of King Afonso Henriques; it was valid for the (then future) King Sancho and his sister, also named Teresa. In our Queen Teresa’s case, her acute sense of having a queenly role would not have been lessened by having been a queen consort in another kingdom, and when she returned to Portugal there was a role to fill in the Portuguese royal family. Her mother, Queen Dulce, had died leaving several young children. It is likely that Queen Teresa stepped in and took her mother’s place in the family and at court.

One King and the First Civil War The first civil war came in the aftermath of Sancho I’s death in 1211. The king had bequeathed to his daughters Teresa and Sancha two major towns and several smaller estates and lands: Teresa was entrusted with Montemor-­ o-­Velho; Sancha with Alenquer. Their mother Queen Dulce had a particular relationship with Alenquer, which led historians to argue that Sancha had received Alenquer from her mother and was now seeing her possession confirmed.5 The argument of Queen Dulce’s possessions being scattered among her daughters after her death is solid: the villa of Ervedal passed from Dulce to Teresa without us knowing how, and in his will the king remarked that some estates he was bequeathing came from his wife Dulce.6 Even though Dulce had several estates in Alenquer and a close relationship with the region, the lordship of Alenquer having passed from mother to daughter is debatable. Sancho’s last will and testament treats  Shadis (2019).  Ferro (1996, 219), suggests the idea in a study about Alenquer, based on the Latin phrasing of the king’s will; Figanière (1859, 64), speculates that Alenquer could have passed from Dulce to Sancha, perhaps having been in the queen’s domain first. However, the idea that Sancha obtained Alenquer from her mother is baseless, as will be seen. Henriques (1873, 69) is another author to have worked on this ideas. 6  For Dulce’s purchase, see Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo (National Archive of Torre do Tombo), Lisbon (ANTT), Cónegos Regulares de Santo Agostinho, Mosteiro de Santa Cruz de Coimbra, Documentos Particulares, maço, 13, nr. 20; for its municipal charter, granted by Dulce and confirmed by Teresa, see ANTT, Cónegos Regulares de Santo Agostinho, Mosteiro de Santa Cruz de Coimbra, Documentos Particulares, mç. 19, nr. 1. 4 5

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the donation of Alenquer like the other donations that had no connection with his late wife. In the formal complaints advanced by Sancha after the war, she stated she had had the lordship of Aveiras before her father’s death.7 Had she had the lordship of Alenquer as well it would have been odd not to mention it. Many Portuguese scholars have picked over the legal issues underlying the conflict about Sancho I’s will.8 What they failed to consider was the perception of queenship these women were probably fighting for, uncovered recently, as we have seen, in the work of Miriam Shadis. The queen in early Portugal was supposed to be the king’s helper, a role extended to other royal women than the king’s wife. Sancho I was drawing on his experience with his sister and putting forward his own daughters to help their brother. Afonso II is also known to have been a sickly child. Sancho I might have feared for the succession and enlisted his daughters to support his heir, in line with the Portuguese queenly tradition. In military terms, the conflict had two stages. The first ran between the last months of 1211 and the spring of 1212, and included the siege of Montemor, where the two queens sought refuge; the second went from the end of 1212 to May 1213. Along with Alenquer and Montemor, an array of other towns and villages suffered in the fighting. It was probably in this context the canons of Coimbra complained to the pope about Queen Teresa’s demands that the men of the city to repair its walls and make ammunition.9 Even though there was a truce in 1213, the conflict ended only in 1223. In June that year there was an agreement signed by Afonso’s successor Sancho II and his aunts.10 From that agreement, Hermínia Vilar concludes that the queens were still questioning the king’s authority over the territories given to them by Sancho I.11 Yet they accepted the need to have the agreement of the king to their appointment of the fortresses’ governors, the mandatory participation of the local men in the king’s army and in repairing the fortresses, and the circulation of the kings’ currency. Clearly, queens’ signorial power was an obstacle to the expansion of Afonso II’s royal power. If the queens’ interpretation of their father’s will  Ventura and Oliveira (2011, doc. 48).  For an important analysis, though centred on the clergymen involved in the legal dispute, see Costa (1963). 9  ANTT, Cabido da Sé de Coimbra, Documentos eclesiásticos, mç. 2, doc. 51. 10  For the June 1223 agreement, see Morujão (2001, 240–246 doc. 80a). 11  Vilar (2005, 99–100). 7 8

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had been accepted, islands of hereditary fiefs would have been created throughout the kingdom in key locations: Alenquer is one of the four municipalities that dominate the defensive line formed by the River Tagus, close to Santarém and Lisbon, while Montemor oversees Coimbra on the similarly important Mondego River.12 If this gives us a sense the kingdom could be endangered by the two queens’ positions, we can also look at it from the opposite perspective and see them as an asset. If queens Teresa and Sancha were supposed to help King Afonso II, they were holding the right castles to secure the key cities of the kingdom. Their strategies of buying land for the monasteries under their control might also be linked to the same concerns. The challenge that their brother posed by disagreeing with the queens’ interpretation of their father’s bequests posed more than a personal threat to them—it challenged the queenly status to which they were entitled. The agreement of 1223 regulated several issues; however, it did not state that Alenquer was Sancha’s.13 It said that the town was in the hands of both queens, but did not explain how. The situation was even stranger when it came to Montemor: there the lady of the castle was identified. Did that mean Alenquer was in the shared custody of the two queens? What the text did say was that Alenquer would only return to the Crown on the death of both ladies. It also stated that the town would be Teresa’s sole possession if Sancha were to die, but did not explain what would happen if Teresa were to die first. What did it mean? That, Teresa being the eldest, she was expected to die first and there was a need to set down how things should be done if the unexpected happened? In such an agreement, an unintentional ambiguity of this sort is hardly something that the scribes would miss.

Ruling Alenquer and Montemor-o-Velho When it comes to Teresa’s and Sancha’s rule, records survive of Sancha’s actions as lady of Alenquer, even though she was declared as such only three times: in her father’s last will; along with her sister in the agreement discussed above; and in the charter she issued to the town. The surviving documentation that relates Sancha to Alenquer concerns the monastery of  Fernandes (2006, 89).  It was only stated that Alenquer was to be kept in both sisters’ possession; see Morujão (2001, 249, n. 10). 12 13

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Santa Maria de Celas de Guimarães, in Coimbra. This monastery had roots in Alenquer because a group of secluded women living inside that chapel of Santa Maria Rotunda there, who probably predated and later were absorbed by Santa Maria de Celas. It is hard to say if Sancha founded this secluded community, but she took it under her protection.14 She is found buying and donating a few mills on the river of Alenquer to the monastery of Celas. She had also given part of the local royal lands—the reguengo—to the monastery in 1221, which was something she could not have done once the agreement of 1223 was signed: no royal property could be alienated. An inquiry in the mid-thirteenth century into the royal estates in Alenquer noted that a property that once belonged to her mother, Queen Dulce, was donated to Celas by Sancha.15 The inquiry was sent to the king accompanied by a list of Queen Dulce’s estates in the town. Of the monastery records, the majority of Sancha’s donations were made with her sister’s consent. However, all the donations but one were made before 1223. Sancha was the sole granter of the foral (medieval charter) of Alenquer, dated 31 May 1212, at the peak of the military conflict that pitted the two queens against their brother. The granting of this charter was, above all, a mark of her possession of the town lands. To Hermínia Vilar, the charter of Alenquer spelled out the situation perfectly: the document never mentioned the king. Everything revolved around the queen.16 There was more to Sancha’s relationship with her town, because she supposedly made possible the establishment there of the first Franciscan convent in Portugal: Sancha received the friars, sent by Queen Consort Urraca, in Alenquer and gave them a small chapel close to the river.17 This first donation was dismissed as a fiction in the eighteenth century.18 However, no one seems to doubt that Sancha donated them her own palace. Some said the Dominicans settled at the top of the highest hill of the region with Sancha’s permission. An albergaria belonging to her is also mentioned in Alenquer that later historians said was installed at her (presumably new) palace, but there is no evidence of its relation to the  For a critical edition of the monastery’s records, see Morujão (2001).  ANTT, Feitos da Coroa, Inquirições de D. Dinis, livro 10, fls. 22r–24v. 16  Vilar (2005, 100). 17  The full story is told, for example, in Esperança (1656). 18  The priests of Alenquer, questioned in the eighteenth century about the town’s history, dismissed the story, saying the chapel was founded by someone else in the fourteenth century; see Cosme and Varandas (2010). 14 15

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palace.19 Some historians have said this institution was the beginning of a similar one devoted to the Holy Ghost.20 We found no evidence of this. Sancha might be, however, contemporary of the early devotion to this person of the Holy Trinity in Alenquer.21 Teresa succeeded Sancha as ruler of Alenquer. Little evidence of her time survives, but she was mentioned in an inquiry in the last decade of the thirteenth century, which noted reports that she had chosen the first governor of the castle of Alenquer.22 By the time Teresa was ruling Alenquer, from the end of the 1220s to 1250, another woman was making large purchases in the town’s hinterland: her half-sister Constança Sanches.23 Since these were again troubled times in Portugal, Constança was probably putting herself and her possessions under her sister’s protection. Some of the purchases refer to the town of Arruda dos Vinhos, said to be in the hinterland of Alenquer.24 This was not a throwaway remark, as Arruda had been under the lordship of the Military Order of Santiago since Afonso Henriques’ reign, and thus was not subordinate to any other major town. Setting aside the question of the role of the Order or of Arruda itself in the civil war, can it be they too were sheltering under Teresa’s rule? It is interesting that the knights of Santiago’s possession of Arruda was only confirmed in 1255, not long after Teresa’s death.25 The town of Montemor-o-Velho needs further study. It was under Teresa’s lordship since her father’s will in 1211. There is little trace of her as a lord, probably because she circulated more and had more interests than her sister Sancha: we find her staying in the monasteries of Lorvão and Celas and in the town of Alenquer, for example.26 Yet she took refuge in Montemor in times of trouble. And she did call herself the lady of the

19  For the albergaria mentioned in a later inquisition, see ANTT, Feitos da Coroa, Inquirições de D.  Dinis, liv. 10, fl. 22; and in the records of Santa Maria de Celas, see Morujão (2001, doc. 26). 20  Lourenço (2001, 652). 21  Azevedo (1963, 11). 22  ANTT, Gavetas, Gaveta 14, maço 3, nr. 2. 23  For a discussion of Constança Sanches’ property and will, see Vivas (2007). 24  ANTT, Gavetas, Gaveta 13, maço 9, nr. 37 & maço 1, nr. 15. 25  Published in Fonseca (2006, doc. 119). 26  For example, ANTT, Cónegos Regrantes de Santo Agostinho, Mosteiro de S. Vicente de Fora de Lisboa, 1.ª incorporação, maço 3, nr. 2, shows she was in Alenquer as late as 1243.

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Castle of Montemor to justify a donation of land to a monastery not even under her care: S. Paulo de Almaziva, in Coimbra.27 A third town came into play; one not under Teresa’s and Sancha’s lordship, but in a very ambiguous position. Torres Vedras is near Alenquer and its rents covered the costs of war reparations the king owed to both queens, as stated in the 1223 agreement. What was interesting about Torres Vedras was its lack of a charter until a later date. For a lord, issuing such a charter was not only an act of sovereignty, but also, in practical terms, a form of ensuring the payment and structuring of taxes, and with that, the income he would receive. The rents of Torres Vedras were given to the queens, but the lordship was retained by the king. If the rents were not to go to the king, even though he was the lord, why would he show himself as lord of the town? And if the queens were not lords of the town, how could they issue such a charter? The Torres Vedras charter was issued shortly after Teresa’s death in 1250 and shows signs of negotiation between town and king.28

A Second King and a Second Civil War In 1245, there was another casus belli: the deposition of King Sancho II by papal decree and his replacement by the king’s brother Afonso, Count of Boulogne. It did not come out of nowhere, though. The historical record talks of violence among the nobility, issues with the Church, abuses of power, a kingdom on the verge of chaos. Traditionally, historians explain Sancho II’s reign as revolving around on conflict with the clergy and conflict with the nobility. He was not alone, though: his was a general problem throughout Christian Europe. The king did not lose track of the need to keep conquering lands further south nor to keep working towards the settlement of people throughout his kingdom. Many documents from his reign do not survive, but ultimately the latent conflict reached the papal court, and the pope chose Afonso, Count of Boulogne, to replace Sancho. The fractures of the 1211–1213 conflict with Sancha and Teresa were about to be visited on the country again.29

27  For the original document, see ANTT, Ordem de Cister, Mosteiro de S.  Paulo de Almaziva, maço 2, nr. 15; published in Simões (1981). 28  Torres Vedras’ charter is published in Vicente et al. (2001). 29  This is advanced in a PhD thesis about Sancho II’s reign, Varandas (2004, 241).

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Afonso entered Portugal by Lisbon and quickly obtained the support of the fortified towns closer to the city, Alenquer among them. Sancho II had to retire to Coimbra. We may ask what role Teresa (and her towns) played. Historians believe she sided with Count Afonso, sheltering him in Montemor, but there is little trace of her actions in documents of the period.30 The quick submission of her town of Alenquer to Afonso III is taken as a sign of support. Torres Vedras also surrendered quickly, another sign the town might well have been under Teresa’s influence. The belief that Alenquer bowed to Teresa’s command might be supported in later sources, for in 1305, King Dinis stated that he intended to reward part of the hinterland of Alenquer (the ‘Montes de Alenquer’) for its loyalty to Sancho II with a charter similar to the town’s.31 Keeping in mind the chronicles said Alenquer did not oppose Afonso III, if the Montes’ fidelity to Sancho II deserved to be rewarded did it mean they chose differently? Afonso III found shelter in Montemor, where his aunt Teresa welcomed him, and Alenquer seems aligned with its lady’s intentions; however, the hinterland seems to have rebelled, challenging not only the town that should control it, but also its lady. The charter given to Montes in 1305 was a copy of Alenquer’s own document, issued by the royal notary of Alenquer, but it can tell us more about the old founding charter itself. (Nogueira 2003, doc. nr. 23.) Kept in the Monastery of Alcobaça by 1305, Alenquer’s charter was authenticated with three seals: Sancha’s, the issuer; Teresa’s; and a third seal, described as belonging to ‘a king named Afonso’. As Teresa was not mentioned in the charter, we can assume that her seal was affixed to the document as a later means of validation. Who was ‘king Afonso’? What was the king’s seal doing there? When the charter was drawn up and sealed, Afonso II was far away from his sisters (politically and physically), and Afonso III only arrived in the kingdom forty years later. By the beginning of the fourteenth century, Montemor had asked for a copy of its old charter granted by Teresa in 1212.32 The royal notary recorded that it had two seals. The description of one fits Teresa’s; the other, with the Portuguese signs and inscription reading ‘Afonso, King of Portugal, and Count of Boulogne’, was of course the seal of Afonso III. If it was unclear whose was the third seal on the Alenquer charter, it was  Ventura (2006, 81–83).  ANTT, Gavetas, Gaveta 15, maço 22, nr. 22. 32  For a transcript of the charter, see Coelho (2002, 62–63). 30 31

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clear from this: Afonso III. Afonso III seems to have repaid the support of both towns, confirming with pride the privileges given by Teresa and Sancha to their towns. Sancha died in 1229 in Celas, the monastery she founded in Coimbra. After her death, her sister Teresa brought the body to her own monastery, Lorvão, and took Celas under her guardianship. Teresa died in 1250. We do not know exactly what legacies they had in mind, but certainly there had been plans: by the early fourteenth century, the church of Santa Maria in Torres Vedras claimed that it had mills in the town’s river that ‘Queen Teresa’ had bequeathed them.33 Only two women could have used that title when Torres Vedras was in Christian hands: Sancho’s sister and daughter. It seems likely the Church was referring to the latter, as the town may already have had a close relationship with her.

Later Memory In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the canonisation of a few members of the Portuguese royal family was underway in Rome. Among them were Queen Isabel of Aragon, the wife of king Dinis, canonised in 1625 and Princess Joana, daughter of Afonso V, beatified in 1693. Teresa and Sancha were included—they were beatified in 1704—and their sister Mafalda followed in 1792.34 However, the processes were long which attests to early devotion. In Teresa’s case, there were at least two failed attempts: one advanced by King Sebastião, and a second one in 1595 on the initiative of the Cistercian order, which was lost before it reached the Vatican. The campaign to beatify Sancha did not begin until 1634, encouraged by the recent success of Queen Isabel’s cause, and soon Teresa was added. When King João IV came to the throne and the war of independence died down, the nuns of Lorvão asked to appeal the pope again in 1700.35 The path to such recognition came with the production of works where their lives were celebrated in the seventeenth century, among them Flores Cistercienses do Jardim de Portugal (‘Cistercian Flowers of the Portuguese

 ANTT, Colegiada de Santa Maria do Castelo de Torres Vedras, maço 13, nr. 17.  Among others referred in Saldanha (2010). 35  All the references to the process are collected in Saldanha (2010). 33 34

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Garden’), a book about the nuns of the order considered saints.36 Historians have no reason to believe that Sancha and Teresa were ever professed nuns, but they were included nevertheless. The seventeenth-­ century Agiologio Lusitano, meanwhile, was conceived as an encyclopaedia and organised as calendar of all Portuguese saints or people who had led ‘saintly lives’.37 Again, Sancha and Teresa were mentioned. Teresa was described as a very pious woman, always praying and helping the poor and sick, and as beautiful and intelligent, conquering her husband by her wisdom. Afonso II, her brother, was said to have been ‘blinded by ambition’ when he took away the towns from her and her sister. The writer wrote of their distress at having to go to war. He proceeded to mention that since Teresa died, she was much revered in Lorvão and a number of miracles had been recorded. In his account Teresa always resided in Lorvão (which we know is not true), and he omitted her part in the deposing of Sancho II. Sancha was described in a similar manner, but as a younger girl, pure, devout and willing to make physical sacrifices. The author said that she retreated to Alenquer after her father’s death, and then found herself caught up in the same political turmoil as her sister, but in immediate danger because their brother besieged Alenquer. She proceeded to resist varonilmente (bravely) for her rights. Turning to the pope, the Agiologio said he proposed she marry none other than the saint King Fernando of Castile (there is no other evidence of this). She refused and left for Celas, where she became a professed nun (there is no confirmation of this), served the nuns humbly and left the community only to receive the soon-­ to-­be Moroccan protomartyrs in Alenquer—a connection that was another argument in favour of her beatification. The Franciscan friars had been sent by St Francis himself to Morocco as missionaries, and passed through Portugal on their way. Sancha received them in Alenquer, and on their martyrs’ deaths she was said to have received a vision.

Concluding Remarks Queen Teresa and Queen Sancha conformed at least in part to a role that sat well with later views on king’s daughters or even queens, and helped lead to declarations of their holy status, even if we acknowledge the possible exaggerations and seventeenth-century authors’ keenness to fill in  BNP, ALC-90, Bernardino de Sottomayor, Flores Cistercienses do Jardim de Portugal, c.1601–1700, available at purl.pt/26143. 37  Cardoso (1652–1744). 36

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the blanks. Teresa and Sancha were resilient enough not just to fight back when needed and to stand for what they believed, but also to adjust to new circumstances and perform the roles expected of them to the best of their abilities. Only in that way can we conceive of a pair of queens who did not submit willingly to their brother the king and triggered a civil war and were recognised as Blessed.

Archives Consulted Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo (National Archive of Torre do Tombo), Lisbon (ANTT). Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal (Portuguese National Library), Lisbon (BNP).

References Cardoso, Jorge. 1652–1744. Agiologio lvsitano dos sanctos, e varoens illvstres em virtvde do Reino de Portvgal, e svas conqvistas: consagrado aos gloriosos S. Vicente, e S. Antonio, insignes patronos desta inclyta cidade Lisbon e a sev illvstre Cabido Sede Vacante. 4 vols. Lisbon: Officina Craesbeekiana. Cocheril, Maur. 1976. Les infantes Teresa, Sancha, Mafalda et l’ordre de Cîteaux au Portugal. Revista Portuguesa de História 17: 39–49. Coelho, Maria Helena da Cruz. 2002. Os forais de Montemor-o-Velho. Montemor-­ o-­Velho: Câmara Municipal de Montemor-o-Velho. Cosme, João, and José Varandas. 2010. Memoórias Paroquiais (1758–1759), vol. 2, Alcaria–Alijoó. Lisbon: Caleidoscópio. Costa, António Domingues de Sousa. 1963. Mestre Silvestre e mestre Vicente, juristas da contenda entre D. Afonso II e suas irmãs. Braga: Editorial Franciscana. de Azevedo, Rui. 1963. O compromisso da Confraria do Espírito Santo de Benavente. Lusitania Sacra 1 (6): 7–23. Dias, Nuno Pizarro. 2012. Dulce de Barcelona e Aragão. In As primeiras rainhas. Mafalda de Mouriana, Dulce de Barcelona e Aragão, Urraca de Castela, Mecia Lopes de Haro, Beatriz Afonso, ed. Maria Alegria Fernandes Marques, Nuno Pizarro Dias, Bernardo de Sá-Nogueira, José Varandas, and António Resende de Oliveira. Rio de Mouro: Círculo de Leitores. Esperança, Frei Manoel da. 1656. Historia Serafica da Ordem dos Frades Menores de São Francisco na Provincia de Portvgal. In Primeira parte qve contem sev principio, & augmentos no estado primeiro de Custodia. Lisbon: Na officina Craesbeekiana. Fernandes, Hermenegildo. 2006. Sancho II: Tragédia. Rio de Mouro: Círculo de Leitores.

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Ferro, João Pedro. 1996. Alenquer Medieval (séculos XII–XV): Subsídios para o seu estudo. Cascais: Patrimonia. Figanière, Frederico Francisco de La. 1859. Memorias das rainhas de Portugal: D. Teresa – Santa Isabel. Lisbon: Typographia Universal. Fonseca, Luís Adão, ed. 2006. Livro dos Copos. Vol. 1. Porto: Fundação Engenheiro António de Almeida. Henriques, Guilherme João Carlos. 1873. Alenquer e seu concelho. Facsimile of the first edition edition, 2005. Arruda dos Vinhos: Arruda Editora. Lourenço, Maria Paula Marçal. 2001. A Casa das Rainhas e a Confraria do Espírito Santo de Alenquer: poderes senhoriais e patrocinato religioso. Arquipélago História 5: 651–668. Marques, Maria Alegria Fernandes. 2011. D.  Matilde, D.  Teresa, D.  Mafalda e D. Sancha. Matosinhos: Quidnovi. Morujão, Maria do Rosário Barbosa. 2001. Um mosteiro cisterciense feminino: Santa Maria de Celas (séculos XIII a XV). Coimbra: BGUC. Nogueira, Bernardo de Sá, ed. 2003. Livro das Lezírias d’El-Rei D. Dinis. Lisbon: Centro de História. Saldanha, Nuno. 2010. Estilo e iconografia: As beatas de Portugal e a pintura romana. Cultura 27: 105–120. https://doi.org/10.4000/cultura.334. Shadis, Miriam. 2019. Unexceptional women: Power, authority, and Queenship in early Portugal. In Medieval elite women and the exercise of power, 1100–1400, ed. Heather J. Tanner, 247–270. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. Simões, Arlete Susana dos Santos. 1981. O cartulário do mosteiro de S. Paulo de Almaziva. Coimbra: n.p. Varandas, José. 2004. ‘Bonus Rex’ ou ‘Rex Inutilis’: As periferias e o centro: Redes de Poder no Reinado de D. Sancho II. PhD thesis, Universidade de Lisbon. Ventura, Leontina. 2006. Afonso III. Lisboa: Círculo de Leitores. Ventura, Leontina, and António Resende Oliveira. 2011. Chancelaria de Afonso III. Vol. 3. Coimbra: Imprensa da Universidade de Coimbra. Vicente, António Balcão, Carlos Guardado da Silva, Pedro Gomes Barbo, and Pedro Marujo do Canto. 2001. O foral medieval da vila de Torres Vedras, 15 de agosto de 1250. Torres Vedras: Munícipio de Torres Vedras. Vilar, Hermínia. 2005. D. Afonso II: Um rei sem tempo. Rio de Mouro: Círculo de Leitores. Vivas, Diogo. 2007. Constança Sanches: Considerações em torno de uma bastarda régia. Clio: Revista do Centro de História da Universidade de Lisboa 16 (17): 223–241. Yañéz Neira, M.  Damian. 1991. Tres princesas lusitanas en el Cister: Teresa, Sancha y Mafalda, vista por los historiadores españoles. Brigantia 11 (1/2): 93–126.

CHAPTER 3

Hungaria Hispanica: Resilient Hungary and Its Integration into the Spanish Habsburg System, 1558–1648 Tibor Monostori

If we look at the historiography of relations between the Spanish monarchy and the Kingdom of Hungary (part of the Central European Habsburgermonarchie) in the age of Spanish Habsburg supremacy in Europe—specifically, between the abdication of Charles V as Holy Roman emperor (1556) in favour of his brother Ferdinand I (officially recognised in the empire in 1558) and the Westphalian peace treaties (1648)—we might conclude there were no meaningful connections between the two

T. Monostori (*) Eötvös Loránd Research Network, Research Centre for the Humanities, Institute of History, Budapest, Hungary © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 F. Persson et al. (eds.), Resilience and Recovery at Royal Courts, 1200–1840, Queenship and Power, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20123-3_3

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realms.1 The connections we know about seem exceptions that prove the rule. Ten thousand Spanish Habsburg soldiers fought in Hungary in the reign of Charles V, and the emperor’s politics influenced Hungarian political events.2 To a lesser extent, soldiers and military officers were present in Hungary during the Long Turkish War.3 News from the anti-Ottoman Hungarian frontline was hugely popular in Iberia, and notably in Spanish Golden Age theatre.4 Several members of the Catholic elite were obliged to the Spanish monarchy because it paid them annual pensions (Péter Pázmány, primate of Hungary) or because they were into the Order of the Golden Fleece (e.g., Miklós Esterházy, palatine of Hungary).5 Manifestations of the Spanish Habsburg–Hungary relationship were apparently not substantial enough to hold scholarly attention and therefore played no role in the shaping narratives of Hungarian history, nor were they construed as signs of a deep, strategic community of interest between the Spanish monarchy and Hungary. Today, though, the historiographical background is better understood, future research areas are staked out, and results related to the wider subject are expected.6 A new, exhaustive series about the reign of Philip IV, king of Spain (1621–1665), dedicates a separate volume to foreign affairs.7 This work includes the contributions by several Central European historians—Pavel Marek (Czechia), Lothar Höbelt (Austria), and Michael Rohrschneider (Germany)—on the connections between the Spanish and Austrian branches of the dynasty. Connections with Poland are addressed in a subchapter by Ryszard Skowron. Yet where is Hungary? A similar silence is evident in Hungarian historiography, in the landmark summaries by local research groups. The various histories of Hungary ignore the traces of any meaningful relationship.8 A monograph on 1  I am grateful to the ‘Momentum’ Holy Crown Research Group at the Institute of History, at the Hungarian Academy of Science’s Research Centre for the Humanities, and to its head, Géza Pálffy, for their continuous support, and to Lara Strong for copy-editing the original text in English. 2  Korpás (2019). 3  Bagi (2018), Bagi (2019). 4  González Cuerva (2006), Korpás (1999). 5  Martí (2018). 6  Monostori (2009). 7  Millán et al. (2018). 8  For accounts of the sixteenth- and seventeenth-century history of Hungary by Ferenc Szakály and Katalin Péter, the outstanding scholars of their day, see Sugar et al. (1994, 83–99 (Szakály) 100–120 (Péter)).

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Spanish–Hungarian affairs has argued that the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were periods of less intense relations, as opposed to the Middle Ages or the twentieth century.9 Approaches to the subject have changed, regarding these connections on a European scale.10 Yet where are the Spanish Habsburgs? Scholarship has tried to define the nature of the Spanish world empire and its effect in Europe: imperialism, a network, or a system.11 The smaller, Central European branch also appeared like a satellite of Madrid, or like a little brother.12 The aim of the present essay is to show that Hungary was a deep, substantial part of the Spanish Habsburg system, and this statement can be demonstrated with hard metrics. The word ‘resilient’ is undeniably important and relevant. Defeat in the Battle of Mohács in 1526 against the army of the Ottoman Empire was a shock to medieval Hungarian statehood.13 The kingdom needed outside help, and had to acquire the knowledge to maintain and, if possible, restore the medieval state in its entirety.

Legal and Political Bonds Historiography has developed quite a few commonplaces about the dynasticism and legalisms of Spanish–Hungarian relations: that Spanish law was decisive in the law of succession in Central Europe; that with the Oñate treaty of 1617 the Spanish king waived his right to inherit the Kingdom of Hungary (even if the feasibility of such a claim was questionable since it failed to consider the Kingdom of Hungary’s status as an elective monarchy); that several Spanish princes and princesses waived their rights formally, in writing, to the line of succession of Hungary.14 It was true the system of permanent administrative, territorial councils of both the Spanish and Central European Habsburgs was largely of the same (Burgundian) origin.15 Several queens consort of Hungary were Spanish infantas (Maria, Maria Anna, and Margaret Theresa). The  Anderle (2009).  Pálffy (2009). 11  For imperialism, see Parker (1990, 287), Bérenger (1990, 291, 307). For networks, see Edelmayer (2002). For systems, see Brightwell (1974), Stradling (1981), Muto (1995). 12  Bérenger (1990, 236, 251). 13  Pálffy (2009, 235–244). 14  Sugar et al. (1994, 143), Sánchez (1994). 15  Hochedlinger et al. (2019, 377). 9

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confidant of Maria, Margarita de Cardona, forged a strong relationship with Martin Somogyi, a gentilhombre at the court in Brussels in the 1590s and 1600s.16 So did Maria Anna’s confessor, Diego de Quiroga, to a lesser extent, with Pázmány around 1635.17 We now know that many years before the Oñate agreement, the Spanish branch had actively dealt with the succession to the Hungarian throne.18 It had either investigated the question of the succession or had tried to acquire the (formal) right of succession. In 1604, in a manuscript preserved among the documents of the secretary of the Duke of Lerma, first minister of King Philip III of Spain, all lines of succession were analysed at length.19 In 1616, Baltasar de Zúniga, Madrid’s ambassador to the imperial court, wanted to bribe Cardinal Melchior Khlesl, president of the Privy Council, into yielding to Spanish interests on various questions related to the Central European Habsburg succession, including the right to the Hungarian throne.20 King of Hungary is still among the titles of the Spanish monarch today.

Copper, Horses, Slaves Trade integration and global resource management were key, and commerce was intense between Central Europe and the lands of the Spanish monarchy. In 1624 Andreas Labermayr, a member of the German natio in the consulate of Seville, a principal centre of European trade, listed dozens

16  Archives générales du Royaume (National Archives of Belgium), Brussels (AGRB), Secrétairerie d’État et de Guerre (SEG) 533, fols. 137r–156v, passim for her letters from Madrid to Archduke Albert, governor of the Spanish Netherlands, requesting a chivalric order for Somogyi, who was then captain of his bodyguard and a gentilhombre de la boca. A few years earlier, after the death of Archduke Ernest (the former governor), Cardona pushed him into Albert’s household: AGRB, SEG, 687, unfol., ‘Memoria de los criados del serenísimo archiduque Ernesto’, Brussels, 5 Mar. 1595. 17  González Cuerva (2018, 103). 18  Martí (2020). 19  Archivo Histórico del Santuario de Loyola (Compañía de Jesús) (Historical Archive of the Sanctuary of Loyola), Azpeitia, Spain (AHSL), Correspondencia oficial de D. Andrés de Prada, Secretario de Estado de Felipe III, Correspondencia entre el Duque de Lerma y Andrés de Prada, relativa a asuntos de Hungría, fols. 121r–125r. 20  Tusor (2014, 1097).

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of products.21 The list included mercury from Idria (Inner Austria), which by then was a major Atlantic trade commodity.22 Labermayr, however, mentioned Hungarian copper from Neusohl (Hun. Besztercebánya, Slo. Banská Bystrica) in first position, as the most important item. Mine leases and the trade in copper via German merchants were important, predictable income for the emperor.23 Copper was a similarly vital material in the foundries of the Spanish monarchy for the production of bronze cannons for the navy.24 In the casas de moneda across the country, cheap copper coins were made in huge volumes. The copper trade was a significant factor in Spain’s mercantilist policies in the 1620s.25 It is clear from the data from multiple European archives that at least 30–35 per cent of Neusohl’s copper exports went to the Spanish monarchy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. There were years it exceeded 50 per cent, and the figure for the entire period may have been the same. Between 1494 and 1648, 2.4 million cwt of copper—meaning 146,000 tonnes as there 1 cwt equalled 60 kg—was produced in Neusohl.26 Of that, by my calculations, some 2 million cwt left the lands of the Central European Habsburg monarchy. In 1541, Charles V agreed an asiento, or contract, worth 6000 cwt of copper with Sebastian Kurz, an agent for the Fugger family, and 4500 cwt of copper duly arrived in Malaga via Antwerp.27 In 1574, the emperor wanted to lease the full annual production (20,000 cwt) for several years to the Spanish and Portuguese monarchs.28 Hungarian copper was exported primarily to those states.29 The Spanish court or its ambassadors in Vienna negotiated for the export to Spain of 1500 cwt in 1573, 6000 cwt in 1601/1602, 5000 cwt in 1622, 2000 cwt in 1648, and 1500 cwt

21  Österreichisches Staatsarchiv (Austrian State Archives), Vienna (ÖStA), Haus-, Hofund Staatsarchiv (HHStA), Staatenabteilung Spanien, Varia, Kart. 5. fols. 584r–585v, Labermayr to unknown person, Seville, 20 Aug. 1624. 22  Crailsheim and Wiedenbauer (2005). 23  Probszt (1953), Vlachovič (1977). 24  Mangas (1984), Aguilar Escobar (2010), Crailsheim (2016, 316–319). 25  Alcalá-Zamora y Queipo de Llano (1975, 180), Israel (1986). 26  Vlachovič (1977, 171). 27  Kellenbenz (1988, 253). 28  Edelmayer (1996, 135–137). 29  Emperor Maximilian II to Hans Khevenhüller, the imperial ambassador in Madrid, Prague, 4 July 1575, in Hildebrandt (1996, 139 no. 99).

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in 1656.30 The accounting records of the foundry in Seville show high numbers throughout the seventeenth century. In 1663, the asiento was made for 1000 cwt.31 Hungarian copper was used in areas outside Spain, of course. In 1574, the governor of the Spanish Netherlands, Luis de Requesens y Zúñiga, sent 35,000 pounds (around 290 cwt) to the foundry in Mechelen.32 In 1597, 44 cwt were transported to Lisbon.33 The finances and profits of the emperor and his ministers and the merchants depended on Spanish demand and foreign policy. In several instances, the strategic importance of Hungarian copper reached the highest forums. In 1575, Francisco de Álava y Beamonte, war councillor and captain general of the artillery, was the counterpart of the imperial ambassador in commercial negotiations.34 In the 1620s, the foundry in Seville claimed compensation for the huge depreciation of Cuban copper, citing the higher quality of the Hungarian material. Fernando Ruiz de Contreras, councillor of war and the Indies, dealt with the request.35 Some sources show that the Spanish monarchy engaged not only in the copper trade, but in the cattle and wine trade, mostly to supply its armies. This essay focuses on two other commercial articles: horses and slaves. Hungarian horses were purchased in large quantities in the horse markets of Vienna and Raab (Győr) by Spanish diplomats, for both representative and military purposes. In 1616, 30 horses were transported to Brussels, of which 24 were for Archduke Albert himself.36 In 1634, at least 14 were 30  Archivo General de Indias (General Archive of the Indies), Seville (AGI), Indiferente, 1956, leg. 1. fols. 100v–102v at 101r, Philip II to the officials of the Casa de Contratación, principal Spanish Habsburg institution for the Atlantic trade, on various subjects, Madrid, 19 Apr. 1573; Johann Khevenhüller’s report to Rudolf II, Madrid, 19 Oct. 1601, in Lehner (2001, 193); Archivo General de Simancas (General Archive of Simancas), Simancas (AGS), Est. leg. 2507/76. unfol, the Count of Oñate, Madrid’s ambassador to the imperial court to Philip IV, Vienna, 22 Sept. 1622; Council of the Indies minutes, Madrid, 24 Octiber 1656 (Junta de Artillería), in Heredia Herrera (1992, 602 doc. 2392). 31  AGS, Contaduría Mayor de Cuentas (CMC), 3ª Época, 2179/22, ‘Enrique Abete, de su asiento sobre la provisión de cobre de Hungría y de estaño de Inglaterra’. 32  Cipolla (1965, 47). 33  Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo (National Archive of Torre do Tombo), Lisbon (ANTT), Corpo Cronológico 1161/1699, Parte II 1161/1648, mç. 280. n. 147, Lisbon, 26 Jan. 1597. 34  Letter from Álava, Madrid (?), 12 July 1575, in Hildebrandt 1992, 1:140 doc. 101. 35  AGI, Contratación 3894, nr. 2., unfol., Madrid, 21 Aug. 1629; see also AGI, Indiferente 436, leg.14, fols. 258–259, Gabriel de Ocaña y Alarcón, secretary of the Council of the Indies to the president and officials of the Casa de Contratación. Madrid, 7 Jan. 1649. 36  AGRB, SEG, 518/3, n.d., unfol.

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bought for Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand, brother of Philip IV.37 In 1649, 300 were purchased for a military campaign in the duchy of Milan.38 In terms of galley slaves, for the period of 1602–1604, evidence can be found of intense negotiations conducted by the ambassador in Genoa, Juan Vivas de Cañamás, aimed at buying 1000 Ottoman slaves from Hungary via Italian merchants, as requested by Philip III. It is evident that one could buy such slaves without hesitation or comment.39 Another sign that the territory of Hungary had joined the Spanish Habsburg system was that at least three Hungarian forms of expenditure were financed from Spanish American silver. The Türkenhilfe, the Spanish monarch’s contribution to the costs of the war against the Ottoman Empire in Central Europe (300,000 ducats in 1595), was paid in silver from the New World.40 Imports of Hungarian copper were directly paid from the ships of the Silver Fleet.41 The recruitment of a large Hungarian light cavalry unit in 1635 (3000 soldiers) was probably financed by an asiento that was partially secured on American silver.42

37  Among the diplomatic letters of the Count of Oñate, sent from Vienna in 1634 (AGRB, SEG, 332, passim). 38  ÖStA, HHStA, Staatenabteilung Spanien, Varia, Kart. 9 (alt 8), 1636–1656. b), fols. 158r., 229rv, 257rv, 304rv. 39  See the letters between Philip III and Cañamás in AGS, Est. leg. 1432/146, 1432/160, 1931/302, 1931/314. 40  To transport the silver from Seville to Tyrol in Austria, Johann Khevenhüller authorised an agent for the Fuggers, Juan Mendez de Castro, to take over the 300,000 ducats from the Casa de Contratación. The silver was transported to Barcelona, then to Genoa, where it was taken over by Christoph Furtenbach, a partner of the Fuggers, who transported it to Tyrol (ÖStA, HHStA, Staatenabteilung Spanien, Varia, Karton 3. fol. 121r–121v). 41  See the accounts of Enrique Havett from 1666 and the details of his asiento from 1663, AGS, Contaduría Mayor de Cuentas (CMC), 3ª Época, 2179/22, ‘Enrique Abete, de su asiento sobre la provisión de cobre de Hungría y de estaño de Inglaterra’. The same can be seen in the records of the other asentistas, or contractors, throughout the seventeenth century. 42  AGS, CMC, 3ª Época 23, unfol. ‘Cuentas de Manuel de Paz, de sus asientos sobre pagos de ejércitos en Flandes y Alemania y de embajadores’, 1634–1636 for the cartas de pago (payment letters) of the Count of Oñate, signed by the Italian bankers and correspondents of the Spanish asentista Manuel de Paz (the Pestalozzi, headquartered in Augsburg).

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Diplomatic and Courtly Collaboration Since the 1980s, Hungarian historiography has collected a great deal of evidence about how the Catholic aristocrats in Hungary operated in the Spanish network, especially through their membership of the Order of the Golden Fleece, diplomatic correspondence and gifts, pensions, personal contacts and friendships, and political collaborations during Diets.43 I have already noted Cardona in the early 1600s requesting a knighthood for Somogyi, who at the time was captain of the bodyguard of the governors of the Spanish Netherlands; the request was made both in person in Madrid and via Archduke Albert.44 The latter requested induction into the same chivalric order from the Duke of Lerma at the same time and again in 1618 (after Lerma’s dismissal).45 In the 1600s and 1610s Somogyi built his career: he undertook diplomatic missions and remained in close touch with Cardinal Franz von Dietrichstein (son of Cardona and Adam von Dietrichstein).46 By the 1630s he had become a war councillor, a landlord (of Bothey in the province of Namur in the Spanish Netherlands, and of Stablovice in Opava in Moravia), and a tenant of a castle (Vichenet in Namur).47 It has been well known in Hungarian historiography that Philip IV and his ministers kept an eye on Péter Pázmány, archbishop of Esztergom, and later paid even more attention when he became cardinal. The literature has dealt extensively with the history of Pázmány’s most important diplomatic mission to Rome in 1632 (which has most recently been strongly linked to Cardinal Borja’s famous protest the same year).48 New sources reveal that the aim of the cardinal-archbishop’s travels—advancing the establishment of a league between the Spanish king, the emperor, and the Catholic estates of the Holy Roman Empire—was a cornerstone in the foreign policy of the Count-Duke of Olivares. In 1629, Spanish Habsburg  Hiller (1992), passim; Martí (2009, 2020).  See n. 16; for some of Somogyi’s roles at the Brussels court, see Raeymaekers (2019, 89, 184). 45  Biblioteca Nacional de España (National Library of Spain), Madrid (BNE), Mss. 687, fols. 185, 261; AGRB, SEG 518/1, unfol., Albert to Philip III, Brussels, 24 Dec. 1618. 46  For Somogyi’s letters from Brussels to Dietrichstein in 1617–1631, see Moravský Zemský Archiv (Moravian Land Archives), Brno, Rodinný Archiv Ditrichštejnů (Dietrichstein Family Archive), Kart c. 43. 47  See also ÖStA, HHStA, Belgische Korrespondenz, Schachtel 40, fol. 243rv, Isabel, governor of the Spanish Netherlands to Ferdinand II, Brussels, 18 Apr. 1631. 48  Becker and Tusor (2019). 43 44

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diplomacy conducted in Vienna by the Count of Castro, the Duke of Tursi, Jacques Bruneau, and the Marquis of Cadereyta had begun to carefully pave the way for the mission.49 Spanish diplomats played an active role at the Hungarian Diets. In 1654, the Council of State in Madrid advised the Marquis of Castel Rodrigo, the ambassador to Vienna, to bribe the Protestant Estates in Hungary to secure the election of Leopold I as king of Hungary. This was necessary in the Franco-Spanish War (1635–1659) so Madrid could focus on the western front. At this time Castel Rodrigo played a mediating role between the imperial court and the Hungarian Catholic elite, and wrote a lengthy essay on Hungarian internal politics to warn Madrid about the importance of the Diet in 1655.50 During preparation and at the Diet itself he spent around 30,000 ducats, partially on weapons and security measures before he left for the Diet in Posonia.51

Military Integration The Hungarian cavalry units (hussars) had always enjoyed great respect in the Spanish military. In the Schmalkaldic War they were praised by a Spanish historian.52 A detailed analysis from around 1570 of the Hungarian infantry and cavalry, including detailed payment data and musters, survives in Besançon.53 A decade later, in 1582, Guillén de San Clemente, Madrid’s ambassador to the imperial court, planned to recruit Hungarian cavalry units and send them to the Netherlands. He discussed this several times with Miklós Pálffy, chief justice of the Kingdom of Hungary, who had spent years in Spain, originally as a page of Anna of Austria (wife of Philip II), and spoke fluent Spanish and Italian.54

 Martí and Monostori (2009); see also Martí (2011, 175–205).  Tercero Casado (2017, 56–57). 51  AGS, CMC, 3a época 949, unfol. 52  Ávila y Zúñiga ((1548) 1767, 243). 53   Bibliothèque municipale de Besançon (Municipal Library of Besançon) (AMB), Collection Granvelle, MS Granvelle 58 (Lettres et papiers de l’ambassade de monsieur de Chantonnay à l’empereur Maximilien II, tome VII [2 janvier 1568–1571]), unfol. ‘Relación de cómo pagan a la gente de guerra húngara de pie y caballo en las fronteras, que es en sus propias tierras, por la Majestad del Emperador’. 54   San Clemente to Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma, governor of the Spanish Netherlands, Vienna, 2 June 1582, in Lipót (1894, 204 doc. 992). 49 50

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Tens of thousands of Spanish soldiers had been stationed in imperial territory since the outbreak of the Thirty Years War (1618). Their commanders had met and fought alongside the Croatian–Hungarian cavalry units regularly since the 1620s, joining forces in engagements such as the Battle of Nördlingen in 1634. The Count of Oñate, since the summer of 1634, had been negotiating with the commander-in-chief of the imperial army, the future emperor Ferdinand III, for the recruitment of over 10,000 Croatian and Polish soldiers and their deployment in France.55 Important Spanish officers and politicians led the negotiations. One of the Cardinal-Infante’s diplomats, the Duke of Nocera, was sent to the future emperor to hire 4000 ‘Hungarian’ soldiers.56 It was a successful mission: Ferdinand was accompanied by 40 ‘Croatian’ squadrons on his journey from Milan to the Spanish Netherlands to become the new governor.57 Recruitment in 1635 was actually financed by Spanish cash.58 Cooperation reached new levels in 1637, when two ‘Croatian’ colonels, the German Ludwig von Perwast and the Hungarian Péter Forgách, entered Spanish service with their regiments in the Netherlands.59 Forgách had served in the imperial army for years by then (Fig. 3.1). His successful raids in France were mentioned by the illustrious Burgundian historian Jean Boyvin.60 His presence in Dole was even recorded in the municipal council minutes.61 The ‘Croats’ (Kroaten, croatos) were almost exclusively led by Croatian or Hungarian colonels.62 In 1641, despite the physical distance, Perwast was sent back from Flanders to Hungary to replenish his troops with 300 soldiers.63 After the merging of the two regiments, the Hungarian István  AGRB, SEG 334, passim.  For Ferdinand the Cardinal-Infante’s secret instructions to the Duke of Nocera, see AGRB, SEG 210, fol. 391r–393r at 392v, Milan, 26 June 1634. 57  Bauer (1969, 35). 58  Ernst (1991, 116–120, 180–181). 59  For the contract, see AGRB, SEG, 324, 36r. 60  Boyvin (1637, 218, 225–226, 298). 61  AMB, Conseil Municipal, BB 71 Registre des délibérations municipales, 21 May 1636–30 Sept. 1636, 7r ‘Avis de l’arrivée ce même jour dans la cité de Forkatz, colonel général des Hongrois et Croates, envoyé de Flandre au secours du pays’. Some other events related to their stay were also mentioned. 62  See the Kriegsliste or inventory of imperial troops in Josef Janácek et al. (1971–1981, esp. 3:275 (for 1621), 4:423–424 (for 1626), 5:392 (for 1631), 5:403–404, 416, 425 (for 1632), 5:437, 442–3 (for 1633), 5:453 (for 1634)). 63  AGRB, SEG 40, fol. 67v–68r. 55 56

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Fig. 3.1  Péter Forgách, guard of the Holy Crown of Hungary and imperial colonel of the Croatian–Hungarian light cavalry units, who entered Spanish Habsburg service in 1637. Unknown artist. National Portrait Gallery (Hungary)/Slovak National Museum—Č ervený Kameň Castle

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Nagy became the colonel of the remaining unit and fought in the Battle of Rocroi in 1643.64 In 1644, the regiment numbered 650 soldiers and 90 officers, mostly Hungarians and Croatians.65 Traces of the presence of Croatian soldiers can be found still in the 1660s, and the names of some of their children are recorded too.66

Knowledge Transfer and Catholic Acculturation The early modern Netherlands was a testing ground for a military culture that served as a model for Hungary too, not only during the Long Turkish War but before and after.67 Commanders, the authors of theoretical treatises, and future politicians left the Netherlands for Central Europe after having acquired knowledge and experience: military officers such as Giorgio Basta, Adolf von Schwarzenberg, Johann Tserclaes Tilly, and Heinrich von Schlick, the president of the Imperial War Council between 1632 and 1649. Meanwhile, a high number of chief military architects and engineers in imperial service who came from the duchy of Milan and the Kingdom of Naples worked in Hungary, playing a key role in strengthening the defence system of the kingdom (and Europe) against the Ottoman Empire: Francesco de Pozzo, Mario Speziecasa, Pietro Ferrabosco, and Carlo Theti, among many others.68 The libraries of Catholic aristocrats were full of hispanica, mostly in Italian and Latin translation. In 1614, Cardinal Ferenc Forgách ordered and received 206 books from Frankfurt, 30 per cent of which were by Spanish authors or writers from the Spanish monarchy.69 In Pázmány’s private library a similar proportion can be found.70 The book catalogue of  AGRB, SEG, 688, unfol., Tournay, 23 Oct. 1642.  AHN, Estado, libro 978, unfol. (among the papers of Miguel de Salamanca, secretary of state and war in Brussels). 66  AGRB, Secrétairerie d’État d’Allemande (SEA), 575, unfol., 21 Apr. 1656; AGRB, SEA, 604, unfol., Apr. 1657; AGRB, SEA, 608, unfol., 8 Sept. 1662: 67  Szabó (2017). 68  For the Milanese specialists, see also Viganò (2003). 69  The catalogue can be found in Varga (1986, 96–101). The authors were Luis de Granada, Domingo de Soto, Pedro de Ribadeneyra, Jean de la Haye, Jerónimo Osório da Fonseca, Luca Pinelli, Jean-Baptiste Gramaye, Aubert Le Mire, Antonio de Guevara, Johannes Goropius Becanus, Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda, Francisco de Vitoria, Francesco Maurolico, Giambattista della Porta, among many others. 70  Martín Doyza, Diego de la Vega, Pedro de Ribadeneyra, Erycius Puteanus, Daniele Fedele, among others. 64 65

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the Zrínyi family in 1662 included at least 91 items in the same category (out of 731).71 In Milan in 1620, Kaspar Schoppe, a philologist, diplomat, and polymath, wrote the Secretissima Instructio, one of the most popular pamphlets in the Thirty Years’ War. A main subject was the foreign policy of Gábor Bethlen, prince of Transylvania.72 In 1644 Saavedra Fajardo, a Spanish diplomat and statesman, included in his anti-French pamphlet the intercepted correspondence between the French ambassador to Constantinople and György I. Rákóczi, prince of Transylvania.73 Saavedra Fajardo was well known in Hungary for his main work, Empresas Políticas (‘Political emblems’).74 János Zsámboky (Johannes Sambucus) became popular across Europe after the publication in Antwerp of Emblemata, his masterwork on emblems, in the 1560s.75 In 1572 Zsámboky joined the euphoria following victory over the Ottoman Empire’s fleet at Lepanto, publishing a book about the event dedicated to Don Juan de Austria, commander of the Christian fleet.76 Martin Somogyi, too, made a couple of significant contributions to cultural relations. In 1620 he sent a copy of the second part of Cervantes’ Don Quijote from Brussels to Franz von Dietrichstein.77 Six years later, a local writer in the Spanish Netherlands, Diego Muxet de Solís, dedicated his plays and poems to Dietrichstein at Somogyi’s suggestion.78 All the standard topoi of the anti-Ottoman wars, the Hungarian Golden Age before Ottoman dominance, the perfect Christian prince featured in a political-legal treatise, the Antineutralidad (1640), probably written by Saavedra Fajardo.79 To ignite the patriotism and the anti-French sentiments of the Estates and princes of the Holy Roman Empire, the author also wrote extensively about the Hungarian nobleman Balázs Podmaniczky. 71  Hausner and Klaniczay (1991). The hispanica included works by humanists (Pedro Mexía, Antonio de Nebrija), cartographers (Ortelius, Wytfliet), diplomats and politicians (Baltasar Álamos de Barrientos, the Count of La Roca), and a poet (Giambattista Marino), as well as military treatises (Francisco de Valdés, Diego Ufano, Luis Collado) and textbooks on rhetoric and grammar (Cipriano Suárez, Manuel Álvares). 72  Gábor Almási published the critical edition in 2014 (Budapest). 73  Monostori (2008). 74  Knapp and Tüskés (2003), passim; Knapp (2000). 75  For a recent (partial) biography, see Almási (2009). 76  Sambucus (1572); see also Gómez and Javier (1996), Knapp and Tüskés (2003, 77–78). 77  Polišenský (1972). 78  Muxet de Solís (1626). 79  Monostori (2018).

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His story reproduced lines verbatim from the best-known history of Hungary in the early modern age, that of Antonio Bonfini (Decades), whose works Lope de Vega used as a source for his plays. The elite of Hungary read Spanish Habsburg authors mostly in Latin and Italian. Palatine Miklós Esterházy exchanged letters in Latin with the Spanish ambassadors in Vienna. One Latin translation had an outstanding impact on the Hungarian language: András Prágai’s translation of the Reloj de príncipes of Antonio de Guevara in 1628. It renewed the political language in Hungary and introduced (or used for the first time) at least 450 words in Hungarian, making it the most impactful intellectual endeavour of this kind in the history of Hungary.80 The Catholic king and the Jesuit order naturally played a key role in the Catholic Revival  in Central Europe. Besides the active presence of the order in Hungary, Spanish Jesuit theologians had a dominant influence in Hungary, not only in theology itself but in education, as the authors of textbooks in rhetoric and grammar.81 Emblem books played an important role in these subjects. The Spanish humanist Juan Luis Vives also had a significant impact, for example, in the theory of letter writing and the education of women.82

Summary In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Kingdom of Hungary was integrated into the Central European Habsburg monarchy and also became part of the Spanish Habsburg system. The global empire and fiscal–military state extracted, strategically used and paid for Hungarian material resources (copper, horses) and human capital (slaves, light cavalry units and politicians), provided this did not jeopardise the regional power of the Central European Habsburg monarchy, its status in the Holy Roman Empire and its current balance of power with the Ottoman Empire. The Spanish monarchy’s state-of-the-art know-how resulted in the upgrading and strengthening of the Hungarian defence and educational structures, and its cultural products profoundly renewed and enriched the Hungarian language, science and literature, while they

 Kontler and Trencsényi (2007, 199), Töttős (2018).  Szabó (1990). 82  Knapp (2011), Kakucska (1985). 80 81

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(paradoxically) set the state back somewhat if we consider the mutual effects on a historical, long-term scale. The relationship made the Catholic elite in Hungary competitive and resilient in a Europe rife with religious and cultural wars. But Madrid, lacking resources, relied on several Hungarian material and human resources. The strategic bond between the two states made the Kingdom of Hungary not only vulnerable, but also stronger both financially and militarily. Had the Spanish Habsburgs not supplied the Kingdom of Hungary with knowledge and cash, nor given it diplomatic attention and shelter, the kingdom might have surrendered in its entirety to the Ottoman Empire, or (worse, from the perspective of the Catholic elite) would have become Protestant. Madrid knew the strategic importance of Hungary. The quality of the resources and the sacrifices of the kingdom and its politicians against the Ottomans and Protestants were continually praised in literature and in the Habsburg courts and diplomatic circles.

Archives Consulted Archives générales du Royaume (National Archives of Belgium), Brussels (AGRB). Archivo General de Indias (General Archive of the Indies), Seville (AGI). Archivo General de Simancas (General Archive of Simancas) (AGS). Archivo Histórico del Santuario de Loyola (Compañía de Jesús) (Historical Archive of the Sanctuary of Loyola), Azpeitia (AHSL). Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo (National Archive of Torre do Tombo), Lisbon (ANTT). Biblioteca Nacional de España (National Library of Spain), Madrid (BNE). Bibliothèque municipale de Besançon (Municipal Library of Besançon) (AMB). Moravský Zemský Archiv (Moravian Land Archives), Brno. Österreichisches Staatsarchiv (Austrian State Archives), Vienna (ÖStA), Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv (HHStA).

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———. 2020. Az 1625. évi soproni országgyűlés a Habsburg dinasztia spanyol ágának szemével: Ossona gróf bécsi spanyol követ jelentései [The diet of Sopron in 1625 through the eyes of the Spanish branch of the Habsburg dynasty: Reports of the Count of Ossona, Spanish ambassador to Vienna]. In Amikor Sopronra figyelt Európa: Az 1625. évi soproni koronázó országgyűlés, ed. Péter Dominkovits, Csaba Katona, and Géza Pálffy, 245–367. Sopron: Magyar Nemzeti Levéltár, Győr-Moson-Sopron megyei Soproni Levéltára & MTA Bölcsészettudományi Kutatóközpont Történettudományi Intézet. Martí, Tibor, and Tibor Monostori. 2009. Olivares gróf-herceg külpolitikai koncepciója és Pázmány Péter 1632. évi római követsége [The foreign policy of Count-Duke Olivares and the Roman embassy of Péter Pázmány in 1632]. Történelmi Szemle 51 (2): 275–294. Millán, José Martínez, Rubén González Cuerva, and Manuel Rivero Rodríguez, eds. 2018. La Corte de Felipe IV (1621–1665): Reconfiguración de la Monarquía católica. Part 4, Los Reinos y la política internacional. Vol. 1, De la Monarquía Universal a la Monarquía Católica: La Guerra de los Treinta Años. Madrid: Polifemo. Monostori, Tibor. 2008. Transilvania en el horizonte político-ideológico de Saavedra Fajardo. Res Publica: Revista de Filosofía Política 19 (1): 351–366. ———. 2009. A Magyar Királyság helye az Ausztriai Ház országai között az európai spanyol hegemónia korában (1558–1648) [The position of the kingdom of Hungary among the countries of the house of Austria in age of Spanish hegemony in Europe (1558–1648)]. Századok 143 (5): 1023–1062. ———. 2018. Antineutralidad: An unknown and unpublished book of Diego de Saavedra Fajardo, 1–18. Janus: Estudios del Siglo de Oro. Muto, Giovanni. 1995. The Spanish system: Centre and periphery. In Economic systems and state finance, ed. Richard Bonney, 232–260. Oxford: Clarendon. Muxet de Solís, Diego. 1626. Comedias humanas y divinas, y rimas morales. Brussels: Hoeymaker. Pálffy, Géza. 2009. The Kingdom of Hungary and the Habsburg monarchy in the sixteenth century, trans. Thomas J.  DeKornfeld and Helen D.  DeKornfeld. Boulder: Social Science Monographs. Parker, Geoffrey. 1990. The army of Flanders and the Spanish Road, 1567–1659. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Polišenský, Josef. 1972. Hispania de 1614 en la Biblioteca de los Dietrichstein de Mikulov. Ibero-Americana Pragensia 6: 199–203. Probszt, Günther. 1953. Der Neusohler ‘Kupferkauf’. Vierteljahrschrift für Sozialund Wirtschaftsgeschichte 40: 289–326. Raeymaekers, Dries. 2019. One foot in the palace: The Habsburg Court of Brussels and the politics of access in the reign of Albert and Isabella, 1598–1621. Leuven: Leuven University Press.

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CHAPTER 4

The Futility of Madame: Marguerite of Lorraine and Elisabeth-Charlotte of the Palatinate in the Service of Their Threatened Homelands Jonathan Spangler

‘The king collected money from the Palatinate in my name, and now the poor people must think that I have profited from their misery as well as being the cause of it all. It grieves me bitterly’.1 The Duchess of Orléans, Elisabeth-Charlotte of the Palatinate, wrote these plaintive words to her aunt, Sophie of the Palatinate, Duchess of Hanover, in June 1689, shortly after the brutal destruction of Heidelberg, Mannheim and other towns in the Palatinate by the armies of France. French force was exerted to press claims that Elisabeth-Charlotte (Liselotte to her family, but known at  Elisabeth-Charlotte to Sophie of Hanover, 5 June 1689, in Kroll (1998, 59).

1

J. Spangler (*) Department of History, Politics and Philosophy, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, UK e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 F. Persson et al. (eds.), Resilience and Recovery at Royal Courts, 1200–1840, Queenship and Power, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20123-3_4

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court simply as Madame) could have put forward for the succession of her childless brother’s domains in the Palatinate—the electorate of the Rhine—following his death in 1685. But as Madame knew full well, her marriage had been contracted to the brother of Louis XIV, only a decade before, to help protect her homeland from invasion, not to cause its devastation. To make matters worse, Liselotte was denied any pleasure from this financial windfall, as she continued in her letter: ‘I wish to God I had been given all the money that has been extracted from the Palatinate to do as I liked with … but the truth is I have not seen a single penny’.2 Madame felt that her position, near the very top of the social hierarchy in France, was actually quite futile. She felt completely powerless. Four decades earlier, another Madame, Marguerite of Lorraine, a previous Duchess of Orléans, must have felt an even greater sense of futility as she sat in her rooms in the Luxembourg Palace in Paris awaiting news from the long siege of La Mothe, the greatest defensive stronghold of her homeland, the duchy of Lorraine. After nearly six months of resistance, the fortress surrendered on 1 July 1645; but contrary to terms, the French army destroyed not only the fortifications, but the entire town, never to be rebuilt.3 This Madame’s marriage was also—though not officially and not sanctioned by the Crown—arranged to help protect the small state of Lorraine from its much larger neighbour, France. And it too was an utter failure, and itself a cause of the duchy’s occupation shortly after the marriage in 1632, a brutal occupation that would endure off and on for the next sixty years. The long reign of Louis XIV was framed by these experiences of two brides from two of France’s neighbours on its sensitive north-east frontier; women from two of Europe’s oldest and most prestigious dynasties, Wittelsbach and Lorraine, both married to the second highest ranking man in the kingdom of France, a king’s younger brother, Gaston and Philippe, successively dukes of Orléans. Yet neither woman ever mustered much authority at court or in aristocratic society, unlike even the weakest of queen consorts, in part due to the increasingly weakened position of their husband, the ‘spare’, in a monarchy now devoted to centralised,

2  Kroll (1998, 59). Later in life, the Duchess of Orléans did admit to receiving a small boost in her personal spending money:  Elisabeth-Charlotte to Raugravine Luise, 1 June 1717, in Brunet (1857, 1:300). 3  Martin (2002, 282–287).

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one-­man rule.4 The first, Elisabeth-Charlotte of the Palatinate (1652–1722), is well known as a source for colourful anecdotes about the court of the Sun King, but is rarely looked at as a historical figure of note;5 the second, Marguerite of Lorraine (1615–1672), is almost unknown and most of the details of her life remain a mystery.6 This essay focuses on the aspect of their lives concerning their ‘usefulness’—often with great potential, but in both cases unrealised—on the geopolitical stage of seventeenthcentury Europe. In the end we shall see that although on the most apparent level of diplomatic activity their marriages achieved little for their homelands, we can ascertain some benefit in the longer term for both, particularly if we approach the question of ‘success’ from the perspective of ‘home’ referring to dynasty not physical space. ❧ One of the most difficult responsibilities for princes from small- or medium-sized states in early modern European history was to ensure the independence of their dynasty—as manifested in the recognised sovereignty of its territory—in the face of the growing consolidation of the great powers, notably the kingdoms of France and Spain. Having been so preoccupied with affairs in Italy for much of the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, the shifting geopolitics of the great powers placed an increasing focus on the Rhineland, and the kingdom of France’s relatively exposed north-east frontier. The two medium-sized states that controlled strategic access in this region—a key component of the Spanish Road along which Habsburg troops could travel from Italy to the Low Countries—were the duchy of Lorraine and the county palatine of the Rhine. There had long been dynastic arrangements connecting the ruling houses of these territories with that of France, notably in the string of marriages between Lorraine and France: Claude de France, daughter of King Henry II, with Duke Charles III of Lorraine in 1559; Louise de  This is the central theme in Spangler (2021) and Spangler (forthcoming-a).  There is no academic biography of Elisabeth-Charlotte in English. The most rigorous study is the French biography, Van der Cruysse (1988). In recent French usage she is often known as ‘la Princesse Palatine’, an imprecise rendering of her title that makes for confusion with her aunt by marriage, Anne de Gonzague, who was more correctly known as the Princesse Palatine. Liselotte was also known in French sources, especially to her contemporaries, as Elisabeth-Charlotte de Bavière, which reflected her dynastic identity as a member of the house of Wittelsbach, rulers of Bavaria, a branch of which also governed the Palatinate. 6  Spangler (2017a) pieces together details of her life at the French court from her account books. 4 5

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Lorraine-­ Vaudémont and King Henri III in 1575; and Catherine of Navarre, sister of King Henri IV, to Duke Henri II of Lorraine, in 1599.7 As a Protestant principality, the Palatinate’s rulers from the Wittelsbach dynasty were less able (or willing) to participate in this sort of dynastic exchange, being more concerned with forging a great northern ‘Protestant alliance’ with the houses of Orange-Nassau and Stuart.8 But Catholic France’s entrance into the Thirty Years’ War on the side of the Protestant powers (and ostensibly to defend the rights of the exiled elector palatine) in 1635 altered this dynamic and opened the door to such an arrangement with the Bourbons. Could marital diplomacy, ‘soft power’, be used to secure the independence of these two smaller states, Lorraine and the Palatinate, amidst the intense rivalry between the Bourbon and Habsburg dynasties?9 Scholars of queenship will know of the importance of royal bride exchanges in the history of premodern Europe.10 Routinely studied as part of diplomatic history, and more recently as the focus of the history of cultural exchange, there is an abundance of research on well-known, important royal figures such as Henrietta Maria of France, queen of England and Scotland, or Marie Antoinette of Austria, queen of France.11 Often overlooked, however, are the women who either came from second-tier states, such as Bavaria or Tuscany, or those who married second sons rather than kings. The name given to such a woman at the court of France in the early modern period was ‘Madame’, as wife of the king’s brother, who was known simply as ‘Monsieur’. The practice of using such brief honorific titles at the French court was part of the wider developments of the early to mid-sixteenth century by which the monarchy transformed itself, using ritual and ceremony rather than violence, into an institution far more distinct from the nobility, the ‘divine’ absolutist monarchy of the seventeenth 7  For a recent overview of the Lorraine court and its close relationship with Valois France, see Le Roux (2013a). 8  Discussed in several essays in Smart  and Wade (2013). This alliance did include some powerful French families as well, notably the La Tour d’Auvergne and La Trémoïlle (see Hodson 2007). 9  ‘Soft power’ and marital diplomacy are the subject of several of the essays in WatanabeO’Kelly and Morton (2017). 10  See, for example, Perceval (2007), Hugon (2007), Zum Kolk (2007), Waquet (2007), Woodacre (2013). 11  Recent studies of cultural exchange include Caldari and Wolfson (2018), WatanabeO’Kelly and Morton (2017). For a useful comparative study of queenship, see Harris (2016).

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and eighteenth centuries.12 The shortest court titles became the preserve of the people of highest rank: Monseigneur for the heir to the throne, Monsieur and Madame for the brother and sister-in-law of the king, Monsieur le Prince for the first prince of the blood, and Monsieur le Duc for his son and heir. Perhaps the best-known Madame was Philippe d’Orléans’ first wife, Henrietta Anne, Princess of Great Britain (1644–1670). As sister of King Charles II, she did play an active role in French diplomacy, even personally negotiating a treaty between Britain and France, the Treaty of Dover, June 1670.13 As a daughter of England, Henrietta Anne belonged in a different category to her predecessor and her successor as Madame,  who hailed from smaller states; and although her history was a key component in the evolution of the role of the ‘spare’ in the history of the French court, she will not be the focus here. Instead, Bourbon brides who were born in Lorraine and the Palatinate are examined as representatives of the resilience of second-tier dynasties in the face of the expansion of power by the first-tier dynasties of Bourbon and Habsburg. Both Marguerite and Elisabeth-Charlotte represent a transformational phase in France’s development as a nation-state in the early modern period, which in the nineteenth-century étatiste or nationalist mode was usually portrayed as an inevitable process, a great success, and a logical expansion of the kingdom to its natural borders, notably to the Rhine.14 Until recently, patriotic historians of Lorraine have been careful not to overemphasise the brutality of the occupation of Lorraine by France in the seventeenth century;15 historians of the Palatinate, not similarly bound, have shown less restraint. Ask any German student of history when and where the first incidences of ‘total war’ appear in European history, and they will cite Heidelberg, 1689, General Mélac, and the phrase ‘Brûlez le  For a recent overview, see Le Roux (2013b).  For Henrietta Anne, see Duchêne (1995); for the Treaty of Dover, see Hutton (1986). 14  Discussed in Nordman (1998, Chap. 4) (‘Encore les frontières naturelles: Histoire d’une ‘idée fausse’?’), passim. 15  Note, for example, that the French word traditionally used was always ‘réunion’, a reunification, not union or annexation (Haussonville 1860). One of the standard histories of Lorraine for many years was Parisot (1919–1924), written in the aftermath of the First World War and notoriously anti-German. It was replaced in the 1990s by the more balanced revisionist approach of Cabourdin (1991), but it is only with post-revisionist historians such as Philippe Martin, Charles Lipp, Anne Motta, and Laurent Jalabert that this turbulent period of Lorraine’s history has been analysed in its own context, and not merely as a part of France and French history. 12 13

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Palatinat!’16 Yet both Lorraine and the Palatinate have suffered in the past from being analysed solely as part of a larger national unit, France or Germany. In the past decade, increasing attention has been paid to smaller states as representatives of much of the history of medieval and early modern Europe. As Charles Lipp has put it: ‘Lorraine and places like it provided the contemporary geopolitical norm. … With their limited resources and complicated political situations (often the product of medieval subinfeudation), small states have come to embody the “early” social and political models supposedly rejected over the course of the early modern period’.17 As small states, the Palatinate and Lorraine had many things in common, notably porous borders that were difficult to defend. They also differed in significant ways. The Palatinate was German-speaking, a core of the old imperial Reich since its inception in the tenth century, and master of the vital Rhine River trade corridor, whereas Lorraine was multilingual (German and French), and located more on the periphery of the Holy Roman Empire—since 1542, Lorraine had been regarded as a free state, merely ‘protected’ by the empire, not a full component (though this relationship was always imprecise and negotiable).18 The two states and their dynasties were on opposite sides of the Reformation, the Palatinate adopting first Lutheranism then Calvinism by the 1560s, while Lorraine remained one of the most solid bulwarks of the Catholic Church outside of Italy. Both were at the centre of important trade routes across Europe which gave them both great economic advantages, but also brought them trouble when France and the Empire went to war. Both suffered untold devastation during the Thirty Years’ War, best exemplified by the dramatic artworks generated by one of Lorraine’s most famous artists, Jacques Callot, the Miseries of War; or by the literature of devastation penned in the 1630s by Johann Michael Moscherosch, a Protestant writer from the linguistically mixed regions between Lorraine and the Palatinate.19 ❧  See Martin (1993, 35–68), Dosquet (2016), and, for a fuller treatment, Rousseau (2014).  Lipp (2011, 2–3). There has been more work done on the small state of Savoy (likely because it evolved into the modern state of Italy), but for fascinating studies of other small states see Nijsten (2004), Bourret (1998). 18  For recent overview histories of these two states, see Monter (2007), Kohnle (2005). 19  For Callot, see Choné (1992, 396–400), Griffiths (1998, 11–18). For Moscherosch, see Schäffer (1999, 1:339–345). 16 17

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The marriages of both Madames examined here were arranged by their families to help preserve or restore peace in these troubled border regions. Marguerite of Lorraine had been swept off her feet as a teenager by the charming, handsome Gaston d’Orléans when he sought refuge in the winter of 1629–1630 at the court of her brother, Charles IV, Duke of Lorraine.20 Gaston was fighting back against the aggressive political centralisation policies of his brother Louis XIII and his first minister, Cardinal Richelieu. The aims of Monsieur’s numerous rebellions were inspired in part by an older ideology for the conduct of monarchical business, through a reliance on the old nobility and the forging of dynastic alliances with neighbouring princes to secure peace and maintain honour, rather than the ‘immoral’ drive of raison d’état—ironically, this innately conservative outlook was taken up by later historians as ‘liberalism’ in its desire to inhibit the growing power of the Crown, and Gaston was its champion.21 But Monsieur’s interest in a matrimonial alliance between France and Lorraine was in keeping with a long tradition, and also represented the pro-Catholic (and pro-Habsburg) policies espoused by his mother, Marie de Medici, whose niece, Margherita Gonzaga, was the dowager duchess of Lorraine.22 His views and political stance could not simply be ignored, as he was still the heir to the throne, and Louis XIII, whose health was never robust, continued to be childless after fifteen years of marriage. Gaston’s choice of a spouse was thus very important, and a recent analysis by Michel de Waele has demonstrated this princely rebellion, like the one that followed swiftly after in 1631, was not an easily dismissible outburst of a petulant younger brother, but a serious piece in a much wider network of anti-French diplomacy.23 By January 1632, Gaston was once again in rebellion against his brother. He returned to Nancy and married Marguerite, without first obtaining his brother’s consent—a requirement for any high-ranking member of the royal family, and certainly for the heir to the throne. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back, or perhaps provided the excuse needed by the government of Cardinal Richelieu to rid itself of a nagging problem on France’s north-east border: the unpredictable regime of Duke 20  Gaston’s rebellions and his interactions with the court of Charles IV of Lorraine have been analysed in detail in Dethan (1992, Chap. 7), Constant (2013, Chap. 3). 21  Dethan (1992, vi), Constant (1987, 165). 22  Dubost (2009, 73), describes the dynastic link between the houses of France, Lorraine, Savoy, Mantua, and Tuscany via the female line as ‘une dorsale catholique européenne’. 23  De Waele (2014).

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Charles IV of Lorraine. The duke’s predecessors had been mostly reliable allies of France, but ever since Charles came to power in a contested succession in 1624, he had looked increasingly eastwards to his uncle the Duke of Bavaria, leader of the Catholic League in the Holy Roman Empire, and to the emperor himself.24 As the Thirty Years’ War came closer to the borders of France (notably with the Swedish invasion of the Rhineland and Alsace in 1631–1632), the unreliable position of Charles IV became a liability. Shortly after his illicit wedding with Marguerite, Gaston left Lorraine for the Spanish Netherlands, led a disastrous campaign against his brother in Languedoc, then retreated to Brussels. French armies moved in to occupy Lorraine in 1633, and in September, Marguerite slipped across the frontier to join her husband in the Spanish Netherlands.25 For the next decade Marguerite lived in exile in Brussels, while French troops completed the occupation of the duchy of Lorraine. Gaston made peace with his brother and returned to France in the autumn of 1634, leaving Marguerite behind, but he was not welcome at court, living in semi-disgrace in the Loire valley, until both he and Marguerite were finally permitted to settle in Paris after the deaths of both Richelieu (1642) and Louis XIII (1643). They were officially remarried, and although the regent, Anne of Austria, looked to her new sister-in-law Marguerite for support for her planned reconstruction of the image of Catholic piety for the French monarchy, Madame never played a strong role in court politics or aristocratic society.26 Most contemporary descriptions paint her as a shy recluse and a hypochondriac, never as a leader of the bustling salon life that characterised Paris in the 1640s and 1650s.27 But one area where she did attempt to exert her will was on behalf of her homeland of Lorraine. Having raised his status on the European diplomatic stage through prominent victories in command of imperial troops, notably at Nördlingen in 1634, Duke Charles IV of Lorraine brokered a peace treaty with France in 1641 to attempt his restoration. The terms were constrained, which he eventually rejected, and the duke once again went into exile by the end of the year.28 Like Gaston in 1632–1634, Duke Charles was not just an exiled  For an overview of the succession crisis and disaster that followed, see Spangler (2017b).  Martin (2002, Chap. 2). 26  Spangler (2017a, 73–74). 27  Mongrédien (1932–1934, 2:176), Saige (1883–1885, 2:271, 10 Aug. 1652), Riaux (1855, 1:326–328), Chéruel (1858–1859, 3:390–391). 28  Martin (2002, 271–275). 24 25

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prince, but an important piece of Europe’s diplomatic chessboard, in his case as one of the leading commanders of his day, with an independent and remarkably loyal fighting force. He could not simply be ignored, and was thus courted by the Imperial, Spanish and French governments.29 Charles sometimes worked closely with Anne of Austria and her minister, Cardinal Mazarin, but their refusal to offer him new terms for a restoration as part of the Treaties of Westphalia in 1648 ensured that he returned to Habsburg service. During the civil wars in France known as the Fronde, Charles at times intervened to offer his troops to the rebels opposing the Crown— and when these rebels were aligned with the Duke of Orléans, it was Marguerite who facilitated discussions between her brother and her husband. Cardinal de Retz, one leader of the Frondeurs, describes how he asked Charles to support his cause in the summer of 1652, by meeting at the Palais du Luxembourg, the Paris residence of Monsieur and Madame. Here they relaxed ceremonial regulations within their private spaces; otherwise, the Duke of Lorraine and the Cardinal would have found it difficult due to imperial protocols that the duke insisted must be maintained.30 Marguerite also sometimes hosted her brother at the Orléans’ chief country residence, the château of Blois.31 Yet even while the duchy of Lorraine remained occupied, there remained a persistent Lorraine presence at the French court through service in Madame’s household. The nineteenth-century Lorraine historian Lucien de Warren examined the connections between Marguerite and Lorraine in the 1640s and 1650s, through her role in keeping her shattered family together by sheltering her brothers, Charles IV and Nicolas-­ François, and her nephew Charles (the future Duke Charles V), as well as her aunt, Catherine de Lorraine, abbess of Remiremont. According to Warren, Marguerite, ‘remained a Lorrainer to the very depths of her heart’, and people saw her ‘seize any occasion to serve her country’, notably in encouraging her husband Gaston to use his influence as Lieutenant-­ General of the Kingdom to push for Charles’s restoration at the peace  Fulaine (1997).  Feillet and Gourdault (1870–1896, 4: 252–255). In the Holy Roman Empire, the Duke of Lorraine was considered a sovereign prince, and thus would demand that a cardinal cede precedence to him (or give him ‘la main’). Other sources show that Charles stayed at the Luxembourg when he visited Paris rather than his own Hôtel de Lorraine, across the Seine in the Marais, because his estranged wife, Duchess Nicole, lived there until her death in 1657. 31  Dethan (1992, 323). In November 1659, not only was Charles IV staying at Blois, waiting to be restored to his duchy, so was the exiled Charles II of England. 29 30

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talks in Westphalia.32 Georges Dethan notes that Gaston joked about his wife’s passion for Lorraine and its ducal dynasty (and more seriously, the propensity for Habsburg spies to gather information in her household), saying to Mazarin: ‘Madame, if it would benefit her brothers, would willingly burn all of France. If you wish something to be known in Brussels, you only need to have it said in her chambers, on the day of the regular post’.33 This raises an important question for this essay. Was Marguerite’s passionate Lorraine identity concerned with her family or with the physical space they ruled? Anne Motta has demonstrated how Marguerite intervened in wartime to ask one Lorraine nobleman (the Comte de Lignéville, commander-in-chief of Charles’s armies) to ensure that the estates of another Lorraine nobleman (the pro-French Marquis de Lenoncourt) would not be ravaged.34 My own recent examination of household accounts and lists of household officers provide key names and suggestions of ongoing connections with the nobility of Lorraine, such as Madame’s dame d’atours, Anne des Salles, Dame de Crissé, the daughter of a former chamberlain of the dukes of Lorraine, and, like her, several other women from Lorraine families such as Hennezel or Maillart, which indicate that Marguerite’s interests went beyond just her family, at least to include members of the Lorraine nobility.35 More research needs to be done to investigate the role of these Lorraine ladies, if any, in court politics and diplomacy in the era of Mazarin, and in efforts either to restore the independence of Lorraine or in contrast to integrate its nobility with that of France.36 The emphatically pro-Lorraine attitude of the Duchess of Orléans rarely features in accounts of the period, but it did not go unnoticed: La Grande Mademoiselle, Gaston’s daughter by a previous marriage, deeply 32  Warren (1882–1883, 159): ‘restée Lorraine jusqu’au fond du coeur’, ‘saisir toutes les occasions de servir sa patrie’. All translations are my own unless otherwise noted. 33  Dethan (1992, 244), citing Mazarin recounting this conversation to Queen Anne in a letter of April 1651: ‘Madame pour l’avantage de ses frères verrait volontiers brouiller toute la France. Quand vous voulez faire savoir quelque chose à Bruxelles, il suffit de le dire en sa chambre, le jour de l’ordinaire’. 34  Motta (2015, 235), citing letters in Archives Départementales de Meurthe-et-Moselle (Nancy), series 24 J. 35  Spangler (2017a, 80–84). 36  This is examined, from contrasting points of view (Lorraine and France), by Motta (2015, pt. 2, Chap. 1) (‘À quelle(s) fidélité(s) se vouer (1634–1661)?’) and McCluskey (2013, pt. 3) (‘The local elites under French occupation’).

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disliked her stepmother, and wrote in her memoirs that Madame had only two interests: praying and restoring the independence of Lorraine.37 Madame’s influence in the Regency of Queen Anne, never strong, was further weakened when her brother changed tack in 1652 and supported the Fronde of the Princes against the Crown, then quit France altogether and joined forces once more with the enemy, Habsburg Spain. Now seen as an unreliable ally by both sides, Charles was imprisoned in Toledo from 1654, and Marguerite spent the next few years working with her husband and, extraordinarily, with her brother’s estranged wife, Duchess Nicole, to negotiate his release by pressuring Queen Anne and by writing directly to Anne’s brother Philip IV of Spain.38 Charles IV was freed and was promised a restoration as part of the Treaty of the Pyrenees of 1659 which ended the war between France and Spain, and it is conceivable, though never mentioned directly, that Marguerite’s quiet diplomacy at home, with Anne, Mazarin, and the teen-aged Louis XIV, had some influence. We know that her husband Gaston advised Mazarin, when the Cardinal visited Chambord in the summer of 1659, that having a contented and loyal sovereign prince as a neighbour would be more useful, and less costly, than continuing an unpopular occupation.39 Yet the needs of the French state intervened, and the king stopped short of simply granting Charles IV full sovereignty in a region the French relied on so heavily to transport (and feed) its armies in the Rhineland. The constraints placed on Charles’s restoration in 1660 were thus hardly any better than those rejected in 1641, and it took some time to negotiate the details.40 In the personal rule of Louis XIV of the early 1660s, the newly widowed Madame (Gaston died in February 1660) was interested in acting as a conduit to help settle the terms of Charles IV’s restoration, but she opposed the Treaty of Montmartre her brother agreed to in February 1662. This treaty would have ceded Lorraine’s sovereignty to the French Crown in exchange for a huge pension for its duke (and his illegitimate son)—though Marguerite was more concerned with preventing him from contracting a disastrous marriage with various young women in her  Chéruel (1859, 3:390, 4:429–33).  See Du Bois de Riocour (1688), Anonymous (1665). 39  Dethan (1992, 309); Archives des Affaires Etrangères (Foreign Affairs Archive), Paris – La Courneuve (AAE), Mémoires et Documents, France vol. 292, fol. 263, Blois, 30 Nov. 1659. 40  Martin (2002, 329–332). 37 38

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household, notably Marianne Pajot, daughter of her apothecary.41 The Treaty of Montmartre failed within a month of its signing; Charles accepted a more limiting restoration treaty, and began to rebuild his state. His sister, now a mature, independent widow with three marriageable royal daughters, was now seen herself as useful to the state since the king had no sisters, and so far had no daughters. The eldest of the Orléans princesses, Marguerite-­Louise, was married to the Grand Duke of Tuscany in April 1661, followed soon after by the marriage of Françoise-Madeleine to the Duke of Savoy in March 1663. Madame recognised the importance of having the king treat them as if they were his own daughters, as she indicated in a letter to Cardinal Mazarin shortly after Gaston’s death.42 Tuscany and Savoy were two crucial chess-pieces in French diplomacy in Italy, but neither very useful for the status of Lorraine; Marguerite had pushed instead for a marriage of her eldest daughter to her nephew, Prince Charles de Lorraine (the future Duke Charles V), but this failed as the young prince was chased from France into the service of the Habsburgs.43 It is possible, though highly speculative, that there might have been other dynastic plans for Lorraine in the marriage of the third Orléans daughter, Elisabeth (or Isabel), through her marriage to the head of the House of Lorraine’s cadet branch, Louis-Joseph, Duke of Guise, in May 1667— perhaps to be set up as a future heir to the officially childless Duke Charles IV, and a pro-­ French block against the now Austrian general Prince Charles?44 Guise died only a few years later, followed soon after by his infant son, so any potential plans were dashed. By the later 1660s, no one in France had much use for Old Madame, as she was now called, since her nephew Philippe had taken a wife who thus became the New Madame, and whose bright star was soon ascendant. Anne of Austria had died in 1666, and the prominent position of her dévot party at the French court, including Marguerite of Lorraine, faded. This new Madame was Henrietta Anne, whose history and fate are well known.  Spangler (2003, 2017a, 84), Favier (1886, 82, 86–89).  Bibliothèque nationale de France (National Library of France), Paris (BNF), Ms NAF 22951, fols. 91–93. 43  Jalabert (2017, 104–111). 44  For her marriage contract, see Archives nationales de France (National Archives of France), Paris (ANF), K 541, no. 56, 15 May 1667. Ranum (2004, 336–343, 405–425), provides a thorough portrait of Madame de Guise in her Portraits Around Marc-Antoine Charpentier. Although Duke Charles IV did have a son, he was considered by most to be illegitimate (from a bigamous marriage) and not eligible to succeed as duke. 41 42

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Her marriage was a seemingly endless sequence of bickering matches with Philippe and his mignons, notably the Chevalier de Lorraine, and her great achievement on the diplomatic stage with the Treaty of Dover was swiftly overshadowed by her sudden death in 1670, many suspected by poison.45 True or not, contemporaries could take it as a sign that if a Madame, second lady of the kingdom, involved herself too much in politics in favour of her homeland, a similar fate might await her. In fact, the next Madame, Elisabeth-Charlotte, did indeed believe the rumours.46 The year 1670 also saw the sudden exile once more of Duke Charles IV of Lorraine, and another French occupation of his duchy, with Old Madame helpless to prevent it; this was followed by her death in April 1672, forgotten and unmourned.47 Five months before, a new Madame had arrived from the north-east. The nineteen-year-old Elisabeth-Charlotte of the Palatinate arrived in Metz in November 1671 where she abjured the Calvinism of her fathers and swiftly went through all the processes of becoming a Catholic before meeting her husband, Philippe.48 Although their marriage was not as volatile as that of Henriette-Anne, Liselotte was never comfortable living among her husband’s male favourites, his junge Kerls or Buben, as she called them in letters home to family in Germany.49 She enjoyed her relationship with the king, as a passionate hunter like him, and, always interested in hierarchy and the proper order of things, Madame enjoyed her position as second lady of France, though she later came to dread it when 45  For a clear analysis of Philippe and Henriette-Anne’s marriage, see Barker (1989, Chap. 4 (‘Minette’) and Chap. 5 (‘Madame is Dying! Madame is Dead!’)). 46  Van der Cruysse (1988, 115), citing letters of Nov. 1682 (to her half-brother Karllutz), and July 1716 (to her cousin Caroline, Princess of Wales). 47  Characteristically distant towards her stepmother, La Grande Mademoiselle wrote in her memoirs in the middle of describing the first Dutch campaign of 1672, ‘J’avois oublié de dire que ma belle-mère mourut le second jour de mars de cette année-là’. In the days that followed, the Princess had begged off her responsibilities as chief mourner of the House of Orléans, forcing the King to give the job to ‘La Petite Mademoiselle’ (Marie-Louise d’Orléans), who was only ten (Chéruel 1859, 4:325). 48  See Spangler (forthcoming-b). 49  Letters of 7 Mar. 1696 and 18 Aug. 1701, in Van der Cruysse (1988, 178, 420): ‘[Monsieur] never has anything else in the world in his mind except his young boys [seine junge Kerls], with whom he passes entire nights eating and drinking. … He mistrusts me and fears that I will report this to the King who could chase away the mignons [die Buben]’; and ‘I should admit that I would have been much sadder than I am, if the late Monsieur … had not always given much more love to undignified boys than to me’.

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she had to step in as first lady of France after the successive deaths of the queen in 1683 and the dauphine in 1690. Writing about a new princess arriving in France to marry the king’s grandson and heir, Madame noted that ‘she will have to take precedence over me in the end … apart from precedence I have never had the slightest advantage out of being the first lady’.50 This was a role previous holders of the title Madame never had to perform. But Elisabeth-Charlotte was, like Marguerite, a reluctant player on the stage of international diplomacy. Elisabeth-Charlotte was born in the years immediately following the restoration of her father, the Elector Karl Ludwig, after the Thirty Years’ War. The elector worked to re-establish his court in Heidelberg and rebuild his city after the devastations of the war caused in part by the actions of his own parents, the so-called ‘Winter king and queen’ of Bohemia.51 Like many other princes of the westernmost parts of the empire, Karl Ludwig was keen to protect his territory’s post-Westphalian independence from the Habsburg passion for centralisation by allying with the Bourbon king of France. He did not join the pro-French League of the Rhine, formed in 1658, however, as it was led by his regional enemies, the elector-archbishops of Mainz and Trier and his cousin, the head of the Catholic branch of the Palatine dynasty, the Duke of Neuburg.52 By the late 1660s, the elector felt very exposed by the short war he fought with his Rhenish neighbours and with the Duke of Lorraine.53 His willingness to sacrifice his daughter’s immortal soul by marrying her to a Catholic prince was a sign of the weakness of his position, though his new alliance with France quickly crumbled after Louis XIV’s troops crossed the Rhine and entered the Netherlands through his territories only one year later, and in 1673, the elector quickly joined the Quadruple Alliance against France. The new bride’s diplomatic value at the French court had evaporated almost immediately. 50  Letter of 25 Nov. 1696, in Kroll (1998, 83). When her granddaughter the Duchesse de Berry died in 1719, Madame again ranked as first lady of France until her own death in 1722. 51  For Karl Ludwig and his court, see Moers-Messmer (2001). 52  Examined in Badalo-Dulong (1956, Chap. 3), Malettke (2001, 194–196). 53  A short conflict detailed in Fulaine (1997, pt. 3, Chap. 2) (‘Guerre du Palatinat, 1665–1669’), it was known as the War of the ‘Wildfang’, from the ancient feudal right which the electors palatine claimed permitted them to retain vagabonds and resident foreigners, or to require a tribute from their subjects who moved to neighbouring states. Karl Ludwig had used it to repopulate his domains after the Thirty Years’ War, to the annoyance of Mainz, Cologne, and Lorraine.

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Madame was still relatively young and certainly inexperienced in the early 1670s, and she felt overwhelming futility about foreign affairs. As she wrote to her aunt Sophie—herself a child of the Palatinate—during the campaign of 1674: ‘Te Deums have been sung everywhere because of the battle M. le Prince [of Condé] has won [against the Prince of Orange, at Seneffe].… All that may be well and good, but frankly I should prefer a prosperous peace, and for the dear Palatinate and Papa to be left alone’.54 Six years later, she wrote that her relationship with Louis XIV had broken down: ‘I admit that I did love him very dearly and have always been happy to be with him, but that was before he started persecuting Papa. I can assure you that since then I have found it very hard indeed, and shall do as long as I live’.55 Was Madame able to help in this conflict? In 1679, the French king set up his Chambres de Réunion, whose job it was to make use of ancient and mostly forgotten feudal rights to make claims on various territories in Lorraine, Luxembourg, and the Rhineland, including some in the Palatinate. The elector wrote to his sister Sophie complaining that his daughter did not seem able to use her proximity to Louis to do anything about it. Sophie answered by saying that Liselotte stayed in the king’s favour by being an amiable hunting companion, ‘fearing to displease him if she asked for any favour’. And later, ‘Liselotte has such fear of putting herself into the wrong with the king her brother-in-law that she dares not speak to him about anything except to make him laugh’.56 The Elector Karl Ludwig died in August 1680 and was followed to the grave by his son, Karl II, in 1685. Elisabeth-Charlotte’s position suddenly became relevant again, as the sole remaining (legitimate) member of her family, and despite her protests to the contrary, her husband, in her name, put forward formal claims to inherit the private properties of the Simmern branch of the House of the Palatinate. These could be inherited by a woman, though the electoral title itself by law passed to the next male heir. The new elector, the Duke of Neuburg, refused to part with any of the Wittelsbach lands, and this issue formed one of the war aims of the French  Letter of 22 Aug. 1674, in Kroll (1998, 33).  Letter of 24 Sept. 1680, in Kroll (1998, 39–40). Years later, Madame hoped that ‘M. de Louvois [the Minister of War] must be burning in the next world because of the Palatinate, he was so horribly cruel and quite incapable of feeling any pity’. Letter of 28 Jan. 1708, in Kroll (1998, 141). 56  Van der Cruysse (1988, 252), citing two letters of Feb. 1680, from Briefwechsel der Herzogin Sophie von Hannover mit ihrem Bruder, dem Kurfürsten Karl Ludwig von der Pfalz, ed. by E. Bodemann (Leipzig: Hirzel, 1885), 406, 411. 54 55

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king in the Nine Years’ War.57 In her correspondence, Madame expressed her horror at the destruction of Heidelberg and other towns in 1689 and again in 1693—utterly flattened despite having surrendered. ‘Every day I have to listen to their plans for the bombardment of Mannheim, which the Elector, my father, rebuilt with such care. It makes my heart bleed. And then they are highly offended’.58 She particularly disliked it being done ostensibly in her name: ‘my name is being used for the ruin of my homeland. Far from being pleased, I am very angry’.59 Or worse: ‘What distresses me most is that the poor people are plunged into their utter misery in my name.… I am so filled with horror at all the destruction there that every night, as I fall asleep, I seem to find myself in Mannheim or Heidelberg gazing at all the devastation’.60 Beyond the destruction, Liselotte expressed her frustration that the financial claims were being made by her husband Philippe with no input from her: ‘I am told that I have no rights at all, and that Monsieur, as maître de la communauté [shared marital finances] is its sole lord and master, and can use it as he pleases. To my mind this is absurd’.61 By the late 1690s, French troops were bringing back furniture and priceless tapestries from the electoral residences in Heidelberg, and large quantities of silver: ‘Monsieur has had all the silver from the Palatinate melted down and sold. The money has been given to his young men. New ones appear every day’.62 By the terms of the settlement under the Peace of Ryswick of 1697, Philippe was not to have land from the Palatine succession, but money, the Orleansgeld. Monsieur was awarded 200,000 livres annually, to be paid into his treasury until a definitive settlement could be reached with the new electoral house in the Palatinate (Neuburg). This was seen by the diplomatic community as a face-saving measure for Louis XIV, as a gain, despite being forced to give up all territorial advances in the Palatinate made in the war.63 Madame had been a failure as a diplomatic chess piece. Her situation was different from that of Marguerite of Lorraine because the land of her birth was now being ruled by a very different branch of the family. She  Malettke (2001, 446).  Letter of 10 Nov. 1688, in Kroll (1998, 56). 59  Kroll (1998, 57). 60  Letter of 20 Mar. 1689, in Kroll (1998, 57). 61  Letter of 5 May 1686, in Kroll (1998, 50). 62  Letter to Sophie of Hanover, 7 Mar. 1696, in Kroll (1998, 79–80). 63  Soulié (1854–1860, 6:86–87), Soulié (1854–1860, 7:124, 133), Malettke (2001, 499–503). 57 58

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commented on her brief hope of marrying her daughter to the new elector’s heir as a means of rapprochement (‘It would be such a comfort to think that my lamented father’s grandchild ruled in the Palatinate’), but otherwise she was uninvolved.64 Her remaining attachments with Germany, similar to those of Marguerite of Lorraine, were with those in her household: the one or two of the ladies who remained (notably Madame Rathsamshausen), and two German officers who served her especially late in life, Wendt and Harling.65 Otherwise she was connected with the remaining members of her family living not in Heidelberg but in Hanover, notably her aunt Sophie, her half-sister Luise, and her former governess Frau von Harling. As late as 1696, Liselotte continued to express what might later be seen as ‘nationalist’ sentiment, but her letter writing was more about family and dynastic identity  than it was about a physical place.66 In the end, it may be better to say that her chief loyalties were dynastic, not national, though that is an oversimplification: she continued to long for things she cherished in her childhood, such as the red cabbage ‘which is not to be found anywhere in France.… I hope they will cure my cough, since nothing is better for my chest’.67 ❧ In the final analysis, neither Marguerite of Lorraine nor Elisabeth-­ Charlotte of the Palatinate can be said to have been a successful diplomatic player in the role of Madame. Neither did much for the resilience of the dynasties of their birth. Neither Lorraine nor the Palatinate was saved from invasion by the marriages of 1632 or 1671. We have seen that Marguerite provided negotiating space and unofficial diplomatic connections for a settlement with Charles IV in 1659–1660, and her daughters were crucial for French diplomacy with Tuscany and Savoy. More importantly, her quiet piety was a model for royal women’s behaviour, in  Letter of 20 May 1689, in Kroll (1998, 59).  After Liselotte’s German governess was sent home in January 1672, Madame had only two German ladies in her household: one left after a year to marry; the other was Leonora von Venningen, who had grown up at the court of Heidelberg then married an Alsatian, Freiherr von Rathsamshausen. Liselotte also had a German page, Wendt, from 1676 to 1682, who was her German secretary, equerry, and general confidante from 1709 until her death; and Eberhard Ernest von Harling, nephew of her former governess, who also was a page from 1673, and later became her captain of the guard (Van der Cruysse 1988, 216–217). 66  Letter of 22 Nov. 1696, in Kroll (1998, 83), discussing how the King and courtiers at Versailles do not like it that the newly arrived Princess of Savoy remained attached to her ‘old country’. 67  Letter of 26 Jan. 1719, in Kroll (1998, 223). 64 65

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support of the two queens Anne and Marie-Thérèse, forging a new role for French queen-consorts in the face of increasing exclusion from power in an absolutist monarchy, a support extended by the continued presence at court of her daughter, the Duchesse de Guise.68 In his eulogy of 1696 the Capuchin Jérothée de Mortagne noted the direct connection between the two women in terms of their piety and devotion to charity: ‘she [Guise] listened attentively to the lessons of a virtuous mother’.69 Elisabeth-Charlotte’s marriage to the king’s brother did not solidify an alliance between France and the Palatinate, and her claims to the succession in her homeland led to its devastation. At the French court, this Madame was not a model of Catholic piety, but a thinly veiled convert at best. With the extinction of her branch of the House of Wittelsbach, there was no family to be restored, but interestingly, Elisabeth-Charlotte did in a way contribute to the success of the House of Lorraine (an interesting twist, given her relationship with her husband’s favourite, the Chevalier de Lorraine). Her daughter, also named Elisabeth-Charlotte, was married to the new duke, Léopold, as part of the treaty settlements of 1697. The younger Liselotte brought with her the lustre of her rank as a royal princess and helped her Austrian-educated husband rebuild his court partly along French lines in terms of courtly protocols and public ceremonial. In particular, he drew on her contacts in Paris—artists, architects and musicians—to develop a new princely showpiece, the Palace of Lunéville.70 Madame’s son, Philippe, 2nd Duke of Orléans, became the regent in 1715, and worked with his sister to ease tensions along France’s eastern border, and even agreed to finally recognise her husband the duke as a ‘royal highness’ in February 1718, in effect recognising Lorraine’s sovereignty.71 We can only speculate on the real influence Madame had over her son’s diplomatic policies regarding the duchy of Lorraine. Saint-Simon, who was involved in the Regency councils, claims that Duke Léopold could manipulate the regent’s ‘feebleness’ due to his intense fondness for his sister and his slavish devotion to his mother’s ‘blindly German passion’ for her son-in-law, the Duke of Lorraine (who was regarded with suspicion as a ‘German’ by  Adams and Adams (2021).  Bibliothèque nationale de France, Ln27 9433, funeral eulogy at the Hôpital d’Alençon, 11 May 1696: ‘elle écoute attentivement les leçons d’une vertueuse Mère’; Spangler (2017a, 57). 70  See Spangler (2017c, 105–116), Spangler (2016, 283–298). 71  McCluskey (2013, 45). 68 69

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the French government); but Madame herself writing to Léopold gave nothing away, merely stating, ‘I praise God that all has succeeded to your satisfaction; my son never had any other intentions. As for me, Monsieur, I had no other part in it than many good wishes for a good outcome, and to press a little more Monsieur de Saint-Contest and the Marshal d’Huxelles [the negotiators]’.72 This recognition as ‘royal highness’ was a crucial step in the elevation of the Lorraine dynasty—more than simply resilience, but resurgence—which in the longer term enabled them to take an even bigger step, assuming the mantle of the imperial family after the marriage in 1736 of Léopold and Elisabeth-Charlotte’s son, Duke François III of Lorraine, to the Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria. Even before this, ElisabethCharlotte had expressed joy at another success in her extended family: she was proud to see that her own marriage, to a Catholic, had removed her from the pathway of another dynastic resurgence, as her cousin George of Hanover ascended the throne of Great Britain in 1714.73 Second-tier states may not have wielded great power militarily, but they did, sometimes, punch above their weight as cultural arbiters, as Nancy and Heidelberg did at the end of the sixteenth century, and as later capitals Lunéville and Mannheim would do as centres of the Enlightenment in the eighteenth. They also successfully employed dynasticism as a diplomatic tool, sending their daughters to the French court, though in the cases of Marguerite of Lorraine and Elisabeth-Charlotte of the Palatinate the payoff was difficult to discern and long in coming. Nevertheless, it was a lesson well learned by the House of Palatinate-Neuburg who made use of matrimonial diplomacy in the late seventeenth century to transform themselves from a second-tier to a first-tier dynasty, with daughters as royal consorts in Madrid, Lisbon and Vienna.74 Being the second lady of France was rarely a position of great influence, but as a dynastic chess piece, the post of Madame was a useful tool to have in the arsenal of a second-tier state to aid in the flow of dynasticism as a diplomatic force across Europe. Ultimately, both Madames’ efforts had an impact on the House of Lorraine, first in its physical restorations (in 1660 and 1697), but in the longer term in its boost to full royal status, allowing the dynasty to merge with the House of Habsburg and continue dynastic rule in Central Europe 72  Boislisle (1924, 64–65); Elisabeth-Charlotte to Duke Léopold of Lorraine, 23 Jan. 1718, in Van der Cruysse (1989, 559). 73  Letters of 6 Sept. 1714 and 10 Jan. 1715, in Kroll (1998, 180–181, 184). 74  Schmid (2009).

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until the twentieth century. Success, like futility, can sometimes be measured in the extreme long term and in unexpected places.

Archives Consulted Archives des Affaires Etrangères (Foreign Affairs Archive), Paris  – La Courneuve (AAE). Archives nationales de France (National Archives of France), Paris (ANF). Bibliothèque nationale de France (National Library of France), Paris (BNF).

References Adams, Tracy, and Christine Adams. 2021. The ‘othering’ of the ultimate insider: The Queen of France. In Significant others: Aspects of deviance and difference in premodern court cultures, ed. Zita Eva Rohr and Jonathan W.  Spangler, 143–179. Abingdon: Routledge. Anonymous. 1665. Affaires du Duc de Lorraine & le sujet de sa prison. In Histoire du Traitté de la Paix conclüe sur la Frontière d’Espagne et de France entre les deux couronnes en l’an 1659 … Aussi, Un Recueil de diverses matières concernantes le Sr Duc de Lorraine. Cologne. Badalo-Dulong, Claude. 1956. Trente ans de diplomatie française en Allemagne: Louis XIV et l’electeur de Mayence, 1648–78. Paris: Plon. Barker, Nancy Nichols. 1989. Brother to the Sun King: Philippe, Duke of Orléans. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. Boislisle, Arthur-Michel de, ed. 1924. Mémoires de Saint-Simon. Vol. 33. Paris: Hachette. Bourret, Christian. 1998. Un royaume ‘transpyrénéen’? La tentative de la maison de Foix-Béarn-Albret à la fin du Moyen Âge. Paris: PyréGraph. Brunet, Gustave. 1857. In Correspondance complète de Madame, duchesse d’Orléans, née Princesse Palatine, mère du Régent, ed. Gustave Brunet, Vol. 2. Paris: Charpentier. Cabourdin, Guy. 1991. Encyclopédie illustrée de la Lorraine: Les temps modernes. Vol. 2. Nancy: Presses universitaires de Nancy. Caldari, Valentina, and Sara J.  Wolfson, eds. 2018. Stuart marriage diplomacy: Dynastic politics in their European context, 1604–1630. Woodbridge: Boydell. Chéruel, Adolphe, ed. 1858–1859. Mémoires de Mlle de Montpensier, petite-fille de Henri IV. Vol. 4. Paris: Charpentier. Choné, Paulette. 1992. Les Misères de la Guerre ou ‘la vie du soldat’: La force et le droit. In Jacques Callot 1592–1635, Musée Historique Lorrain, Nancy, 13

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juin–14 septembre 1992, ed. P.  Choné, 396–400. Paris: Réunion des Musées Nationaux. Constant, Jean-Marie. 1987. Les conjurateurs: Le premier libéralisme politique sous Richelieu. Paris: Hachette. ———. 2013. Gaston d’Orléans: Prince de la liberté. Paris: Perrin. De Waele, Michel. 2014. Conflit civil et relations interétatiques dans la France d’Ancien Régime: La révolte de Gaston d’Orléans, 1631–1632. French Historical Studies 37 (4): 565–598. Warren, Lucien de. 1882–1883. Marguerite de Lorraine, duchesse d’Orléans, 1615–1672. Bulletin de la Société Philomatique Vosgienne 1882–1883: 137–178. Dethan, Georges. 1992. La Vie de Gaston d’Orléans. Paris: Fallois. Dosquet, Emilie. 2016. ‘We have been informed that the French are carrying desolation everywhere’: The desolation of the Palatinate as a European news event. In News networks in early modern Europe, ed. Joad Raymond and Noah Moxham, 641–674. Leiden: Brill. Du Bois de Riocour, Nicolas. 1688. Histoire de l’Emprisonnement de Charles IV, Duc de Lorraine, detenu par les Espagnols. Amsterdam: Cologne. Dubost, Jean-François. 2009. Marie de Médicis: La reine dévoilée. Paris: Payot. Duchêne, Jacqueline. 1995. Henriette d’Angleterre, duchesse d’Orléans. Paris: Fayard. Favier, Justin, ed. 1886. Documents inédits sur la vie privée de Charles IV, tirés des papiers de son confesseur. Revue Historique 31: 73–97. Feillet, Alphonse, and Jules Gourdault, eds. 1870–1896. Oeuvres du Cardinal de Retz. Vol. 10. Paris: Hachette. Fulaine, Jean-Charles. 1997. Le Duc Charles IV de Lorraine et son armée (1624–1675). Metz: Serpenoise. Griffiths, Antony. 1998. Callot: Miseries of war. In Disasters of war: Callot, Goya, Dix, ed. Antony Griffiths, Juliet Wilson Bareau, and John Willett, 11–18. Manchester: Cornerhouse. Harris, Carolyn. 2016. Queenship and revolution in early modern Europe: Henrietta Maria and Marie Antoinette. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Haussonville, Othenin de Cléron, comte d’. 1860. Histoire de la réunion de la Lorraine à la France. Vol. 4. 2nd ed. Paris: M. Lévy frères. Hodson, Simon. 2007. The power of female dynastic networks: A brief study of Louise de Coligny, princess of Orange, and her stepdaughters. Women’s History Review 16 (3): 335–351. Hugon, Alain. 2007. Mariages d’État et sentiments familiaux chez les Habsbourg d’Espagne. In Femmes & pouvoir politique: Les princesses d’Europe XVe-XVIIIe siècle, ed. Isabelle Poutrin and Marie-Karine Schaub, 80–99. Rosny-sous-­ Bois: Bréal. Hutton, Ronald. 1986. The making of the secret treaty of Dover, 1668–1670. The Historical Journal 29 (2): 297–318.

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Jalabert, Laurent. 2017. Charles V de Lorraine, ou la quête de l’État (1643–1690). Metz: Paraiges. Kohnle, Armin. 2005. Kleine Geschichte der Kurpfalz. Karlsruhe: G. Braun. Zum Kolk, Caroline. 2007. Les difficultés des mariages internationaux: Renée de France et Hercule d’Este. In Femmes & pouvoir politique: Les princesses d’Europe XVe-XVIIIe siècle, ed. Isabelle Poutrin and Marie-Karine Schaub, 102–119. Rosny-sous-Bois: Bréal. Kroll, Maria, ed. 1998. Letters from Liselotte: Elisabeth-Charlotte, Princess Palatine and Duchess of Orléans, ‘Madame’ 1652–1722. London: Allison & Busby. Le Roux, Nicolas. 2013a. La cour de Lorraine. In Un Nouveau Monde. Naissance de la Lorraine Moderne, ed. Olivier Christin, 28–43. Paris: Somogy éditions de l’art/Musée lorrain. ———. 2013b. Le roi, la cour, l’état: De la Renaissance à l’absolutisme. Seyssel: Champ Vallon. Lipp, Charles. 2011. Noble state strategies in an early modern small state: The Mahuet of Lorraine. Rochester: University of Rochester Press. Malettke, Klaus. 2001. Les Relations entre la France et le Saint-Empire au xviie siècle. Paris: Champion. Martin, Michael. 1993. Ezechiel du Mas, comte de Mélac (1630–1704): Eine biografische Skizze. Francia: Forschungen zur westeuropäischen Geschichte 20 (2): 35–68. Martin, Philippe. 2002. Une guerre de Trente Anes en Lorraine, 1631–1661. Metz: Serpenoise. McCluskey, Phil. 2013. Absolute monarchy on the frontiers: Louis XIV’s military occupations of Lorraine and Savoy. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Mongrédien, Georges. 1932–1934. Les historiettes de Tallemant des Réaux. Paris: Garnier. Monter, William. 2007. A bewitched duchy: Lorraine and its dukes, 1477–1736. Geneva: Droz. Motta, Anne. 2015. Noblesse et pouvoir princier dans la Lorraine ducale, 1624–1737. Paris: Garnier. Nijsten, Gerard. 2004. In the shadow of Burgundy: The court of Guelders in the late middle ages, trans. by Tania Guest. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nordman, Daniel. 1998. Frontières de France, de l’espace au territoire XVIe-XIXe siècle. Paris: Gallimard. Parisot, Robert. 1919–1924. Histoire de Lorraine. Vol. 3. Paris: Picard. Perceval, José Maria. 2007. Épouser une princesse étrangère: les mariages espagnols. In Femmes & pouvoir politique: Les princesses d’Europe XVe-XVIIIe siècle, ed. Isabelle Poutrin and Marie-Karine Schaub, 66–77. Rosny-sous-Bois: Bréal. Ranum, Patricia. 2004. Portraits around Marc-Antoine Charpentier. Baltimore: Self-published.

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Riaux, Francis, ed. 1855. Mémoires de Madame de Motteville sur Anne d’Autriche et sa cour. Paris: Charpentier. Rousseau, Michel. 2014. Quand Louis XIV brûlait le Palatinat…: La guerre de la Ligue d’Augsburg et la presse. Paris: Harmattan. Saige, Gustave, ed. 1883–1885. Journal des guerres civiles de Dubuisson-Aubenay, 1648–1652. Paris: Champion. Smart, Sara, and Mara R.  Wade, eds. 2013. The Palatine wedding of 1613: Protestant alliance and court festival. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. Schäffer, Walter Ernst. 1999. The Thirty Years War in Moscherosch’s A Soldier’s Life and the Simplician Tales of Grimmelshausen. In 1648: War and peace in Europe. Vol. 1, politics, religion, law and society, ed. Klaus Bussmann, Heinz Schilling, and David Allison, 339–345. Münster: European Council. Schmid, Josef Johannes. 2009. Beau-père de l’Europe: Les princesses dans la politiques familiale et dynastique de Philippe-Guillaume de Neubourg. Dix-­ Septième Siècle 243 (2): 267–279. Soulié, Eudore, et al., eds. 1854–1860. Journal du marquis de Dangeau. Vol. 19. Paris: Firmin Didot. Spangler, Jonathan. 2003. A lesson in diplomacy for Louis XIV: The treaty of Montmartre, 1662, and the princes of the House of Lorraine. French History 17 (3): 225–250. ———. 2016. A palace for dreams: Lunéville and the royal aspirations of the dukes of Lorraine from Léopold to Stanisław Leszczyński. In Power and architecture: Residences of monarchs and seats of state authorities in Europe: Forms and functions (15th–20th century), ed. Anna Czarniecka, Przemysław Deles, and Angela Sołtys, 283–298. Warsaw: Royal Castle. ———. 2017a. Bridging the gaps: The household account books of Marguerite de Lorraine, Duchesse d’Orléans. Annales de l’Est 2: 69–85. ———. 2017b. Court faction overwhelmed by circumstance: The Duchy of Lorraine torn between Bourbon and Habsburg, 1624–1737. In A Europe of Courts, a Europe of Factions: Political Groups at Early Modern Centres of Power (1550–1700), ed. Rubén González Cuerva and Alexander Koller, 197–218. Brill: Leiden. ———. 2017c. Le rappel des princes de sang par Léopold: Une stratégie politique pour rehausser l’image ducale. In Échanges, passages et transferts à la cour du duc Léopold (1698–1729), ed. Anne Motta, 105–116. Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes. ———. 2021. Monsieur: Second sons in the monarchy of France, 1550–1800. Abingdon: Routledge. ———. forthcoming-a. The frustrations of being the spare: Second sons in the French monarchy (16th–18th centuries) and their increasingly limited roles in state formation. In Dynasty and state formation, ed. Liesbeth Geevers and Harald Gustafsson. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.

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———. forthcoming-b. Monsieur is worth a mass: Changing attitudes towards conversion in seventeenth-century French royal marriages. In Religious plurality at princely courts, ed. Ben Marschke, Daniel Riches, Alexander Schunka, and Sara Smart. New York: Berghahn. Van der Cruysse, Dirk. 1988. Madame Palatine, princesse européenne. Paris: Fayard. ———. 1989. Madame Palatine: Lettres françaises. Paris: Fayard. Moers-Messmer, Wolfgang von. 2001. Heidelberg und seine Kurfürsten: Die große Zeit der Geschichte Heidelbergs als Haupt- und Residenzstadt der Kurpfalz. Weiher: Verlag Regionalkultur. Waquet, Jean-Claude. 2007. L’échec d’un mariage: Marguerite-Louise d’Orléans et Côme de Médicis. In Femmes & pouvoir politique: Les princesses d’Europe XVe-XVIIIe siècle, ed. Isabelle Poutrin and Marie-Karine Schaub, 120–132. Rosny-sous-Bois: Bréal. Watanabe-O’Kelly, Helen, and Adam Morton, eds. 2017. Queens consort, cultural transfer and European politics, c.1500–1800. Abingdon: Routledge. Woodacre, Elena. 2013. Blanca, Queen of Sicily and Queen of Navarre: Connecting the Pyrenees and the Mediterranean via an Aragonese Alliance. In Queenship in the Mediterranean: Negotiating the role of the queen in the medieval and early modern eras, ed. Elena Woodacre, 207–227. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

CHAPTER 5

Francis Taaffe, Third Earl of Carlingford, and the House of Lorraine’s Exile and Restoration, 1670–1704 Stephen Griffin

The duchies of Lorraine and Bar lay between the kingdom of France and the Holy Roman Empire. Due to their geopolitical position, since the sixteenth century the dukes had traditionally maintained neutrality in the conflicts between the king of France and the Holy Roman emperor. This situation lasted until the rule of the pro-Habsburg Duke Charles IV (1604–1675). In a bid to secure France’s eastern borders in the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648), Cardinal Richelieu ordered the occupation of Lorraine and drove its duke into exile in August 1633.1 Those who dwell in exile, notes Peter Burke, may view themselves as only temporarily

1

 Vignal Souleyreau (2004).

S. Griffin (*) Department of History, University of Limerick, Limerick, Ireland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 F. Persson et al. (eds.), Resilience and Recovery at Royal Courts, 1200–1840, Queenship and Power, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20123-3_5

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removed from home, and might never accept terms such as ‘exiles’ and ‘refugees’ which are used to describe them.2 Indeed, as Philip Mansel and Torsten Riotte have demonstrated, royal exile is not an uncommon occurrence and a displaced monarch can remain steadfast and persistent despite their circumstances.3 The dukes of Lorraine and Bar experienced exile on two separate but prolonged occasions between 1633 and 1697. Following the first French occupation, Charles IV fought against France for the remainder of the Thirty Years’ War. When his restoration was not included in the Treaties of Westphalia in 1648, he allied with Spain and remained at war with France. It was not until the Treaty of the Pyrenees between France and Spain in 1659 that Charles returned to his state. However, this restoration would not last. In 1659, Louis XIV of France was still in apprenticeship to his first minister and mentor Cardinal Mazarin. By 1670 Louis had long since begun his personal rule, and was in pursuit of gloire and preparing for war with the Dutch. To protect his borders, he invaded Lorraine in 1670. Charles IV fled once more, allied himself with the Dutch, and fought the French until his death in September 1675. Charles IV’s nephew and heir, Duke Charles V (1643–1690), served in the imperial army and campaigned against France during the Franco-Dutch War (1672–1678) and Nine Years’ War (1688–1697).4 In 1662 his inheritance had almost been lost when Charles IV agreed to the Treaty of Montmartre with Louis, which would have seen the French monarch take control of Lorraine in exchange for all members of the House of Lorraine entering the ranks of the French royal family. That agreement had been rejected by Charles as his uncle’s heir.5 He remained with his own court in exile established in Vienna and later in Innsbruck, and he served the emperor as Feldmarschall of the imperial army until his death 1690. It would not be until 1697 that his son Léopold (1679–1729) was restored to the duchies of Lorraine and Bar with the conclusion of the Peace of Ryswick in 1697. A prominent figure during those later years of exile, and closely attached to Charles and his family, was Francis Taaffe, third Earl of Carlingford who also served in the imperial army (Fig. 5.1).6 Born in 1639, Francis Taaffe  Burke (2017, 4).  Mansel and Riotte (2011, 1–16). 4  For overviews of Lorraine and its dukes, see Bogdan (2013), Montner (2007). For Louis XIV’s role, see Lynn (1999), Lossky (1994), McCluskey (2013). 5  Hatton (1976, 31), see also Spangler (2003). 6  Francis Taaffe did not become the Earl of Carlingford until 1690, so here is referred to as Taaffe in the years preceding and as Carlingford after 1690. 2 3

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Fig. 5.1  Following an illustrious career in the Imperial army, Francis Taaffe, third Earl of Carlingford, became premier minister to the restored Duke Leopold of Lorraine. Unknown artist, Taaffe, Earl of Carlingford, Francis, © Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Vienna

was one of the younger sons of the cavalier Theobald Taaffe, later 1st Earl of Carlingford. A well-known royalist, Theobald Taaffe had served Charles II of England, Scotland and Ireland in exile and played a prominent role at Charles II’s court as a favourite of the king.7 Following the Restoration, he would be created Earl of Carlingford and was sent on a diplomatic 7

 Williams (2014, 60–80, 196–199), Smith (2003, 44).

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mission to Vienna.8 The Taaffes had a tradition of serving Habsburg Austria that dated to the Thirty Years’ War, and Theobald Taaffe’s six sons had all served the Habsburgs in some capacity.9 As Theobald’s middle son, Francis had been sent to the university at Olmütz to be educated. Through his father’s influence and favour with Charles II, he was made page of honour to Emperor Ferdinand III in 1655. In 1662 he was made a count of the Holy Roman Empire, and he was an officer in the regiment of the prince of Sulzbach by 1666. He would become closely attached to the future Charles V of Lorraine when he joined Lorraine’s regiment in 1670.10 Irish and British historians have often been oblivious to Carlingford’s role in the service of the dukes of Lorraine.11 Notwithstanding, Carlingford played an important part in serving the exiled royal family, and this role only grew in prominence following the House of Lorraine’s restoration. A close confidant and servant of Charles V, he also served as governor and minister to Duke Léopold. This essay describes Carlingford’s role in serving the House of Lorraine both during its exile and the early years of its restoration and is divided into two sections. First, it summarises his rise to prominence and service to the dukes during their stateless years in Vienna and Innsbruck. Second, it examines the part which Carlingford played in the restoration of Duke Léopold. It illustrates the measures taken to rejuvenate the state, the position he held at court and his own role as patron to family and dependents. A pivotal figure in the initial years of Duke Léopold’s reign, he would become the duke’s premier minister and held what has been described as the ‘apical’ position at the Lorraine court.12 It is fair to say that Taaffe had a close relationship with Charles V as the prince frequently entrusted him with numerous duties. In Taaffe’s own words, Charles showed him ‘great favours’ and ‘kindness.’13 In 1674, Charles was a candidate, supported by Emperor Leopold I, in the election of a new Polish king. In April, Taaffe was sent to Warsaw to represent

 Smith (2003, 188), Lachs (1965, 64).  Worthington (2004, 174). 10  Taaffe (1856, 16–17), Worthington (2016, 118), Francis Taaffe to Theobald Taaffe, 20 Jun. 1670, in Taaffe (1856, 207–209). 11  See, for example, the cursory biographies in Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ODNB) (2004, s.v.) ‘Taaffe, Francis, third earl of Carlingford’; Dictionary of Irish Biography (2015, s.v.) ‘Francis Taafe’; also Worthington (2016). 12  Motta (2015, 441). 13  Francis Taaffe to Theobald Taaffe, 20 Jun. 1670, in Taaffe (1856, 207–209). 8 9

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him.14 However, Louis XIV was determined to prevent his ‘enemy’ Charles of Lorraine from obtaining the crown. On 12 May, Taaffe and ClaudeFrançois Canon spoke before the electoral assembly which, despite reports that the speech had been well received, made little headway because of French machinations.15 The Polish–Lithuanian crown eventually went to Jan Sobieski. After these events, Taaffe returned to the imperial army. In the Franco-Dutch War, in 1676, he was entrusted with a mission to the elector Palatine to dissuade him from entering into a treaty with France.16 That same year, Charles (now Duke Charles V following the death of Charles IV in September 1675) sent him to obtain further resources from Emperor Leopold I for the siege of Phillipsburg.17 The following year, and with the emperor’s approval, Charles resigned as colonel of his regiment in Taaffe’s favour. Taaffe had also married Elisabeth Maximiliana, Countess von Traudisch. The income from both his marriage and his new position in the army put him in expectation of a sum of 10,000 crowns per annum.18 During this same time, Charles had obtained consent to marry the emperor’s half-sister, Eleonor Maria, the former queen of Poland widowed since 1671.19 When he travelled to Vienna for the wedding, celebrated in Wiener Neustadt in February 1678, he took Taaffe with him.20 The marriage to Eleanor Maria strengthened the connection between the Habsburgs and Charles’s house and made French hopes of retaining Lorraine all the more difficult. Indeed, at the conclusion of the Franco-­ Dutch War, his hopes of a restoration were almost realised, but he had refused to accept the Treaty of Nijmegen (1679), which would have restored him to Lorraine but allowed Louis to retain control of the capital Nancy and the duchy’s most important roads.21 Taaffe and Charles’s attentions shifted eastwards in the 1680s. In 1683, an Ottoman army advanced into Royal Hungary and forced the imperial

 Jalabert (2017a, 257–270).  Archives des Affaires Etrangères (Foreign Affairs Archive), Paris – La Courneuve (AAE), Correspondance Politique (CP) Pologne 40/34, Mémoire pour servir d’instruction au l’évêque de Marseille, 30 Mar. 1674; Jalabert (2017a, 265–266). 16  ODNB (2004, s.v.) ‘Taaffe, Francis, third earl of Carlingford.’ 17  Francis Taaffe to Nicholas Taaffe, 13 Jul. 1676, in Taaffe (1856, 211). 18  Francis Taaffe to Nicholas Taaffe, 13 Feb. 1677, in Taaffe (1856, 215–217). 19  Cabourdin (1991, 2:66). 20  Francis Taaffe to Nicholas Taaffe, 21 Jan. 1678, in Taaffe (1856, 218). 21  Hatton (1976, 31–32), Lynn (1999, 156–157). 14 15

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forces under Charles to retreat.22 The army withdrew beyond Vienna to the north bank of the Danube, leaving the city under Ottoman siege. Taaffe was sent with dispatches to the emperor who had fled to Passau.23 The arrival of Jan Sobieski of Poland and his army on 31 August 1683 provided a glimpse of the relationship between Charles V and Taaffe: You will see the portrait of M. Lorraine below, but I will tell you about our conversation during dinner. This will amuse you. At the start he would only drink Moselle wine and he took care to take it with water because he is not the best drinker in the world. However, getting into the spirit he also took Hungarian wine. This Taaffe, who we saw in Warsaw as an envoy of the duke during my election, was also with his master. He did not stop whispering in his ear, apparently to prevent the drinking, but the mentor ended up getting drunk himself.24

Vienna was relieved on 12 September by the combined forces of Charles and Sobieski. The imperial army then advanced into Ottoman Hungary and captured Buda in September 1686 before taking Transylvania the following year.25 As the emperor’s brother-in-law, Charles was made governor of the Tyrol, so his court moved to Innsbruck in 1679.26 Here the duke and duchess were to have five of their six children, the eldest being Charles’s heir Léopold. While a son and a daughter died in infancy, all their other 22  Taaffe, who would command the army’s rearguard, was almost killed when his force of 400 was surrounded by Tartars on 13 July. Francis Taaffe to Nicholas Taaffe, 24 Jul. 1683, in Taaffe (1856, 226–227). 23  Stoye (2007, 141, 144). 24  Jan III Sobieski to Marie Casimire, 31 Aug. 1683  in Lettres du roi de Pologne Jean Sobieski (1826, 26–27): ‘Vous trouverez plus bas le portrait de M. de Lorraine, mais je vous conterai d’abord notre conversation pendant le dîner. Ce récit vous amusera. Au commencement, il ne voulut boire que du vin de Moselle, et eut encore soin de le couper d’eau car il n’est pas buveur le moins du monde. Cependant, s’étant mis en train il prit aussi du vin de Hongrie. Ce Taff, que nous avons vu à Varsovie en qualité d’envoyé du duc pendant mon élection, était venu avec son maitre. Il ne cessait de lui chuchoter a l’oreille, apparemment pour l’empêcher de boire, mais le mentor finit par s’enivrer lui-meme.’ All translations are my own unless otherwise stated. 25  Cabourdin (1991, 2:69). During this time Taaffe mentored noblemen from the Stuart kingdoms who had volunteered for the Imperial service in Hungary (see Worthington 2016, 118–119). 26  Establishing the ducal court outside Vienna shifted the financial burden of supporting it from the emperor to the Tyrolean estates (Kramer 1954, 461).

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children would be raised in Tyrol.27 Taaffe had been asked to take charge of Léopold’s education on several occasions; however, he had refused as he was not willing to give up his career in the army.28 It would not be until Charles’s death in 1690 he finally relented and became governor and grand master of the household of the twelve-year-old Léopold.29 That same year, his older brother Nicholas Taaffe, 2nd Earl of Carlingford, was killed fighting on James II’s side at the Battle of the Boyne.30 Francis Taaffe now became the third Earl of Carlingford. Léopold’s upbringing was placed in the hands of François de Le Bégue, the doyen of the Collegiate de Saint-Die, abbot of Bouzonville and dean of the Primatiale de Nancy. Le Bégue had served Duke Charles IV in exile and upon the latter’s death joined the court of Charles V. At this point, he was the chief minister of Léopold’s mother, Eleonor Marie, who acted as regent. The duke’s religious instruction was provided by Ehenfried Creitzen, a Lutheran of Saxon origins who had converted to Catholicism and become a Jesuit.31 In 1694, Léopold was sent to Vienna, where he was raised with his cousins, the archdukes Joseph and Charles. In 1696 Carlingford accompanied Léopold on campaign in the Turkish War (1683–1699). They were present at the siege of Temesvár (Timișoara) by the imperial army commanded by Elector Friedrich August of Saxony.32 Some felt Carlingford, as a governor, was given to spoiling his charge. However, following one encounter with their Ottoman enemies he reportedly scolded the duke for reckless behaviour and for putting his life at risk.33 Despite his governor’s chastisement, the duke’s actions in battle won him praise, and Louis, Margrave of Baden, asked Léopold to join him in fighting the French on the Rhine, a campaign in which Carlingford again accompanied the young man. He reported from the field that the Margrave was very satisfied with Léopold’s conduct.34  Kramer (1954, 465).  D’Haussonville (1859, 4:100–101). 29  D’Haussonville (1859, 4:101), Taaffe (1856, 17). 30  D’Alton (1855, 453). 31  D′Haussonville (1859, 4:99), Petiot (2015, 89). 32  Cabourdin (1991, 2:69), Petiot (2015, 99). 33  Le Bégue to Bardin, 1696, in Nöel (1840, 1:5–6). 34  Österreichisches Staatsarchiv (Austrian State Archives), Vienna (ÖStA), Haus-, Hofund Staatsarchiv (HHStA), Lothringen Hausarchiv 25/9, Carlingford to Charles-Joseph of Lorraine, 5 Jul. 1697: ‘Il principe Luigi e sodisfattissimo dell’applicazion indefessa del nostro Duca’; Nöel (1840, 1:6–7), Taaffe (1856, 17). 27 28

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Before his death, Charles V had signed a treaty with the emperor in July 1689 which aimed to secure his restoration. For the next eight years, Léopold’s mother Eleonor Marie worked endlessly to ensure the emperor and his allies supported her son’s interests in any peace negotiations.35 The war between France and the emperor concluded with the Peace of Ryswick in October 1697 and one article stipulated that Léopold be returned to Lorraine. Following the treaty signing, Carlingford was ordered to take possession of and to administer the state in the duke’s name until he arrived in the winter of 1697. The earl would do this with François de Le Bégue, who was to be chief of council, and Claude-François Canon, who was made president of the sovereign court. By January 1698, the three had arrived in Nancy, where Carlingford would oversee the transfer of power from the French in August and present Léopold with the keys of the city in November.36 The Thirty Years’ War and French occupation had taken a heavy toll upon Lorraine. Upon arrival, Le Bégue, Canon and Carlingford had found that the old ducal palaces and properties were in disrepair and unsuitable for lodging the duke. Therefore, their first measure was to exercise the right of the droit de joyeux avènement to finance restoration work, and the ordinance was signed by Carlingford and issued on 10 February.37 Several additional ordinances were signed and issued by order of Carlingford over the following days as the duchy’s judicial and administrative systems, which the French had largely dismantled, were reintroduced. Measures were taken to reverse the administrative reforms introduced by Louis XIV. The sovereign court of Lorraine and Bar, which had been abolished when the French invaded in 1670, was re-established on 12 February with Canon as its president.38 The bailliages of Lorraine, which had been

 Petiot (2015, 96–98).  Eleonor Marie died on 17 December, but the order was reconfirmed by the emperor a few days later; see Carlingford to Parisot, 31 Nov. 1697, in Taaffe (1856, 249), Carlingford to Parisot, 23 Dec. 1697, in Taaffe (1856, 249–250), Le Bégue to Couvonges, 24 Jan. 1698, in Taaffe (1856, 267–268), Cabourdin (1991, 2:75), Harsany (1936, 34). 37  Recueil des édits (1733, 1:1–3), ‘Ordonnance concernant le droit de joyeux avènement’, 10 Feb. 1698. 38  Recueil des édits (1733, 1:3–4), ‘Ordonnance portant rétablissement de la Cour Souveraine’, 12 Feb. 1698. 35 36

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abolished under Louis XIV, were reinstated.39 On the same day, an order was issued which ended the operations of anyone who had held the office of tabellion during the French occupation.40 In appointing officers to the bailliages, prévôtes and grueries, it was decided those who had held the office before 1670 and those who had been appointed afterwards should present their credentials for examination and consideration.41 In the space of a century, the population of Lorraine had fallen from 800,000  in 1600 to 350,000  in 1698.42 A decree had been issued in February to attract artisans, tradesmen and other professionals to set up shop in the duchy. Those who would do so were to receive a grace period of five years in which they would not be required to produce masterpieces or enter apprenticeships.43 However, in April 1698, Carlingford issued an ordinance designed to encourage more widespread immigration and settlement. Incentives were put in place to encourage the return of those who had fled war, but foreign migrants were also welcomed. Léopold’s subjects who had fled Lorraine were to receive a year’s exemption from certain taxes should they return, while foreigners who built new dwellings or restored ruined houses would receive exemptions for three years.44 The policy of encouraging immigration would be continued by Léopold, and

39  Recueil des édits (1733, 1:6), ‘Ordonnance portant rétablissement du Bailliage de Nancy’, 13 Feb. 1698; Recueil des édits (1733, 1:8), ‘Ordonnance portant établissement du Bailliage de Vosge á Mirecourt’, 15 Feb. 1698; Recueil des édits (1733, 1:8–9), ‘Ordonnance portant du Bailliage de Pont á Mousson’, 16 Feb. 1698. 40  Recueil des édits (1733, 1:5), ‘Ordonnance portant défenses aux Tabellions créez depuis le 26 Août 1670, de faire aucune fonction de leurs offices, ou d’instrumenter à l’avenir’, 12 Feb. 1698, the ordinance which allowed Tabellions who had been in office prior to 1670 to continue their duties. Ten days later Tabellions with patents from Louis XIV were allowed to continue working on a provisional basis; see Recueil des édits (1733, 1:9–10), ‘Ordonnance portant permission aux Tabellions & Notaires pourvûs par patentes de S.M.T.C. d’exercer leurs fonctions par provision’, 22 Feb. 1698. 41  Recueil des édits (1733, 1:12–13), ‘Ordonnance portant que dans la quinzaine tous les officiers de justice représenteront leurs commissions ou provisions, &c’, 26 Feb. 1698. 42  Lipp (2011, 118). 43  Recueil des édits (1733, 1:15–16), ‘Ordonnance portant permission à toutes personnes, de quelque profession & mêtier qu’ils puissent être, á la réserve des Chirurgiens, Apotiquaires, & Orphévres, de s’établir dans les Etats pendant cinq ans, & de travailler de leur profession, sans être obligez de faire apprentissage ou chef-dœuvre’, 12 Mar. 1698. 44  Recueil des édits (1733, 1:16–17), ‘Ordonnance portant les privileges accordez aux sujets qui se marieront, aux etrangers qui s’etabliront dans les etats’, 2 Apr. 1698.

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in 1702 the droit d’aubaine was also removed following an agreement with Louis XIV.45 It appears migrants from across Europe came to Lorraine. Guy Cabourdin emphasised internal migration and external migration from Lorraine’s immediate borders; however, Léopold and his family had attracted numerous individuals and families from various parts of the empire to their service while in exile. When Léopold arrived in Lorraine these servants followed him. Overall, in the early years of Léopold’s reign, migrants came from Germany, Italy, France, Hungary, Switzerland, Ireland, Bohemia and Poland, among others.46 Additionally, Carlingford helped to establish a college of Irish Franciscan monks in Boulay in the bailliage d’Allemagne. Under the Banishment Act passed by the Irish Parliament in Dublin in 1697, all Roman Catholic clergy were required to leave Ireland. Establishing a college for persecuted fellow Catholics promised to reflect well on the host monarch. The Franciscans who founded the college in Boulay were granted the chateau, the gardens and its estates for their use, in addition to an annual pension.47 The triumvirate of Carlingford, Le Bégue and Canon did not last long. Canon died in September 1698 and Le Bégue followed on 19 July 1699. This left Carlingford as the most prominent minister in the young duke’s state. He was grand master of the household, superintendent of finances, head of the council, governor of Nancy and colonel of the ducal guards.48 As grand master he had received 36,000 livres per annum, which, when added to the salaries from his other duties, totalled 45,000 livres. This was far more than even the duchess’s income.49 Much has been written about the role of premier ministres and minister-favourites in the courts of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Europe.50 In many ways Carlingford 45  Cabourdin (1991, 2:95), AAE, CP Lorraine 53/258–63, Copie du traite entre le Roi et Monsieur le duc de Lorraine pour la suppression du droit d’aubaine’, 24 Jan. 1702; AAE, CP Lorraine 53/264, Ratification du traite avec Monsieur le duc de Lorraine pour la suppression du droit d’aubaine’, 22 Feb. 1702. 46  Cabourdin (1991, 2:95), see also Petiot (2012), Motta (2017), Maupillier (2014), and Griffin and Filet (2018). 47  Jennings (1944, xi, 118), see, for example, Downey (2017, 62–63). 48  Bibliothèque municipale de Nantes (Municipal Library of Nantes), Nantes (BMN), Ms. 133/297–98, Mémoire sur le duché de Lorraine par M. d’Audiffret, cy-devant envoyé extraordinaire du Roy aux Cours de Mantoue, de Parme et de Modène, et à celle de Lorraine. 49  BMN, Ms. 133/298, Mémoire d’Audiffret; Montner (2007, 149). 50  See, for example, Bergin and Brockliss Laurence (1992), Elliott and Brockliss (1999), Elliott (1984), and Scott (1996).

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follows this model. The minister-favourite could come to the fore having proven his adeptness in office.51 Carlingford had enjoyed the patronage of Léopold’s father and served him loyally for many years. He had won the trust of the father and also of the mother and agreed to be the boy’s governor, overseeing his household in Vienna and accompanying him on campaign. Any minister-favourite would also be central to running his prince’s administration, and here too Carlingford’s role in reviving Léopold’s state was evident.52 Patronage was both an important instrument for and an accepted form of wielding power.53 In this way, ministers could employ their family members and dependents at court or in the army to ensure control over the running of the state.54 When he went to Lorraine, Carlingford had taken his nephews and nieces with him and installed them in the households of the duke and duchess. His nephew Charles Throckmorton was commissioned in the ducal guard and quickly became a company commander.55 Throckmorton became an equerry and eventually a chamberlain, and played a prominent role in travelling to and from England and Ireland in the early eighteenth century, purchasing hounds and horses for Léopold’s court and the court of Léopold’s brother in Osnabrück.56 Throckmorton’s sister, Anne Marguerite, was a member of the Duchess of Lorraine’s household.57 Another nephew, Theobald Taaffe, and a cousin, Nicholas Taaffe, later became a gentleman of the chamber and a chamberlain respectively after Carlingford’s death.58 Besides installing his family at court, Carlingford acted as a patron to other courtiers and to former Irish soldiers from France. In 1699, the brothers Marc-Antoine and Jean-Baptiste Mahuet were described as  Brockliss (1999, 281–282).  Brockliss (1999, 282). 53  Sturdy (2004, 140). 54  Elliott (1984, 53–56). 55  Bibliothèque nationale de France (National Library of France), Paris (BNF), Collection de Lorraine 585/78–81, O’Rourke to Mahuet, 15 Aug. 1698; BNF, Collection de Lorraine 585/79–80, O’Rourke to Mahuet, 18 Aug. 1698; Archives départementales de la Meurtheet-Moselle (Departmental Archives of Meurthe-et-Moselle), Nancy (ADMM), 3F 233/55, Etat de la Maison de Son Altesse Royale, 1699. 56  ADMM, 3F 235/5, Diverse listes de chambellans de S.A.R.; ÖStA, HHStA, Lothringen Hausarchiv 25/49, Carlingford to Charles-Joseph of Lorraine, 10 Dec. 1700; see also Griffin and Filet (2018, 23–24). 57  ADMM, 3F 255/20, Etat des personnes de l’hôtel Ducal (1704–1730). 58  Griffin and Filet (2018, 23). 51 52

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having his full trust by Henri-Pons de Thiard de Bissy, the Bishop of Toul. Marc-Antoine Mahuet would also be dubbed Carlingford’s protégé in 1702 and was seen as ‘the sworn enemy of the French.’59 Irish soldiers were encouraged to enlist in the ducal service following their d ­ emobilisation after the Peace of Ryswick. This was, Carlingford stated, to keep them from serving in the French army against the emperor and his allies.60 Through patron and client networks, military commanders could ensure high levels of commitment and obedience to instructions by placing their clients as commanding officers.61 Irish officers could describe Carlingford’s patronage in their letters. In 1704, he was called to verify the signatures on a déclaration de noblesse of a lieutenant in the ducal guards.62 Generally speaking, being in command allowed an individual the power to control the dispensation of commissions and to employ one’s own supporters.63 Furthermore, some of those who entered Léopold’s service such as the O’Rourkes and O’Connor Sligo came traditionally from north-western Ireland where the Taaffes had held the estate of Ballymote. Carlingford’s support for his fellow Irishmen coming to Lorraine should also be seen as an act of patronage and a securing of power in the ducal court, creating a body of support loyal both to himself and to Léopold. In March 1700, Louis XIV, the British and the Dutch had signed the second partition treaty which stipulated that Louis would receive Milan while the emperor’s second son would succeed the ailing Charles II of Spain.64 In May 1700, François Callières was sent to Nancy to discuss the possibility of Léopold exchanging Lorraine for the duchy of Milan. On meeting Carlingford, Callières was told that while Lorraine did not compare to Milan, Léopold was in a good country with good subjects. However, the duke agreed to exchange Lorraine for Milan in June 1700. Carlingford had already informed him he would sign no documentation regarding the exchange as he was a subject of the emperor, so he was 59  Henri-Pons de Thiard de Bissy to Jean-Baptiste Colbert, Marquis de Torcy, 1699, in Lipp (2011, 101): ‘l’ennemi juré des Français’; BMN, Ms. 133/300, Mémoire d’Audiffret; Motta (2015, 415). 60  AAE, CP Lorraine 51/55–56, Callières to Louis XIV, 7 Jun. 1700. 61  Parrott (2001, 552). 62  ADMM, 3F 11/155, O’Rourke to Léopold, 1705?; ADMM, 3F 241/15, Remonstrance de la Chambre des comptes de Lorraine touchant le noblesse de Mr de Kelly du 19 Julliet 1704. 63  Parrot (1992, 146). 64  Cabourdin (1991, 2:122).

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granted leave to visit Léopold’s brother Charles Joseph, Prince-Bishop of Osnabrück.65 However, all possibility of Léopold obtaining Milan vanished in November 1700 when Louis accepted the final will of Charles II of Spain, which named Louis’s nephew Philip d’Anjou as his heir. The stage was then set for a war to determine the succession to the Spanish throne. Versailles saw Carlingford as Vienna’s creature, continually receiving instructions from the Hofburg and maintaining a pro-Habsburg line in Lorraine.66 A pro-Austrian faction formed around him at Léopold’s court. In addition to his protégés, the Mahuet brothers, other members of the faction included the Comte des Armoise and the Marquis de Gerbevilliers.67 François Callières’s instructions from 1700 said that Carlingford was ‘a foreigner exclusively attached to his master without any obligation to Lorraine.’ Callières had described him as a man of good character, and noted his agreeable nature and lack of vanity.68 But there were others whom Callières found to be partial to French interests. These included Creitzen, who had been entrusted with Léopold’s religious education in his minority and was now his confessor, and Charles-François Stainville, Comte de Couvonges, who had been Léopold’s envoy to Paris and had negotiated his marriage with Élisabeth Charlotte, daughter of Philippe d’Orléans and niece of Louis XIV.  Joseph Le Bégue de Chantereine (brother of Léopold’s late tutor and head of council, François) was also a member of the pro-French faction.69 On the outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession, a French ambassador extraordinary, Jean-Baptiste d’Audiffret, was dispatched to Lorraine, to ensure Léopold maintained neutrality and to keep watch on Carlingford.70 Audiffret described him as: ‘quite limited, little suited to governing a state and great affairs for lack of experience, lazy, loves the 65  AAE, CP Lorraine 51/33, Callières to Louis XIV, 25 May 1700; AAE, CP Lorraine 51/63–66, Callières to Louis XIV, 7 Jun. 1700; AAE, CP Lorraine 51/84, Carlingford to Léopold, 7 Jun. 1700. 66  Jalabert (2017b, 143–144). 67  Motta (2015, 409), Carlingford to unknown, 30 Nov. 1703, in Taaffe (1856, 300–301). 68  AAE, CP Lorraine 51/11, Mémoire pour servir d’instruction Mr. de Callières, secretaire du Cabinet du Roy, 17 May 1700: ‘Il est étranger, sans aucun engagement en Lorraine uniquement attaché a son maitre’; AAE, CP Lorraine 51/41, Callières to Louis XIV, 25 May 1700. 69  AAE, CP Lorraine 51/114–15, Callières to Louis XIV, 17 Jun. 1700; AAE, CP Lorraine 56/104, Audiffret to Louis XIV, 23 Nov. 1702; Motta (2015, 409). 70  Jalabert (2017b, 143).

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pleasures of a quiet life, and especially the great meals.’71 By comparison, Creitzen was ‘zelous for justice, very religious, gentle, affable, and not at all spiteful against France.’72 Furthermore, Auddifret was able to learn the contents of Carlingford’s dispatches from Germany through a friend of the latter’s secretary.73 The earl had several contacts in the empire with whom he corresponded. From Franz Ernst von Schlick, his wife’s stepson from her previous marriage, he received military news from the Habsburg lands. He also maintained contact with Heinrich Franz von Mansfeldt, the president of the Imperial War Council, whose letters were said to carry messages from the emperor.74 Creitzen died in April 1704. Audiffret predicted that everyone at court would now turn to Carlingford for favour but wrote: ‘I am persuaded that the Duke of Lorraine, despite the deference he has for him, opposes him on this occasion.’75 Léopold’s new confessor would be a Jesuit in Carlingford’s favour.76 The following month, Carlingford travelled to Malgrange to take the waters for his gout, but according to Audiffret, his illness was feigned to cover for being slighted at court. When a courtier remarked that Carlingford seemed comfortable with Creitzen’s death and was influenced by his desire to govern, Léopold responded that Carlingford had no reason to be comfortable, and he would only govern what the duke wished.77 From Versailles, Louis XIV, approvingly remarked that the duke’s unwillingness to be led by his minister’s ‘passions’ was a sign of wisdom.78 Léopold’s response foreshadowed subsequent events. When Carlingford fell ill with a kidney stone in July 1704 many feared that he would not 71  BMN, Ms. 133/298, Mémoire d’Audiffret: au fond assez borné, a peu propre au Gouvernement d’un état, et aux grand affaires pour n’avoir pas assez d’expérience, paresseux, aimant les plaisirs d’une vie tranquille, et surtout les grand repas.’ 72  BMN, Ms. 133/297, Mémoire d’Audiffret: ‘zélé pour la justice, très bon Religieux, doux, affable, désintéressé et point du tout mal intentionné contre la France.’ 73  AAE, CP Lorraine 56/214, Audiffret to Louis XIV, 1 Jun. 1703; AAE, CP Lorraine 56/228, Audiffret to Louis XIV, 15 Jun. 1703. 74  AAE, CP Lorraine 58/20, Audiffret to Louis XIV, 19 Aug. 1703; AAE, CP Lorraine 58/24, Audiffret to Louis XIV, 24 Aug. 1703; AAE, CP Lorraine 56/214, Audiffret to Louis XIV, 1 Jun. 1703; Wurzbach (1875, 30:108), McKay (1977, 58). 75  AAE, CP Lorraine 59/8–9, Audiffret to Louis XIV, 5 Apr. 1704: ‘Je suis persuadé que M. le Duc de Lorraine, malgré la deference qu’il a pour lui, opposera dans les occasions.’ 76  AAE, CP Lorraine 59/18, Audiffret to Louis XIV, 12 Apr. 1704. 77  AAE, CP Lorraine 59/68, Audiffret to Louis XIV, 17 May 1704. 78  AAE, CP Lorraine 59/75, Louis XIV to Audiffret, 22 May 1704.

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survive.79 With the earl on his deathbed there were several hopefuls with their eyes set on his triple position of grand master of the household, head of the council and superintendent of finance; from Vienna, the emperor sought to gain the posts for the Count of Nassau. It was believed the duke would pick the Prince d’Harcourt, while the duchess supported the Prince Camille. Meanwhile, the Lorraine nobility backed the succession of the Comte de Couvonges.80 Louis XIV expressed his doubts that any replacement in Lorraine would have as much influence.81 Carlingford died on 31 July 1704.82 His body would lie in state for a month in Nancy before being interred.83 Léopold now took measures to ensure that whoever succeeded him would not inherit the same powerful position. Therefore, the Comte de Couvonges was appointed as Carlingford’s successor as grand master of the household, but was not made head of the council or superintendent of finance, despite the three positions traditionally being combined.84 Further, Couvonges would not receive the 36,000 livres which Carlingford had enjoyed; the pay was now 18,000 livres. These events have been interpreted as Léopold’s attempt to take full control of his household and to curtail the traditional privileges of the Lorraine nobility.85 In appointing Couvonges, the duke appeased the old nobility while reducing its control over the chief offices of the court. In the meantime, Carlingford’s old protégé, Marc-Antoine de Mahuet (who came from a bourgeois family ennobled in 1599), rose in prominence as the intendant of finances and enabled the duke to better control the finances of his house.86 As Louis XIV had foretold, Léopold was not going to grant as much authority to the new grand master of his household as his old governor had wielded.87 What is there to learn from Carlingford’s service to the House of Lorraine? His relationship with the ducal family had been strengthened  AAE, CP Lorraine 59/141, Audiffret to Louis XIV, 12 Jul. 1704.  AAE, CP Lorraine 59/154, Audiffret to Louis XIV, 19 Jul. 1704; AAE, CP Lorraine 59/161–163, Audiffret to Louis XIV, 26 Jul. 1704. 81  AAE, CP Lorraine 59/160, Louis XIV to Audiffret, 24 Jul. 1704; AAE, CP Lorraine 59/170, Louis XIV to Audiffret, 30 Jul. 1704. 82  Calmet (1757, 7:229). Elisabeth Maximiliana, ‘Madame de Carlinfort’, had died in Nancy four years earlier in September 1700 (Pfister 1900, 28). 83  Taaffe (1856, 22). 84  Motta (2015, 438). 85  Motta (2015, 438). 86  Motta (2015, 438–439), Lipp (2011, 32). 87  AAE, CP Lorraine 61/22, Louis XIV to Audiffret, 14 Aug. 1704. 79 80

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over many years, beginning with his service with Charles V in the imperial army and continuing as governor to the duke’s son. A close confidant of Charles’s, who had entrusted him with military and diplomatic missions in their years of service together, he ultimately oversaw the education of Charles’s heir. It is clear he was a pivotal figure in the early years of Léopold reign. Carlingford and his colleagues Le Bégue and Canon revitalised a state depleted by occupation and warfare. The deaths of the other two left him Léopold’s most prominent official and the de facto premier. In receipt of substantial income, he established his family in positions in the ducal army and at court while acting as patron to numerous others. His background in the imperial army and service to the Habsburg monarchy coloured his position. Deeply distrusted by Versailles, he at times refused to fulfil duties in Léopold’s service if they ran counter to the interests of the emperor. Nevertheless, he played a prominent part in serving Duke Charles V and his family in Austria, and following the Peace of Ryswick had worked to ensure sustainability and longevity for Duke Léopold in Lorraine following his return from exile.

Archives Consulted Archives départementales de la Meurthe-et-Moselle (Departmental Archives of Meurthe-et-Moselle), Nancy (ADMM). Archives des Affaires Etrangères (Foreign Affairs Archive), Paris – La Courneuve (AAE). Bibliothèque municipale de Nantes (Municipal Library of Nantes), Nantes (BMN). Bibliothèque nationale de France (National Library of France), Paris (BNF). Österreichisches Staatsarchiv (Austrian State Archives), Vienna (ÖStA), Haus-, Hof- und Staatsarchiv (HHStA).

References Bergin, Joseph, and Brockliss Laurence, eds. 1992. Richelieu and his age. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Bogdan, Henry. 2013. La Lorraine des ducs. 3rd ed. Paris: Perrin. Brockliss, Laurence. 1999. The anatomy of the minister-favourite. In The world of the favourite, ed. J.H.  Elliott and Lawrence Brockliss. London: Yale University Press.

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Burke, Peter. 2017. Exiles and expatriates in the history of knowledge, 1500–2000. Waltham: Brandeis University Press. Cabourdin, Guy. 1991. Histoire de Lorraine. Les temps moderne t. 2. De la Paix Westphalie à la fin de l’Ancien régime. Metz: Serpenois. Calmet, Augustin. 1757. Histoire de Lorraine. Vol. 7. Nancy: Leseure. D’Alton, John. 1855. Illustrations, historical and genealogical, of King James’s Irish army list (1689). Dublin: D’Alton. Dictionary of Irish Biography. 2015. s.v. ‘Taaffe, Francis’, by Éamonn Ó Ciardha. https://doi.org/10.3318/dib.008434.v1 Downey, Declan. 2017. ‘Pietas Austriaca’ and ‘Dispensers of Royal Authority’: The early Irish colleges and Habsburg cultural strategies. In Forming Catholic Communities: Irish, Scots and English College networks, ed. Liam Chambers and Thomas O’Connor. Leiden: Brill. Elliott, J.H. 1984. Richelieu and Olivares. Cambridge: CUP. Elliott, J.H., and Lawrence Brockliss, eds. 1999. The world of the favourite. London: Yale University Press. Griffin, Stephen, and Jérémy Filet. 2018. ‘Irlandois de nation’: Duke Léopold’s Irish subjects and Jacobitism in Lorraine. History Ireland 26: 22–25. Harsany, Zoltan. 1936. La cour de Léopold, duc de Lorraine et de Bar, 1698–1729. Nancy: Idoux. Hatton, Ragnhild. 1976. Louis XIV and his fellow monarchs. In Louis XIV and Europe, ed. Ragnhild Hatton. London: Macmillan Press. Haussonville, Othenin comte d’. 1859. Histoire de la réunion de la Lorraine à la France. Vol. 4. Paris: Lévy. Jalabert, Laurent. 2017a. Charles V de Lorraine ou la quête de l’Etat (1638–1690). Metz: Paraiges. ———. 2017b. Monsieur d’Audiffret, résident et observateur à la cour de Lorraine (1702–1733). In Échangers, passages et transferts a la cour du duc Léopold, 1698–1729, ed. Anne Motta, 139–150. Rennes: Presses universitaires des Rennes. Jennings, Brendan. 1944. The Irish Franciscans at Boulay. Archivium Hibernicum 11: 118–153. Kramer, Hans. 1954. Herzog Karl V. von Lothringen und Königinwitwe Eleonore von Tirol. MIÖG 62: 460–489. Lachs, Phyllis. 1965. The diplomatic corps under Charles II and James II. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Librairie Ancienne Zalc. 1733. Recueil des édits, ordonnances, declarations, traitez et concordats du regne de Leopold I. de glorieuse memoire, Duc de Lorraine et de Bar. Vol. 1. Nancy: Cusson. Lipp, Charles T. 2011. Noble strategies in an early modern state: The Mahuet of Lorraine. Rochester: University of Rochester Press.

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Lossky, Andrew. 1994. Louis XIV and the French monarchy. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. Lynn, John A. 1999. The wars of Louis XIV, 1667–1714. Harlow: Routledge. Mansel, Philip, and Torsten Riotte, eds. 2011. Monarchy and exile: The politics of legitimacy from Marie de Médicis to Wilhelm II. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Maupillier, Frederic Richard. 2014. The Irish in the regiments of Duke Leopold of Lorraine, 1698–1729. Archivium Hibernicum 67: 285–312. McCluskey, Phil. 2013. Absolute monarchy on the frontiers: Louis XIV’s occupation of Lorraine and Savoy. Manchester: Manchester University Press. McKay, Derek. 1977. Prince Eugene of Savoy. London: Thames and Hudson. Montner, E. William. 2007. A bewitched duchy: Lorraine and its dukes, 1477–1736. Geneva: Droz. Motta, Anne. 2015. Noblesse et pouvoir princier dans la Lorraine ducale, 1624–1737. Paris: Clasiques Garnier. ———, ed. 2017. Échangers, passages et transferts a la cour du duc Léopold, 1698–1729. Rennes: Presses universitaires des Rennes. Nöel, François Jean Baptiste. 1840. Mémoires pour servir á la histoire de Lorraine. Vol. 1. Nancy: Dard. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (ONDB). 2004. ‘Taaffe, Francis, third earl of Carlingford’, by Harman Murtagh. https://doi.org/10.1093/ ref:odnb/26905 Parrot, David. 1992. Richelieu, the grands, and the French army. In Richelieu and his age, ed. Joseph Bergin and Laurence Brockliss, 135–173. Oxford: Clarendon Press. Parrott, David. 2001. Richelieu’s army, war, government and society in France (1624–1642). Cambridge: CUP. Petiot, Alain. 2012. Les Lorrain et les Habsbourgs: Dictionnaire biographique illustré des familles lorraines au service de la Maison d’Autriche. Vol. 2. Aix-en-­ Provence: Mémodoc. ———. 2015. La minorité du duc Léopold à Innsbruck (1690–1698). In Innsbruck 1765: Prunkvolle, Hochzeit, fröhliche Feste, tragischer Aufklarung, ed. Renate Zedinger, 85–107. Bochum: Bochum Winkler. Pfister, Christian, ed. 1900. Journal de ce qui s’est passé a Nancy depuis la paix de Ryswick conclue le 30 Octobre 1697 jusqu’en l’année 1744 inclusivement par le libraire Jean-François Nicolas. Nancy: Crépin-Leblond. Plater, Stanisław, and Narcisse Achille de Salvandy, eds. 1826. Lettres du roi de Pologne Jean Sobieski, a la reine Marie Casimire, pendant la campagne de Vienne. Paris: Michaud. Scott, H.M. 1996. The rise of the first minister in eighteenth-century Europe. In History and biography: Essays in honour of Derek Beales, ed. T.C.W.  Blanning and David Cannadine, 21–52. Cambridge: CUP.

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Smith, Geoffrey. 2003. The cavaliers in exile. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Spangler, Jonathan. 2003. A lesson in diplomacy for Louis XIV: The Treaty of Montmartre, 1662, and the princes of the House of Lorraine. French History 17: 225–250. Stoye, John. 2007. The siege of Vienna. Edinburgh: Birlinn. Sturdy, David. 2004. Richelieu and Mazarin: A study in statesmanship. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Taaffe, Karl. 1856. Memoirs of the family of Taaffe. Vienna: Auer. Vignal Souleyreau, Marie-Catherine. 2004. Richelieu et la Lorraine. Paris: L’Harmattan. von Wurzbach, Constant. 1875. Biographisches Lexikon des Kaisertums Österreich. Vol. 30. Vienna: K. K. Hof-, und Staatsdruckerei. Williams, Mark R.F. 2014. The King’s Irishmen: The Irish in the exiled court of Charles II, 1649–1660. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer. Worthington, David. 2004. The 1688 correspondence of Nicholas Taaffe, second earl of Carlingford (?–1690), from the Imperial court of Vienna. Archivium Hibernicum 58: 174–209. ———. 2016. British and Irish experiences and impressions of Central Europe, c.1560–1688. London: Taylor & Francis.

CHAPTER 6

Ex vulnere vigor: Emblematic Representations of Resilience in the Royal Festivals in Honour of Pedro II (1648–1707), King of Portugal Filipa Araújo

There is a vast body of research on early modern European kingship from recent years.1 It manifests an increasing interest in royal ceremonies and festivals, highlighting the mechanisms of repraesentatio maiestatis and related representations of political power.2 Studies of festivals and ceremonials have shown those events played a major role in the political stage  The research for this essay was possible thanks to the postdoctoral project Mute Signs and Speaking Images: The Reception of Logo-Iconic Language in Portuguese Baroque Culture (SFRH/BPD/107747/2015), supported by the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology, funded by POCH, ESF, and the MCTES national budget. My thanks to Stephen Rawles for his careful reading and valuable contributions to this essay. 2  See, for example, the studies and literature cited therein by Watanabe-O’Kelly and Simon (2000), Mulryne and Goldring (2002), Mulryne and Watanabe-O’Kelly (2004), and Guiderdoni and De Marco (2022). 1

F. Araújo (*) Interuniversitary Center for Camonian Studies, University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 F. Persson et al. (eds.), Resilience and Recovery at Royal Courts, 1200–1840, Queenship and Power, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20123-3_6

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between the sixteenth and the eighteenth centuries. Through such public spectacles, not only national identities but also European culture made their power visible in many territories from the Old Continent to the New World, using ephemeral display, theatre, music, dance, and printed accounts. Royal houses developed their own language of triumph, fostering cultural and artistic exchanges within their dominions. The particular importance of early modern festival culture in the world of the Spanish Habsburgs has been studied.3 This model, adopted in Lisbon in the period of the dual monarchy (1580–1640), was pivotal for Portuguese festivals in the second half of the seventeenth century.4 Early modern triumphal entries comprised magnificent processions past huge ephemeral monuments. On the façades of these buildings it was common to find emblems, whose meaning had to be decoded by the viewers. Many compositions privileged easily recognised popular motifs, but the iconographic programmes could also imply a more complex process, involving careful analysis and reflection. Allowing different levels of interpretation, ‘the use of emblems seems thus to represent a distinct interest and disposition, which appears to contradict the dynamic nature of the triumphal procession’ since they functioned as ‘visual footnotes’ or ‘hallmarks of scholars and literati’.5 Taking the pageant as a whole into consideration, the analysis of the emblems sheds some light on the humanistic discourse comprised in these logo-iconic compositions. Within the particular context of each festival, emblematic devices aimed to express political concepts and ethical values, making use of a universal language. Although the emblems were displayed at one-off events, some gained an afterlife thanks to manuscript descriptions, visual documents, and printed accounts. Sometimes, the booklets even indicate the literary sources and the connections to the main imagery, making the message more accessible to a public less acquainted with ars emblematica. To accomplish a full ‘reading’ of the royal festivals, researchers need to know the iconological and symbolical resources then available for political propaganda. Among those manuals, attention should be paid to emblem books, given their very widespread circulation and their impressive impact on the arts for over two centuries.6  Fernández-González (2015).  Chiva et al. (2018). 5  Cholcman (2015, 360–361). 6  Hoepel and Mckeown (2017). 3 4

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The first printed work to be identified as an emblem book was Alciato’s Emblematum liber (1531), published by Steyner in Augsburg. This edition established the pattern commonly associated with the genre, combining a motto (or inscriptio), a picture (pictura) and a verse text or epigram (subscriptio).7 The influence of this new literary form extended over the whole of Europe and reached the New World.8 By the end of the seventeenth century, over a hundred more editions of Alciato’s emblems would be printed, not only in Latin but in French, German, Italian, and Spanish. Besides, many of these compositions were published in English in Geffrey Whitney’s Choice of Emblems (1586).9 Emblem books achieved such popularity that many authors specialised their compositions on religious, ethical, or political topics. Those collections were often addressed to royal figures attaining the educational aim of specula principis and providing efficient materials for political propaganda.10 European courts adopted it as a popular strategy to communicate their message, and the Portuguese monarchs of the House of Braganza followed the trend. The efficiency of emblematic devices in royal festivals had been tested by the Habsburg rulers in Lisbon, and the new dynasty adapted the successful template to show a powerful image.11 Son of the Restorer of Independence, King João IV (1604–1656, r.1640–1656), King Pedro II (1648–1706, r.1683–1706) earned the soubriquet ‘the Pacific’ because he negotiated the Treaty of Lisbon (13 February 1668) which brought a formal end to the Iberian Union. By that point he had served as regent for his brother Afonso VI (1643–1683, r.1656–1683) since 1668, which meant he led Portugal through the very difficult post-war period for almost forty years. It is therefore not surprising that resilience was one of his essential virtues, but it is important to analyse the available testimonies to understand how relevant the concept of resilience was to his public image. Consideration of two different events—his wedding (30 August 1687) and his memorial service in Rome (13 September 1707)—allows comparison of the emblematic 7  For a recent review of the theoretical issues associated with definitions of emblems, see Daly (2014). 8  Leal and Amaral (2017). 9  For the editorial history of the Emblemata, see the Glasgow University Emblem project, Alciato at Glasgow, www.emblems.arts.gla.ac.uk/alciato/; for the reception of Alciato in Portugal, see, for example, Araújo (2014). 10  Sullivan (2001). 11  Araújo (2020, 156–176).

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representations of resilience, continuity, and recovery displayed on each occasion. This process will focus on repeated motifs, likely original sources, and probable meanings, in order to discover more about Portuguese expertise in using emblematic devices in royal propaganda.

The Royal Wedding of 1687 On 29 August 1666, the celebration of Afonso VI’s marriage to Mademoiselle d’Aumale, goddaughter of Louis XIV (1638–1715), was the first spectacular royal event of the recently empowered Braganza dynasty. More than 140 years had passed since the previous royal wedding, and Lisbon organised a magnificent festival to welcome the new queen, Maria Francisca Isabel (1646–1683), of the House of Savoy. The event should have inaugurated a new era, but Afonso’s reign was doomed to fail. Two years after the magnificent wedding, Queen Maria Francisca requested the annulment of the marriage in order to marry her brother-in-law, Pedro, who assumed the role of prince regent. In 1683, he finally acceded to the throne, and lost his wife only a few months later. Having a single daughter as issue, King Pedro II felt compelled to marry a second time. His new queen arrived on 11 August 1687 and their wedding festivities ran until 25 October.12 The festivities were designed to celebrate the monarch, show his virtues, and exalt Portuguese identity in a period of recovery, when resilience was key. Therefore, the iconographic programme frequently evoked the four cardinal virtues, with several representations of Fortitude.13 The many descriptions available confirm the relevance of the spectacular celebration. The iconographic programme involved the most prestigious artist of the period, namely Luis Nunes Tinoco. His manuscript, entitled Feniz de Portugal Prodigiosa, contains beautiful drawings of the floats, cars, and ephemeral works built for the royal festivities. It contributed to divulge the association between the queen and the symbolism of the phoenix, making known that she was responsible for the rebirth of Lusitanian monarchy.14 The German-born queen arrived in an exquisite barge and the Portuguese aristocracy awaited her at the marvellous bridge, a temporary  Borges (1986).  Costa (1694, 233, 243). 14  Sider (1997). 12 13

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construction built next to the pier.15 There was a huge triumphal portico with four façades, three levels, and a dome.16 The south frontage held allegorical statues of the four continents (America, Europe, Asia, and Africa), composing emblems (with motto, picture, and text) to pay a universal tribute to the royal couple. This emblematic stage sought to impress Queen Maria Sofia by an extremely conspicuous display of luxury products from the different territories of the global empire ruled by Pedro II. Emblems also decorated the arches dispersed along the main streets, and some are described in the pages of the official account published by Miguel Manescal, a printer patronised by the Royal House of Braganza.17 That testimony was written by António Rodrigues da Costa, the secretary of Manuel Teles da Silva, Count of Vilar Maior, who led the embassy sent to Prince Philip William of Neuburg, elector Palatine, to accompany the queen on her journey to Portugal. The author participated in the embassy and the book was dedicated to Fernão Teles da Silva, son of the Count of Vilar Maior, who took part in the Royal Council.18 These facts indicate that the publication was an instrument of political propaganda. According to the prefatory text, the description of the event was to include engravings to ‘demonstrate with greater clarity to the eyes of all, the sumptuous constructions that the love of the Portuguese and the admiration of foreign nations erected as public approbation of the royal marriage’.19 Despite all efforts, the book project failed, and it ended up published without illustrations. The Jesuit João dos Reis’s album provides a visual version of the triumphal arches erected in 1687, although his sketches did not match the information reported by Costa about the emblematic compositions.20 In the Embaixada, the concepts of resilience, continuity, and recovery seem particularly relevant to the iconographic programme of the 15  Biblioteca Geral Da Universidade De Coimbra (General Library of the University of Coimbra), Coimbra, Manuscript 323, M. Descripção da sumptuosa e magnifica ponte, que se fabricou para o desembarque da augustíssima rainha de Portugal D. Maria Sofia Isabel. 16  Costa (1694, 135). 17  The arches included the French arch (Costa 1694, 250) and the arch of the English community (Costa 1694, 252). 18  Barbosa Machado (1930, 368–370). 19  Costa (1694), [1]: ‘Expor com maior evidência aos olhos de toda as sumptuosas fabricas que o amor dos Portugueses, e a veneração das nações estrangeiras erigiram ao aplauso das Augustas vodas’. 20  Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal (National Library of Portugal), Lisbon, Manuscripts, João dos Reis, Copia dos reaes aparatos e obras que se ficeram em Lixboa na occasiam da entrada e dos desposorios de Suas Majestades, 1687? purl.pt/26151.

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arch raised by the Flemish community, in the centre of the main street (Fig. 6.1). The account mentioned six emblems displayed on the pedestals.21 The first represented an eagle with the motto Non terret fulgor (‘Brightness does not frighten’), recalling that only the most powerful of birds could look at the sun and resist.22 This composition was mentioned at Picinelli’s Mundus symbolicus as a representation of Saint John the Evangelist, who faced all his tortures with his eyes fixed on God.23 The transportation to the festival stage would suggest that Pedro sustained his leadership since he kept his focus on the divine. The following emblem could corroborate this idea, bearing a heart with the motto Cor Principum in manu Dei est (‘The Prince’s heart is in God’s hands’). The next emblem joined a tree with a branch cut by an axe, bearing the motto Ex vulnere vigor (‘Vigour from the wound’). To grasp the full meaning of this logo-iconic device, I would suggest a comparative reading with the emblem referred to in Mundus symbolicus, which mentioned the same motto combined with a cork oak.24 That combination represented Saint Jerome and Ignatius of Loyola, claiming that, like the cork oak (quercus suber), they reinforced their spiritual strength through pain. Every effort was made to highlight this one Portuguese native tree species, meaning it could be claimed as a national icon, representative of resilience through a difficult process. To this day, experienced people use axes to extract the bark from the suber and produce cork. It is a delicate operation which usually takes place every nine years, when the tree is at its most active, and after each stripping, the cork oak undergoes a specific process of self-­regeneration. In his Emblemas Morales, Borja conveyed a similar message using a tree with three axes driven into its branches under the motto State (‘Stand firm’).25 It represented perseverance in adversity, a topic now appropriated by Pedro II and the recently established Portuguese dynasty. The arch of the Flemish had a phoenix on the last emblem of the series, probably reinforcing the idea that the restored monarchy had to trust itself  Costa (1694, 229–231).  The arch of the Italian displays a very similar emblem with an eagle (Costa 1694, 223). 23  Philippo Picinelli (1604–1679) presented a symbolic reading of the world, assembling a monumental encyclopaedia of emblems that circulated widely in the early modern period. First published in 1635, the book was reprinted several times in two volumes, an inspiration for art and literature across Europe, including Portugal. For St John the Evangelist; see Picinelli (1681, 262). 24  Picinelli (1681, 597). 25  Borja (1581, 57). 21 22

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Fig. 6.1  The Arch of the Flemish in 1687. Copyright National Library of Portugal (https://purl.pt/26151/1/html/index.html#/15–16)

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to recover, although it was supported by political alliances and divine providence.26 The picture had the motto Nutrix ipse sui (‘She nurses herself’) exactly as Capaccio described it, clarifying that it represented the people who learn by themselves thanks to their own skills.27 The same interpretation was pointed at in the Mundus symbolicus.28 The text published by Costa described eight emblems on the other façade of the arch, also posted on the pedestals. Among these compositions there were two motifs usually related to resilience: the sunflower and the palm tree. As icons they were popular in emblem books and as royal imprese (dévises), assuming different meanings according to the mottoes applied, and the specific context in which they were used. The famous Alciato emblem Obdurandum aduersus urgentia (‘Stand firm against pressure’) made the palm tree widely known as a symbol of constancy and tenacity, and the Teatro d’imprese also contributed to that interpretation.29 Besides, the Mundus symbolicus provided several emblems using the palm tree as central motif, illustrating the ideals of victory, virtue, and perseverance.30 The chapter devoted to Palma actually opens with a composition bearing the motto Mutua faecunditas (‘Mutual fecundity’), which alludes to the advantages of a fertile marriage.31 It is a complete match with the logo-iconic proposal on the arch of the Flemish and that intertextual dialogue might insinuate that the continuity of the royal house depended on the wedding and its offspring. That was one more battle that Pedro II had to win in order to guarantee the stability of Portuguese independence. To turn to the sunflower, Picinelli offers plenty of examples, allowing a large range of symbolic readings, although none bears the motto transcribed in the arch of the Flemish.32 The logo-iconic combination joins a sunflower with the motto Caelestes sequitur motus (‘Follow the celestial movements’), exactly as it appeared in Tapisseries du Roy Louis XIV.33 First 26  The topics were suggested by the other emblems on the Flemish arch: a caduceus with the motto Conciliat animos (‘Reconciles the minds’) (Picinelli 1681, 152) and a heron with the motto Sublimitate securior (‘Safer at height’), similar to a composition mentioned by Picinelli (1681, 177). On the arch of the Confectioners, there was an emblem with a phoenix holding the motto Multiplicabo dies (‘I will multiply the days’) (Costa 1694, 226). 27  Capaccio (1592, 99v). 28  Picinelli (1681, 324). 29  Alciato (1550, 43; Ferro, 1623, 536–539). 30  Picinelli (1681, 581–584). 31  Picinelli (1681, 581). 32  Picinelli (1681, 648–653). 33  Félibien (1687, 77).

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published in Paris in 1665, this book reproduced the two series of ­tapestries commissioned by King Louis XIV on the twin themes of the four elements and the four seasons. It joined the text by André Félibien and a set of devices, engraved after miniature paintings by Jacques Bailly.34 The sunflower was associated with the Earth and represented the pious devotion of the ruler, who never stopped following the Lord. Knowing the previous use of this emblematic composition in French royal propaganda, the intertextual link suggests that the author of the iconographic programme of the arch intended to express a similar message, alluding to Pedro II’s piety, one of the conventional virtues of Catholic monarchs. Assuring the continuity of the faith embraced by his ancestors, and resisting the temptations of heresy were therefore important goals to retain the empathy of the people and the support of the powerful Catholic Church. It is noteworthy that the arch of the Flemish community included two other emblems in common with the devises designed to honour Louis XIV. On the same façade, there was a censer with the motto Et sacro carpitur igne (‘Seized by the sacred fire’), alluding once again to royal piety, and a rose with the motto Iuncta arma decori (‘Weapons connected to beauty’), which represented the ruler’s ability to deal with war and peace.35 This was definitely a crucial skill for the king, who after all went by the name Pedro II the Pacific.36 The last arch of the procession, intentionally erected in the centre of the Palace courtyard, was sponsored by the Germans, whose community was committed to welcoming a queen from Neuburg. The temporary construction was impressive in terms of dimension and decoration, and noteworthy for its hexagonal shape. The interior was decorated with twelve allegorical figures, each accompanied by a logo-iconic composition, comprising a picture and a motto (Fig. 6.2). The testimonies conveyed by Costa and Reis coincided only in the description of Spes (‘Hope’), Pax 34  André Félibien was responsible for many accounts of royal celebrations associated with the court of Louis XIV and his political propaganda. For editions of the book, see Adams et al. (2002, 459–483). 35  Menestrier, in his Histoire du Roy Louis Le Grand, included this emblem among the ‘Dévises pour le marriage de Sa Majesté’ (Adams et al. 2002, 162–165) and it was also mentioned in the Tapisseries as part of the ‘Carrousel’ (Félibien 1687, 15). 36  Félibien (1687, 89). The remaining emblems were as follows: a halcyon with the motto Agnoscit tempus (‘Recognises the right time’) described by Picinelli (1681, 258); a large column with the motto Pondere firmior (‘Stronger by weight’) also mentioned by Picinelli (1681, 58); an arm holding a balance with the motto Optimus modus (‘the best measure’); and a diamond ring with the motto Iungi amantes (‘Lovers connected’).

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Fig. 6.2  Emblems on the Arch of the Germans in 1687. Copyright National Library of Portugal (https://purl.pt/26151/1/html/index.html#/21–22)

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(‘Peace’), Fama (‘Fame’), and Laetitia publica (‘Public Welfare’).37 The feminine figure representing public welfare carries musical instruments and in the upper part there is a sunflower with the motto Hoc aspiciente rident omnia (‘Facing it, everything laughs’), recalling once again that symbol of perseverance and faith, whose example should inspire Pedro II and his wife.38 The drawings left by João dos Reis illustrate five concepts not mentioned by Costa. According to the album, the ideological message displayed on the arch of the Germans, Abundantia (‘Abundance’), Maiestas (‘Greatness’), and Prosperitas (‘Success’), was crucial to a successful reign. There were also the allegorical images of Victoria (‘Victory’) and Longaevitas (‘Long life’), in a certain way to be associated with resilience and recovery. Victory was represented by an emblem bearing a crowned eagle with the motto Nunquam non insuperabilis ales (‘Ever invincible bird’). Considering that the queen of the birds assumed a special meaning in the institutional representation of the German nation, the connection to the concept of victory evokes multiple senses. In another context it could symbolise the king, but in this specific context it seems to have evoked Maria Sofia, indicating that Pedro II (and the Portuguese people) depended on the queen to succeed in his political mission. Lusitania would lose the battle for independence if the royal succession were not assured. Supporting confidence in Portuguese recovery through the royal marriage then being celebrated, the emblematic representation of longevity presented a phoenix with the motto Ne moriare renascere semper (‘Never die, always reborn’). Queen Maria Sofia and the mythical bird were closely linked, and this emblem seems to have underscored that the future of the House of Braganza was reliant on the German princess rising from the ashes with renewed strength to live through another cycle. Taking these emblematic compositions into consideration, it is plain that resilience and recovery were key concepts in 1687, often repeated in  Costa (1694, 258), Reis (1687, 22).  Next to Laetitia publica, Costa (1694, 258–259), reports the following emblematic compositions: Fame represented by a telescope with the motto Praesentia maior (‘Larger presence’); Hope represented by ears of wheat with the motto Cum semine fructus (‘Crops with seed’); Public wellness (Salus publica) represented by a silk weaver with the motto Nata fomento aegris, sanisque (‘Born to bring solance to the sick and healthy’); Fortune represented by a star with the motto Felici semper sidere (‘Always with the lucky star’); and Peace represented by a caduceus with the motto Hanc semper te poscimus omnes (‘This is what we all demand of you always’). 37 38

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the public acclamation for the new royal couple, who carried the weight of dynastic expectation. The emblematic programme matched praise for Pedro II and his queen, underlining the wishes of the Portuguese people, with the foreign communities, who were looking forward to the establishment of an independent and flourishing nation.

The Memorial Service of 1707 Twenty years (and seven children) after his wedding, Pedro II was again the focus of spectacular ceremonies. Following his death on 9 December 1706 there were exequies in several Portuguese cities and also in Brazil.39 The European rituals crossed the Atlantic and emblematic models decorated the ephemeral constructions in Salvador, for example. The Breve Compendio e Narraçam do funebre espectaculo (1709), published by Sebastião da Rocha Pitta, describes some logo-iconic compositions, confirming the portability of that language and the wide spread of the genre. With Spain caught up in the War of the Succession and the relations among European royal houses facing new challenges, the dynasty of Braganza now pursued the opportunity to reinforce its imperial power, using memorial services for the king as an efficient instrument of political propaganda abroad. The ceremonies were the perfect occasion to put on a spectacular stage both the late monarch and his successor. The artistic display reinforced the impact of the political message, achieving an impressive effect on the participants. The accounts and engravings were therefore important outcomes, to reach a larger public.40 Thanks to the strategic investment in official pamphlets, we still have access to the details of the mausoleums, the decoration of the spaces, and the funeral emblems which were always used.41 According to the available sources, the death of King Pedro II was commemorated in Rome, capital of the Christian world, with a sumptuous memorial service, suitable for the ruler of a global empire. The event took place at the Church of Saint Anthony, which had been rebuilt in the second half of the seventeenth century to consolidate the presence of the Portuguese Crown near the Vatican. The new king, João V (1689–1750, r.1706–1750), spared no expense to praise his father, and hired the famous 39  Some texts related to the ceremonies in Lisbon, Lamego, Tomar, Setúbal, Évora, and Salvador were published; see, for example, Tedim (2000), Araújo (2016). 40  Klecker (2008, 235–262). 41  Amaral (2014, 307–332).

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architect Carlo Fontana to design the memorable Castrum doloris.42 The ceremonies held on 13 September 1707 combined a monumental visual show with music, rich textiles, and pleasant fragrances. The account published in Rome describes a ‘rich and appropriate apparatus’, carefully planned by the heir to the Portuguese crown to illustrate the merit of the deceased king and the ‘generous gratitude’ of the living ruler.43 Aware of the political dimension implied, the author states that exequies are a ‘religious action’ to show magnificent gratitude, so they should be prepared to be ‘joyful triumphs’ more than ‘mournful rituals’.44 Having in mind the purpose of making the memorial service ‘appear before the eyes of the absent’, perpetuating the memory of the ceremony, the pamphlet included expensive engravings and was translated into Portuguese.45 The printed account mentioned emblematic compositions displayed at three prominent locations: the façade of the church, the main nave, and the pedestals supporting the dome. The baroque decoration on the exterior of the temple combined a huge medallion of Pedro II, allegorical representations of magnanimity and virtue, funeral ornaments, and two emblems (Fig. 6.3). The Latin inscription paid homage to the ‘Portuguese king, a distinguished soldier in war and peace, a patron of Roman religion throughout the imperial territory, a powerful and fair ruler’. The two emblems occupied a central position and shared a common image: the sun, a very popular motif in royal propaganda in the early modern period. The composition on the left combined a rainbow with the motto Pacem promittit in arcu (‘With the rainbow the promise of peace’), alluding once again to the most important achievement of Pedro II’s reign, the restoration of peace in the aftermath of independence. The other emblem bears an eagle facing the sun with the motto Hoc tantum iudice gaudet (‘Rejoice with this judge only’). Considering the combination of image and text in those circumstances, it might illustrate Pedro II’s resilient devotion to the Catholic faith. Inside the church, the global empire was represented in many ways to pay universal tribute. Twelve statues on the cornice depicted the territories under Portuguese dominion, from America to Asia. On the frieze there were six  Fontana (1707a)  Funerale (1707, 2). 44  Funerale (1707, 1). 45  The Portuguese version of the description has more detail (Funeral 1707). Fontana’s drawings are in the Royal Collection of the UK; see Tetti (2017). 42 43

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Fig. 6.3  Emblems for the memorial service for King Pedro II in Rome in 1707b. Copyright National Library of Portugal (https://purl.pt/4173/3/)

panels with logo-iconic devices on both sides of the main nave, symbolising the universal power held by the deceased monarch. Focusing on the emblems, the account explains the meaning that each composition intended to express.46 The first contained a palm tree with the motto Alia ex aliis (‘Different things from different ways’), apparently taken from Vergil (Aen. 3. 494). It represented the glorious deeds of the Portuguese people, whose achievements led continually to new attainments. The second emblem combined Libra (the sign of the zodiac) with the Ovidian motto Temperat orbem (‘Tempers the world’), alluding to royal justice. The third showed a laurel

 Funerale (1707, 5–8).

46

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with the motto Aeterna virebit (‘It will be lively forever’), evoking the eternal fame won by Pedro II, whose memory would last forever, defeating death.47 On the other side of the church, the fourth emblem illustrated Fortune, displaying the image of a fire lit by the wind with the motto Nutritur ab aura (‘Nourished by the breeze’). The next one combined the picture of a river meeting the sea under the motto Augetur et auget (‘Is increased and increases’), suggesting that the glory of his ancestors made the individual prestige of each king greater, and, at the same time, each monarch enriched the history of the entire nation. The ruler received from the past and contributed to the future. This was therefore a very significant representation of continuity, considering that the new dynasty of Braganza did not directly descend from the last king of the House of Avis.48 And finally, the sixth emblem of this set depicted several stars on a dark sky with the motto Nitet et vigilat (‘Shines and watches’), meaning that the late king would keep watching over his kingdom, although no one would see him. In this way, it was implied the monarch would maintain his protection, allowing a partial revival of his presence. Another series of eight emblematic compositions was displayed on the pillar that supported the dome, surrounding the catafalque.49 Divided in four groups, each pair of emblems was semantically connected to a scene that depicted Pedro II in a specific context, illustrating an aspect of his virtuous character. According to the account, those images represented the king’s devotion to Our Lady, his practice of Penitence, his

47  Mundus emblematicus describes an emblem composed by laurel and the motto Aeternumque Virebit representing immortal virtue (Picinelli 1681, 568). 48  Founded by King João I (1357–1433, r.1385–1433), Grand Master of the Order of Avis, illegitimate son of King Pedro I (1320–1367, r.1357–1367), and father of Fernando I (1345–1383, r.1367–1383), who was the last monarch of the first Portuguese dynasty, the House of Burgundy. King João I came to the throne following the 1383–1385 crisis. His descendants ruled Portugal through the Golden Age of Exploration, establishing a global empire. 49  Funerale (1707, 10–11).

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contribution to spread Christian faith, and his perseverance in the faith.50 This concept came with an emblem having a ship guided through a storm by the North Star on his picture under the motto Visa metum minuit (‘Looking at it reduces fear’). Next to it, there was a composition bearing the pictura of a sunflower turned to face the sun between clouds, with the motto Etiam sub nube (‘Even behind clouds’). Once again, this emblematic motif symbolised royal piety and constancy. In the costly iconographic programme of the event, the emblematic compositions interacted with all the other elements of the festive stage, highlighting the conventional royal virtues, namely justice, liberality towards the arts and sciences, faith, piety, and fortitude. Establishing an intertextual dialogue with the emblematic series, the impressive catafalque included paintings, inscriptions, and sculptures in a complex masterpiece of artistic invention.51 The account transcribed an inscription that captured the purpose of the memorial, stating that Rome was invited to admire the Portuguese king’s perfect virtues: ‘admirare Roma qualem Regem perfecerit Virtus Quem tantum fecit fortuna’.52

Final Considerations The reign of Pedro II the Pacific provides a remarkable exemplum of royal resilience in a demanding period. From the moment he became regent, the son of the Restorer had to face the political opponents to his rule, put an end to the war of the Restoration, negotiate peace, exact international 50  For devotion, one emblem combined a shield under a full moon with the motto Plenior a plena (‘Fuller when she is full’), and the other combined the image of a bee set on a lily with the motto Itque, reditque (‘Go and comes back’). Picinelli (1681, 183), mentioned this lemma with a watch as symbolizing resurrection. The moon and lily were well-known emblems of the Virgin Mary. For penitence, one of the emblems held the motto Sub murice vepres (‘Beneath purple there are thorns’) with the picture of roses. Picinelli (1681, 66), referred to a composition of roses with the text Dabit murice pictas (‘Will offer purple roses depicted’). The other emblem on the pillar bore a diamond in a dark box with the inscription In tenebris clarior (‘Brighter in darkness’). The Mundus Symbolicus identified the same motto with the moon (Picinelli 1681, 34). For faith, there was an emblem depicting a calamity with the motto Captivitas captiva (‘Capture caught’) and the other composition showed the River Tagus and its golden sand with the words Et rigat, et donat (‘Not only brings water but also gifts’). 51  Funerale (1707, 6–10). 52  Funerale (1707, 6).

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recognition for the Portuguese monarchy, rebalance the economy of the kingdom after decades of dual monarchy, and assure the dynastic succession. Political propaganda made a significant contribution to achieving such a herculean task, advertising that the new king would continue the legacy inherited from the dynasty of Avis and lead the nation to a full recovery. To spread that message and disseminate the image of a powerful ruler, the royal festival of 1687 and the exequies in Rome in 1707 played an important role. The iconographic programmes of those events were carefully prepared, using emblematic compositions to make visible the ideological contents that the monarchy intended to convey. Applying widely known motifs (eagle, sunflower, oak, column, palm tree, phoenix) that circulated in foreign emblem books to a specific context, Portuguese authors of emblematic compositions demonstrated that they were experts in the logo-iconic genre. Pedro II’s second wedding was intended to inaugurate a new era, so it was suitable that he married a ‘phoenix’, a metaphorical representation that illustrated the recovery of the Portuguese court, rising from the ashes. In fact, using the same propagandist mechanism that the Habsburgs had adopted in 1581 and 1619, the dynasty of Braganza provided evidence of its resilient character and confirmed the revival of the monarchy. Besides, a comparative reading of the emblematic compositions displayed in 1687 alongside those found in the Roman iconographic programme indicates significant similarities of theme and topic. The exequies confirmed that the royal alliance between Pedro II and Maria Sofia met the expectations of the Portuguese people and accomplished their political goals. The monarchy led by Pedro the Pacific did indeed resist, continue, and recover. Anticipating the magnificent reign of João V, the memorial service for Pedro II celebrated the full recovery of Lusitanian royal house, reaffirming the emblematic lesson about the healing of wounds learned from the oak tree. Ex vulnere vigor.

Archives Consulted Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal (National Library of Portugal), Lisbon. Biblioteca Geral Da Universidade De Coimbra (General Library of the University of Coimbra), Coimbra.

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References Adams, Alison, Stephen Rawles and Alison Saunders. 1999–2002. A bibliography of French emblem books of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Geneva: Droz. Alciato, Andrea. 1550. Emblemata. Lyon: Macé Bonhomme for Guillaume Rouille. Amaral, Ruben. 2014. Emblems of death in Portugal. In Emblems of death in the early modern period, ed. M. Calabritto and P. Daly, 307–332. Geneva: Droz. Araújo, Filipa. 2014. Verba significant, res significantur: A receção dos Emblemata de Alciato na produção literária do Barroco em Portugal. PhD dissertation, University of Coimbra. hdl.handle.net/10316/26492 ———. 2016. ‘Urna entre mares tem sol verdadeiro’: A representaçao emblemática de um império transoceânico mas exéquias de D. Pedro II, na Bahia. In Arte y patrimonio en Iberoamérica: tráficos transoceânicos, ed. Inmaculada Rodríguez Moya, 457–476. Castellón: Ediciones Universitat Jaume I. ———. 2020. Co salgado Neptuno o doce Tejo: The iconography of water in Portuguese royal festivities (seventeenth century). In A donde Neptuno reina: Water, Gods and power during the modern era (sixteenth–eighteenth centuries), ed. Pilar Diez del Corral, 157–176. Lisbon: CHAM/Humus. Barbosa Machado, Diogo. 1930. Biblioteca Lusitana. Lisbon: Bertrand. Borges, Nelson. 1986. A arte nas festas do casamento de D. Pedro II: Lisboa, 1687. Porto: Paisagem. Borja, Juan. 1581. Empresas morales. Prague: Jorge Nigrin. Capaccio, Giulio Cesare. 1592. Delle Imprese. Tratato. Naples: Appresso Giacomo Carlino e Antonio Pace. Chiva, Juan, Inmaculada Rodríguez Moya, Vítor Cornelles, and Pablo Tornel. 2018. La Fiesta Barroca: Portugal Hispánico y el Imperio Oceánico. Vol. 5. Castelló de la Plana: Universitat Jaume I. Cholcman, Tamar. 2015. The reading of triumphal entries’ emblems: Emblems as footnotes. Word & Image 31 (3): 350–361. https://doi.org/10.108 0/02666286.2015.1057431. Costa, Antonio. 1694. Embaixada que fes o Excellentissimo Senhor Conde de Villar-­ Maior. Lisbon: Miguel Manescal. Daly, Peter. 2014. The emblem in early modern Europe: contributions to the theory of the emblem. Farnham: Ashgate. Félibien, André. 1687. Tapisseries du Roy, ou sont representez les quatre elemens et les quatre saisons: Avec les devises qui les accompagnent et leur explication. Augsburg: Jacob Koppmayer. Fernández-González, Laura. 2015. Negotiating terms: King Philip I of Portugal and the ceremonial entry of 1581 into Lisbon. In Festival culture in the world of the Spanish Habsburgs, ed. Fernando Checa Cremades and Laura Fernández-­ González, 87–114. Aldershot: Routledge.

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Ferro, Giovanni. 1623. Teatro d’imprese. Parte prima [-seconda]. Venice: Giacomo Sarzina. Fontana, Carlo. 1707a. Castrum doloris erectum Romae in Templo S.  Antonii Nationis Lusitaniae in funere Petri II.  Portugalliñ Regis an. 1707: admirare Roma qualem regem perfecerit virtus quem tantum fecit fortuna/eques Carolus Fontana inuen. et delin.; Nicolaus Oddi et Dominicus Francischinus incid.. Romae: ex Typographia Georgii Plachi Caelaturam. Rome: Giorgio Placho. ———. 1707b. Facies externa Templi S. In Antonii Nationis Lusitaniae… Petrvs II Rex Portugalliae Algarbiorvm etc./eques Carolus Fontana inuen. et delineauit; Hieronymus Frezza et Dominicus Franceshinus incidi. Romae: ex Typographia Georgii Plachi Caelaturam. Rome: Giorgio Placho. Funeral, que se celebrou na Real Igreja de Santo Antonio da Nação Portuguesa em Roma, pela morte do Serenissimo Rey de Portugal Dom Pedro II, aos 13 de Septembro de 1707. 1707. Rome: Antonio de Rossi. Funerale celebrato nella chiesa di Santo Antonio della Nazione Portoghese, in Roma, per la morte del Rè di Portogallo Don Pietro secondo. Roma: Ex Typographia Georgii Plachi Caelaturam Prositentis. 1707. Rome: Giorgio Placho. Guiderdoni, Agnès, and Rosa De Marco, eds. 2022. Eliciting wonder: the emblem on the stage. Glasgow: Glasgow Emblem Studies. Hoepel, Ingrid, and Simon McKeown. 2017. Emblems and impact. In Von Zentrum und Peripherie der Emblematik, vol. 1. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars. Klecker, Elisabeth. 2008. Non manus magis quam ingenia exercere: imperial propaganda on emblematic targets. In The international emblem: from incunabula to the internet, ed. Simon McKeown, 235–262. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars. Leal, Pedro, and Rubem Amaral, eds. 2017. Emblems in colonial Ibero-America: to the New World on the ship of theseus. Glasgow: Glasgow Emblem Studies. Mulryne, James Ronald, and Elisabeth Goldring, eds. 2002. Court festivals of the European renaissance: arts, politics and performance. Aldershot: Ashgate. Mulryne, James Ronald, and Helen Watanabe-O’Kelly. 2004. Europa Triumphans: court and civic festivals in early modern Europe. Aldershot: Ashgate. Picinelli, Philippo. 1681. Mundus symbolicus. Coloniae Agrippinae: sumptibus Hermanni Demen. Reis. 1687. National Library of Portugal. https://purl.pt/26151 Rocha Pitta, Sebastião. 1709. Breve Compendio e Narraçam do funebre espectaculo, que na insigne Cidade da Bahia, cabeça da America Portugueza, se vio na morte de El Rey D.  Pedro II, de gloriosa memoria, S.  N. Offerecido à Magestade do Serenissimo Senhor Dom Joam V. Rey de Portugal. Lisbon: Valentim da Costa Deslandes.

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Sider, Sandra. 1997. Luís Nunes Tinoco’s architectural emblematic imagery in seventeenth-century Portugal: making a name for a palatine princess. In Emblems and the manuscript tradition, ed. Laurence Grove, 63–80. Glasgow: Glasgow Emblem Studies. Sullivan, Joseph. 2001. The emblem book as political propaganda: Johann Vogel’s Meditationes Emblematicae de Restaurate Pace Germaniae of 1649. Explorations in Renaissance Culture 27 (1): 61–88. Tedim, José Manuel. 2000. Aparatos fúnebres, ecos saudosos nas exéquias de D.  Pedro II e D.  João V.  In Arte efémera em Portugal, ed. João Pereira, 237–251. Lisbon: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian. Tetti, Barbara. 2017. Carlo Fontana. Sistemi costruttivi per apparati effimeri. Il catafalco di Pedro II in S. Antonio dei Portoghesi. In Carlo Fontana 1638–1714: Celebrato architetto: convegno internazionale, Roma, Palazzo Carpegna, 22–24 ottobre 2014, ed. Giuseppe Bonaccorso and Francesco Moschini, 350–357. Rome: Accademia Nazionale di San Luca. Watanabe-O’Kelly, Helen, and Anne Simon. 2000. Festivals and ceremonies. London: Cassell.

CHAPTER 7

The Eighteenth-Century Crisis in the European Order and Victor Amadeus II as a Model of Resilience for Italian Patriotism and Cultural Unity Adriana Luna-Fabritius

The first decades of the eighteenth century were for the Italian states a period of uncertainty as two wars, the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714) and the War of Polish Succession (1733–1735), brought major changes to the European balance of power. These first wars of the century changed the geographical and political configuration of the Italian states, which suffered as the contests between Habsburgs and Bourbons continued on into Italian territory.1 As documents of the time have shown, Neapolitan political thinkers aware of the effects of the European crisis in 1

 Venturi (1969).

A. Luna-Fabritius (*) Department of Philosophy, History, and Art Studies, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 F. Persson et al. (eds.), Resilience and Recovery at Royal Courts, 1200–1840, Queenship and Power, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20123-3_7

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their states attempted to leverage the situation in their favour. Some members of the Neapolitan nobility sought independence from the Spanish monarchy in 1701 through the Conspiracy of Macchia.2 A few innovative thinkers even went so far as to propose creating a cultural unity that included all the Italian states: in Naples in 1739, the Genoese-born political philosopher Paolo Mattia Doria (1667–1746) suggested meeting the international crisis as a unified front of all Italian states, together in a cultural nation. At the heart of his project was the Duke of Savoy Victor Amadeus II (1666–1732), prince of Piedmont, king of Sardinia, and his ideal of a virtuous and resilient monarch. Savoy’s ruler was the most suitable for this cultural project, to Doria’s mind, because he could be considered a virtuous monarch who was successfully implementing reforms in his territories. Victor Amadeus was virtuous, so his subjects were virtuous, and free, and could live in peace. As the literature has pointed out, despite the theoretical sophistication of the Neapolitan thinkers—the majority of whom belonged to the ceto civile—who were well ahead of their Milanese counterparts when the War of the Spanish Succession started, it was nevertheless beyond them to articulate a course of action that would result in independence for the Neapolitan kingdom, leaving it to the outcome of the conflict between the European dynasties.3 Consequently, the kingdom of Naples had to endure the presence of Bourbon and Habsburg administrators until 1734, when Charles of Bourbon declared it officially independent. Doria’s initiatives were part of that highly innovative theoretical line as his proposal from 1730s confirms. Besides creating a cultural nation to protect the Italian states from the contest between Habsburgs and Bourbons, he considered the issues which were crucial to getting past the crisis in the European balance of power, such as reconfiguring and maintaining state power and developing the economy. According to Doria, under good governments subjects are free to pursue their interests, and the virtuous elites’ counterbalance of the monarchs’ absolute power. On the other hand, virtuous governments found it easier to maintain peace and were less expensive than the absolutist, tyrannical alternatives. Doria also considered the geographic transformations of  Luna-Fabritius (2021).  Ricuperati (1978, 5:ix–xxxviii); for the failure of the Neapolitan nobility, see Giovan Battista Vico’s Coniuratio Principum Neapolitanorum (c. 1703) in English translation in Vico (2013); for the full plan for independence, see Luna-Fabritius (2021). 2 3

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the European balance of power, and specifically of the empires. The new empires would urge a reconfiguration of new forms of belonging and local identities, especially towards the second half of the eighteenth century, when Europe finally reached peace. That would be the case for the Spanish monarchy and the Holy Roman Empire.4 For Doria, the reconfiguration of the empires would require a comprehensive reform of the elites who elsewhere in Europe acted as counterweights to the continued advance of absolutist royal power.5 Doria, as a Genoese patrician, distinguished between the aristocracy and the nobility. His reforms were primarily addressed to the first. As for the nobility, he considered the feudal lords to be the greatest obstacle to creating a public sphere and developing civil life. The promotion of good government, resilience, frugality, and other virtues would allow monarchs to maintain their kingdoms more easily than the mercantilist and absolutist states controlled by force. Doria’s most notable suggestion for reconfiguring how people belonged to great empires was his privileging of love of country, monarch, and patria over fear. Doria’s cultural project envisaged a new nation and the modernisation of European empires as growing from a new way of belonging. However, as history has shown, this solution became possible only a century after Doria proposed it. Yet it seems that, especially concerning Italy, Doria hit the nail on the head twice: he was correct about the solution to the crisis in the European order, and about the dynasty able to carry out such a project. While the literature sees in Doria’s interest in Victor Amadeus II an argument in favour of absolutism, mercantilism, and enlightened monarchy, a symbol of the anti-modern programme, in this essay I will argue that Doria’s choice of the king of Savoy, especially for his virtue of resilience and his capacity to accomplish reforms, including that of the elites, embodied his critique of mercantilism, absolutism, and tyranny.6 Furthermore, it allowed him to refine his identification of good government versus tyranny, which underpinned Doria’s criticism in his early works and in the Neapolitan debating societies in the early eighteenth century. Doria used the ideal of Victor Amadeus II’s virtues to embody his discussion of the tension between what he defined as the two contemporary  Zurbuchen (2007), Clark (2007).  See Rothkrug (1965). 6  Ricuperati (1985). 4 5

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models of monarchism: mercantilist–absolutist monarchies (tyrannies), and economic–republican monarchies. Doria’s views on the characteristics of the virtuous resilient monarch as opposed to the absolutist–tyrannical monarch were, in reality, a discussion about the limits of power and the duties of the sovereign, framing the guarantees of the freedom of the people and the institutions, but also a healthy economy.7 On the other hand, this framework aimed to promote cuts in the cost of running the state compared to absolutist monarchs, who drained the state’s and their subjects’ coffers dry. Doria’s catalogue of virtues for shaping his ideal model of the king of Savoy as a virtuous monarch included moral attributes and intellectual virtues, such as resilience, prudence, and frugality. Doria associated resilience with practical wisdom, the ability to make choices and to deliberate in politics. Additionally, his model included classic republican virtues associated with military qualities such as masculinity and, above all, liberty. Doria outlined this image of the resilient king of Savoy in a detailed analysis of his performance as a military strategist, diplomat, ruler, and reformer in a text entitled Il politico moderno (‘The Modern Politician’) written in about 1739.8 In this text, King Victor Amadeus II is depicted as the ideal virtuous monarch behind a new form of patriotism for the cultural union of the Italian states, and having in mind the broader context of the problems facing Italian and European states that the virtuous monarch should be able to ride out—especially those related to building power and the economy. Besides the virtues needed to create a virtuous state, Doria thus made a case for the practical abilities needed in the administration to maintain the state. Doria classified Italian and European states into mercantilist absolutists and economic republicans. The mercantilist absolutists were ruled by absolute monarchs he considered tyrants, while the economic republicans, the counter-model, were ruled by virtuous monarchs able to institute good government and good economic models. In Doria’s project for the reform of the virtues of the aristocracy, he blended old and new ideas of virtue inspired by King Victor Amadeus II. The catalogue of the monarch’s virtues was what Doria needed to complete the framework to evaluate and limit Italian rulers, and to emphasise their duties as monarchs, which extended to their administrative abilities.  See Capurso (1959), Comparato (2011, 99), Luna-Fabritius (forthcoming).  Biblioteca nazionale di Napoli (National Library of Naples), Branc. V-D-3, Paolo Mattia Doria, Il politico moderno, in Marangio (1982). 7 8

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The key to this period’s new catalogue of virtues, used to distinguish virtuous from tyrannical governments, was just that: the extension to encompass administrative competence. While some have argued that Doria’s interest in Victor Amadeus II allowed him to shape his idea of the virtuous monarch, this essay refines this interpretation by arguing that Doria’s interest in sketching a catalogue for a reform of virtues of aristocracy and a virtuous ruler was a constant in his political philosophy from the first.9 This catalogue served Doria to complete the framework to set the limit to the authority of the ruler emphasising his duties as monarch that expand to his administrative abilities. In the 1730s, the Savoy monarch’s virtues allowed Doria to hone a model of an ad hoc republican ruler in the European context that was applicable to all the Italian states. This essay thus reconstructs the context of the kingdom of Naples in the first decades of the eighteenth century, and the crucial internal and external elements considered by Neapolitan thinkers in this period, beginning with the urge to find an escape from the interminable fight for power among the main European dynasties and the inseparable connection between local and international events. It explains how Doria expanded his former Genoese commercial republican background to engage with Naples’ tribulations and political agenda. It then elucidates Doria’s cultural proposal to reform eighteenth-century patriotism, pushing for national unity that included all the Italian states to solve the eighteenth-century crisis in the European order.

The Italian Contexts The death of the heirless King Charles II of Spain in 1700 sparked a political crisis in several Italian states and the European balance of power. The first European conflict, the War of the Spanish Succession, had repercussions, especially in the Italian territory where the prominent families, primarily Habsburgs and the Bourbons, contended for power. The pope mediated the conflict from the outset. His objective was to increase his temporal power and implement his Counter-Reformation programme. After the treaties of Utrecht (1713) and Rastadt (1714) marked the end of the War of the Spanish Succession—without satisfying the contenders— the Bourbons continued challenging the Habsburgs’ power in the decades to come, especially in Central Europe. 9

 Torcellan Ginolino (1961).

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By 1714 the Spanish monarchy had lost the southern Netherlands (Belgium and Luxemburg) and two-thirds of Italy: the duchy of Milan, Piombino in Tuscany, and the island of Sardinia, which passed to Emperor Charles VI. The bounty included what has been called the garden of the Spanish monarchy, the kingdom of Naples and the Two Sicilies. The kingdom of Sicily passed to the Duke of Savoy Victor Amadeus II, but in 1718 he exchanged it with the Holy Roman emperor for the island of Sardinia, retaining the crown of the Two Sicilies that had made him a king. The aftermath of the War of the Spanish Succession brought enormous changes to the other Spanish territories in both Europe and the Americas, but that falls outside the scope of this essay. The outbreak of the War of the Polish Succession (1733–1735) was the defining moment in the Europe of the 1730s. The Duke of Savoy Charles Emmanuel III (1701–1773), king of Sardinia (and son of Victor Amadeus II), entered the war, on this occasion on the side of the Bourbons with the sole objective of winning Lombardy for Piedmont. However, this time Austria and France reached an agreement in a relatively short period, and Austria could retain most of its Lombard territory, apart from the territories of Novara and Tortona that passed to the Savoy. So, while the War of the Spanish Succession transformed the Italian peninsula, the War of the Polish Succession brought only minor modifications to the map. They were not the last changes in Italian geography. Despite the remarkable transformation of the Spanish monarchy in the first half of the eighteenth century, Tiepolo depicted it in the 1760s as the secular arm of the papacy, the sole guardian of political stability in Europe and the champion of Christian cultural values. However, as historians agree, one of the most delicate sequels to the War of the Spanish Succession was the relationship between the Spanish monarchy and the pope. Their timeworn relations were cast into doubt once there was a new dynasty on the throne in Madrid. In that dangerous international scenario, the pope explored his chances of creating new alliances with other European monarchs. When it came to the Bourbon dynasty, one option was to deal directly with the French court.10 The search for a suitable partner to maintain pope’s international presence went hand in hand with the fight to regain the former temporal power of the Church in the Italian peninsula. The domestic situation forced the pope to confront the Holy German emperor as feudal lords, pursuing what the literature has identified as a  Visceglia (2010).

10

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neo-Ghibelline moment—a moment that lasted several decades until the relationship between the Spanish monarch and pope reached the stability that Tiepolo depicted in the 1760s.11 In the first half of the century, a succession of ministers and governments brought a period of political, economic, and administrative turmoil to all the Italian states, exacerbated by the threat that the great powers would take the wars to them, raining down destruction on the peninsula. It was also the period of the first great debates about rights and privileges to extend to principalities, duchies, monarchies, and empires. By mid-­ century, Italian thinkers had turned their territories into historical legal schools in anticipation of the collapse of ancient structures.12 Nonetheless, this statement is equally valid for the whole European continent. The fragile equilibria between cities and their rulers were especially vulnerable in the major redefinitions, as were the incipient plans for reforms mostly designed to improve the taxation systems everyone knew were imperative to maintaining the course of the wars. One element often overlooked was the mediation of the Vatican in these political and legal experiments, thanks to its institutions and resources to censor and persecute academics with the sole aim of strengthening its temporal power. Popes were interested in tipping the scales at the regional and international levels to their side and to their families and their states.13 How the new European balance of power would affect the Italian states led political actors and thinkers to articulate many initiatives. For some Neapolitan authors, the best for their cause would have been the kingdom’s independence. However, despite the high level of theoretical sophistication of the ceto civile, at the start of the War of the Spanish Succession they could not articulate concrete actions to change the situation, leaving the kingdom at the mercy of the European dynasties.14 The same occurred with the Neapolitan nobility, who sought, with no success, the support of the Habsburg emperor to achieve the kingdom’s independence from the Spanish monarchy in 1701. The conspiracy of the noblemen, better known as the Conspiracy of Macchia, was immediately crushed, and its leaders were attainted, with some imprisoned and others

 Venturi (1969), Ricuperati (1985).  Venturi (1969). 13  Venturi (1969). 14  Quazza (1971, xxii); see Vico (2013); for independence, see Luna-Fabritius (2021). 11 12

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put to death. In this manner, the kingdom along with the Spanish crown— as stipulated in Charles II’s will—passed to the Bourbon dynasty. The aftermath of the War of the Spanish Succession changed dynasties and institutions, political practices and instruments. On a larger scale, the crisis in the European order was an opportunity to change the schemes fashioned by the Counter-Reformation programme.15 These changes, however, did not progress smoothly, and local groups had some small margin to operate. This was the situation in the former kingdoms of the Spanish monarchy, where jurisdictional contests opened the period considered by the literature as neo-Ghibelline (1714–1734), which brought the Holy Roman emperor and the pope face to face.16 In the north, the emperor and the pope disputed the Como valley; in the south, they disputed feudal rights over property and land. From the perspective of the transformation of legal practices in the kingdom of Naples and the duchy of Milan, this neo-Ghibelline episode enhanced the communication networks between imperial and Italian jurists. It potentiated the development of new theories and strategies to survive the political instability, preparing for the eventual possibility of independence. These theoretical and practical experiments continued in the same tone until Charles of Bourbon’s arrival in the kingdom of Naples in 1734 and its declaration of independence. However, despite the celebrated independence of the kingdom, Neapolitan thinkers learned of the impossibility of detaching their kingdom from the disputes between the Habsburg and Bourbon dynasties.

A Comprehensive Solution for an Enduring Crisis Among those thinking about how to resolve the instability of the Italian states was a Genoese political philosopher, Paolo Mattia Doria. Resident in the kingdom of Naples since the 1690s, Doria experienced at first hand the consequences of the European crisis, and above all (i) the failure of the Conspiracy of Macchia and the ensuing repression, (ii) the return of the kingdom to the Habsburg sphere of influence after 1714, (iii) the disputes between the pope and the emperor, and (iv) the declaration of independence by Charles of Bourbon in 1734.

 Comparato (2016).  Venturi (1969), Ricuperati (1978).

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Doria was undoubtedly among the Neapolitan thinkers who had reached a high level of theoretical sophistication when the crisis in the European order started. He had sharpened his abilities by participating in the leading debating societies of his time, starting at the house of the jurist Niccolò Caravita (1647–1717), the Accademia Palatina (1698–1701), and the Accademia degli Oziosi he reopened with Giovan Battista Vico (1668–1744) in 1733. At Caravita’s he met the most important thinkers of the day, above all the heirs to the Accademia degli Investiganti (1650–1683)—Francesco (1625–1698) and Gennaro D’Andrea (1637–1710), Giuseppe Valletta (1636–1714), Gian Vincenzo Gravina (1664–1718)—and his inseparable friends and interlocutors for decades, Vico, Pietro Giannone (1676–1748), and others. At the Accademia Palatina, he came into contact with the Cartesian philosopher Gregorio Caloprese (1654–1715) and the patron and protector of the academy Luis de la Cerda, Duke of Medinacoeli (1660–1711), who was then the Neapolitan viceroy.17 In these milieus, Doria engaged with the main political and intellectual agendas of the heirs to Naples’s own Accademia degli Investiganti. Their discussions were crucial to the evolving theoretical framework of his political philosophy and his analyses of the European situation, the reconfiguration of power, and ongoing reforms. He was interested in the political and economic reforms and their way of transforming systems that Doria defined in Il politico moderno as mercantilist, absolute monarchies, and tyrannies. Throughout his life, Doria attempted without success to participate closely in the design of the reforms. His aspiration to be a reformer was one issue that has called the greatest attention and criticism in the literature, and is seen as his greatest failure.18 However, some of Doria’s key ideas can be traced to the Neapolitan thinkers of the following generation, such as Antonio Genovesi (1713–1769). Either way, Doria’s interest and commitment to praxis was one of the most distinctive features of his political philosophy, and perhaps what led him to blend theory and praxis, which he considered equally important from an ethical perspective.19 This became clearer in his evaluation of King Victor Amadeus II as a resilient,  Luna-Fabritius (2010).  Venturi (1969), Ricuperati (1978). 19  Torcellan Ginolino (1961, 214), considered that Doria raised praxis to the ethical and political level of virtue, attributing it a metaphysical value. 17 18

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virtuous monarch, though the interest in theory and praxis was already present in Doria’s early works, especially in his critical analysis of the kingdom of Naples, the Spanish monarchy, and other international events. The same can be said about the programmes of reforms he closely followed and commented on in his Massime del Governo Spagnolo (1709) and the Relazione del Regno di Napoli (1713)—the works which were Doria’s attempt to come to the attention of the ministers behind the ongoing programmes. As his unpublished manuscripts show, Doria was equally interested in the developments proposed by the pope’s counsellors, mainly the Jesuits, who, according to him, had failed to strengthen the temporal power of the Vatican. For Doria, all these elements pointed to the need for new experts of the European situation to solve the enduring crisis of the European order. It was in this scenario that once again Doria tried to attract attention and break into court circles. Doria’s analyses of developments in the European mercantilist and absolutist system in the Habsburg Empire, Spain, France, Britain, the Dutch Republic, Sweden, Denmark, and others were at the core of Il politico moderno. In 1739 he completed his biting critique of mercantilism as an economic model he considered tyranny. At that point, he presented what he thought of as his Republican–economic model as an alternative to the existing one.

Victor Amadeus II as a Model of Resilience Despite Doria’s interest in Savoy’s ruling family, as some have noted there is no evidence of a direct relationship between Doria and the Savoy court, and this is precisely what makes Il politico moderno an intriguing piece. What did Doria hope to achieve by writing this text?20 I would suggest it was Doria’s interest in the reform of the aristocracy. This reform was the crucial piece for the creation of a new patriotism and a cultural nation. However, Doria’s interest in Savoy’s ruling family predated the publication of his manuscript in 1739. Ten years earlier he had dedicated to Charles Emanuel of Savoy (1701–1773) his most important work after La Vita Civile (1709), his Filosofia (1728), with which he tried to capture the attention of the future king. In 1739 he resorted to the rehabilitation of

 Torcellan Ginolino (1961, 214).

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the image of the king’s father, Victor Amadeus II, for his greatest cultural undertaking. When Doria drafted Il politico moderno, he presented Victor Amadeus II as the model of virtue for the reform of Italian aristocracies and a new form of patriotism. Doria argued the best option for the Italian states was neither the Bourbon nor the Habsburg dynasties, but an Italian dynasty that fitted a reformist framework like the one inspired by Victor Amadeus II’s political, administrative, and republican virtues. To accomplish this aim, Doria counted solely on his critical interpretation of historical facts. He underlined his performance as a reformer. In this text, Doria showed his admiration for Victor Amadeus II’s efforts to reorganise his kingdom and the concentration of political and administrative power, but not without criticising what he considered the king’s weaknesses and mistakes. While Doria’s contemporary authors wanted to present Victor Amadeus II like other princes of his time—an absolute and despotic lord to his subjects—and insisted on the fact that like the others he followed practical and mercantile politics, Doria highlighted his vital office of ruling his states with resilience, civil and military virtues, the only attributes that ensure states are stable. Doria presented Victor Amadeus II as the main promoter of virtue: he made his men virtuous and free so they could compensate for his tendency to concentrate power and prevent him from becoming an absolute monarch. Although the literature agrees that Victor Amadeus II inspired Doria’s republicanism, the evidence suggests that his reflection on virtuous republican government was a crucial element of Doria’s political philosophy from the outset.21 Doria’s return to this in 1739 was actually a revaluation of his ideals of a virtuous prince set out in 1709  in La Vita civile e l’educazione del Principe (‘Civil life and the education of the prince’), continued in his Ragionamenti (1716), his Filosofia (1728), and especially in his recently finished Il Capitano Filosofo (1739).22 In Doria’s republicanism his Genoese background was a constant, in contrast to other influential forms of commercial republicanism, such as the Venetian, which he also commented on in Il politico moderno.23 In this text, republican virtues converged with the more practical disposition he found in Victor Amadeus II to rule and administrate his kingdom, which allowed him to accomplish  Torcellan Ginolino (1961, 214).  Doria (1710), Doria (1716), Doria (1728), Doria (2003). 23  Luna González (2009). 21 22

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his reforms. In so doing, Doria confirmed himself as a philosopher of political power and economic thought of robust republican extraction, the basis of his contribution to the foundations of Italian constitutional thought. Doria’s praise for the king of Savoy was undoubtedly part of his broader programme of the 1740s to reform the Italian aristocracy, where he blended ideas of virtue and economy. In this mature period, Doria’s fascinating proposal was likely in dialogue with the ongoing enterprise of his contemporary Schipione Maffei (1675–1755).24 Doria took the resilience, frugality, and other virtues of Victor Amadeus II for his theoretical framework to delimit the acts and duties of a virtuous prince, unlike the tyrant. His framework served Doria to regulate the performance and limit a prince’s absolute power, ensuring the freedom of all subjects. These kinds of frameworks to regulate human action were among the most distinctive elements of Doria’s political philosophy since the Vita Civile. The combination of historical and contemporary comparison of past and present societies allowed Doria to assemble his theoretical frameworks to evaluate human actions. Doria had showed an interest in Victor Amadeus II’s organisational, administrative, and political reforms in earlier works. In 1739 his intention was plainly to reassess King Victor Amadeus II’s image by showing both positive and more critical sides. According to Doria, while the king had a tendency to become like other princes, absolute and despotic to his subjects, his performance led to virtuous results. Principally, he put down the foundations for a virtuous society and encouraged obedience to the law among his subjects. Doria’s analysis explained Victor Amadeus II’s political actions; his attention to practical and economic detail; and his military, administrative, and legal policies and cultural reforms; and it highlighted his interest in reforming the nobility. Like Louis XIV, Victor Amadeus II involved the nobility in his wars; unlike him, though, he reined in luxury and excess and promoted frugality among his officials.25 According to Doria, the frugality suggested by the king was not as tough as the Spartans’ or the early Romans’, as he knew that in his own time the economy had to be developed, avoiding pomp and superfluous display. Above all, according to Doria, Victor Amadeus II’s goal was to avoid putting his subjects to the ever-increasing expense of a large army.  Luna González (2009).  Doria, Il politico moderno, in Marangio (1982, 71).

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In Doria’s view, the king wanted to develop trade, having clearly understood the rules of commerce. Evidence of this is that instead of creating a complicated system of taxes and weights, his provisions showed his understanding of the art of economics by not enacting trade prohibitions on trade or the distribution of luxury goods. Victor Amadeus did not want to regulate the distribution of luxury goods, but he understood that certain forms of gambling were disastrous for rich and poor people alike, to the ruination of the state, so he prohibited that vice. Additionally, he incentivised the nobility to engage in commerce by promoting the sciences, travelling to study other princes’ projects, analysing them to acquire their virtues, and learning from their mistakes.26 Towards that end, the king of Savoy made a show in several European courts of the few noblemen who served him and his ministers to improve the Savoy economy. Doria was interested in Victor Amadeus II’s education reforms. Though not a philosopher, the king clearly understood damage done by the Jesuits and the obstacles they put in his way when improving education, so first he expelled them from the universities and then he established a university free of obstacles. Victor Amadeus II, though, was above all a military strategist who knew how to make the best of the geopolitical situation. He maintained an obedient, rigorously disciplined army at least 20,000 strong. He knew this army would give him a chance to survive the worst crises of his time as they upset the European balance of power. His resilience allowed him to move in different directions, to lean towards the side that best suited his interests.27 He also showed his skills as a strategist by not allying with states that could defeat him militarily. For this reason, Victor Amadeus II has been considered a disloyal and unreliable ally. However, according to Doria, those same alliances and military decisions would not have succeeded without his diplomatic strategies at the European courts. Ultimately, for Doria, even though Victor Amadeus was disloyal, he was less so than other contemporary monarchs. And it should be borne in mind that this ability to choose the winning side was precisely what allowed him to survive the crisis in the European order. For Doria, the virtues and reforms of Victor Amadeus II were exceptional; however, he was open to seeing both sides of the coin. Besides disloyalty, Victor Amadeus II was guilty of several mistakes, among them  Marangio (1982, 72).  Marangio (1982, 73, 76).

26 27

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his excess of authority, intended to subjugate all the social orders to his absolute rule. That authoritarianism, reinforced as his abdication approached, could have led him to indulge in behaviour that might be thought pedantic. His pettifogging was directed at his ministers, whom he did not leave to operate freely, and for Doria one of his biggest mistakes was that he impeded the autonomous development of his Piedmontese ministers and the private initiatives that would have led to a normal economy in the first decades of the eighteenth century. It reached a peak with his punishment of his ministers. Doria condemned Victor Amadeus II’s treatment of his ministers, violent to the point where they were publicly hanged when the Senate had refused to condemn them.28 Doria acknowledged the king’s abuse of authority, but directed readers’ attention to the king’s successes in the rehabilitation of Piedmont and the reorganisation of the state, the expulsion of the French, and the international consolidation of the kingdom of Sardinia. Victor Amadeus II later abdicated the throne and experienced great difficulties in his final years. Doria expressed his doubts about the events that led the former king of Sardinia to this end, with the argument that the official accounts were not reliable. After weighing up the pros and cons of Victor Amadeus II’s performance as a ruler, Doria concluded that the kings’ qualities, based on the true civil and military virtues that were the only means of holding the conquered states, guided his government. In line with Machiavelli’s Discourses on Livy, Doria once again argued that the only way to maintain the stability and utility of a conquered state was by promoting true virtue and liberty among its subjects and developing a virtuous society, which prevented the rise of absolute princes. And more importantly to eighteenth-­century minds, such virtuous government was less expensive than absolutism.29 As seen, Doria’s analysis of Victor Amadeus II’s kingdom of Savoy and his performance as ruler shows a tension between the political and economic norms in vogue among utilitarian princes, and the ethical and timeless rules that Doria denoted virtuous economics, and whose content was predominantly Republican. At this point of the analysis Doria argued that Victor Amadeus II would be the best solution for the situation that Italy was going through in the face of the general European crisis, and thereby launched his idea of the cultural unification of Italy with its epicentre in the virtuous Piedmontese government.  Marangio (1982, 73–74).  Marangio (1982, f 57).

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With the cultural unification of Italy in this period, Doria intended to revive the virtuous Italian tradition that should be reassessed in comparison with French and English culture. It is not clear whether Doria had thought about additional steps towards creating a united Italian nation with greater political integration or whether his was intended as only a cultural project.

Conclusion Paolo Mattia Doria’s reassessment of Victor Amadeus II’s virtues and performance as a ruler evidences two crucial issues of the day. First, it expressed the tension between two models of monarch and monarchism: the mercantilist–absolutist and the economic–virtuous. Doria’s analysis of Victor Amadeus II’s virtues and abilities as a reformer concentrated on two contrasting models of economic development and the limits of power. The limits should be set by the sovereigns’ actions to guarantee the liberty of the institutions that should lead free initiatives of the citizens and their personal security. By providing Doria’s economic and political statements against absolutism and mercantilism, this essay establishes that, despite Doria’s image as an advocate of absolutism, he turned to Victor Amadeus II to build its counter-model. Second, and more importantly, in Il politico moderno Doria hit on a solution for the fragile condition of an Italian peninsula rocked by the crisis in the European order: the unification of Italy. Looking to cultural integration, Doria delivered a detailed programme to improve the condition of Italy in the Europe-wide crisis, which led from the disarticulation of major empires such as the Spanish monarchy and the Holy Roman Empire into new political entities: nations. It was a process which would take a long time to materialise. However, Doria was quick to understand that one of the main steps was to develop new forms of belonging. Doria’s comprehensive programme for virtuous reform, first touched on in 1709, matured in 1739 when he chose Victor Amadeus II to embody it. The king of Savoy would have been able to anchor the new forms of patriotism needed in the coming commercial era. According to Doria, the main virtues of his catalogue of virtues—courage, resilience, discipline, frugality— were all found in King Victor Amadeus II. In that sense, the cultural unity of Italy was indeed thought to be led by the aristocracy, but also as able to expand to provide new forms of identity to all Italians, and that is precisely what the House of Savoy, and especially Victor Amadeus II, alone could do.

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CHAPTER 8

Charles of Bourbon, King of Southern Italy (1734–1759): The Resilience of the Neapolitan ‘Nation’, the Development of Reformism and the Strength of the Reaction Roberto Tufano

From the 1730s, in Spain and southern Italy—both domains of the House of Bourbon—two very different versions of court culture emerged. Subsequently, in 1759, the succession to the Spanish government from Ferdinand VI to his half-brother Charles III (formerly Charles of Bourbon, as king of Naples and Sicily) was immediately affected and directed by the profound transformation taking place in early modern culture in the sphere of social mindsets and public opinion.

R. Tufano (*) Dipartimento di Scienze della Formazione, Palazzo Ingrassia, Studio XIII, University of Catania, Catania, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 F. Persson et al. (eds.), Resilience and Recovery at Royal Courts, 1200–1840, Queenship and Power, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20123-3_8

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In Italy, from the 1950s, in contrast to the prevailing neo-idealist-­ inspired historiography, historians of the age of the Enlightenment and the reforms considered these years to be a decisive phase for the whole of western history since, after the mid-eighteenth century, the transition from medieval traditions to modern sociality seemed to reach exceptional results on the institutional and political levels.1 Historians saw it as a substantial and radical change in conceiving individual and social knowledge and values, to the point of seeing it as the starting point of ‘modernity’. Moreover, these theoretical and cultural innovations, which had been developing for a long time since the sixteenth century, now affected those levels of social relationships that went far beyond the realm of the elites. This new Spanish course was helped by Charles III’s presence, who, during the years spent at the head of the Italian government, developed an idea of sovereignty far more modern than the retrospective, traditionalist one still closely linked to medieval metaphysics, which had inspired his parents, the patres, Philip V and Elizabeth Farnese.2 The government of Ferdinand VI (1746–1759) also confirmed the archaic characteristics of that monarchy; it had actually strengthened its more traditional aspects to where the plan to modernise the Spanish succession—that Louis XIV wanted—could not be considered a total success.3 Following the old culture, there was a system of privileged collejos, the conservative and retroactive consequences of which were immediately highlighted by the arrival of Charles III and strongly criticised by Queen Maria Amalia, from first contact with the court of the Iberian Peninsula.4 1  The post–Second World War generation of historians did much to renew eighteenth-­ century studies, among them Franco Venturi, Furio Diaz, Giuseppe Giarrizzo and Raffaele Ajello. For Southern Italy, Raffaele Ajello produced numerous, innovative studies with great interpretative finesse, starting with Ajello (1961). He and later historians devoted hundreds of studies and texts to the history of the Two Sicilies in the modern age, much of it concentrated in Jovene’s book series Storia e diritto (1976–), Edizione Scientifiche Italiane’s book series Frontiera d’Europa and the journal Frontiera d’Europa (1995–) published by the Istituto italiano per gli studi filosofici, Naples, all three edited by Ajello. 2  The evidence is to be seen in the Epistolario di Carlo di Borbone (Ascione 2001). 3  Baudrillart (1890); for Louis XIV’s attempt to govern the Two Sicilies during the Spanish Succession and for his reform agenda, see Tufano (2015a, 37–164). 4  See, for example, the Queen’s letter to Tanucci, 6 May 1760, in Vázquez Gestal (2016, 2:204), in which she argues that the collegiales form a ‘lega, s’è possibile, più stretta di quella dei franc-masson ed. è certo che questa non fa utile alle scienze ed. alle arti’ (‘a closer link than the franc-masson [Freemason] one, if that is possible, and it is sure that this will not be useful to the arts and sciences’).

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Therefore, many valid reasons, some of which have already received feedback in the international literature, lead us to think that the change of direction in the Spanish government since the 1760s is a direct consequence of the dialectic of ideas and political confrontation present in the government of southern Italy and in the court of Charles and Maria Amalia of Saxony. To be precise, from the Italian conquest by Charles of Bourbon, which took place in 1734, we can see evident and conspicuous signs of an extraordinary transformation in that kingdom, albeit not without moments of withdrawal, due to the strong reaction it unleashed among a conspicuous part of the ruling class (Fig. 8.1). There were far-reaching political and social consequences to the new monarchy, both domestically and internationally. Here I will limit myself to briefly describing the experience of a radical attempt to reform the law: the institution of commercial justice based on the model of the French judiciary, which was introduced by Charles IX in Paris in an edict of November 1563.5 The experiment of ‘secular’ justice, set in motion by King Charles III in the final months of 1738, and popular because it was an alternative to formal justice and the traditional system of the judiciary, was ended in 1746 due to strong resistance to its innovations. The abandonment of the commercial judiciary was due to the reactionary turn that the politics of Charles of Bourbon took in those years: an involution was created, on the one hand by the surrender of the young king to the pressure of the groups interested in maintaining the status quo, and on the other—the one that carried greater weight—by the change in Spanish policy towards Italy, now deprived of the ministerial guidance of the minister José Patiño. His death in 1736 was to have long-term consequences within Italian government. In Italy, during Count Santisteban del Puerto’s fall from government (1738), all the men of the ‘new’ Enlightenment culture (such as the magistrates Pietro Contegna and Francesco Ventura), the Cappellano maggiore (office equivalent to minister of education) Celestino Galiani, the economist Antonio Genovesi and the entrepreneur and banker Bartolomeo Intieri had unanimously judged the collaboration with Charles’s new Secretary of State—the Marquis of Salas José de Montealegre, former 5  Requested by the Royal Chancellor Michel de l’Hospital during the difficult period of the Wars of Religion, it was part of the radical reforms of the French judicial system; see Tufano (2015b, 209 ff.).

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Fig. 8.1  Mariano Salvador Maella and Raphael Mengs, King Charles III of Spain (1716–1788). The king is dressed in the habit of the Order of Charles III which he founded in 1771.

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collaborator of the Patiño—to be extremely positive and productive. The new minister, of Sevillian origins, whose ‘troubles overwhelm everyone, attack all the old standards, turn the world upside down’, immediately gave a ‘national’ direction to internal and international initiatives, that aimed both at increasing trade and productivity and ensuring that the products and raw materials of local origin were also used by the court.6 This was an example for the whole of society, and it became clear the political strategy had diametrically opposite characteristics to those of the recent past. Before then, the central formula of Spanish domination had aimed exclusively at the creation of ever-more new tax revenue, selling all the shares of public debt to private individuals and also all public offices it could constitutionally sell, taking no other criteria into account.

The Birth of a Nation Charles’s maturity and experience as king of Spain was the consequence of over twenty years on his previous throne in a social environment disintegrated, politically disunited and characterised by the general absence among its inhabitants of the public feeling that Baruch Spinoza had defined as obéissance. For the Dutch philosopher, the material constitution and existence of national law are determined by the power of the mass of the population, combined, however, with the equal progress of the ‘spiritual personality’ of the nation itself, ‘the most powerful political authority is one that rules even over the hearts of its subjects’; obedience, therefore, is a social behaviour that results from the attachment of subjects to political power, accepting their rules and their observance over time, and ‘resolving to carry out the orders of this other one, with the most sincere desire to do so’.7 This takes into consideration the fact that civil society constitutes a sort of collective identity that enjoys a natural right in all domains. In southern Italy, the Spinozian obsequium, the form and substance of the political obligation typical of the great European monarchies, seemed in the eyes of contemporaries to have transformed into an opposite feeling: a deep hatred towards the representatives of the royal power.8 6  Bernardo Tanucci to Bartolomeo Corsini, viceroy of Sicily, Naples, 29 November 1738, in Coppini et al. (1980, letter 271): ‘inquieta(va) e sconfina(va) tutti, attacca(va) tutte le vecchie massime, rivolta(va) il mondo’. For Montealegre’s policy shift, see Tufano (2015b). 7  Spinoza (1954, 921): ‘l’Autorité politique la plus puissante est celle qui règne même sur les cœurs de ses subjects’, ‘se résout à exécuter les ordres de cet autre, de l’élan le plus sincère’. 8  See Tufano (2018, 209–256).

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During its long dominion over southern Italy, the budgetary needs of the Iberian Crown forced Spain to adopt a policy based on the sale of state property and rents. For two centuries, unnecessary assets were also invented, including public offices often damaging to the functionality of the monarchical organisation itself. This policy was implemented with no prudence, and with a certain frequency, becoming the cause of the radical discredit that affected the entire public management. Thus, the southern state (especially the continental part, the kingdom of Naples, separate from the kingdom of Sicily) was increasingly judged by both internal and external observers to be a mass of inefficiencies and illogicism, and even accused of perjury against public faith and robberies committed against its subjects. Over time, these negative aspects made it increasingly difficult to govern. According to credible historiographical reconstructions, this policy was the consequence of the pax hispanica made in Italy after 1553, after the Neapolitan revolution of 1547 had caused the fall of the authoritarian military government of Viceroy Pedro de Toledo, trusted politician of Emperor Charles V. From Viceroy Pedro Pacheco onwards, the Spanish court replaced its military, coercive policy with a different one: a compromise strategy, economic in nature, which Tanucci—the prime minister of Charles and later of his son Ferdinando IV—defined as ‘the contact of rottenness, the moral and political plague’.9 The sale of state property to the private sector was facilitated to increase state revenue and to make the wealthy share in the exploitation of the entire social fabric, and thus have an interest in being loyal allies of the government. This strategy highlighted the function of the togati, who promoted it not by intervening in support of the common good, but rather by accepting the arrangement based on deceit, compromise and parasitism. Francesco d’Andrea, the recognised leader of the togati, began the process of the historical reconstruction of the characteristic features of Neapolitan society, the particular configuration of its social structure, and the extreme concentration of power in the hands of the lawyers immediately after the great crisis of the mid-seventeenth century—after Masaniello’s revolt and the plague epidemic that scourged the kingdom in 1656.10 In his Avvertimenti ai nipoti, 9  Tanucci, Epistolario, vol. XIII, let. 272, pp.  322–323, a F.  Galiani, Caserta 19 mag. 1764: ‘[the Spanish dominion in Naples represented] il contatto con la putredine, la morale e politica piaga’. 10  D’Andrea (1990).

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an autobiographical work that remained unpublished for a long time, even though the manuscript enjoyed extraordinary circulation for more than a century, Francesco D’Andrea proposed a number of interpretations that later critics have come to consider: There is no part of the world where the ministers have greater authority than in Naples, since, as they are under no obligation to account for their actions except to our Lord the King, who is far away, nor do the lords viceroy have any jurisdiction over them; their power is recognised as being as great as it is independent, so that in ancient times they were commonly called landowners, and there is no lack of those who, no less proud, foolishly claimed this title as their own; hence the saying arose among the evil tongues, that they were earthlings, that is, devils, because there were none but devils on Earth.11

His testimony, which gave rise to divergent interpretations in the past, shows that the evolution of the political tension between the centre and the periphery of the Spanish empire, and the dialectic between statuses within the kingdom led the model of the togati to prevail over the modus vivendi of the nobility, and the legal virtus to prevail over the aristocratic one. Let us follow our author for a while along the path of his reasoning intended for his descendants, whom he addresses, to ensure the continuity of his lineage (‘house’) to ‘that need for eternity’ which is proper to the aristocratic modi vivendi: ‘The path of callback, if it is very useful to all orders, is absolutely necessary to nobles outside the square’ (chap. XXXIX); he responds negatively and in great detail to the claim that the legal profession has fallen into decline (chap. XL); that the sphere of government be more easily opened to those who follow the cursus honorum of the magistracy, starting with the practice of law, which makes them particularly familiar with procedures, and which also enables them to accumulate the capital to acquire offices (chap. XLI); and that there has always been family continuity in career choices (chap. XLII). 11  D’Andrea (1990, 154): ‘Non vi è parte del mondo donde i ministri tengono maggiore autorità che in Napoli, poiché, come non tengono obligazione di render conto delle loro azzioni che al Re nostro signore il quale è lontano, né i signori viceré tengono sopra di loro alcuna giurisdittione, la loro potestà si riconosce tanto maggiore quanto è independente, talmente che ne tempi ad Dietro eran chiamati communemente dij terreni, né vi mancan di quei che, non meno superbi, scioccamente tal titolo se l’arrogavano come dovuto; onde nacque poi il dicerio presso le male lingue che erano dij terreni, cioè diavoli, perché non altri che i diavoli eran li dij in terra.’

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Later, in the eighteenth century, the line of critical thinking grew and developed enormously, and there was a consensus that the togati were to be envied, as head also of all other branches of public administration and of the management of the entire public debt; it was an extreme and distorting concentration of state power and the related symbolic capital, which had been accumulating between the age of Charles V and the first king of the House of Bourbon in Naples, Charles the Infante. Among the many analyses available that are useful for a better understanding of the overwhelming power of the supremacy of the courts, the togati and the lawyers, an effective and particularly incisive synthesis of the historical precedents of the socio-institutional anomaly of southern Italy was made by Giuseppe Maria Galanti, a follower of the Enlightenment, at the end of the eighteenth century. A lawyer by profession and considered a ‘prince’ of the Neapolitan bar, he offers a brief and very effective explanation of the origin of the single dominion of law over the entire kingdom, symbolically presented under the metaphysical forms of religio juris and humanarum atque divinarum rerum notitia: The magistrates [already] by the laws of Roger and Frederick formed another order between the nobility and the people, which above all was favoured by the government. The frequent changes in the state meant that the heads of these courts were held in high regard, because they had to be depended on for everything that concerned the entire economy. It was still necessary to consult the jurists, who professed knowledge of the laws, and knew the history of the country better than others. Thus their reputation was well established, and the country became full of jurists of all kinds.12

At the end of the Middle Ages this social component already enjoyed great prestige and power. Spain intervened and the Viceroy Pietro de Toledo began the political operation aimed at elevating ‘the courts to great authority’, in order to ‘lower the nobility’.13 Toledo not only expelled the baronage from the highest court of justice in southern Italy, but also 12  Galanti (2003, 142): ‘I magistrati [già] per le leggi di Ruggiero e Federico formavano fra la nobiltà e il popolo un altr’ordine e che sopra tutti era favorito dal governo. Le frequenti mutazioni dello Stato faceano acquistare ai capi di questi tribunali una gran considerazione, perché si doveva dipendere da essi per tutto ciò che riguardava l’intera economia. Era ancor necessità di consultare i giureconsulti, i quali professavano la cognizione delle leggi, e meglio di altri sapevano la storia della patria. Così il loro credito fu bene stabilito, ed il Paese divenne fecondo di giuriconsulti d’ogni genere.’ 13  Galanti (2003, 115).

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excluded the normal, automatic presence of the high nobility of the kingdom (the legos, meaning the laymen of law, the non-experts) from the Council of State and War, unless its members were expressly called by the viceroy. The Madrilenian dispatches of 5 May 1542 and 30 October state that ‘los regents’, meaning the Regents, the jurists of the Collateral, the supreme organ of justice of the kingdom ‘enter and be in the Council ordinarily with the Visorrey’, while the cavalleros, the noble component who wore the short toga to show their aristocratic origin with the hilt of their swords, ‘henceforth, enter the Council when the Visor-king calls you’.14 The jurisdictional sphere had influenced all the institutions originating from the royal power, giving the togati the exclusive exercise of enormous power over political, social and economic life. The abnormal weight of jurisdiction had changed the structure of the southern region, making the capital, Naples, the apex of the kingdom’s political and territorial hierarchies. The city, Europe’s fourth largest metropolis in terms of population (estimated at 450,000), was home to over 30,000 lawyers. At the local level, in the urban and rural peripheries of the kingdom, the situation was no better: Gérard Delille’s decades-long analysis of peripheral power, carried out with a fine methodological approach and based on an impressive amount of unpublished documents, shows that in southern Italy the ‘stability pact’ stipulated with imperial Spain had constructed a political system for which the appeal to the state apparatus projected local concerns and confrontations onto the centre and not vice versa.15 It is evident that all avenues of justice—to restore equilibrium following a violation or to obtain compensation and satisfaction—led to the capital. The major courts of the kingdom subjected the entire region to strict surveillance, even though there was no need for police, which was limited to Naples, entrusted to the Vicaria, and had no investigative or repressive autonomy regarding the jurisdictional powers. And yet, within this new realm, an up-to-date culture had been operating for some time, that was perfectly in line with the advanced, even radical, content coming from influences beyond the Alps. This was a decisive factor in the favourable climate for the new monarchy, and the Neapolitan environment was very open to innovation. Plainly, one of the decisive 14  See Ajello (1996, 254): ‘entren y esten en el Consejo ordinariamente con el Visorrey’, ‘de aquí adelante, entren enel Consejo quando el Visor-rey los hiziere llamar’. 15  Delille (2011).

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factors that characterised Charles III’s government in a positive way was the high cultural preparation and administrative capacity of his collaborators, both those who had accompanied him from Spain, men trusted by the reforming minister, José Patiño, and the locals. The Spanish statesmen had a chance to govern in a way that would have been unimaginable at home, because in the Two Sicilies there were the conditions to create an apparatus of power and state institutions from scratch, and to make a clean sweep of the past: the king, government, court, army, fleet, even the financial budget (largely subsidised by Elisabeth Farnese, as long as she could) were new and ‘national’. The situation was nothing like that in Spain, where the monarchy was loyal to a rigid system defending established reputations and ancestral privileges. Following Bernardo Tanucci’s judgement, more recent historiography has recognised that the main concern of Charles of Bourbon and Maria Amalia of Saxony was to create a ‘new people’ in the Two Sicilies, reformed in customs, ‘inculcating a common spirit’.16 These theses were confirmed by the recently published correspondence between Maria Amalia, queen of Spain from 1759, and Tanucci.17 Their correspondence shows that, from the time of her arrival in Naples in 1738, Maria Amalia played a leading role in the political dynamics of southern Italy, especially as she formed a close emotional bond with the young monarch. Moreover, the young Saxon queen established real, intense friendships in Naples, particularly with Tanucci, who was among the few courtiers and rulers to show himself worthy of that intimacy. On the other hand, on her arrival in Naples from Germany, the young Maria Amalia, endowed with a very acute intuition, immediately felt a strong popular feeling of goodwill towards the new monarchy. The people proved supportive of her, and this affectionate relationship is strongly imprinted in the pages of the same correspondence. This sentiment was reciprocated by the reigning couple, as seen from the total absence of empty rhetoric in Maria Amalia’s Spanish letters, and in the recurring expression with which the young queen called the Two Sicilies the ‘pupils of my eyes’.18 In Naples, perhaps the most popular and bureaucratic city in Europe, public support had always been lacking, at least until then. The young monarch understood that she had to cure the people’s tendency towards  Tufano (2018, 209–256).  Vázquez Gestal (2016). 18  Maria Amalia to Bernardo Tanucci, Retiro, 8 Jan. 1760, in Vázquez Gestal (2016, 89). 16 17

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‘joyful melancholy’; she wanted to create a strong flow of popular sympathy, more sentimental than political, towards the independent monarchy, which had been longed for and awaited for over two centuries. Tanucci, the Pisan statesman, for his part considered the love of the people for the young Ferdinand IV to be excessive, and one fact in the aforementioned correspondence is surprising: both interlocutors were certain a strong alliance existed between the monarchy and the entire social body, a phenomenon never before reported in southern Italy. With Charles, who was now the national king, the ‘hatred’ towards the Spanish, the last illustrious victim of which was the Gallispanic Philip V, changed into sincere empathy. There is further evidence of the positive public spirit of that period in the sincere support of the men representing the Enlightenment culture of the government of Montealegre, which they called upon them to contribute to the construction of the new monarchy.19

Reform, Resilience, Defeat The study of the reform of justice, the introduction of the commercial judiciary desired by the group of reformers who supported the new political course of Minister Montealegre, its failure and the restoration of conservative forces demonstrated the ‘resilience’ of the old system of power and its apparatuses. The potestative macrostructure that had endured for centuries was a mixture of the judicial–political institutions of the capital, a financial capitalism based on the control and exploitation of a large part of the state apparatus, and a mentality of the ruling class crystallised within a formalistic, ontological legal logic. After the initial defeat of the conservative forces in 1738, they showed great resilience, which enabled them to quickly restore the status quo in 1746. In southern Italy—a veritable republic of jurists under Spanish rule— certain general principles were adopted by a ministerial class which persisted for many centuries. They governed the entire system of law: both its general spirit, and every rule and its most minute application. In the face of this great stability of structure, any legislative intention of the political power was nullified, precisely because the juridical techniques in use led the lawyers to prefer the predominant part of the entire legal architecture. Thus the new, spurious legislative element was incorporated and modified to bring it into harmony with the whole—to annul it.  Tufano (2015b).

19

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An excellent example of the power of the central courts of the kingdom was the usurpatio jurisdictionis of the proceedings administered in the provinces of the kingdom. It consisted in removing civil and criminal trials from the peripheral instances, concentrating the costs of procedures in Naples. The Sacred Royal Council (the highest court, based in the Neapolitan capital) prevented the Vicaria (the lower Capitoline court) and the Udienze (lit. hearings, the provincial courts) from proceeding with a case, and referred the proceedings to them; the Vicaria inhibited the Udienze and local courts (including feudal ones), and arrogated; the Udienze, finally, inhibited local courts, and arrogated the proceedings. The movement of inhibition and arrogation was centripetal, so that an overwhelming number of disputes reached the courts in the capital, disturbing what today would seem to be the normal order of jurisdiction, violating the principle of hierarchical control by degrees through appeals, and accentuating the unease and insecurity of the provincial jurisdictions and their inhabitants. Injunctions, with the instruments of arrogation and delegation, represented the normal means of exercising the sovereignty of the high courts over the periphery in the legal–political field.20 A new judicial body with broad and flexible powers, such as the Supremo Magistrato del Commercio (Supreme Commercial Court), which could easily be controlled by the executive, would undermine a highly conservative judicial system resistant to government and reform. So, after the failure of the revolutionary experience of Minister Montealegre, as Tanucci well understood, the only realistically viable alternative had to be found in the system itself. Throughout the eighteenth century, the preferred tactic of the royal government to deal with new situations was the setting up of special juntas, customary mixed bodies appointed directly by the Secretary of State. However, these institutions were in addition to the numerous other courts. The latter immediately clashed with the councils over the definition of their respective spheres of competence. The appropriation of a certain number of trials was necessary to provide sufficient financial income for judges and their officers. While the juntas were not the best of political instruments for reducing the excessive power of the judiciary and the bureaucratic apparatus, they were the lesser evil needed to push through any reform, and Tanucci was forced to resort to them continuously. As the Prammatica instituting the Supreme

 Tufano (2015b, 83–135).

20

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Commercial Court spelled out, introducing a commercial justice system was part of intricate, troublesome and lengthy litigations, which necessarily take place in the ordinary courts by reason of the infinite multitude of affairs with which they are forcibly charged, in such a way it is not possible, by any diligence one may wish to use, to give the term of office in the ordinary courts to the pleas of the merchants; all the more so because it often happens, due to the variety and diversity of jurisdictions enjoyed by each court, that it is not easy to discern to which court the litigation, born in matters of commerce, belongs.21

Besides the many advisory and administrative activities carried out alongside its judicial work, the new court was to assess all disputes relating to contracts of sale, goods and supplies, prices, foreign exchange, trading companies, bankruptcies, insurance, maritime freight and shipwrecks. The large range of tasks and attributions of the court would inevitably compete with other instances, a situation made even more difficult by certain radical innovations. Proceedings were conducted in Italian and were simplified and rapid—for which read ‘prompt’ and ‘summary’. It should be added that the largest innovation was the presence of judges who were ‘shopkeepers’ with no legal background—individuals who were merchants in life, who were chosen by the town assemblies. The inspiring criterion of the reform initiative was that of commercial justice resulting from the ‘representative democracy’ of bodies and classes, as pointed out by the high magistrate Pietro Contegna, one of the creators and managers of the bold reform. Thus, the members of these courts of justice not only came from the same background as those they were judging, but they were still part of it at the time of the proceedings. Their common feature was that they were close in terms of interests and cultural milieu. What was challenged by the reform was the functioning of the ordinary courts, the high cost of justice 21  De Sariis (1795, 8:7): intricati fastidiosi e lunghi litigi, li quali indispensabilmente avvengono nelli tribunali ordinari a ragione dell’infinita moltitudine degli affari delli quali sono forzosamente caricati, in maniera che non riesce possibile per qualunque diligenza che si voglia usare il dare negli ordinari tribunali spedito il termine alli piati de’ negozianti; tanto più che spesse fiate avviene, per la varietà e diversità della giurisdizione che gode ogni tribunale, che non sia agevole il o discernere a qual tribunale spetti la lite, nata in materia di commercio.’

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for litigants and its unhealthy slowness: all mechanisms that made the value of social litigation high, with disastrous consequences for the economy. As written in the edict for the creation of the Supreme Commercial Court, ‘among the inconveniences which disturb [commerce], the lack of a truly expeditious and prompt administration of justice is chiefly considered’. For Montealegre, promoting a ‘very valuable’ trade in the kingdom meant putting an end to those ‘intriguing and long quarrels’. The underlying idea was obviously that judicial culture would be deeply shaped and influenced by the social identity of individuals. There was a conviction in Turin that ‘such a jurisdiction does not suit legal persons, because the Code and the Digest are absolutely useless, indeed very prejudicial’. The reason for the ‘prejudicial’ presence of court judges and lawyers in the court of the Savoy capital was the predictable expectation that, over time, the use of ‘judicial styles and forms’ would become established in the commercial courts, which they wanted to eliminate. To use ordinary magistrates in commercial courts ‘would be like setting fire to commerce’, which, by its inherent qualities, does not permit treating as a ‘point of reason what is simply a fact’.22 It should also be borne in mind that the founding rules stipulated that councillors from the aristocratic and merchant classes did not have the right to vote on purely judicial matters, yet the daily practice of the Supreme Commercial Court was destined to overturn this rule. It was not long before the court was flooded with requests from parties for ‘speedy and expeditious justice’, so that the cases were routed by the President of the Court to the other members, as ‘commissioners’ (investigating judge and rapporteur), in an undifferentiated manner, because it was intended as a practical solution to the problem of congestion at the new body. The Enlightenment lawyer Giuseppe Maria Galanti explained that in the Neapolitan judicial system, the preliminary phase of determining the competent judge was the most complex, and, for the purposes of the judgement, also the most influential of the entire procedure: once the preliminary question was resolved, all uncertainty as to the outcome of the trial disappeared. Thus, in a few months, the body had already run through the internal mechanisms and psychological mechanisms of its judges, so their social roles, togati and mercatores, had blurred into the commercial ‘spirit’ that pervaded the institution.

 Tufano (2015b, 8–12).

22

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Montealgre’s reforms affected several ancient privileges that the Neapolitan ruling classes had long enjoyed. Not limited to the economic sphere, his reforms went even further and touched on other interests. Besides the multiple jurisdictional conflicts, consequences of a judicial pluralism asserting a form of justice, that in the end was almost non-­existent because it was simultaneously self-referential and the guarantor of every ‘right’ of resistance put in place by the juridical actors (from the confugium, the instrument preferred by the poorer classes, to the recusal of the judge, favoured instead by the great nobility), other deep causes would call into question the innovative tribunal and would end with the definitive closure of this experience. Just like the commercial law invoked by the Sevillian secretary to remedy the Neapolitan jurisprudential disorder, the factors that closed the revolutionary experience were the product of a mixture of domestic and international politics, and psychological and mental elements. The bold design of the commercial courts was finally blocked by the censorship imposed by King Charles III and the men of the Neapolitan court (not least among them, Tanucci, who only belatedly understood and repented), and this condition was as much political and coercive as it was ideological and theoretical. As soon as Marquis Giovanni Fogliani took over from the disgraced Duke of Salas, Charles of Bourbon supported the request of the Neapolitan Piazzas, who in January 1746, in exchange for a donation of 300,000 ducats, had asked for the competences of the Supreme Commercial Court to be limited to foreign trade cases only. Most of the commercial courts and maritime commercial courts were also abolished, and only those of the capital, Barletta, Manfredonia, Gallipoli, Crotone and Reggio remained in operation. Therefore, the discussion of commercial, maritime and international law was prevented or, at best, evaded, and ended up by getting lost in the courts of the other judicial systems in insignificant and dispersive technical details, compared to the substantive legal rationes. The end of the experiment of the Supreme Commercial Court meant the return to a metaphysical justice very distant from a social and empirical conception of law, and from a practical viewpoint the gaps in political powers were filled by the elevated priestly authority of the togati. It was up to them and their minister Tanucci to meddle with the souls of the people. However, neither Tanucci nor the togati ministers could solve the root of the problem, and continued to implement their interests by elaborating a jurisprudential law, with characteristics of disorder and lack of clarity,

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aimed at attributing modest space to legislative activity. This dialectic was instead intense on the doctrinal level: here the solutions and scholarly indications were subtle and specious, because they were dictated by competing ideal and material interests. They were irreconcilable positions, and therefore the legal dialectic was rarely screened and phased by legislative declarations—by an act of synthesis. How could reliable jurisprudence supporting trustworthy social and economic relations be created under these conditions? It was only when the prime minister realised that the world had changed rapidly and that impatience from below, from people no longer willing to be passively governed, threatened the entire European political system, that he issued the dispatches of 1774, which required the patriarchal Neapolitan and Sicilian judiciary to justify their sentences. The act had a definite constitutional intent, which was shown by the Maupeou Reform. However, the one initiated in Paris three years earlier ended in total failure, in other words in full restoration. Due to strong opposition from the judiciary, Tanucci’s initiative soon failed. Then, two years later, the old minister was dismissed from the government of the Sicilies. In a more general reformist framework of criminal justice, the objections of the judge were dealt with in an excellent manner by two southerners: Gaetano Filangieri, whose work would exert a great influence throughout the Western world, and Francesco Mario Pagano. He saw his ideas for a radical reform of criminal justice realised, albeit for a few months, for the brief duration of the Neapolitan Republic of 1799.

References Ajello, Raffaele. 1961. Il problema della riforma giudiziaria e legislativa nel regno di Napoli durante la prima metà del secolo XVIII. Naples: Jovene. ———. 1996. Una società anomala: Il programma e la sconfitta della nobiltà napoletana in due memoriali cinquecenteschi. Naples: Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane. Ascione, Imma, ed. 2001. Epistolario di Carlo di Borbone: Lettere ai sovrani di Spagna. Vol. 1, 1720–1734. Rome: Ministero per i Beni e le Attività Culturali. Baudrillart, Alfred. 1890. Philippe V e la cour di France. Vol. 5 vols. Paris: Firmin-Didot. Coppini, Romano Paolo, Lamberto Del Bianco, and Rolando Nieri, eds. 1980. Epistolario. Vol. I, 1723–1746. Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura. D’Andrea, Francesco. 1990. Avvertimenti ai nipoti. Naples: Jovene. De Sariis, Alessio. 1795. Codice delle leggi del Regno di Napoli. Vol. 8. Naples: Vincenzo Orsini.

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Delille, Gérard. 2011. Famiglia e potere locale: Una prospettiva mediterranea. Bari: Edipuglia. First published as Le maire et le prieur: Pouvoir central et pouvoir local en Méditerranée occidentale (XVe–XVIIIe siècle). Paris: École française de Rome, Les éditions de l’EHESS, 2003. Galanti, Giuseppe Maria. 2003. Testamento forense. Tirreni: Di Mauro. Spinoza, B. 1954. Traité politque, II, 4, Les affaires qui dépendent du gouvernement des pouvoirs souverains, 393–396. In Oeuvres Complètes. Arversa Editions. Tufano, Roberto. 2015a. La Francia e le Sicilie: Stato e disgregazione sociale da Luigi XIV alla Rivoluzione. 2nd ed. Naples: Istituto Italiano per gli studi filosofici. ———. 2015b. Verso la giustizia produttiva: Un’esperienza di riforme nelle due Sicilie (1738–1746). 2nd ed. Naples: Istituto italiano per gli studi filosofici. ———. 2018. Illuminismo e governamentalità: Riformismo e dispotismo nelle Sicilie da Filippo V a Ferdinando IV. Rome: Aracne. Vázquez Gestal, Pable, ed. 2016. Verso la riforma della Spagna: Il carteggio tra Maria Amalia di Sassonia e Bernardo Tanucci (1759–1760). Vol. 2. Naples: Istituto italiano per gli studi filosofici.

CHAPTER 9

The European Catholic Dynasties and the Fight Against Smallpox: Bourbon Rulers Between Resilient and Resistant Actions Giacomo Lorandi and Cinzia Recca

Smallpox was a common infectious disease caused by the variola virus, and was a major cause of death in the past, with historic records of outbreaks across the world. Its historic death tolls were so large it is often likened to

G. Lorandi (*) Dipartimento di Storia Moderna e Contemporanea, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano, Milan, Italy C. Recca Dipartimento di Scienze della Formazione, Palazzo Ingrassia, Studio XIII, University of Catania, Catania, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 F. Persson et al. (eds.), Resilience and Recovery at Royal Courts, 1200–1840, Queenship and Power, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20123-3_9

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the Black Death.1 The name variola, first used in the sixth century by Bishop Marius of Avenches, derived from the Latin varius (spotted) or varus (pimple). In the Anglo-Saxon world, by the tenth century, the word poc or pocca, a bag or pouch, described an exanthematous disease, possibly smallpox, and later English accounts began to use the word pockes. When syphilis appeared in Europe in the late fifteenth century, writers used the prefix ‘small’ to distinguish variola, the ‘smallpox’, from syphilis, the ‘great pox’.2 In the early fifteenth century there was the first possibility of a defence against its evils, attempted in East Asia, where there was soon a tradition of inoculating healthy people with smallpox using material taken from the pustules of a patient. With this operation the subjects contracted a form of smallpox with attenuated virulence that generally avoided complications and protected them against falling ill again more seriously. That practice became known in Europe in the early eighteenth century, thanks to the descriptions of observant travellers and doctors.3 The first reports in England appeared in 1714, offered by a British ambassador’s wife, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689–1762).4 It was Lady Montagu who pushed for government-mandated variolation in Britain. She herself had suffered a smallpox infection and lost her younger brother to the disease at the age of 26. She first learned about variolation when she arrived in Istanbul in 1717, where variolation was commonly practised by women in the outlying villages. She later had the embassy inoculate her two children in 1721. Inoculation, also known as grafting or variolisation, had a socio-­medical dimension. Popular tradition was accepted as a source of inspiration and of re-evaluation: for centuries Circassian women had been fighting smallpox by practising inoculation.5 Western society fell into two camps according to whether one was against inoculation or whether one supported it, inspired by the enlightened approach, as the triumph of science and reason over the darkness of ignorance. It was a cautiously positive approach to a practice believed to be fundamental to overcoming the disease, while 1  The authors developed the idea and project of this paper together. In detail, the introduction is the work of both authors, paragraphs 1 and 2 were written by Giacomo Lorandi, paragraphs 3, 4, 5 were written by Cinzia Recca. 2  Bennett (2012), Carmichael Silverstein (1987), Duncan et  al. (1996), Fenner et  al. (1988), Ochmann and Roser (2018), Sköld (1996). 3  Zanobio and Armocida (1997, 158–160). 4  For Lady Wortley Motagu and her contribution to fighting smallpox, see Barnes (2012), Grundy (1999), Montagu (1763), Montagu (1861). 5  Boylston (2012).

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recognising the risks, which were small compared to the benefits associated with the treatment. On the other side, the obscurantists invoked the prohibition on interfering with the divine right to decide the fate of His children, along with the oriental origin of the treatment, first introduced in Europe in a Protestant nation, Britain, and which required injecting a disease into a healthy person, exposing them to risk. The obscurantists were against introduction of smallpox into the body of a healthy person, mainly because there was no theory at the time that could reasonably explain how inoculation worked and its ability to protect patients from the risk of contagion. Finally, the different ways of practising inoculation fuelled criticism of the quackery of those who practised it.6 Above all, however, it was part of the debate that accompanied the transition to experimentalism and empiricism in the prevention and treatment of illness, requiring a progressive reassessment of Hippocratic ideals at the expense of Galenic principles, which would come in the later eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Known inoculators such as Théodore Tronchin and Angelo Gatti, an Italian doctor who primarily worked in France between 1761–1771, were emblematic of a new group of doctors influenced by the Enlightenment, and anticipated a more direct, concrete conception of the doctor–patient relationship.

The Orleans Did It First: The Inoculation of the Duke of Orleans’ Children7 On 29 April 1756, the Gazette de Berne published the news that Théodore Tronchin had paid court to King Louis XV of France and the court in March.8 He had been called in by the king’s doctor, the supporter of inoculation Jean-Baptiste Sénac, at the request of the Duke of Orléans Louis-Philippe I, who was openly in favour of the practice. The plan was for Tronchin to inoculate the duke’s young children, Louis-Philippe II and Bathilde, to demonstrate the safeness of the method and its effectiveness. However, before inoculating the two young Orléans children, Tronchin inoculated 12-year-old Count Louis-Alexandre de La  Langer (1976), Seth (2008, 149–165, 207–222).  Acknowledgement. The author would like to thank Claire Gantet, Caspar Hirschi and Bruno Belhoste, for their useful comments. Research supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (P300P1_177733). 8  The inoculation was reported in the Gazette de Berne 36, 30 Apr. 1756. 6 7

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Rochefoucauld (1743–1792), son of the Duke de La Rochefoucauld, the king’s Grand-maître de la garde-robe, and the Marquise de Villeroi. Since the two courtiers survived, the Duke of Orléans was convinced to inoculate his children. His wife, Luisa Enrichetta di Borbone-Conti (1725–1759), was against it, though, because she feared losing them, whereupon her consort, showing great consideration for his wife in sharing decisions about their offspring, told her, ‘Madame, although my mind is made up, if it is not your feeling and your consent that this inoculation is done, it will not be done; they are your children as well as mine’, to which she replied ‘Oh! Sir, let them be inoculated, and let me weep’.9 King Louis XV was openly against the treatment, and said of Louis-­ Philippe I’s decision to inoculate, ‘After all, you are the master of your children!’10 The reason could be that he had contracted smallpox as a child in 1728 and, as cases of recurrence were very rare, he would have believed he was immune and that inoculation was not a direct concern the royal family.11 Nevertheless, he did not openly oppose or prohibit the process. The inoculation took place at Palais-Royale in Paris on 12 March 1756, and a few days later ‘The Duchess of Orleans, having appeared at the Opera with her two children, was greeted by endless applause and cheers, as if the two princes had miraculously escaped death’.12 The treatment was done in great secrecy; so much so that, despite the inevitable rumours, the official news of its positive outcome was only announced after the event. There were reservations, mainly due to uncertainty about inoculation for ethical, religious, and political reasons. In the spring of 1756, the idea of inoculation in a Catholic country, as was already the case in Britain and the Netherlands, and moreover in the circles closest to the royal family, seemed a remote possibility. Someone had to be found to take on the responsibility, and it would have to be done despite the declared opposition of King Louis XV. A doctor who was not a French Protestant subject was needed,

9  Collé (1868, 2:48): ‘Madame, quoique mon parti soit pris, si ce n’est point votre sentiment et de votre consentement que se fait cette inoculation, elle ne sera point faire; ce sont vos enfants comme les miens’, ‘Eh! Monsieur, qu’on les inocule, et laissez-moi pleurer’. All translations are our own unless otherwise noted. 10  Cabané (1913, 336): ‘Après tout, vous êtes le maître de vos enfants!’ 11  Darmon (1989, 85–100). 12  Cabané (1913, 338): ‘La duchesse d’Orléans ayant paru à l’Opéra avec ses deux enfants, des applaudissements et des acclamations sans fin l’accueillirent, comme si les deux princes avaient échappé miraculeusement à la mort’.

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and the Swiss Calvinist doctor Théodore Tronchin was the right choice for the Orléans family. Born in Geneva in 1709 into a wealthy banking family left in financial difficulties by the failure of John Law’s scheme, the ‘Mississippi Bubble’, Tronchin studied first at Cambridge and then at Leiden under Hermann Boerhaave (1668–1738).13 When he completed his studies in 1730 he chose to stay in Holland until 1754, working as a doctor and refining his research into smallpox prevention, which had begun in 1748 with the inoculation of his third child, after he had already lost one child to the same disease. In 1754, on his return to Geneva, he became the friend and private physician of Voltaire, who opened the doors of the French aristocracy to him. In 1756, he was called upon by the Duke of Orléans, Louis-­ Philippe I, to inoculate his two young children, and as a result he became so famous throughout Europe he was asked by the editors of the Encyclopédie, Diderot and d’Alembert, to write the entry on inoculation in 1757.14 The method of inoculation proposed by the Genevan doctor was considered innovative by his contemporaries, as it was based on a small incision in the skin, often on the legs, where a thread soaked in pus was placed and covered by a small square wooden box for about two days. This procedure avoided deep and painful incisions for the patient and shortened the healing time, but involved a short recovery period (usually four or five days) that the patient had to spend in bed.15 With his method, he was among the first to consider a direct relationship between healing and a healthy lifestyle, based on frequent physical activity and a proper diet. Before deciding to inoculate a patient, Tronchin wanted to be sure of their state of health, aware of the risks of treatment, not wanting to introduce such a dangerous disease into a body that was too frail. Once the subject’s health had been positively assessed, the preparation process began, including not only the future inoculum, but also their home. Tronchin had recommendations on hygiene in the days leading up to the operation, but more generally a light daily diet and exercise, so the body was in the best condition and thus able to recover more quickly. This approach, which included strong neo-Hippocratic influences, such as the use of natural medicines, tisanes, and soups which caused no pain to the patient, found  Lindeboom (1958).  Tronchin (1765, 8:755–771). 15  Lorandi (2017, 255–257). 13 14

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approval among his patients. They also appreciated Tronchin’s avoidance of traditional remedies, which had negative side effects in patients.16 For Louis-Philippe I, as for his contemporaries, the decision to ‘variolise’ their children often stemmed from fear of the terrible consequences of smallpox, a highly fatal disease in eighteenth-century Europe. Every family had its deaths from the disease or family members who retained its marks on their faces, condemning them to a life on the fringes of society.17 From the mid-eighteenth century, inoculation spread, albeit hesitantly, throughout Europe, even among the aristocracy, particularly as treatment became easier and the risks lessened. Families therefore accepted inoculation as a necessary step to safeguard their children’s health, and it thus became a ‘good practice’, with positive effects on society.18 Parents accepted inoculation for the protection of their offspring against smallpox, and especially male heirs, and for fear of its scars, especially among women.19 In the eighteenth century, the beauty of the face surpassed that of the body in importance, and its representation was an important means of transmitting social, moral, and religious values.20 It was essential for the ladies of the aristocracy and nobility to protect their faces and bodies, and those of their children, from smallpox by inoculation.21 This fear, which was strong, essentially concerned women—everyone knew of the consequences of smallpox, since there was no shortage of opportunities to see people disfigured by the disease wherever they went— because for women who lived in the world of the salons, losing their beauty meant losing their space and their social power in this mondaine world. Rather than risk losing the love of a husband, or, for those without a husband, risk remaining celibate, it was better to guard against disappointment by getting inoculated. The practice was thus seen as an elixir of beauty: ‘Nymphs, dry your tears, you will always be beautiful’.22 Women adopted the practice to evade death and the ‘social death’ of smallpox scars.

 Lorandi (2020, 73–86).  Grundy (1994, 32–34). 18  From the mid-eighteenth century on, there was a new awareness of the family’s role in bringing up and protecting children, with the father gradually taking over tasks from the mother that had previously been the sole preserve of women (Roberts 2016, 102–136). 19  Perrot (1984). 20  Lanoë (2007). 21  Lanoë (2008). 22  Poinsinet (1756, 19): ‘Nymphes, séchez vos pleurs, vous serez toujours belle’. 16 17

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In addition to the reasons that led Louis-Philippe I to inoculate his children, there was also another, secondary reason, linked to the prestige associated with the practice. The duke saw in inoculation the possibility of aligning himself with the reformist faction of society, advocates of the Enlightenment, which had always been in favour of the better treatment of children. In fact, we find Louis-Philippe sharing the same social spaces as Voltaire, Diderot, and Grimm. It gave him the international prestige not available to him in France as Duke of Orléans, putting him on a par with sovereigns such as the British royal family and Tsarina Catherine II who had already embraced inoculation.23 Despite the positive outcome for the two young Orléans, the treatment did not catch on in the French royal family and related ruling houses for the time being. The time was not ripe: the king was against it, and the decision of the Duke of Orléans, as head of the cadet branch of the family, did not carry the weight it might have had if Louis XV had done so. Inoculation did not spread beyond the walls of the Palais-Royal. Mistrust was largely fuelled by doctors associated with the Medical Faculty of the Sorbonne. The French case is illustrative. Despite the openness towards the project and the support of large parts of the Parisian aristocracy and even the Dauphin Louis and the Dauphine Marie-Josèphe of Saxony (1731–1767), who welcomed Tronchin at the time of their cousins’ inoculation, it was impossible to achieve the desired results. The debate between those in favour and those against became so heated that, with royal support, the Faculty of Medicine of the Sorbonne asked to the king to ban inoculation until it was certain of its benefits, opening up for five years of bitter confrontation.24 It was not until 1768 that the Paris Parlement pronounced a favourable opinion.25 In the meantime, however, smallpox was still being fought with this practice, and the Bourbon European network preferred to follow the French model—at least until 1764, when the Parma branch broke the family’s united front by inoculating their only son, Ferdinand.

 Barras and Louis-Courvoisier (2001, 185–202).  The Paris Parliament’s decision was necessary after an outbreak of smallpox in the French capital (Bazin 2008, 37–44). 25  Darmon (1989, 62–70, 78–82). 23 24

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The House of Bourbon-Parma Follows Suit On 22 October 1764, Théodore Tronchin (1709–1781) inoculated Ferdinand, son of Philip, Duke of Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla, against smallpox; at his side were the physician Giuseppe Camuti (1730–1797) and the surgeons Flaminio Toregiani (1729–1792) and Angelo Gatti (1724–1798).26 The operation consisted of placing a vésicatoire on each leg, below the knee. From the following day, the doctor observed that the patient had no pain or loss of strength and prescribed a diet of water and breadcrumbs. The first external signs of the disease followed, with small pustules on the body. On 2 November he was declared out of danger.27 As with the Orléans children, Tronchin did not prescribe isolation, but recommended limiting visits during the onset of illness, which would have exposed those by the sickbed to contagion. Ferdinand’s choice, as he said, was personal, as he ‘yearned to be inoculated’; his father was not keen, although he was in favour of the operation.28 Ferdinand’s enthusiasm about inoculation came from the cultural environment in which he had grown up: a reformist in favour of the Enlightenment and its theories, and closely linked to the French world and the ruling family through its diplomats, men of science, and, above all, the Frenchman Guillaume du Tillot (1711–1774), first minister of the duchy of Parma, which was centred on the Po Valley.29 His choice was influenced by the deaths of his mother in 1759 and then in 1763 of his sister Isabella of Bourbon-Parma (1741–1763), with whom he was close, and finally the example set by the Dukes of Orléans in choosing both the practice and the inoculator. If there was a turning point in the relationship between the court of Parma and inoculation, it was the death of Ferdinand’s mother, Louise Elisabeth of Bourbon (1727–1759), from smallpox. The episode had triggered a series of reflections at the court of Parma on the advisability of inoculating if not all the young dukes, then at least the heir Ferdinand, but Philip I was still not convinced. The Count of Argental, ambassador of the king of France to Parma, supported the idea.30 The ambassador was a friend of Voltaire’s, who was in favour of inoculation and a patient of  Badinter (2010, 15–18).  Relation de l’inoculation (1764, 9–16). 28  Bertini (2000, 92–98): ‘ardemment désiré être inoculé’. 29  Bédarida (1928, 349–358). 30  Biondi (2003, 69–89). 26 27

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Tronchin’s, and tried to put pressure not only on the duke but also on his prime minister, but nothing could move him. What finally changed the duke’s mind was the death of his daughter Isabella in 1763. So the following year, in such great secrecy that the Genevan doctor travelled under a false name, Tronchin was summoned to inoculate the heir to the duchy. The procedure and its positive outcome became public knowledge after a few days, which led to the European Bourbon network expressing itself on this point, divided between those in favour and those against. The Duchess of Parma, Enrichetta d’Este (1702–1777), was in favour of inoculation, while the other branch of the dynasty, represented by the Dukes of Modena with Matilde d’Este (1729–1803), opposed it.31 King Louis XV of France, while not disapproving of Ferdinand’s inoculation, refused treatment for himself and his family.32 Charles III of Spain and his mother Elisabeth Farnese were against it. Maria Theresa of Austria, on the other hand, whose family had been hit by smallpox several times, was in favour, and she duly had her children inoculated—but only after the death of her husband, Francis I (1708–1765).33 The inoculation of young Ferdinand had the merit of moving the Italian sovereigns from their positions, while the death of the Duke of Parma, Philip I, from smallpox in 1765 was a warning of the dangers of the disease and an incentive to embrace the treatment. Voltaire, too, had great hopes that these two episodes would see inoculation definitively accepted at the courts of Europe and in society: ‘The death of the Duke of Parma is a fine lesson in inoculation. His son, who had the artificial smallpox, is alive, and the father, who neglected this precaution, dies in the prime of his life. … Is it possible that the prejudice lasts in France so long!’34

31  For Enrichetta d’Este, see Archivio di Stato di Parma (State Archives of Parma), Parma (ASP), Carteggio farnesiano-borbonico interno, b. 29, 4 Nov. 1764; for Matilde d’Este, see ASP, Carteggio farnesiano-borbonico estero Modena, b. 30, 24 Feb. 1766. 32  Institut de France (Institute of France), Paris, Ms 2499/6, report to Paris from the Marquis of Chauvelin, ambassador to Turin, 3 Nov. 1764. 33  ASP, Carteggio farnesiano-borbonico estero Spagna, b. 27, 5 Nov. 1764. At least six of his sixteen children had smallpox and died young or were disfigured. 34  Voltaire (1968–1977, D12816), Voltaire to Louis François Armand de Vignerot du Plessis, 3rd duc de Richelieu, 30 July 1765: ‘La mort du duc de Parme est une belle leçon de l’inoculation. Son fils qui a eu la petite vérole artificielle est en vie, et le père, qui a négligé cette précaution, meurt à la fleur de son âge. … Est-il possible que le préjugé dure en France si longtemps.’

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1767: A Catastrophic Year for the Habsburg Crown Hit four times in four generations, one of the royal families to suffer most was the Austrian Habsburg dynasty. Focusing on Maria Theresa reign, in the 1760s a smallpox epidemic raged in Vienna and it claimed several victims in the royal family. In 1761, after the death from smallpox of the young Archduke Charles Joseph, Empress Maria Theresa had her remaining children inoculated. None of the siblings had a problem with inoculation bar one, Maria Johanna Gabriella, who fell ill. Maria Theresa and Francis’s eleventh child and ninth daughter, Maria Johanna was close to her sister Maria Josepha, and had received an excellent education in a wide range of subjects from the age of three. Despite her young age, Maria Johanna was betrothed to the future King Ferdinand III of Sicily and IV of Naples (once betrothed to her sister Maria Amalia, an engagement which was broken off because of their five-year age difference). Maria Johanna was a year older than her new fiancé, but on 23 December 1762 she was still only 12 years old when she died of smallpox. Five years later, in May 1767, Maria Theresa celebrated her fiftieth birthday while preparing for the wedding of Maria Josepha, but again another wave of the epidemic swept through the court. Empress Maria Josepha of Bavaria, her daughter-in-law, fell ill and Maria Theresa was with her when she received the diagnosis. She stayed to comfort and kiss her, but then unfortunately contracted smallpox herself. Maria Theresa was so ill she received the last rites, crowds gathered at the Hofburg, and her room was packed with family members who had survived the illness and were thus immune. Emperor Joseph II immediately ordered prayers for her speedy recovery to be said in churches throughout the Habsburg dominions. Every church in the city of Vienna held special services. Against all expectations her condition improved after about a week, and the prayers were succeeded by thanksgiving. Maria Theresa appeared to be out of danger. On 22 July 1767, she emerged in public for the first time since the death of her husband two years previously to take part in a thanksgiving service in St Stephen’s Cathedral to cheering crowds. Vienna remained ridden with the disease, though, and it had not yet finished with the royal family.35 Maria Theresa insisted that her daughter, Archduchess Maria Josepha, pray with her in the imperial crypt next to the unsealed tomb of Empress Maria Josepha. The archduchess had a smallpox rash two  Stollberg-Rilinger (2017, 508).

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days after visiting the crypt and on 15 October 1767 died of the illness. Maria Carolina replaced her as the chosen bride of King Ferdinand IV of Naples. Maria Theresa blamed herself for her daughter’s death for the rest of her life, because the concept of an extended incubation period was largely unknown and it was believed that Maria Josepha had caught smallpox from the body of the late empress.36 Maria Theresa thus lost four children to smallpox and her daughter Maria Elisabeth, scarred by smallpox, was considered unfit for marriage. Afterwards, Maria Theresa became a strong supporter of inoculation, setting a strong example by requiring all her children to be inoculated. Driven by their painful personal experiences, Maria Theresa and her son Joseph II now concerned themselves with the introduction of smallpox vaccination in the monarchy. Vaccines have been associated with clinical trials ever since Jenner’s discovery. Within five years of his publication, doctors in Europe and North America conducted trials both in hospitals and in communities to test the safety and efficacy of cowpox vaccine. These trials—initially exploratory in nature and later primarily for the purposes of demonstration—proved enormously influential and set the model for the evaluation of subsequent vaccines.37 The first vaccination trials in Vienna started on 20 March 1768 at the St Markus Orphanage and Hospital, run by the doctors Maximilian Locher and Ferdinand von Leber under the supervision of the personal imperial doctor Anton von Storck.38 There is a detailed report of the 45 inoculations written by Maximilian Locher. Maria Theresa, herself scarred by smallpox and having lost so many children to it, played a decisive role combatting prejudice against the inoculation of children. A number of her own children survived because they had been inoculated. Contrary to all expectations, vaccination remained unpopular in the monarchy, and particularly in the provinces, ‘for the sole reason that here these utterly stupid peasants … listen to wise counsel in their goodness of heart … and then leave it solely to the further will of God’.39 But the negligence and dilettante behaviour of doctors also led to the frequent failure of smallpox vaccination. Out-of-date vaccines, failures to report to the Health Commission and the resulting costs, which had to be borne by the  Stollberg-Rilinger (2017, 50).  Rusnock (2016). 38  Flamm and Vutuc (2010, 266). 39  On this regard see also Vocelka (2010) Vocelka and Heller (1998, 170). 36 37

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local authority of the principality, initially hampered the campaign.40 The Health Committee in the city of Graz therefore proposed offering incentives—vaccination courses and a system of bonuses—to reward doctors who achieved a certain number of vaccinations. In Vienna this suggestion was rejected and an obligation was imposed instead: 200 children from orphanages and poorhouses in Graz had to be vaccinated at the expense of the Health Fund.41 In October 1770 Maria Theresa founded a ‘house for inoculations’ in Vienna, close to the Rennweg orphanage, designed to accommodate children who had been inoculated. With improvements in the vaccine and thus better prevention, and with stricter bureaucratic controls, smallpox vaccination was gradually implemented across other European countries. The success led to official support for the adoption of vaccination, and in the first two decades of the nineteenth century several governments made vaccination compulsory.

The Smallpox Epidemic and Inoculation in Italy: Discourses and Political Decision from Tuscany to Naples There were smallpox epidemics in Italy throughout the eighteenth century: over a hundred are known of, the first in Rome and the last, in 1796, in Venice.42 The first region in Italy to adopt the practice of inoculation was Tuscany in 1756, when six children from the S. Maria degli Innocenti Hospital were inoculated, followed by the Republic of Venice in 1767. Livorno was one of the most important ports for trade with the British Isles, and was where inoculation against smallpox first arrived with doctors from Britain. By mid-century, debates about variolation had begun, extending beyond the medical and scientific spheres.43 Techniques changed, with the inoculation performed directly on the patient’s arm. There were public demonstrations of inoculation to show it was safe, 40  For the policies imposed by Empress Maria Theresa through the institution of the Health Commission in Vienna and throughout the Habsburg territories, see Wimmer (1991). 41  Vocelka and Heller (1998, 170). 42  Corradi (1973, 2:184). 43  Fadda (1983, 48). There had been a 30-year hiatus because of political instability, protracted by the Seven Years War (1756–1763) and the ideological-cultural stresses of the blockade, one of many obstacles to the Enlightenment and reforming movements which were indispensable to the advance of inoculation.

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eliciting much interest in intellectual circles. For example, the writer and philosopher Count Pietro Verri (1728–1797) wrote a number of articles on the subject that appeared in the pages of Il Caffè, the newspaper of the Milan Enlightenment.44 Inoculation was also supported by the philosophers Antonio Genovesi (1713–1769) and Cesare Beccaria (1738–1794). One of the biggest obstacles to overcome was the question of how to inoculate, a struggle between conservative and innovative doctors.45 The medical problems were the consequences of inoculation and the risks of insufficient grafts that did not prevent inoculated people from getting sick or excess grafts that caused the disease. Around these points the discussions and controversies unfolded in Italy in the mid-eighteenth century. In France, meanwhile, inoculation was opposed by certain sectors of society who held to the Hippocratic doctrinal tradition, according to which the disease was the necessary outlet through the skin of a harmful principle that would have made the organism immune to the disease. Inoculation was accused of spreading the contagion and all proof to the contrary was ignored: on 8 June 1763 the Parlement of Paris ordered its suspension and asked the Faculty of Theology and Medicine at the Sorbonne to give its considered opinion not only on the medical aspects, but also on the moral lawfulness of the practice. Those who supported inoculation were part of a vision of society, which supported science and the belief in humanity’s renewal. Some determined Italian anti-inoculists were surprised that Catholic Austria was so in favour of inoculation. Those opposed claimed that inoculation was the work of barbarous infidels, feasible in a heretical country like Britain but unthinkable in Italy. In Italy, inoculation was practised enough to be statistically relevant only in a few cities in Tuscany and in Naples. In France, Gatti was the focus of a violently hostile campaign, to which he replied with the Lettre à M.  Roux (1763) and above all with the Réflexions sur les préjugés qui s’opposent aux progres et à la perfection de inoculation (1764), from which Pietro Verri suggested for the significant article in Il Caffè, and Nouvelles reflexions sur la pratique de l’inoculation (1767).46 Gatti’s high-profile work and publications and the support of his 44  Between 1765 and 1766, two luminaries of the Enlightenment from Lombardy, Giuseppe Parini (see Ode L’innesto del vaiolo in Parini 1765) and Pietro Verri (see Verri 1766, 756–803), argued in favour of ‘prophylactic medicine’. 45  Fadda (1983, 103). 46  Gandoger de Foigny (1768).

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powerful friends such as Denis Diderot and other French Enlightenment thinkers worked to dampen some of the anti-inoculation sentiment. On 15 January 1768 the Sorbonne announced the admissibility of inoculation, and soon after Gatti was commissioned by Louis XV to inoculate the students of the École militaire and the École in La Flèche, which he completed between September and October that year.47 Recalled for a brief period to Tuscany, in May 1769 Gatti inoculated Grand Duke Peter Leopold.48 In November 1771, Gatti arrived in Naples, where he remained until March the following year, mainly inoculating the city elite and nobility. The support of the doctors close to the court was fundamental to smallpox inoculation in the kingdom: Francesco Serao, physician, philosopher, and scholar; Michele Sarcone, physician and great advisor to the king; Michele Troja, physician and author; Nicola Andria, physician and instructor; and, decisively, Domenico Cotugno, celebrated for his expertise, who in 1769 had published De sedibus variolarum syntagma, a work of European importance. Michele Buonanni, a military doctor and Gatti’s collaborator in Naples, wrote in 1775 that Serao and Cotugno had done their best to ensure that children and even babies only a few months old were inoculated.49

The Spread of Bubonic Smallpox in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies: The Bourbons of Naples Between Tradition and Progress The kingdom of the Two Sicilies in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries was marked by serious health problems, with numerous epidemics including smallpox, which caused untold deaths before prophylactic measures were implemented—in Naples alone in 1768, 60,000 people died in a few weeks.50 Naples proved to be in the van; the first along with Tuscany to adopt the practice of inoculation in Italy. Inoculation aroused great curiosity among rulers and the medical class from the mid-eighteenth century, while Enlightenment thinkers such as Antonio Genovesi and the

 Cosmacini (2016). Journal des Savants, 173/September, 126–128.  Later, in 1772 and again in 1774, the Grand Duke was to entrust the inoculation of his sons to Gatti. 49  Borrelli (1997, 72–73). 50  Mazzola (2009), Borrelli (1994). 47 48

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economist Ferdinando Galiani (1728–1787) were public about their strong support.51 There had been a sense of renewal about the kingdom of Naples since the marriage of King Ferdinand and Maria Carolina of Habsburg Lorraine, the daughter of Empress Maria Theresa.52 In the first years of married life, Maria Carolina followed her mother’s advice and did not immediately engage in the political life of the kingdom. She concentrated on securing the trust and respect of her husband. Ferdinand had not received much in the way of education and was known for his extravagant habits, but Maria Carolina’s thorough support meant that he listened to her advice. After the birth of two princesses in rapid succession, the young queen began to venture the occasional opinion or suggestion that the king always adopted. As young rulers Ferdinand IV and Maria Carolina were not free to govern as they wished. From the very first it was evident to the queen that between her and the powerful minister, Bernardo Tanucci, there would be perpetual enmity. Only one of them could rule the king and the kingdom, and the queen was determined it would be her. Thanks to a crucial clause added to the marriage contract by her mother, if Maria Carolina were to give birth to a son and heir she would have the right to participate in the Council of State. The clause implicitly sanctioned a return of Naples to Austrian influence.53 Queen Maria Carolina, like her mother Empress Maria Theresa, was a devoted mother. She watched over the education of all her children, instructing their governors and governess. One of her main concerns in her journal was the children’s health. Coming from a childhood marked by the deaths of her siblings and so many other relatives, Maria Carolina was terrified by the smallpox that stalked her and her family. Even as a newlywed she had tried to convince her husband of the importance of inoculating the royal family. She met with reluctance from Ferdinand, who was under the thumb of his father, King Charles III, an opponent of the new practice of inoculation because of the fear that some inoculated people could be a source of contagion—a perhaps warranted fear, as it cannot be ruled out that certain smallpox epidemics were triggered by 51  There is an emblematic passage in Genovesi’s Lezioni di Commercio o sia d’Economia civile (1765) which gives a good sense of the climate of those years, highlighting the need for further research that brings medicine and politics together (see Stapelbroek 2006). 52  On 12 May 1768 the young Queen Maria Carolina arrived in Naples, having already married King Ferdinand by proxy in Vienna. 53  Recca (2017, 2018, 2020).

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variolisation practices.54 In the end it was only after the death from smallpox of Ferdinand IV’s brother, Philip of Bourbon, in September 1777 that the royal couple decided to protect the lives of their family. Maria Carolina wrote to ask her brother Leopold to send a doctor to inoculate the family. The following year, the king introduced immunisation by variolation at his own expense, proving it first on himself and then on his children. Then there was Gatti, whose affability and manner won round Ferdinand IV and Maria Carolina. In April 1778 they demanded that he settle for good in Naples. He did so on condition of not receiving official assignments or court titles, but only being the private doctor of the king. The decision to secure Gatti’s services was proof of a new modernising approach at the Bourbon court, after numerous deaths in the royal family. While the success of vaccination is unquestionable, the extent to which the prophylactic precursor of vaccination, inoculation, reduced smallpox mortality in the eighteenth century remains open to question. Smallpox was most lethal in urban populations, but most researchers have judged inoculation to have been unpopular in large towns. Unable to return to healed or immunised individuals, smallpox struck in the cities, especially children under the age of five, with on average five years between epidemics. Arm-to-arm vaccination also favoured the transmission of other infectious diseases such as syphilis. Smallpox caused about one-third of infant mortality.55 Smallpox mortality rose among infants, with smallpox burials concentrated in the youngest age groups, suggesting a sudden increase in smallpox virulence. Despite the inoculations, Maria Carolina and Ferdinand lost three children to smallpox at an early age, three-year-old Carlo Tito, five-year-old Maria Cristina Amalia, and two-year-old Giuseppe Gennaro. Although Naples was a pioneering city when it came to inoculation, the grafts were initially few and mostly performed on members of wealthy families. Over time Ferdinand IV implemented measures to help the poor, orphans, and all those who could not afford treatment. In 1780, he and Maria Carolina together ordered compulsory inoculation for the boys at the newly established San Leucio silk factory, a royal proto-industrial  For the reluctance of King Charles III, see Duro and Tuells (2016, 64–69).  Both problems were solved from 1864 by only using vaccine taken from cows and abolishing arm-to-arm vaccination, a late solution compared to similar moves in the kingdom of Naples in 1805 by Troja and in 1810 by Galbiati, who had practised retro-vaccination. 54 55

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complex which also bred Sardinian cows. The virus infected not only humans but also cattle; the animals transmitted the virus to the milkers, in a milder form and, it was noted, with lesions limited to the hands. The Neapolitan government had thus acted from the outset to meet the threat of smallpox by attempting to put preventive measures in place. With the vaccine discovered by the Englishman Edward Jenner, Naples once again found itself at the centre of medical progress. In August 1802, the king set up a special health body, the Direzione Vaccinica (Vaccine Directorate), based at the Albergo Reale dei Poveri hospice in Naples and with branches across the kingdom. One of the most important scientific discoveries about the vaccine was made between 1803 and 1810 by a young hospital doctor, Gennaro Galbiati (1776–1844), who was an obstetric surgeon at the Ospedale degli Incurabili in Naples and a pupil of the great physician Domenico Cotugno (1736–1822). Galbiati perfected inoculation, making it safer and more effective. The nineteenth century also brought the Jennerian vaccine to Sicily, at the request of Queen Maria Carolina, who ordered that the first vaccinations in southern Italy be carried out in Palermo. Two English doctors—Joseph A. Marshall and John Walker—were commissioned to vaccinate the children of Palermo.56 Within a few months, 10,000 had passed through the vaccination centre set up in the former Jesuit seminary, now the Regional Library in Via Vittorio Emanuele. Some former Jesuit convents were also used to carry out the vaccinations, and following Dr Marshall’s advice, the king ordered doctors in all provinces to vaccinate orphans and foundlings in their jurisdictions.57 Queen Maria Carolina remained open to scientific progress even once vaccination was underway, setting up in Palermo the first centre for the vaccination in Italy. Her husband, Ferdinand IV, once convinced of the validity of the method, had his own children vaccinated and decided to institute free vaccinations for the people of Naples on Mondays and Thursdays every week, making the city one of the most active centres for vaccination in Italy. So to conclude, the promotion of smallpox inoculation by Europe’s rulers was decisive for the early steps in its prevention. Rulers favoured an increase in inoculations and later in vaccinations. It was figures such as Lady Montagu or the Duke of Orleans who showed the effectiveness of  Buonaguro et al. (2015).  Recca (2021).

56 57

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the treatment and by their example convinced society of its benefits; Maria Theresa and Maria Carolina, who suffered many personal losses because of the disease, were equally firm in their support. There was an emulative power in royal inoculation, as the case of Ferdinand of Parma demonstrated. There were obstacles to the spread of this life-saving practice, but from the later eighteenth century on members of majority of ruling houses and the aristocracy closest to the courts played a key role in promoting this treatment. Whether despite or because of the succession of epidemics and wars in the period, the ruling houses considered here are best described as quick to react to a smallpox crisis that was soon to impact all levels of society. The royal response then was one that is familiar today: use a crisis to strengthen one’s own rule and give it the desired spin in the media. And as today, even that was not enough to convince everyone. There were still plenty of people who remained opposed to inoculation. It was only with Jenner that vaccination could become a practice accepted by the majority of society.

Archives Consulted Archivio di Stato di Parma (State Archives of Parma), Parma (ASP). Institut de France (Institute of France), Paris.

References Badinter, Élisabeth. 2010. L’enfant de Parme. Paris: Fayard. Barnes, Diana. 2012. The public life of a woman of wit and quality: Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and the vogue for smallpox inoculation. Feminist Studies 38 (2): 330–362. Barras, Vincent, and Marie Louis-Courvoisier, eds. 2001. La Médecine des Lumières: Tout autour de Tissot. Geneva: Georg. Bazin, Hervé. 2008. L’histoire de la vaccination. Montrouge: John Libbey Eurotext. Bédarida, Henri. 1928. Parme et la France de 1748 à 1789. Paris: Champion. Bennett, Michael. 2012. Inoculation of the poor against smallpox in eighteenth-­ century England. In Experiences of poverty in late medieval and early modern England and France, ed. Anna Scott, 199–223. Farnham: Ashgate. Bertini, Giuseppe. 2000. L’appartamento del duca Ferdinando a Colorno dipinto da Antonio Bresciani. Colorno: TLC. Biondi, Carminella. 2003. La Francia a Parma nel secondo Settecento. Bologna: Clueb.

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Borrelli, Antonio. 1994. Medicina e società a Napoli nel secondo Settecento. Archivio storico per le province napoletane 112: 123–177. ———. 1997. Dall’innesto del vaiolo alla vaccinazione jenneriana: Il dibattito scientifico napoletano. Nuncius: Annali di storia della scienza 12 (1): 67–85. Boylston, Arthur. 2012. The origins of inoculation. Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine 105: 309–313. Buonaguro, Franco Maria, Maria Lina Tornesello, and Luigi Buonaguro. 2015. The XIX century smallpox prevention in Naples and the risk of transmission of human blood-related pathogens. Journal of Translational Medicine 13: 33. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12967-­015-­0400-­9. Cabané, Albin. 1913. Mémoires intimes du passé. Vol. 5. Paris: Albin Michel. Carmichael, Ann, and Arthur Silverstein. 1987. Smallpox in Europe before the seventeenth century: virulent killer or benign disease? Journal of the History of Medicine 42: 147–168. Collé, Charles. 1868. Journal et mémoires de Charles Collé sur les hommes de lettres: Les Ouvrages dramatiques et les événements les plus mémorables du règne de Louis XV. (1748–1772). Vol. 2. Paris: Firmin Didot. Corradi, Alfonso. 1973. Annali delle epidemie occorse in Italia dalle prime memorie fino al 1850. In Dall’anno 1601 al 1800, vol. 2. Bologna: Forni. Cosmacini, Giorgio. 2016. Storia della medicina e della sanità in Italia: Dalla peste nera ai giorni nostri. Rome: Laterza. Darmon, Pierre. 1989. La variole, les nobles et les princes: La petite vérole mortelle de Louis XV. Brussels: Complexe. Duncan, Christopher, Stephen Duncan, and Susan Scott. 1996. Oscillatory dynamics of smallpox and the impact of vaccination. Journal of Theoretical Biology 183: 447–454. Duro Torrijos, Jose Luis, and José Tuells. 2016. Una biblioteca de la inoculación contra la viruela en la España del siglo XVIII. Vacunas 17 (2): 64–69. Fadda, Bianca. 1983. L’innesto del vaiolo: Un dibattito scientifico e culturale nell’Italia del Settecento. Milan: F. Angeli. Fenner, Frank, Donald Henderson, Isao Arita, Zdenek Ježek, and Ivan Danilovich Ladnyi. 1988. Smallpox and its eradication. Geneva: World Health Organization. Flamm, Heinz, and Christian Vutuc. 2010. Geschichte der Pocken-Bekämpfung in Österreich. Wiener Klinische Wochenschrift 122: 265–275. https://doi. org/10.1007/s00508-­010-­1379-­0. Gandoger de Foigny, Pierra Louis. 1768. Traite Pratique de l’Inoculation. Nancy: Paris. Gazette de Berne. 1756. permalink.snl.ch/bib/sz001569461. Genovesi, Antonio. 1765. Lezioni di Commercio o sia d’Economia civile. Naples: Stamperia Simoniana. Grundy, Isobel. 1994. Medical advance and female fame: Inoculation and its after-­ effects. Lumen 13: 32–34.

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———. 1999. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu: Comet of the Enlightenment. Oxford: OUP. Journal des Savants. Accessed from www.persee.fr/collection/jds Langer, William. 1976. Immunization against smallpox before Jenner. Scientific American 234: 112–117. Lanoë, Chaterine. 2007. Les techniques de blanchiment du visage à l’époque modern. Communications 81: 107–120. ———. 2008. Images, masques et visages: Production et consommation des cosmétiques à Paris sous l’Ancien Régime. Revue d’Histoire Moderne & Contemporaine 55: 7–27. Lindeboom, Gert. 1958. Tronchin and Boerhaave. Gesnerus: Swiss Journal of the History of Medicine & Science 15: 141–150. Lorandi, Giacomo. 2017. Les dynamiques d’une célébrité transnationale: Théodore Tronchin et l’inoculation de l’Infant Ferdinand de Parme en 1764. Gesnerus: Swiss Journal of the History of Medicine & Science 74 (2): 240–267. ———. 2020. La natura nella cura, curare con la natura: Il caso del dottor Théodore Tronchin. In Salus in Horto: I benefici del giardino dalla Bibbia agli ‘healing gardens’, ed. Simona Gavinelli and Roberto Leggero, 73–86. Rome: DeriveApprodi. Mazzola, Roberto. 2009. Saggi sulla cultura medica napoletana della seconda metà del Settecento. Naples: La Città del Sole. Montagu, Mary Wortley. 1763. Letters of the right Honourable Lady M—y W—y M—e. London: T. Becket & P. A. De Hondt. ———. 1861. In The letters and works of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, ed. Lord Wharncliffe, vol. 2, 3rd ed. London: Henry G. Bohn. Ochmann, Sophie, and Max Roser. 2018. Smallpox. OurWorldInData.org. Accessed from ourworldindata.org/smallpox Parini, Giuseppe. 1975. Le Odi. Milan: Ricciardi. Perrot, Philippe. 1984. Le corps féminin, XVIIIe-XIXe siècle. Paris: Seuil. Poinsinet, Antoine. 1756. L’inoculation, poème à Mgr le duc d’Orléans. Paris: n.p. Recca, Cinzia. 2017. The diary of Queen Maria Carolina of Naples (1781–1785): New evidence of queenship at court. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. ———. 2018. The eagle eye of the Habsburg family on the Kingdom of Naples: lights and shadows of Queen Maria Carolina at court. In Forgotten queens in medieval and early modern Europe: Political agency, myth-making, and patronage, ed. Valerie Schutte and Estelle Paranque, 176–191. London: Routledge. ———. 2020. The reversal of dynasties during the Bourbon era in the Kingdom of Naples. In Dynastic change legitimacy and gender in medieval and early modern monarchy, ed. Ana Maria Seabra, Manuela de Almeida, Santos Silva, and Jonathan W. Spangler, 141–158. Abingdon: Routledge.

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CHAPTER 10

Resilience Born of Desperation: Keeping Dynasties Going in Eighteenth-Century Europe Fabian Persson

Some crises take people by surprise. They are sudden, leaving little time to act. Other crises slowly creep up on people over many years. Many succession crises, though not all, were of the second kind. Perhaps, it had become increasingly unlikely an heir would materialise. Perhaps even after it was a certainty, the crisis did not become acute until precipitated by death. When Charles II of Spain died in 1700, it had been evident for a long time that he was unlikely to father children. Yet, despite this, his death set in motion a major war. And Spain’s slow-moving succession crisis was by no means unique. Another protracted dynastic crisis was the inexorable decline of the Stuart dynasty after the overthrow of James II in the Glorious Revolution. Despite seventeen pregnancies, the future Queen Anne had only one child who survived infancy, and he, her sickly heir William, Duke of Gloucester, died at the age of eleven. Even had he lived

F. Persson (*) Department of Cultural Sciences, Linnaeus University, Kalmar, Sweden e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 F. Persson et al. (eds.), Resilience and Recovery at Royal Courts, 1200–1840, Queenship and Power, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20123-3_10

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longer, though, the poor boy was unlikely to have lived long and his ability to eventually father children was uncertain. His death forced an Act of Settlement the following year to handle the approaching issue of the succession—a solution which ‘fused the elements of hereditary and elective monarchy with the guarantee of a succession acceptable to the political nation’.1 Despite the magnificence of royal celebrations, the truth was that dynastic vulnerability plagued early modern ruling families. Scholars have often emphasised the zeal to ‘perpetuate the dynasty’.2 Indeed, it was an issue widely discussed as the time, as shown by Tom Tölle.3 Success in producing an heir was celebrated both in court settings and for wider audiences. Lavish festivities were staged, medals struck and poetry and paintings deployed to celebrate heirs.4 The pressure to produce an heir could prove very difficult for both kings and queens.5 A miscarriage could destabilise the position of a monarch.6 A queen seen as barren could be dismissed as a failure. The alternative of dynastic death could bring war and misery on a whole kingdom. Dynastic fragility or threat of dynastic extinction was a constant problem in most European monarchies. Little wonder that diplomats frequently discussed the frailty of childless monarchs.7 Tölle analyses how diplomats wrote extensive reports on royal corporeality. Thus, the various bodily weaknesses of Charles II of Spain were detailed in despatches. The way the ailing king walked, rode (or more often not) and talked were all the subject of close analysis. Wishful thinking could set in, with observers keen to depict the king as close to death or close to fathering a son, the latter in a surprising letter by the Bohemian aristocrat Ferdinand Bonaventura von Harrach in 1699.8 A few reigning houses such as Denmark or Hesse had one or more cadet lines ready to pick up the baton if the main line died out, but they were exceptions that proved the rule. Dynastic politics was both intensely personal and often deeply complicated. I would suggest that even at the time different perspectives were deployed. Often, a long-term perspective is presumed to have been almost automatic—that dynastic survival  Oresko (1998).  Thomas (2010, 158). 3  Tölle (2022). 4  See, for example, Barclay (2002). 5  Duindam (2016, 125). 6  Knecht The French Renaissance Court (Yale 2008) 282. 7  Tölle (2022, 22–23). 8  Tölle (2022, 47). 1 2

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trumped all other considerations. This long-term approach, its goal the good of the dynasty as a collective, was often more absent than one would expect. When Augustus, elector of Saxony, left his wife behind when he quit Dresden to become the king of Poland, they had one son and heir.9 That was a limited dynastic legacy, but appears not to have bothered Augustus, who preferred energetic exploits with an array of mistresses. In other cases, dynastic fragility could create political havoc, such as the death in 1639 of the five-year-old Tsarevich Ivan and two months later his newborn brother Vasili. Suddenly, the tsar had only one son, his relationship with Tsarina Eudoxia suffered and they had no more children. The Romanov dynasty was reduced to a precarious state and fear gripped the court that witchcraft had been used against the tsar’s children.10 Instead, monarchs often resorted to a less collective, more short-term approach. The threat of cadet branches, not to mention the expense, could cool princely enthusiasm for encouraging younger brothers, nephews and cousins to marry. The cadet branches of the dynasty or younger brothers of the monarch could even prove destabilising.11 Moreover, personal, individual considerations could trump any collective dynastic considerations. Many rulers preferred not to have sex with their spouses because they found them unattractive or downright repulsive. (Naturally, the feeling could be mutual.) Some might take lovers with whom they preferred to spend their intimate moments. A complicating factor was those rulers who felt little or no attraction to the opposite sex. Here too, the long-term advantages of having sex and, ultimately, children might appear too distant to outweigh the immediate discomfort or abhorrence associated with the conjugal bed. Approaches to dynastic extinction thus varied considerably, despite how often it was visible on the horizon many years before the fact. With that in mind, how did people try to avert the end of a dynasty—and did they try that hard? This will take us to the question of what a dynasty was. A far more flexible animal to contemporaries than to later historians, it transpires.12

 Watanabe O’Kelly (2004).  Perrie (2013, 297–314). 11  See, for example, for younger brothers of French kings, Spangler (2021); for Austrian rivalry, see Geevers (2015, 293–294). 12  Persson (forthcoming-a). 9

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A Poor Outlook for Sweden In 1775, King Gustav III of Sweden had been married to Queen Sophia Magdalena for nine years and they had no children. His dynasty was relatively new to the Swedish throne as his father had been elected crown prince in 1743, at the behest of Empress Elizabeth of Russia. That meant there were no cadet lines in Sweden, though he had more distant relatives abroad such as the Tsarevich Paul. The king had two younger brothers and one younger sister, but only one was married and none had legitimate heirs. The royal couple had little sympathy for each other, and the king was likely to have been more interested in young courtiers than his queen. The future of the House of Holstein-Gottorp was looking bleak and the king decided to act.13 In a unique document, the king’s confidant, Adolf Fredrik Munck, Master of the Stable, described what happened.14 Written several years later, it was still a credible description of the extraordinary machinations of trying to produce an heir.15 In July 1775, the king had travelled to the spa at Loka to take the waters for a few days. During a walk, the king mentioned his sister-in-law, Duchess Hedwig Elisabeth Charlotte, who had been thought to be pregnant, but after a while things simply petered out. The signs appeared to have been misread by the physicians. The king said ‘that He Himself wished to have an heir’, to which his attendants responded that ‘nothing would be simpler and also combined with the greatest bliss for the realm and a joy for the king himself’.16 The phrasing makes it quite clear that the king by having an heir ‘himself’ meant a son, rather than an heir born to one of his siblings. King Gustav said that things were not as simple as some would have him believe, ‘as he had no one who could propose the matter to the queen, which he found impossible to resolve to do himself. Especially as he had never once during their whole marriage been together like man and wife

 Persson (2020).  Nikula (1991). 15   For the original, see Riksarkivet (Swedish National Archives), Stockholm (RA), Kabinettet för utrikes brevväxlingen Arkiv F vol.1 dossier A.18. 16  Nikula (1991, 327): ‘att han nog önskade sig själv äga en arvinge’; ‘att ingenting vore lättare och att därmed tillika vore förenat den största sällhet för riket samt en hugnad for K.M. själv’. All translations are my own unless otherwise noted. 13 14

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should do, when conjugal duties are to be fulfilled’.17 He emphasised the need for a ‘negotiator’, as otherwise there would likely be an unfortunate scene with the queen. Various names were put forward, but the king rejected them all, and instead mentioned a captain in the Guards, one Lilliehorn, ‘in whom the king had the most trust as he had been brought up with the king from childhood and always proved trustworthy’.18 Another courtier argued against using Lilliehorn, as what was needed was someone who had contacts with the women serving the queen.19 To bring the enterprise to a happy conclusion, they needed a woman close to the queen who was ‘captivated’ by the king’s plan. Then Munck was suggested, because he ‘was well known to the queen’s chamberers’.20 Indeed, one of them was his mistress. The king was set on his plan succeeding, even though he had previously decided to continue living apart from the queen and had gone on to persuade his brother Duke Charles to marry. Munck was approached by a courtier and informed of the king’s plan. Then the king himself told him to join him for ride, when he outlined the situation. He emphasised that the only people allowed to be in the know were the queen’s chamberer Ramström and two courtiers who had been privy to the previous discussion. Everything was to be kept secret ‘until he had lain with the queen and become convinced, as he was not yet, that he was able to consummate the marriage’. ‘As he had not in his whole life been intimate with more women’ than three on as many occasions. The first was the wife of an English sea captain, who had been procured by his valet, Axel Griberg, for the crown prince ‘to learn’—and ‘Griberg had to instruct him in both

17  Nikula (1991, 327–328): ‘efter han ej hade någon som kunde göra Drottningen första Proposition, vilket han omöjligen själv kunde resolvera sig till besynnerligen efter han aldrig någon enda gång under hela sin äktenskaps tid med henne umgåtts såsom man och hustru bör leva tillsammans, då äktenskapsskyldigheter skola uppfyllas’. 18  Nikula (1991, 328): ‘negotiateur’. Nikula (1991, 328): ‘för vilken Konungen yttrade det mesta förtroendet efter han såsom barn blivit med Konungen uppfödd och alltid visat sig pålitlig’. 19  The inner sphere of the court is discussed in Persson (2020, forthcoming-b). 20  Nikula (1991, 328): ‘captiverad’. Nikula (1991, 328): ‘vore väl känd med Drottningens kammarfruar’.

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attitude and act, during which latter his seed had flown’.21 The second was the wife of General Du Rietz ‘whom he had touched several times but without discharge’.22 The third was a courtesan, Miss Norman, who had been brought to the wardrobe rooms after a court reception in 1771. Leaving the rooms, she had said, ‘His Majesty is mightily shy and quite unused to this’.23 Munck thought that the king would be capable as long as he could overcome his shyness, which King Gustav promised. Munck decided, secretly, to encourage Miss Ramström, the queen’s chamberer, to employ ‘a married woman’ to ‘educate the queen’.24 Two days later, the king and Munck discussed the matter again, and the king again told him about his doubts whether he could perform. He said soon after the wedding ‘he had several times lain with the queen and during that time tried to complete his male duty, but shyness and ignorance on both sides had resulted in nothing happening’. He had not known whom to ask for advice and had begun to loathe all women ‘to which both his education and the lectures by the queen dowager added much’. He said, ‘I cannot get out of this, as I am now so used to it, if you cannot teach me and tell me, my dear Munck’. The vastly more experienced Munck replied that ‘Nature is the best teacher’ and if the king abstained from other habits that can diminish the lusts of the flesh, presumably masturbation, and lay with the queen every night things would sort themselves out.25 This did not persuade the king, who reiterated that ‘unused and ignorant’ as he was, it would be almost impossible for him to fulfil his conjugal duty. Also, after nine years of coldness it was difficult to live more intimately with the queen, which he thought would ‘so confuse him that nothing would happen and thus result in a worse relationship than before’. The king insisted, 21  Nikula (1991, 329): ‘förrän han legat hos Drottningen och vunnit en övertygelse, som han ännu icke ägde, huruvida han till äktenskapliktens fullbordande vore förmögen’. Nikula (1991, 328): ‘Ty han hade uti hela sin livstid icke haft beblandelse med flera kvinnfolk’. Nikula (1991, 329): ‘Griberg måst instruera honom om både attitude och actus, under vilken senare säd gått ifrån honom’. 22  Nikula (1991, 329): ‘som han väl flera gånger rört men utan effekt av decharge’. 23  Nikula (1991, 329): ‘Hans Majestät är fasligt blyg och alldeles ovan’ 24  Nikula (1991, 329): ‘ett gift kvinnfolk’. Nikula (1991, 329): ‘undervisa Drottningen’. 25  Nikula (1991, 329): ‘hade han flera gånger legat hos Drottningen och under tiden försökt att fullgöra dess manliga skyldighet, men blygsel och okunnighet på bägge sidor hade gjort att ingenting blivit av’. Nikula (1991, 330): ‘vartill både hans uppfostran och änkedrottningens föreläsningar även mycket bidragit’. Nikula (1991, 330): ‘Jag kan aldrig komma härifrån, ty jag är nu så van därvid, om icke du min kära Munck kan lära och säga mig’. Nikula (1991, 330): ‘naturen är den bästa läromästaren’.

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‘You will inform the queen of my intention and then be with me in her room as I tell her of my plan to live as friends and spouses from here on’.26 The queen soon arrived at the residence, and the king received her ‘kindly, against all habit’.27 Munck then set out to realise the plan. He defied the king in bringing in Miss Uggla, a Lady of Honour, to whom the queen was close. She was intelligent, resourceful and, most of all, discreet. After consulting with the queen, Miss Uggla brought back the reply that the queen was much surprised and found it hard to believe that the king intended to change their life together. Munck then talked with his mistress, the queen’s chamberer Ramström, and the queen’s old chamberer, Wenner. Wenner had served the queen since she was a princess in Denmark and was both trustworthy and married. Munck calculated that it was necessary to bring Wenner into the plan, as she and Ramström were not friends, so if she were excluded and the queen asked for her advice it would not end well. The following day, Miss Uggla again tried to persuade the queen, to no avail. Then Munck himself met the queen. He assured her that the king intended to change and admitted the fault was all his. The queen was not ready to meet the king and hesitated. Munck tried to press her into agreeing to a meeting but also carefully arranging how it was to be done. Munck promised that the king was serious and did indeed want to meet the queen, as long as the king was assured that there would be no nasty scenes dredging up disagreements in the past. After this followed two days during which the king tried to steel himself to approach the queen in person. At last the queen took the king’s hand as they were parting for the night and held on to it, asking for a meeting. The king promised to meet the queen the next day but was now scared and said to Munck that his behaviour came from deciding nothing was likely to change. Munck was emphatic that he need not be in the room when the couple met, but King Gustav was adamant. As the dreaded meeting approached, the king told Munck to feel his pulse ‘at which I felt the king had an elevated heart rate’. He then told the hesitant monarch ‘If Your Majesty does not quickly end this game, the 26  Nikula (1991, 330): ‘ovan och okunnig’. Nikula (1991, 330): ‘så deconcertera (förbrylla) honom, att ingenting torde bliva av och dymedelst deras umgänge värre sedan än förut’. Nikula (1991, 330): ‘Du skall först säga Drottningen min föresats och sedan vara med mig i hennes kammare, då jag gör henne proposition att framdeles leva som vänner och äkta makar’. 27  Nikula (1991, 330): ‘mot all vana vänligt’.

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preliminaries will drag Your Majesty into the grave. Therefore I will now go to the queen and tell her Your Majesty is following immediately’. ‘He ordered me to wait but I left, and when he called me back I replied that I had so good a reason to go that his order could not persuade me to turn back’.28 Almost immediately after Munck entered the queen’s room, the king followed, and the queen embraced him. ‘Over six minutes they stood without moving and silent, but not without tears on both sides’.29 Despite what had earlier been promised, they then discussed the misery of the previous nine years. The king admitted that things had gone wrong and how badly the queen had been treated. Munck then stood up to leave and the king did the same. The queen held the king back, so he stayed; he returned to his room half an hour later. He had rejected a plea from the queen to spend the night with the excuse that he had too much business to attend to. The following days, the king stayed away and the queen tried to bring matters forward. Munck emphasised the king’s ‘timidite’ as the reason for things faltering, but he also told Ramström that the queen should push and excite the king and put a portrait of her in his bed. To this was added a billet-doux in French assuring the king of the queen’s undying love. Then after supper, the queen whispered in the king’s ear ‘as two evenings have already passed and Your Majesty has not come to me, I will come this evening to you’.30 The terrified king then begged her not to come but promised to go to the queen as soon as he could prepare so no one would notice him leaving his room at such an unusual hour. That night the king did go to the queen’s bedchamber accompanied by Munck. Miss Ramström, normally slept with the queen, was outside waiting in the wardrobe. Once the king had been undressed, he was left alone with the queen. After fifteen minutes, the king rang a bell to call for Munck. ‘As I remained by the door, the king ordered me to come to the 28  Nikula (1991, 334): ‘varvid jag erfor, att K. hade en ganska häftig hjärtklappning’. Nikula (1991, 334): ‘om icke E.M. gör ett hastigt slut på detta spelet, så draga preliminärerna E.M. i graven. Jag går därför till Dr. och berättar, att E.M. nu kommer strax efter’. Nikula (1991, 334): ‘Han befallde mig att vänta men jag gick och då han ropade mig tillbaka, svarade jag mig gå åstad i så gott ändamål att hans befallning icke kunde förmå mig återvända’. 29  Nikula (1991, 334): ‘I över 6 minuter stodo de orörliga och tysta men icke utan att å ömse sidor utgjuta tårar’. 30  Nikula (1991, 336): ‘som 2ne aftnar redan passerat och E.M. ej kommit till mig, så kommer jag i afton till Eder’.

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bed, where he whispered to me and said that he couldn’t find a hole. I advised him in a whisper to ask the queen to show him, but he replied, “I am ashamed to do that”.’ Then Munck left. An hour later, he escorted the king back to his own bedchamber. There he explained that ‘he had made several attempts, but they all failed, as he could not find a real hole in the queen’, adding that ‘as he was lying with the queen the following night I had to be there to educate and teach him’.31 The following day, Munck asked Wenner to teach the queen and exhort her not to be shy when the king was in her bed. The queen was first outraged at Munck being present, but then accepted it as a necessity. At this meeting, Munck had to adjust the king’s position while with the queen, but despite all their efforts, no further progress was made. There were complications, it transpired. The king suffered from phimosis, too tight a foreskin, and the queen’s vagina was unusually small, so it hurt them both. On the third night, Mrs. Wenner and Munck decided to put some oil by the bed to ease intercourse. This alleviated some of the pain, and for the next seven days, the king and the queen tried to have intercourse and eventually succeeded. Even so, it took several years to produce an heir. It was in the nature of the court that, despite the king’s exhortations to keep everything secret, their problems were soon common knowledge among the elite (Fig.  10.1). The little prince’s birth in 1778 was greeted with much jubilation, and the future of the dynasty seemed secure (Fig. 10.2). The tribulations of Queen Sophia Magdalena and King Gustav III’s sex life offer several insights. One was the king’s mixed feelings about what was needed to get an heir. He persuaded his brother to marry but was still keen to have a son of his own. Tellingly, the king’s other brother remained unmarried, and no efforts were made to bolster the dynasty that way. Another observation is the staggering awkwardness and ignorance shown by both the king and the queen, reminiscent of a similar situation with Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. There was also evident physical pain and a strong psychological reluctance to consummate the marriage. What beckoned was painful and not especially appealing to either of them. If the queen and Munck had not pressed so hard, the efforts at a reconciliation 31  Nikula (1991, 336): ‘Då jag stannade inom dörren, befallde K. mig komma till sängen, då han viskade vid mig och sade, att han ej funne något hål. Jag rådde honom lika tyst att bedja Dr. visa sig, men han svarade det skäms jag att göra’. Nikula (1991, 336): ‘han sig hava gjort flere försök, som alla misslyckats, efter han ej kunnat finna något riktigt hål på Dr.’ Nikula (1991, 336): ‘att då han nästa natt låge hos Dr. skulle jag bli inne för att undervisa och lära honom’.

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Fig. 10.1  Gustav III and Sophia Magdalena’s attempts to have an heir included the humiliation of Adolf Fredrik Munck’s presence. This was something contemporaries liked to mock. Carl August Ehrensvard, Erotisk scen. © Nationalmuseum, Stockholm

and sexual intercourse would have collapsed at an early stage. Left to his own devices, the king could not face the terrors and pain of intercourse with the queen. If intercourse was too terrifying—or simply did not yield the hoped-for result—there were other options open to a dynasty on its last legs. Dynastic inclusiveness saw cadet lines or even illegitimate children provide candidates to the throne, and the concept of royal blood could be extended to descendants through the female line, providing a wider understanding of what constituted a dynasty. This was the case in Sweden, where the continuation between Queen Christina and her successor (and cousin) Charles X Gustav emphasised their shared royal blood. Royal and princely

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Fig. 10.2  The succession was secured and celebrated: even before his accession to the throne, little Crown Prince Gustav (future Gustav IV) was squeezed into a painting of the kings of Sweden underneath his father Gustav III Ulrika Fredrica Pasch, Regentlängd Gustav I–Gustav IV Adolf. © Nationalmuseum, Stockholm

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successions could be cobbled together from a mix of solutions. David Parrott’s observation that ‘The complexity and ambiguity of succession arrangements and inheritance customs throughout early modern Europe, and especially in the Holy Roman Empire—both in its German territories and in Reichsitalien, that part of Italy whose rulers also owed allegiance to the emperor as their sovereign overlord—is frequently overlooked and its potential for political disruption underestimated’ still largely holds true.32

The Reluctants Despite the very real threat of political disruption, there were several ruling houses in Europe who signally failed to master dynastic policy and ensure the survival of their dynasty. They can be divided into the rulers with several heirs who wrecked the future of the dynasty by allowing their offspring to remain unmarried and the rulers who for various reasons did not do everything to provide an heir. If dynastic perpetuation was paramount, the actions of many early modern princes and princesses seem irrational. Among these desultory dynasts, the Hanoverians in the late eighteenth century stand out. Having produced seven sons who lived to adulthood, King George III and Queen Charlotte for perhaps understandable reasons took their eye off the ball and allowed five sons to remain unmarried and the married two to separate from their wives. The result was a change in a matter of years from a surplus of admittedly untalented royal dukes in one generation to a looming dynastic crisis in the next. Something similar happened in Sardinia when Victor Amadeus III was king. Five of his sons reached adulthood, so the dynasty appeared safe. Yet, none of his sons would produce a son who lived to continue the line. Victor Amadeus’s successor Charles Emmanuel IV of Sardinia and his French wife Clothilde struggled to conceive. Various treatments, including weight loss, were tried, but with no result. After eight years, they agreed to give up and live ‘like brother and sister’. The other brothers were equally unsuccessful. Under those circumstances, leaving one prince unmarried until his forties and two to die unmarried does appear somewhat irresponsible if dynastic survival was paramount. Indeed, the lack of effort could be surprising. Philip IV of Spain had no son for many years of his marriage, and his heir was then his younger brother, the Infante  Parrott (1997, 24).

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Charles. Yet, at his death at the age of twenty-four, the Infante Charles was still unmarried. Where there should have been a sense of dynastic urgency, there was nothing—though in this case, it might have been, as Liesbeth Geevers has described, because of Philip IV’s unshakeable belief that God would intercede with a miracle as He would never abandon the House of Habsburg.33 Another dynastic own goal was the custom of making princes into cardinals. Cardinal Henry became king of Portugal in 1578 with no heir, and one of his brothers had also been a cardinal. A century later, two dynasties struggling with survival, the Habsburgs and the Medici, had only a generation earlier made several of their prince-cardinals. Two of the sons of Grand Duke Cosimo II of Tuscany were cardinals and two more remained unmarried, within two generations that led to their dynasty dying out. If dynastic survival had been paramount, allowing several sons to remain unmarried would have been inexplicable. In similar style, of Philip IV of Spain’s two brothers, one became a cardinal and the other never married; the succession troubles a generation later could have been avoided if the survival of the dynasty had been their main concern. Inactivity could lead to the end of dynasties when a prince failed to perform. The reason for such failure varied, of course. The last Medici Grand Duke of Florence, Gian Gastone, preferred the company of young men and appeared relatively unworried about the continuance of his dynasty.34 Others were simply impotent or insane, though the onset of mental illness did not stop Duke Albrecht Friedrich of Prussia from having at least seven children. In Sweden, the painful scenes in the queen’s bedchamber between Sophia Magdalena and Gustav III were not the country’s first dynastic crisis. Forty years earlier in the 1730s, there had been an episode which captured the complexities of impending dynastic extinction—and the elusive nature of what comprised a dynasty. For about two decades, it had been obvious that King Frederick and Queen Ulrika Eleonora would have no children. The question of the succession hovered with increasing urgency over the political landscape.35 Four varieties of dynastic continuity were discussed. One was the House of Hesse. King Frederick had been the hereditary prince of Hesse when he married the queen, then a Swedish  Geevers (2015).  See Acton (1980). 35  Persson (forthcoming-a). 33 34

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princess, and later he succeeded as Landgrave of Hesse.36 King Frederick had a nephew whom he could have positioned as successor not just to Hesse but to the Swedish crown. The queen did talk fondly of ‘our House of Hesse’, but the idea had little traction among Swedish politicians. Another option, though a long shot, was the royal bastards. With his mistress, King Frederick had two sons, the young Counts Hessenstein.37 Robert Oresko has pointed out how the bastards of the House of Savoy were ‘an additional pool of talent’ to draw from. If the dynasty was threatened by extinction, bastards could be a last resort.38 In 1520s’ England, Henry VIII appears to have countenanced making his illegitimate son Henry Fitzroy his successor. In a dynastic emergency as extinction beckoned or territory was at risk, a favoured illegitimate son could still have a chance. Pope Alexander VI, after all, spent a huge amount of effort to secure a principality for his son Cesare. Another example was Alfonso V of Aragon’s illegitimate son, Ferdinand, who became king of Naples in 1458. When the House of Aviz ended in 1580, the illegitimate son of an Aviz prince, the Prior of Crato, tried to claim the Portuguese crown. As late as the 1590s, Henry IV of France appeared to have considered marrying his mistress Gabrielle d’Estrées.39 This did create a fierce backlash, though, which might indicate that the time for kings to marry mistresses had passed. As in France, so in Sweden: the Hessenstein option may have been favoured by the king’s mistress, but it had little real support. Another option was to turn to a cadet branch of the royal dynasty. For King Frederick and Queen Ulrika Eleonora, that meant the Zweibrückens. All the members of the Swedish branch were dead apart from the queen herself; the rest were distant relatives in Germany. The chosen candidate was Christian IV of Palatinate-Zweibrücken-Birkenfeld. His great-great-­ great grandfather, Wolfgang of Palatinate-Zweibrücken, was also in a different line of the great-great-great grandfather of the Swedish queen. Not a close relation. The fact that Christian IV was a young boy, born in 1722, was an advantage, as he could be moulded to suit the Swedish succession. Tellingly, his mother struck up a correspondence with the Swedish queen, and the boy was given a Swedish governor to direct his education. In the 1730s, Prince Christian emerged as a serious contender for the Swedish  Persson (2014).  Persson (2021). 38  Oresko (1995, 40). 39  Gerber (2012, 80), Wellman (2013). 36 37

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throne, backed by France. There was another contender though: the Duke of Holstein. His was not a Swedish royal dynasty on paper, not being Zweibrücken or Hesse, but what he did have was a much closer connection than them because his mother had been a Swedish princess and he had spent his childhood and youth in Sweden. Unfortunately for him, his aunt Queen Ulrika Eleonora loathed him and was determined to keep him out. On his death, his son Charles Peter Ulrik became duke of Holstein and the possible Swedish successor. When an heir presumptive was finally chosen by the Diet in October 1742, their choice fell on Duke Charles Peter Ulrik because he was ‘of the Royal Swedish blood’ as the Estate of the Peasants put it. However, he had just been chosen as heir presumptive to the Russian imperial crown, and when the news arrived in Stockholm, the Diet had to think again. In the end, on the express wishes of the Russian Empress Elizabeth—who was in the process of occupying most of Swedish Finland—another Holstein prince with fewer links to Sweden was chosen to facilitate a favourable Russian–Swedish peace treaty. There were several dynastic options in the 1730s: Zweibrücken alternative, a cadet branch of the existing dynasty; a foreign nephew of the king; a bastard; the Holstein option, a member of a different dynasty, but with closer links to the Swedish royal family than the rest; or a stranger, the Prince-Bishop of Lübeck. In the event, it was the prince-bishop who was chosen. A dynasty thus could continue in several ways, some of which were neither complete continuity nor a complete break. The option that on the face of it was a change to a new dynasty—Holstein-Gottorp—in fact offered the greatest continuity. This was seen at other changes of dynasty too. On the abdication of Queen Christina in 1654, she was succeeded by her cousin—a Zweibrücken—despite there being still members of the older branch of the Swedish Vasa dynasty alive. They had simply been ruled out because they were Catholics and part of the Polish royal family. The same happened to the queen’s bastard brother Count Gustaf Gustafsson of Vasaborg. Instead, the queen turned to the cousins on her paternal aunt’s side, the Zweibrückens, who had lived at her court for years and positioned themselves as members of the royal family.40 They gradually merged into the Swedish royal dynasty because they had Swedish royal blood. Similarly, when Philip II of Spain drew up an overview of possible successors to the Spanish crown, he excluded branches of what would today be  Persson (forthcoming-a).

40

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seen as the Habsburg dynasty. To his mind, descendance from his father Charles V was what mattered, so his daughters and descendants of his sisters were all contenders, but at the same time, he excluded his Austrian Habsburg cousins, who all descended from Charles V’s brother Ferdinand.41 Sweden was not the only country where the end of a ruling dynasty was not a clear-cut event, then. And in many instances, there were dynastic options which were disregarded. The Habsburgs died out in Spain in 1700—but lived on in Austria. The main Nassaus died out in 1702 with William III but lived on in distant cadet branches of the Nassau family. When the Valois died out in 1589, was the new Bourbon king the first of a new dynasty, or was he the representative of a cadet branch—which had splintered off three centuries earlier? When Grand Duke Gian Gastone of Tuscany died in 1737, a cadet branch of the Medici still existed, the Princes of Ottajano; however, it was in the interest of the great powers to take over the grand duchy, so it was given to Francis Stephen of Lorraine. In reality, clean breaks appeared to have been relatively rare and instead solutions were found by shifting sideways, trawling through matrilineal descendants or distant cadet branches. A ‘new’ dynasty could attempt instant permanence with a careful choice of sons-in-law as reserve heirs to bolster the family’s legitimacy while it found its feet.42

A Problem for Whom? To what degree was a dying dynasty a problem? Queen Elizabeth I of England seemed to have been unfazed by the approaching extinction of the Tudor dynasty, possibly because the word Tudor held little importance to her. Cliff Davies has shown how she saw herself as the daughter of Henry VIII and the successor of previous English monarchs, while her patrilineal ancestors bearing the name of Tudor were largely irrelevant.43 Turning to Tuscany, ‘Needless to say, the question of the succession to the Grand Duchy obsessed old Cosimo III’, according to Elena Ciletti.44 Yet reflect on his actions, and Cosimo III does not come across as a prince hell-bent on perpetuating his dynasty. Apart from plans to ease his  Geevers (2015, 296–297).  Evans (1983). 43  Davies (2012). 44  Ciletti (1984, 24). 41 42

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middle-­aged, childless daughter into the succession, Cosimo III did nothing. When his marriage fell apart, he let his wife, who at thirty was still of childbearing age, depart without much effort to reconciliation. His three children were all childless, and his younger brother only married late and when his health was already failing. The younger brother, Francesco Maria, did renounce his cardinalate, but his young bride at first refused to consummate the marriage, and then in two years, he was dead.45 The Tuscan succession crisis brewed for many years with remarkable little done to avoid it, and when steps were taken it was too late. Dynastic extinction could bring havoc, not just to royal families and courts but to nations. The end of Russia’s Rurikid dynasty in 1598 was also an end to stable, legitimate government—and the start of the descent into anarchy known as the Time of Troubles. A corollary of dynastic extinction, unless carefully managed, was instability; yet so too was opportunity. In Russia, it gave Boris Godunov his chance to seize the crown. When the last duke of Saxe-Lauenburg died in 1689, he had tried to make his daughter Anna Maria Franziska his heir, but the duchy was soon occupied by the ruthless duke of neighbouring Celle. Anna Maria Franziska was herself a living proof of the tribulations of dynastic extinction. Not only was her home duchy occupied but the grand duchy of Tuscany, whose heir Gian Gastone she married, was seized too after his death. No wonder she preferred to spend her time in her stables talking to her horses.

Efforts to Keep Dynasties Alive The default was to make every effort to keep the ruling dynasty going. Love potions, prayers and pushing aged cardinals into marriage were all means to keep dynasties on track—though arguably in many instances it was to have a personal heir or to manage the succession rather than to perpetuate a dynasty per se. In what must have been the most humiliating episode of his life, King Gustav III of Sweden called on his friend and courtier Adolf Fredrik Munck for help. It was clear that it was painful for the king and the queen to go through with sex, and it was deeply embarrassing to have Munck there to help them. Yet, they persisted and in due course several pregnancies and two sons were the result. One might conclude that King Gustav III would have done anything to perpetuate his dynasty, yet the answer was no. He did not pressure his youngest brother  Acton (1980, 246–250).

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or his sister to marry, which could have resulted in heirs. Instead, his concern seems to primarily have been to have an heir of his body, rather than the survival of his dynasty through one of his siblings. Other early modern princes and princesses tried to create an heir when extinction threatened. After the death of his only grandson, Duke Eberhard Ludwig of Württemberg dismissed his long-time mistress and tried to get another legitimate heir with his long-suffering wife. As she was fifty-one by that stage, the plan failed. Another approach was to line up younger brothers for dynastic service. In 1734, the young son of the Margrave of Baden-Baden died, and it looked increasingly unlikely that the Margrave would have an heir, whereupon his brother chose to leave his career in the Church to get married; in the end, the dynasty died out anyway. Younger brothers sometimes proved recalcitrant. Prince Rupert of the Rhine refused to return to the Palatinate in the 1670s to marry and provide heirs, despite his brother’s wishes. In Catholic countries, there were prince-cardinals who obtained papal permission to be laicised so they could marry. Thus in 1709 Francesco Maria de’ Medici was released from the cardinalate in order to produce the Medici heir, which seemed beyond his nephews. In 1578, the aged Cardinal Henry succeeded his great-nephew Sebastian as king of Portugal. He tried to get a dispensation to marry but failed because the pope was wary of angering the king of Spain, who hoped to seize Portugal when the House of Aviz died out. The enthusiasm for producing an heir varied more between monarchs than is often assumed. While normally an important part of a monarch’s role, some had a more fatalistic view of dynastic survival. Tölle has analysed the depressing mortality rates of the Austrian Habsburg archdukes of the late seventeenth century. The Austrian princesses gave birth to far fewer boys than girls, and the boys on average only survived until the age of 15.46 This was a dreadful prospect for a dynasty, where its Spanish branch too had a horrific mortality rate. Still, at least the Spanish Habsburgs appear to have nurtured a strong and misplaced belief in divine intervention to protect their dynasty. For others, such as Gustav III of Sweden, their interest in dynastic survival was very much focussed on their own direct heirs, as in their children or grandchildren. When nephews, cousins or other more distant relatives became the link to a surviving dynasty, such interest often faltered. To  Tölle (2022, 292–293).

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keep a dynasty going appears to have been a common goal, but the fluidity of what constituted a dynasty makes it less clear how that was achieved. That a Holstein duke was ‘of the Royal Swedish blood’ was revealing.47 Was dynasty both smaller and larger than what has traditionally been thought of a dynasty? Bastards, distant cadet lines and nephews and cousins on the female side might be part of a dynasty. At the same time, some rulers, though very intent on getting an heir, were less interested in relatives taking the role. Perhaps, the ways in which a succession crisis could be resolved and a dynasty could be said to transform and survive in a different guise, sidestepping the strictures of biology and Salic law, could be said to be true dynastic resilience. The abiding image of the continuity and longevity of Europe’s ruling dynasties belied the reality of many early modern monarchs who did not make dynastic survival their greatest priority. Instead of encouraging siblings and cousins to marry, they were dissuaded or at least without encouragement, and sons were made cardinals or allowed to remain unmarried. Rulers themselves remained unmarried or lived away from spouses they disliked. That the long-term dynastic thinking scholars sometimes assume was in the collective best interests of a dynasty was all too often abandoned for short-term benefits for rulers who prized individual happiness and pleasure over the painful humiliations endured by Gustav III and Sophia Magdalena.

Archives Consulted Riksarkivet (Swedish National Archives), Stockholm (RA).

References Acton, Harold. 1980. The last Medici. London: Macmillan. Barclay, Andrew. 2002. Mary Beatrice of Modena: The ‘Second Bless’d of woman-­ kind’?’. In Queenship in Britain, 1660–1837: Royal Patronage, court culture, and dynastic politics, ed. Clarissa Campbell Orr, 74–93. Manchester: MUP. Ciletti, Elena. 1984. An 18th-century patron: The case for Anna Maria Luisa de’ Medici. Woman’s Art Journal 5 (1): 23–27. Davies, Cliff. 2012. Tudor: What’s in a name? History 97 (1): 24–42.

 Persson (forthcoming-a).

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Duindam, Jeroen. 2016. Dynasties: A global history of power, 1300–1800. Cambridge: CUP. Evans, N.E. 1983. The Anglo-Russian Royal Marriage Negotiations of 1600–1603. Slavonic & East. European Review 61 (3): 363–387. Geevers, Liesbeth. 2015. The miracles of Spain: Dynastic attitudes to the Habsburg succession and the Spanish succession crisis (1580–1700). Sixteenth Century Journal 46 (2): 291–311. Gerber, Matthew. 2012. Bastards: Politics, family, and law in early modern France. Oxford: OUP. Knecht, Robert. 2008. The French renaissance court. Yale: Yale. Nikula, Oscar. 1991. Adolph Fredric Munck: En hovgunstlings uppgång och fall. Helsinki: Svenska Litteratursällskapet i Finland. Oresko, Robert. 1995. Bastards as clients: The house of Savoy and its illegitimate children. In Patronage et clientélismes 1550–1750, ed. Charles Giry-Deloison and Roger Mettam, 39–67. Lille: Centre d’histoire de la région du Nord et de l’Europe du Nord-Ouest, Université Charles de Gaulle-Lille III. ———. 1998. Review of The right to be king: The succession to the Crown of England, 1603–1714, by Howard Nenner. Reviews in History (February). Parrott, David. 1997. The Mantuan succession, 1627–31: A sovereignty dispute in early modern Europe. English Historical Review 112 (445): 20–65. Perrie, Maureen. 2013. The Tsaritsa, the Needlewoman and the Witches: Magic in Moscow in the 1630s. In ‘Witchcraft casebook: Magic in Russia, Ukraine, Poland, and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, 15th–21st centuries’, special issue. Russian History 40 (3/4): 297–314. Persson, Fabian. 2014. From ruler in the shadows to shadow king: Frederick I of Sweden. In The man behind the Queen, ed. Charles Beem and Miles Taylor, 93–102. London: Palgrave Macmillan. ———. 2020. Survival and revival: Sweden’s court and monarchy, 1718 to 1930. London: Palgrave Macmillan. ———. 2021. Women at the early modern Swedish court: Power, risk, and opportunity. Amsterdam: AUP. ———. forthcoming-a. Presence makes the heart grow fonder: The creation of dynasty. In Dynasties and state formation in early modern Europe, ed. Liesbeth Geevers and Harald Gustafsson. Amsterdam: AUP. ———. forthcoming-b. Public displays of affection: Creating spheres of Royal Intimacy in public. In Notions of privacy at early modern European courts: Reassessing the public–private divide, ed. Dustin Neighbors and Lars Cyril Nørgaard. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Spangler, Jonathan. 2021. Monsieur: Second sons in the monarchy of France, 1550–1800. London: Routledge. Thomas, Andrew L. 2010. A house divided: Wittelsbach confessional court cultures in the Holy Roman Empire, c.1550–1650. Brill: Leiden.

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Tölle, Tom. 2022. Heirs of flesh and paper: A European history of dynastic knowledge around 1700. Oldenburg: De Gruyter. Watanabe O’Kelly, Helen. 2004. Religion and the consort: Two Electresses of Saxony and Queens of Poland (1697–1757). In Queenship in Europe, 1660–1815: The role of the consort, ed. Clarissa Campbell Orr, 252–275. Cambridge: CUP. Wellman, Kathleen. 2013. Queens and mistresses of renaissance France. Yale: Yale.

CHAPTER 11

Resilience and Revolution: The Defence of the Dynastic Interests of Charles IV and Maria Luisa of Parma in the Changing World of the Late Eighteenth Century Ainoa Chinchilla

The purpose of this essay is to analyse how King Charles IV of Spain and his queen, Maria Luisa of Parma coped with the outbreak of the French Revolution.1 This abrupt political change and the prospect of losing their 1  This essay was possible thanks to a predoctoral contract (FPU17/00717) by the Spanish Ministry of Universities and the invaluable support of my thesis supervisors, Dr. José Cepeda Gómez and Dr. María Dolores Herrero Fernández-Quesada.

A. Chinchilla (*) Modern History and Contemporary History Department, Complutense University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 F. Persson et al. (eds.), Resilience and Recovery at Royal Courts, 1200–1840, Queenship and Power, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20123-3_11

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crowns and their lives struck fear into all of Europe’s monarchs. The Spanish royal family was no exception. The question remains, though, of how they tried to counteract the changes inherent in the process that put an end to the ancien régime, which threatened to shake the foundations of their power. The essay thus clarifies how Spain’s rulers tried to preserve their dynastic interests and their large overseas territories by exercising political pragmatism as they struggled to maintain their independence from the two great powers of the time: Great Britain and France. By concentrating first on the period between 1788 and 1794, it is possible to chart Spanish royalty’s handling of the Revolution using the same dynamics of confrontation as the other European monarchies. Spain allied with its greatest enemy of the eighteenth century, Great Britain, to try to curb French revolutionary expansion. In the second period, from 1794 to 1796, corresponding to the abandonment of the British alliance and rapprochement with France, the Spanish monarchy changed tactics, becoming the first court to enter into an alliance with the new French revolutionary government. The focus is on how the Spanish monarchy acted at each stage and the reasons it took its decisions.

Coping with the French Revolution In December 1788, Charles IV became king of Spain on the death of Charles III. The beginning of his reign was difficult, as almost immediately, the Spanish monarch had to face up to the outbreak of the French Revolution in the summer of 1789.2 Traditional historiography has viewed the rule of Charles and his wife Maria Luisa as a mere epilogue to his father’s reign. He has often been reviled as an inferior king, without considering the difficulties he faced in dealing with a seismic shift of the magnitude of the French Revolution. At the same time, he had to fight to maintain his dynastic interests: the continuation of the Spanish monarchy and saving the life of Louis XVI.3 The French Estates-General was summoned by Louis XVI to the Palace of Versailles on 1 May 1789, while in Spain the Cortes were summoned on 23 September 1789. The differences between the two regimes were evident even at the opening of proceedings. The most immediate consequences of the French events were the end of the ancien régime, with the 2 3

 Egido López (2001, 55).  Martínez Ruiz (1999, 8).

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bourgeoisie imposing itself on the aristocracy, and a serious blow to the ecclesiastical estate, whose possessions were seized and sold. Two weeks after the Spanish Cortes opened, the French king and queen were taken prisoners in the October Days.4 In Spain, the French thesis of popular sovereignty was rejected, because the people ‘have always had a superior power that they have commanded’. Sovereignty was conceived as an absolute power that ‘neither admits supreme company in command, nor should it allow external acts to examine or recognise it. The vassals of the monarchies are not slaves, whose subjection is to serve, but subjects of civil restraint, where the prince must look to the useful and common good of those he governs’.5 In fact, in contrast to France, the Spanish Cortes dealt only with the approval of the matters required by the king, with no other intervention on legislation or administration of the kingdom, and on this occasion, only two such items can be distinguished in the decree summoning the Cortes: the taking of an oath by Prince Ferdinand and the convening of an assembly to ‘deal with other matters’.6 Broadly speaking, the Spanish monarchy at first focused on two main interests in its relations with revolutionary France. The first was an obsessive preoccupation with the life of Louis XVI and whether it was appropriate to go to war. The second was the renewal of the Family Compact, the alliance between the Bourbon kings of Spain and France.7 The objective of a succession of Spanish ministers between the outbreak of the Revolution until March 1793 was to save the lives of the French royal family. Initially, under the Count of Floridablanca, the Spanish government considered the possibility of a military intervention, because such a decision could have brought advantages. Some were convinced of the idea of returning Louis XVI to his throne by force. But, again, there were important divergences of opinion about whether to intervene. It was thought that military intervention against France might encourage separatist ideas in Catalonia. People like Las Casas, the Spanish ambassador in Venice who was in contact with counter-revolutionary leaders, called for intervention, while, for example, the Governor of Catalonia, Lacy, did not want Spain to become militarily involved until the French troops were attacked from  Seco Serrano (1987, 451–452).  Corona Baratech (1957, 22–25). All translations are my own unless otherwise noted. 6  Corona Baratech (1957, 34), Prieto García (1990, 154). 7  Seco Serrano (1987, 459–462). 4 5

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the German territories, which would assure the Spanish troops a rapid victory.8 There was another reason, though, which was the Spanish government’s anxiousness to renew the Family Compact with the French, which would also secure their first objective. The aim was to ally with revolutionary France to save the king’s life and gain a strong partner. In the 1770s, signing the compact had made Spain a great power once again. However, the alliance had not proved as beneficial as expected, as it merely provided Spain with tools it would have to use itself to claw back power and reposition itself in the game of international politics.9 There were voices who said that the alliance was not at all favourable and that a policy of neutrality or at least armed neutrality would be the best option, as it would allow Spain to increase its resources while Great Britain and France engaged in pointless wars, which weakened and diminished their arsenals and navies. So, between 1789 and 1792, Spain followed a policy of neutrality. This was not only motivated, as many have said, by resentment towards republican France; the Spanish government was also looking after its own interests because of France’s refusal to turn the Family Compact into a new national pact.10 In this way, Floridablanca’s policies were based on an obsessive concern about what was taking place on the other side of the Pyrenees. His response was unhesitating: from the beginning, he worked to block the entry of revolutionary ideas through censorship of the press and other possible channels of dissemination, so people in Spain would not know what was happening in France.11 As he said, ‘We live next to a bonfire that can burn everything, destroy religion and the sovereign authority of the king, as well as the very existence of the monarchy and the classes that make it up’.12 At the same time, using a cordon sanitaire was understood as a ‘double-­ defensive front’. It was believed to be an effective way to fight the Revolution, aided by a diplomatic policy of continuous insults flung at the French nation, while on the other hand the actions of the Inquisition were designed to close all possible channels through which revolutionary ideas

 Fugier (1967, 857–858).  Lynch (2005, 721). 10  Lynch (2005, 722). 11  Giménez López (1996, 11). 12  Giménez López (1996, 11–12). 8 9

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could enter Spain. Everything was aimed at ensuring that Spaniards lived in ignorance of what was happening in their neighbouring country.13 Despite this general fear, however, Charles IV was perhaps most scared by a letter from his cousin, Louis XVI, dated 7 October 1789: I have chosen Your Majesty as head of the second branch (of the Borbons) to deposit in your hands the solemn protest which I raise against all the acts contrary to royal authority which have been wrested from me by force since the 15th July of this year, and at the same time to fulfill the promises which I made by my declarations of the 23rd preceding. I beg Your Majesty to keep this protest secret until such time as this publication may become necessary.14

After that, Charles IV decided that his policy on France would focus on rescuing its monarchy, and that meant saving the monarch’s life. Louis XVI was a hostage—his letter made that clear—so it was advisable to set aside the policy of using force against France. The hope that this situation might be temporary was snuffed out with the failed escape to Varennes, which inclined Floridablanca to enter fully into French affairs. The Count’s new policy was reflected in the note sent by the Spanish government to the French Assembly after the events of Varennes, which explained the escape of the monarchs by pointing to the danger to their safety posed by their staying in Paris.15 The note sent by the Spanish Government showed the disadvantage of attempting to interfere in the affairs of another nation in the belief that doing so was legitimate. While it may have been true that the main objective of the note was once again to help the French monarch, the result was merely the anger of the French government, who saw it as an interference in its business. The reaction of the members of the Convention to the note was well summarised in the words of one of those attending: ‘The powers of Europe will know that we will die if necessary, but we will not allow  Egido López (2001, 143).  Seco Serrano (1987, 457): ‘J’ai choisi Votre Majesté comme chef de la seconde branche (des Borbons) pour déposer en vos mains la protestation solennelle que j’élève contre tous les actes contraires à l’autorité royale qui m’ont été arranchés par la force depuis le 15 juillet de cette année et en même temps pour accomplir les promesses que j’ai faites par mes déclarations du 23 précédent. Je prie Votre Majesté de tenir cette protestation secrète jusqu’à l’ocassion où cette publication pourra devenir nécessaire’. 15  Egido López (2001, 145–146). 13 14

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them to intervene in our affairs’.16 Charles IV’s refusal to recognise the French king’s Constitution Oath jeopardised the stability of the monarchy in the neighbouring country. It brought even tenser relations between the two powers, leading to the withdrawal of the Spanish ambassador. Floridablanca’s government took a hard line. His uncompromising actions were designed to neutralise revolutionary ideas, and Spanish royal diplomacy in the early stages was characterised by increasing opposition to the Revolution.17 The appointment of the Count of Aranda as secretary of state in 1792 ushered in a new stage in foreign policy towards France— one based on appeasement and designed to improve Louis XVI’s situation. To achieve this, the Spanish minister opened negotiations with the Convention, to bring the opposing governments closer together. This shift must be attributed to Charles IV’s desire to move to a strategic policy more in line with France, using peaceful overtures to its leaders to save his cousin Louis.18 Initially, Aranda’s appointment was well received by the French. The new French ambassador to Madrid, Dumouriez, thought that he would be the ideal person to improve the damaged relationship with France. However, the Central European powers, such as Prussia and Austria, hoped that Aranda would finally ally with them to bring the attack on revolutionary France to a successful conclusion.19 Meanwhile, the Queen Maria Luisa was not pleased with the appointment, because Aranda was too attentive to ‘details and very methodical in his work’.20 At the beginning of his government, Aranda wanted to maintain the ‘alliance’, or rather friendship, with France to achieve a favourable situation for the French monarch and ensure that Spain was not left without possible allies. Aranda thought that it was better to continue to be friendly to the French rather than confronting them.21 This policy, which has been described as ‘appeasement’ or ‘openness’, focused on relaxing censorship and vigilance towards the French government.22 At first, Aranda carried out a highly intelligent policy, well attuned to events in France. He not only proposed to maintain good relations with  Egido López (2001, 146).  Seco Serrano (1978, 25). 18  Molina Cortón (1990, 185). 19  Molina Cortón (1990, 185–186). 20  Hamnett (1985, 41). 21  Giménez López (1996, 32). 22  Egido López (2001, 147–148). 16 17

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France, but also intended to make the most of a difficult, complex situation. Aranda had several objectives in mind. The first was to end the Revolution, but without attempting to take counter-revolutionary positions that would not benefit Spain. Instead, he sought to achieve his goal by ‘diplomatic negotiation’, and failing that ‘a well-structured war’.23 The neutrality and perhaps even intimations of friendship towards the French proposed by Aranda, while well intentioned, came rather late in the day. His good manners clashed with the change of ideas in the French Assembly, as it was no longer attempting to call for calm, but rather the opposite, opting for aggression and a policy of compelle intrare to force the Revolution onto other European territories. While it was true that the friendly relations offered to the French by the new Spanish minister were initially viewed positively, Spain’s desire to remain neutral upset the revolutionaries, who wanted its open support.24 By the beginning of July 1792, the ‘goodwill’ relationship maintained by Aranda was becoming increasingly difficult to sustain, and the strategy lost all rationale just a month later, with the assault on the Tuileries, the immediate suspension of royal functions, and, a few days later, the imprisonment of the royal family.25 The Spanish minister forgot his long-­ anticipated neutrality, and the Spanish monarchy almost embarked on a defensive war, although finally the decision was to wait, maintaining neutrality so as not to make Louis XVI’s situation even worse.26 Before news of these events reached Spain, Aranda had called the Council of State to a meeting on 24 August. It initially discussed Spain’s entry into a war against France to save the life of the French monarch but feared that choosing this option might mean Great Britain taking advantage of the situation to weaken Spain directly in some of its colonial territories. Later that day, Aranda and Lacy, capitán-general of Catalonia, agreed that ‘in the current state of affairs and with the withdrawal of the Germans having been confirmed, we should only think of forming a defensive cordon’.27 There were many reasons for this, including the emptiness of Spain’s coffers and its lack of preparation for war, but the deciding reason was the French victory over the Prussian army at Valmy. The  La Parra López (1994,27).  Egido López (2001, 147–148). 25  Seco Serrano (1978, 28–29), Seco Serrano (1987, 489–490). 26  Olaechea and Ferrer (1978, 90). 27  Ferrer Benimeli (1978, 95–96). 23 24

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delicate situation in which the French king remained was also taken into consideration.28 This continued neutrality led to Aranda’s dismissal and the choice of a ‘third way’ by the Spanish monarchy. Charles IV no longer trusted the groups that until then had been dominant at court: the golillas and the Aragonese party.29 Manuel Godoy was the new secretary of state, and Charles and Maria Luisa had their way: ‘the king needed someone he could trust … in completely new political circumstances’.30 Yet, Godoy chose a policy of continuity, not changing the friendly relationship with France but continuing military preparations in case he was forced to declare war after all.31 When he entered government, he had quickly realised how weak Spain was in military terms, which was why he continued to choose non-belligerence, similar to Aranda’s policy, having recognised it the only way to save Louis XVI’s life amid the radicalism into which the French Assembly had been plunged.32 Charles IV’s greatest desire at the beginning of the French Revolution had been to save the throne of Louis XVI. By the summer of 1792, he had moved on to trying all kinds of strategies to save Louis’s life. After the failed attempts by Floridablanca and Aranda, Godoy was expected to hit on a policy to save Louis from the guillotine, although he could no longer hope to improve the French monarch’s situation otherwise. By then, there were only two options left for the Spanish minister: neutrality or withdrawing Spain’s troops from the Pyrenees.33 The ambition to save Louis was shown in two aspects of political action. One of these was official diplomacy, which was now more aggressive. The other was secret diplomacy aimed at convincing French parliamentarians with bribery and corruption not to vote to execute him.34 Although neither Charles IV nor the queen nor Godoy wanted war, the execution of the French monarch led them to attack France with all Spain’s might, as  Giménez López (1996, 34).  La Parra López (1994, 29). 30  Seco Serrano (1978, 51): ‘el rey necesitaba de quien poder fiarse … ante circunstancias políticas completamente nuevas’. 31  Egido López (2001, 150), La Parra López (1994, 32). 32  Archivo General de Simancas (General Archive of Simancas), Simancas (AGS), Estado, folder 8150, Manuel Godoy to Bernardo del Campo, Spanish ambassador in London, 24 Apr. and 15 Aug. 1794. 33  Egido López (2001, 187–188), Molina Cortón (1990, 193). 34  Seco Serrano (1978, 53). 28 29

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all their previous prudence evaporated. This led to the declaration of war by the French and the War of the Convention (1793–1795).35

Overtures to the French Revolution It did not take long for the Spanish government to return to a path of peace. At the end of 1794, the French need for peace seemed urgent: the Republican army, exhausted, hungry and with no money for the soldiers’ pay, faced mass desertion.36 At the same time, Spain also needed to end the war because it was draining the public purse to no effect, with France having inflicted a number of military defeats.37 Meanwhile, external pressure was growing exponentially. The army was taken up fighting the French, which meant that there was no military force to oversee the American colonies, allowing the British to increase their influence on trade in that part of the Spanish Empire.38 However, the most important reasons for seeking peace with the French were Prussia leaving the Coalition and events in France itself. On 27 July 1794, Robespierre fell, and with him the machinery of the Terror.39 The new government abandoned the Girondins’ attempts to export the Revolution to all of Europe and sought peace through alliances with the countries closest to the Republic, fighting France’s real enemies, Austria, Russia and Great Britain.40 Spain was thought a potential friend of the Republic rather than an enemy and the need for peace was expressed as follows: ‘we want peace, yes; but we want it to be honorable and lasting … Spain will have to recognize without delay that its true enemy, if not the only one, is England’.41 In July 1794, Godoy attempted serious peace talks with the French, although official negotiations did not begin until 1795, entrusted to the 35  Archivo Histórico Nacional (National Historical Archive), Madrid (AHN), Estado, folder 3956, Manuel Godoy to Francisco of Zamora, 5, 7, 8 & 11 June, 11, 17 & 31 July, 3, 5 & 6 Aug. 1793. 36  La Parra López (2005, 116–117). 37  AHN, Estado, folder 3956, Manuel Godoy to Francisco of Zamora, 1, 13 & 21 July, 23 Aug., 8 & 20 Dec. 1793. 38  La Parra López (1992, 17), Fugier (1967, 874). 39  Aymes (1991, 126). 40  La Parra López (2005, 116–117). 41  AGS, Estado, folder 8150, Manuel Godoy to Bernardo del Campo, Spanish ambassador in London, 15 Aug., 3 Dec. 1794: ‘queremos la paz, sí; pero la queremos honrosa y duradera … España habrá de reconocer sin tardar que su enemiga verdadera, por no decir única, es Inglaterra’.

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most recent French ambassador to Madrid and Ocariz, the former general consul in Paris.42 Initially, the positions of both countries were inflexible, and, because of this, in early 1795, Godoy sent a secret agent, Francisco de Zamora, to the Pyrenean border. His mission was to establish contacts with the French to see if it was possible to negotiate peace. It was a move intrinsically linked with both powers’ desire for peace. However, the conversations between France and Spain were not free of corruption and espionage, as Zamora explained 43: An attempt has been made to win over the Representative and the General and negotiations are pending. But we have also made good progress with the negotiations for the General’s secretary to tell us about the enemy’s plan for the campaign. All this costs money. Sangro [the prince of Castelfranco] is cheap, I am less so, but this will average out. But I do believe the General and the Representative will help the peace negotiations.44

By now, multiple peace negotiations were indeed underway between Spain and France at the Pyrenean border, and official negotiations began in March 1795.45 Initially, both countries refused to budge, and no agreement was reached, but their difficulties forced them not only to the negotiating table, but also to relax their demands, because both wanted to achieve peace at all costs. It was soon decided to approach the negotiations in a different way. France put them in the hands of François Barthélemy, the French ambassador to Switzerland, and Spain appointed Domingo de Iriarte as chief negotiator in Basel.46 Zamora kept informed the prince of Castelfranco, the general in charge of the war against France, and told the secretary of state everything  La Parra López (1992, 18).  AHN, Estado, folder 3965 Francisco de Zamora to Manuel Godoy, Pamplona, 3 Apr. 1795; Biblioteca Nacional de España (National Library of Spain), Madrid (BNE), MS 20285/12, Francisco of Zamora to Manuel Godoy, 8 Dec. 1794, 26 Jan., 6 Mar. 1795; Chinchilla Galarzo (2018, 682–683). 44  BNE, MS 20285/12, Francisco of Zamora to Manuel Godoy, Pamplona, 3 Apr. 1795: ‘Se ha tentado ganar al Representante y al General cuya negociación está pendiente. Pero tenemos muy adelantada la de que el secretario del General nos avise del plan del enemigo para la campaña. Todo esto cuesta dinero, Sangro [el príncipe de Castelfranco] es económico, yo no lo soy tanto, con que saldrá en un medio término. A lo que sí creo que ayudarán el General y Representante sería al negociado de la Paz’. 45  La Parra López (1992, 18). 46  Giménez López (1996, 60). 42 43

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happening in the army at the border. From early April 1795, Zamora focused his efforts on achieving peace because this was necessary for Godoy, given the threat of losing territory.47 Thanks to the information provided by Zamora, it is known that Godoy opened other negotiations through him. He and his agents carried out secret attempts to discover if it were possible to achieve peace. Godoy’s strategy was to avoid attacking the French army unless it were possible to beat them, while ‘trying to make them believe that our immobility comes from the hope of being good friends and that if peace was not possible, we would make war’.48 At the end of June, Godoy changed his mind, opposing continued military operations, while Zamora reactivated his contacts to work for peace. This change of thinking was due to the latest French attacks on Vitoria and Bilbao.49 Meanwhile, the French government did not want to miss the opportunity, and, faced with Iriarte’s threats to withdraw, Barthélemy replied by swiftly signing the treaty at dawn on 22 July, without waiting for the permission of the Committee of Public Safety. The Treaty of Basel demonstrated Spain’s new position in the international community, based on its approach to France.50 Once the peace was signed, new possibilities beckoned for Spanish– French relations. The Spanish monarchs and their secretary of state debated two options: remain neutral, out of any war with or by France, or ally with France.51 The king’s favourite seemed to want to return to Aranda’s assumptions and try to take advantage of neutrality and the negotiating powers bestowed on him in the Treaty of Basel. Armed neutrality might have been the way out for Spain, but for Godoy, it was ‘nothing more than an illusion, a chimera to excite laughter and contempt’.52 For the Spanish monarchy to choose an autonomous line was, in practice, impossible due to its economic and military failings, which had been made  Rodríguez Garraza (2015, 154–160).  BNE, MS 20285/12, Francisco de Zamora to Manuel Godoy, Mondragón, 17 Apr. 1795 and Manuel Godoy to Francisco de Zamora, Aranjuez, 9 & 23 Apr. 1795. 49  BNE, MS 20285/12, Francisco de Zamora to Manuel Godoy, Pamplona, 3 Apr., 17 June, 3 July 1795; for private letters see BNE, MS 20285/12, Manuel Godoy to Francisco de Zamora, Aranjuez, 9 Apr., 23 June, 6 July 1795; Chinchilla Galarzo (2018, 682–683). 50  La Parra López (1992, 29). 51  Lafuente y Zamalloa (1889, 243). 52  AHN, Estado, folder 3404, Manuel Godoy to Domingo de Iriarte, 22 & 27 Aug., 1 & 18 Sept., 14 Nov. 1795, 19, 27 & 29 May 1796; AHN, Estado, folder 3401, Manuel Godoy to Domingo de Iriarte, 2 & 10 Aug., 3 & 7 Sept. 1795. 47 48

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clear in the War of the Convention. Spain would therefore try to defend itself and ally with France.53 To explain why the Spanish monarchy finally made common cause with France, we must ask which power, France or Great Britain (and, by extension, the Coalition), could guarantee the integrity of Spanish territory. If Charles IV chose France, how could he stop revolutionary propaganda and French ambition? If he chose Great Britain, would Spain’s American possessions be safe? Which of the two could safeguard Spanish Bourbon dynastic interests?54 The answers, I would argue, were what determined Spain’s foreign policy.55 If the Spanish government allied with France, the possibility of fending off revolution was ended. Such a confrontation would be much tougher than the one that had just ended. When the Treaty of Basel was signed, there was a fear Charles IV might be dethroned. Yet the king also knew that allying with the Coalition and returning to friendship with Great Britain would mean Spain’s invasion by the French.56 The Spanish monarchy had three fundamental interests: to sustain the monarchy, to safeguard the integrity of its vast dominions and to defend the Catholic religion.57 These general interests were joined by three dynastic concerns. The first of these was the expansion of the duchy of Parma, Queen Maria Luisa’s patrimony, where one of their daughters, Princess Maria Luisa, was married to the heir, Prince Luis of Parma.58 The second was extending Spain’s influence over the kingdom of Naples, where Charles IV’s brother, Ferdinand IV, was king. The third concern was

53  La Parra López (2003, 229), Lafuente y Zamalloa (1889, 15:243), Gómez de Arteche (1892, 1:26–27). 54  La Parra López (2003, 228–229). 55  AGS, Estado, folder 8150, Manuel Godoy to Bernardo del Campo, Spanish ambassador in London, 7, 12, 18 & 29 Aug. 18, 23 September, 16 Oct. 1795; AGS, Estado, folder 8160, Simón de las Casas, the new Spanish ambassador in London, to Manuel Godoy, 30 Oct., 17 Nov., 18& 23 Dec. 1795; AHN, Estado, folder 4247, Bernardo del Campo to Manuel Godoy, 7, 18 & 28 Aug., 4, 18 & 23 Sept. 1795. 56  Hamnett (1985, 45–46), La Parra López (2005, 135–136), La Parra López (1992, 32–33), Muriel (1959, 1:258). 57  La Parra López (2009, 44–45). 58  AHN, Ministerio de Exteriores, Santa Sede, leg. 366, Bernardo del Campo, new Spanish ambassador in Paris to Manuel Godoy, 3, 5, 7, 8, 10, 13, 16, 17, 19, 21, 25 & 27 May, 9 & 20 June 1796; AHN, Estado, folder 4005.

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Spain’s neighbour, Portugal, where another of Charles IV’s daughters, Princess Carlota Joaquina, was married to the regent.59 These dynastic interests obeyed a concept and policy that had continued throughout the eighteenth century and, for that reason, were dependant on Spain’s relations with the two main powers on the diplomatic scene: France and Great Britain. The Spanish monarchs intended to combine their dynastic interests with the preservation of their empire and absolutist monarchy.60 They therefore believed the best way to safeguard them all was to move closer to France, the coming power in the Italian peninsula. Article 15 of the Treaty of Basel stipulated the mediation of the king of Spain, ‘in favour of the queen of Portugal, the king of Naples, the king of Sardinia, the infant duke of Parma and other Italian states’.61 Under one of the secret articles, this mediation was extended to the Holy See. In 1796, such a situation actually occurred: with France campaigning in Italy, the Spanish monarchs indicated that they wished to exercise their right to mediate under the Treaty of Basel. And, according to Godoy, this mediation would be impossible to sustain if no agreement were reached with France to continue Spain’s influence in the Italian peninsula and Portugal.62 Another of the Spanish monarchs’ key interests was to preserve the integrity of all their territories, particularly their American empire. After the Treaty of Basel, there were signs that neutrality would not be enough to safeguard those.63 Spanish monarch had to ask himself which of the two powers, Great Britain or France, would be the worse enemy overseas?64 The Spanish government knew the impossibility of taking an independent diplomatic line. After the War of the Convention, Spain considered that confronting France was a mistake and conflict between them should be avoided. However, the international situation showed that the dispute 59  AHN, Estado, folder 4005, Bernardo del Campo to Manuel Godoy, 26 Mar., 1, 5, 11, 16, 18, 23 & 26 Apr. 1796. 60  Chinchilla Galarzo (2018, 680–690). 61  AHN, Estado, folder 3401, peace treaty between Spain and the French Republic, Basel, 23 July 1795: ‘en favor de la reina de Portugal, del rey de Nápoles, del rey de Cerdeña, del infante duque de Parma y de otros Estados de Italia’. 62  La Parra López (1992, 31–32). 63  AHN, Estado, folder 4244, Simón de las Casas to Manuel Godoy, 9 & 19 Feb., 27 May, 10 June 1796; AHN, Estado, folder 6667, Manuel Godoy to Bernardo del Campo, 11 Apr., 2 May 1796. 64  Muriel (1959, 154), Lafuente y Zamalloa (1889, 243).

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between France and Great Britain made it impossible to remain neutral, and it was advisable to join one or the other. As the Spanish monarchs’ main concern was always territorial integrity, it was therefore advisable to align with the power that could best guarantee it. In this case, France seemed most appropriate, as Great Britain was a staunch enemy in the American territories. This led to the Treaty of San Ildefonso in August 1796, a Family Compact without the family that would safeguard the monarchs’ interests until 1808.65

Conclusion Spanish monarchs were resilient, because, although the period falls outside the scope of this essay, the Spanish Crown resisted conflict with France until 1808. As seen, Spain was one of the last European powers to maintain a firm, well-defined policy towards France. Its hopes for an alliance with France did not appear until 1795, coming to fruition in 1796 with the Treaty of San Ildefonso. In the years following the outbreak of the Revolution, Charles IV always associated his foreign policy with saving Louis XVI’s life. In a way, he ultimately mortgaged his government to this dynastic objective. This ultimately explains why the Spanish monarch changed his chief minister depending on events taking place in the neighbouring power, as was the case of the dismissals of Floridablanca and Aranda, whose strategies were not in line with his interests. After the death of Louis XVI, total confrontation was the initial option; Charles IV believed that it was the only appropriate way of acting against the atrocity that the members of the Convention had committed. The strategy required a new secretary of state, Manuel Godoy, because to deal with the horrors in France, Charles IV needed a man who, depending exclusively on royal support, was ready to guarantee the dynastic interests of the Spanish monarchy. Shortly after the outbreak of the War of the Convention, they realised that their capacity for resistance was not as expected and the best option was to end the war with France. The Peace of Basel staked out Spain’s new position in the international community, based on a progressive approach towards France and estrangement from Great Britain. When beginning talks on the first alliance, the Spanish government realised that not everything was decided; after the peace was signed, it  La Parra López (2009, 43–46), Chinchilla Galarzo (2018, 680–690).

65

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wondered whether neutrality would not be the better option, rather than allying with France, but this was impossible, as Spain did not have the economic or military capacity to pursue an independent line. Political pragmatism required an alliance with France. The treaty with the Directorate signified a return to a policy the Bourbons had followed for most of the eighteenth century: relying on a French alliance to fight the British hegemony in America and Portugal and to counteract Austrian influence in Italy. It was a renewal of the Family Compact, but now the family link was no more.

Archives Consulted Archivo General de Simancas (General Archive of Simancas), Simancas (AGS). Archivo Histórico Nacional (National Historical Archive), Madrid (AHN). Biblioteca Nacional de España (National Library of Spain), Madrid (BNE).

References Aymes, Jean-René. 1991. La guerra de España contra la revolución francesa (1793–1795). Alicante: Instituto de Cultura Juan Gil-Albert. Chinchilla Galarzo, Ainoa. 2018. El tratado de San Ildefonso de 1796: ¿Pragmatismo político, error de Godoy o pacto de familia, pero sin familia? In Nuevas perpectivas de investigación en Historia Moderna: Economía, Sociedad, Política y cultura en el Mundo Hispánico, ed. María A. Pérez Samper and José L. Betrán Moya, 680–690. Madrid: Fundación Española de Historia Moderna. Corona Baratech, Carlos. 1957. Revolución y reacción en el reinado de Carlos IV. Madrid: Rialp. Egido López, Teófanes. 2001. Carlos IV. Madrid: Arlanza. Ferrer Benimeli, José A. 1978. El conde de Aranda: Mito y realidad de un político aragonés. Zaragoza: Librería General. Fugier, André. 1967. La revolución francesa y el imperio napoleónico. In Historia de las Relaciones Internacionales, ed. Pierre Renouvin, vol. 2. Madrid: Aguilar. Giménez López, Enrique. 1996. El fin del Antiguo Régimen: El reinado de Carlos IV. Madrid: Temas de Hoy. Gómez de Arteche, Jose. 1892. Reinado de Carlos IV.  In Historia General de España, ed. Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, vol. 1. Madrid: El Progreso Editorial.

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Hamnett, Brian H. 1985. La política española en una época revolucionaria, 1790–1820. Fondo de Cultura Económica: México. La Parra López, Emilio. 1992. La alianza de Godoy con los revolucionarios. (España y Francia a fines del siglo XVIII). Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. ———. 1994. La inestabilidad de la monarquía de Carlos IV. Studia Historica: Historia Moderna 12: 23–34. ———. 2003. La orientación de la política exterior: El rey y los secretarios de Estado. In 1802: España entre dos siglos: Monarquía, Estado, Nación, ed. Antonio Morales Moya, 221–236. Madrid: Elece. ———. 2005. Manuel Godoy: La aventura del poder. Barcelona: Tusquets Editores. ———. 2009. La defensa de la monarquía. In La época de Carlos IV (1788–1808), ed. Elena de Lorenzo Álvarez, 41–54. Gijón: Ediciones Trea. Lafuente y Zamalloa, Modesto. 1889. Historia general de España desde los tiempos primitivos hasta la muerte de Fernando VII. Vol. 15. Barcelona: Montaner y Simón editores. Lynch, John. 2005. Edad Moderna: Crisis y recuperación, 1598–1808. Barcelona: Crítica. Martínez Ruiz, Enrique. 1999. La España de Carlos IV (1788–1808). Madrid: Arco. Molina Cortón, Juan. 1990. El proceso de Luis XVI y la política exterior española: La ruptura de una constante diplomática. In Repercusiones de la Revolución Francesa en España, ed. Emilio de Diego García, José S.  Gutiérrez Álvarez, Remedios Contreras Miguel, and Alfonso Bullón de Mendoza Gómez de Valugera, 175–205. Madrid: Universidad Complutense. Muriel, Andrés. 1959. Historia de Carlos IV. Vol. 1. Madrid: Biblioteca de Autores Españoles. Olaechea, Rafael, and Ferrer, José A. 1978. El conde de Aranda: Mito y realidad de un político aragonés. Zaragoza: Librería General. Prieto García, María del R. 1990. Las repercusiones de la Revolución Francesa en las Cortes de 1789. In Repercusiones de la Revolución Francesa en España, ed. Emilio de Diego García, J.S.  Gutiérrez Álvarez, et  al., 151–164. Madrid: Universidad Complutense. Rodríguez Garraza, Rodrigo. 2015. Tensiones de Navarra con la administración central, 1778–1808. Pamplona: Pamiela. Seco Serrano, Carlos. 1978. Godoy, el hombre y el político. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe. ———. 1987. La política exterior de Carlos IV. In La época de la Ilustración. Vol. 2, Las Indias y la política exterior, ed. Miquel Batllori Munné, 451–732. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe.

CHAPTER 12

The Resilience and Resistance of the Bourbon Monarchy in the Kingdom of Naples (1799–1802) Giuseppina D’Antuono

The revolutionary period in the kingdom of Naples and the restoration of the Bourbons have been thoroughly analysed in the literature.1 The reaction of the sovereigns to the news of the advance of French troops towards their northern border is well known. After regaining Rome, the Napoleonic troops marched towards the kingdom of Naples; so in December 1798, Ferdinand IV of Bourbon and Maria Carolina left for Palermo aboard the British Vanguard with their family and General Acton.2 The sovereigns  Rao and Villani (1999), Galasso (2008), De Lorenzo (2001).  For Rome in 1798, see Formica (1994, 2003).

1 2

G. D’Antuono (*) Dipartimento di Storia, Patrimonio culturale Formazione e Società, Università di Roma Tor Vergata, Rome, Italy e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 F. Persson et al. (eds.), Resilience and Recovery at Royal Courts, 1200–1840, Queenship and Power, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20123-3_12

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stayed away from the capital until the Treaty of Amiens in 1802.3 The king stayed in Palermo until the summer of 1802, except for a short time, while the queen left Sicily in June 1800 and set off for Vienna, stopping in Tuscany.4 The known facts refer to the two sovereigns’ different reactions, but it is necessary to examine these forms of resilience further. Two manuscripts offer interesting perspectives with fresh reflections and historiographical criticism. The first, ‘Rapporto alla Regina’ (‘Report to the queen’), was drawn up in Naples in September 1800; the second, ‘Memoria’ (‘Memoir’), was written in Palermo in December 1800.5 These two long manuscripts, written within three months of each other, constitute the accounts of two privileged observers on the sovereigns’ behaviour and the mood of the courts of Palermo and Naples, focusing on individual characters. Moreover, as I will show, the authors described two types of advisers of resilience for King Ferdinand and Queen Maria Carolina. The ‘Rapporto’ was anonymous but, having cross-checked the appropriate sources and historiography, I believe that it was the work of a man at court who was close to Francesco Statella, the prince of Cassaro.6 The author had been to Palermo, where he had written two letters for Maria Carolina in Tuscany. The prince of Cassaro acted as a go-between through his courtiers who brought the letters from Naples to Palermo twice a month. The author informed Maria Carolina of his prolonged stay in Palermo, but now he wrote from Naples, where the king had sent him. In short, he presented himself as an informant for the queen. He recounted details about his stay at the court of Palermo, where he observed the reactions of nobles and ministers to the queen’s departure. What he defined as the perseverance of the queen, others instead judged to be ‘obstinacy’.7 He added that her course of action ‘has frightened more than poisoned the spirits of some of the main characters around

 Broers (1996), Broers and Caiani (2020).  Archivio di Stato di Napoli (State Archives of Naples), Naples (ASN), Archivio Borbone, b. 588, ‘Partenza di Maria Carolina per Vienna (1800–1801)’. 5  ASN, Archivio Borbone, b. 240, ‘Situazione politica del Regno. Rapporto alla Regina’ (hereafter ‘Rapporto’), fol. 1r. 6  For Francesco Maria Statella, prince of Cassaro and Naples, see Sansone (1901), Aceto (1848, 100, 122), Colletta (1957), DBI (1978), vol. 21, s.v. ‘Francesco Maria Statella’. 7  ASN, Archivio Borbone, b. 240, ‘Rapporto’, fol. 8r: ‘Le voyage et sa perseverance à en soutenir l’execution avait plus effrayé, qu’aigri les esprits de quelques principaux personnages des entours de Votre Majesté et de sa Cour’. 3 4

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Your Majesty and his court’.8 After repeating in detail the difference between frightening and poisoning, he explained that he was referring in particular to the minister who became unhinged after the queen’s departure because he was frightened, believing he was no longer among her favourites. That minister tried to resist and stayed at the court to face her enemies in the queen’s absence, and her informant did not believe that he would try to get back at the queen or cause trouble for her. Here it appears that there was a desire to gloss over the generally toxic mood—described in other documents—and reduce it to vague fears that developed after the departure of Maria Carolina. Moreover, a vendetta at the court after her departure was also played down, as was the idea that the minister was vengeful. Subsequently, the author dwelt on the figure of King Ferdinand, portraying him as the one who was least frightened by the dangers of the journey, confident of success, thanks to the knowledge and intelligence of the queen. The narration of the events in Palermo continued with the esprits—or the allegiances—at the court, which were divided into two opposing factions: one supporting the queen and the other in favour of General Acton.9 Colonel Colajanni, who testified the existence of the two opposing factions, fuelled this division. For the author of the ‘Rapporto’, it was like living in the days of the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. He wrote: If I dare to say what affected me the most in all that I saw and heard in Palermo, it was the disposition of the allegiances, which seemed to be divided into two factions, and this division of the parties was too much according to Mr Colajanni, who likened the situation to that in the time of the Guelphs and the Ghibellines.10

Colonel Colajanni, who had been appointed to the Secretariat of State Director in Naples for Sicily, was to be the sole director from 2 October

 ASN, Archivio Borbone, b. 240, ‘Rapporto’, fol. 8r.  ASN, Archivio Borbone, b. 240, ‘Rapporto’, fol. 9r. All translations are my own unless otherwise noted. 10  ASN, Archivio Borbone, b. 240, ‘Rapporto’, fol. 9r: ‘si j’ose rendre encore ce qui m’a le plus affecté dans tout ce que j’ai vu, et entendu à Palerme, c’est la disposition des esprits, qui semblaient divisés en deux partis, et que cette division de parti, fut trop dans la bouche d’un homme, le Sieur Colajanni qui nommait le parti de la Reine et celui de Monsieur le Genéral, comme si nous avions eté du temps des Guelfes, et des Gibelains’. 8 9

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1800.11 Colajanni counted himself among the leading supporters of the general’s party while judging the author to be an enemy, as he belonged to the queen’s side. The author of the report added that Colajanni judged all those who sided with the queen rather than with him to be enemies and had said he would get back at them for it. It was only posturing, but it gave Colajanni’s party a certain status. The author had seen this division—which he found upsetting—in Palermo and in Naples, where he had met many people connected to Colajanni. Colajanni’s faction in Naples stood out for its audacity and impunity and counted on a large number of criminals who kept the capital and provinces in anarchy.12 The kingdom was in the most shocking state of violence, and the economy was on its knees. The informant wrote that everything at court was discussed except the serious economic turmoil.13 Another interesting piece of information was related to how General Acton reacted after the queen’s departure. The author recounted that General Acton had sought sanctuary with his family—indeed, he had married that same year—and in his friendship with the king. He was portrayed as on good terms with the king, but also as a man without moral and physical strength who relied heavily on providence. The author went on to recount the skulduggery at the court in Naples. In the absence of the king, there was a clash between the judiciary and royal power. The author reported: At this moment in Naples all the authorities and powers are fighting one another, a pleasant way of governing indeed. The individuals who represent the royal power claim they are infinitely superior to those who represent justice for the state criminals, and the latter are superior, and they are entitled to have the individuals of the royal power arrested on suspicion at their will, with this clash of two such important powers that are always fighting one another, instead of being in the most perfect union, and understanding the true interest of the state.14 11  For Giambattista Colajanni, director from 24 July in the Secretariat of State and War and then as sole director from 2 October 1800, see Rao and Villani (1999, 134). 12  Rao (2002), Massafra (2002), Conforti (1890). 13  See De Nicola (1999). 14  ASN, Archivio Borbone, b. 240, ‘Rapporto’, fol. 10v: ‘Dans ce moment à Naples tous les authorithés et les pouvoirs se hurtent les uns contre les autres, plaisante manière de gouverner, les Individus qui représentent le pouvoir Royal se crient infinement superieurs à ceux qui représentent la justice des criminels d’État, et ces derniers superieurs, et en droit de faire arrêter sur des soupçons à leur volonté les Individus du Pouvoir Royal, avec ce choc de deux pouvoirs si importante qui se mésurent et se talonent toujours, au lieu d’être dans la plus parfait union, et intelligence comment le véritable intêret de l’État’.

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All the king’s subordinates, such as Giambattista Colajanni, Giovanni Antonio de Torrebruna and Gaetano Ferrante, acted with complete impunity.15 Their strength lay in the crowd of criminal subordinates who were spared by Ferrante and who instead should have been condemned, and therefore were an insult to the shame felt by the parents of those who had been tried and found guilty of supporting the Republic. La Giunta di Stato, the State Council, established in June 1799 on the fall of the Republic, was no more than a market where salvation could be bought, as the ‘Rapporto’ put it.16 The men of the Giunta had acquired great fortunes—‘the gold that will arrive in Sicily is incalculable and the gold our Neapolitan wives have acquired from Guidobaldi is infinite’.17 The lower ranks used slander to enrich themselves. In order to avoid imprisonment, many sold everything they had to resist and stop the blackmail. This increased the cases of pretendu or alleged Jacobinism.18 In short, it appears clear from the ‘Rapporto’ that in the absence of the sovereigns and the Republic having fallen, there were those who resisted and those who exploited the difficulties and increased them. According to the author, the common people and the bourgeoisie were not Jacobins, but were faithful to the king. In January 1799, a few brave men took the lead and so the French entered the city.19 The author hoped that the king would soon become head of the kingdom and abolish the State Council, because Judge Guidobaldi was corrupt and protected by Fabrizio Ruffo, prince of Castelcicala.20 The queen’s informant, who later became an adviser, urged her to forgive, and asked for clemency for the less guilty and the innocent.21 He recommended a general pardon. It is known that in September 1800, 120 people were condemned to death, 1251 to severe punishment and 1851 to exile, not to mention the arrests, which numbered some 40,000  in

 See De Torrebruna (1799).  For Guidobaldi see Conforti (1889), Lomonaco (1974, 6:100–101), Colletta (1957), Cuoco (1999, 80, 288). 17  ASN, Archivio Borbone, b. 240, ‘Rapporto’, fol. 11r. 18  ASN, Archivio Borbone, b. 240, ‘Rapporto’, fol. 11r; see Formica (1987), Trampus (2017), Pii (1992). 19  De Francesco (2003). 20  For Fabrizio Ruffo, prince of Castelcicala (1763–1832), see ASN, Archivio Borbone, b. 238 ‘Lettera di Castelcicala’; DBI, 2017, vol. 89, s.v. ‘Fabrizio Ruffo’. 21  ASN, Archivio Borbone, b. 240, ‘Rapporto’, fol. 14. 15 16

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Naples alone.22 The last death sentence—pronounced on Luisa Sanfelice— was carried out on 11 September 1800.23 All the human and political tragedy of the kingdom of Naples continued in the pages of the ‘Rapporto’, where the author repeatedly asked for a pardon to resist and overcome the forces that would otherwise weaken the monarchy.24 The final stages of resilience might lie in a pardon. The author ended the ‘Rapporto’ by declaring that he would not forget the crimes of Colajanni, Torrebruna and Ferrante and asking the reader to think about the innocent officers found guilty, who were starving with their families.25 The generals judged them, but they themselves were not judged. However, everyone had been in the pay of the Neapolitan Republic, generals and officers alike. What might the condemned officers have felt about the situation? Many secretly harboured great disappointment and plotted revenge on the monarchy.26 On the basis of his observations and perceptions, the author portrayed the courts in Palermo and Naples as riven by internal political strife, with opposing parties who had ended up taking over the once reliable administration. In the absence of the sovereigns, rancour, toxicity and slander reigned over the Neapolitan court, and anarchy was the order of the day in the province and in the city. It was not for nothing that the economic turmoil was a subject of concern and interest in the ‘Rapporto’. The lack of accountability of the lower ranks was one aspect mentioned several times, a counterbalance to the courage of the few Jacobins who had led the revolution in January but fell in the spring. The author neither defended nor took sides with the Jacobins (a term he uses with great care), but his words conveyed feelings of reprobation and condemnation towards the generals, the judges and the subordinates of the monarchical institutions who judged and testified but were not tried and judged themselves and who, as slanderers, were more criminal than the Jacobins. After having gone against the monarchy at the time of the revolution, once the republic  Rao (1992). Other sources state that 3400 people were exiled in French territory.  Croce (1912), D’Antuono (2018). 24  A pardon was proposed by the minister Giuseppe Zurlo and was implemented on 30 May 1800, but it excluded the most serious crimes against the state. 25  Results could be obtained by caressant les hommes (lit. caressing the men), protecting them from the rapaciousness of a judge and the defamation of one of the lower ranks. Besides, Colajanni was responsible for refusing to allow 3000–4000 soldiers to be recruited in Albania, as De Simone had wanted for the kingdom’s defence. 26  Formica (2003, 19–31), Ruocco and Scuccimarra (2011). 22 23

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fell, they switched back to side with the monarchy, but the slanderers were not sentenced. The political context that the author reconstructed was that of a small number of Jacobins, a figure that in his opinion had been falsified and increased by the slanderers to profit from it. What emerged— apart from the identity of an informant who had at heart the restoration of peace in the kingdom as soon as possible and wanted to stay in the queen’s good graces, fearing repercussions from Colajanni—was the picture of a majority of society loyal to the king and a small minority that were courageous and Jacobin, while in other respects, a great variety of men at the institutions dedicated to slander, revenge and crime were described. Indemnity and pardon were the two solutions that could have been implemented immediately, while putting an end to the Council of State and the power vacuum, allowing the return of the sovereigns to the capital. The second document, ‘Memoria’, was written in Palermo on 27 December 1800 by Ottavio Mormile, Duke of Campochiaro, former minister and state councillor.27 His was a discourse on absolute sovereign power.28 First, he demolished philosophical materialism and advocated patriarchal and theocratic government. He attacked modern philanthropy that produced the same effect as opium on a healthy body. The doctrine of the innovators had proselytes in town, not to persuade or convince the citizens but to dazzle them. Atheists and materialists had abused credulity. He confessed to having had experience of such a doctrine of reformers in the past but resisted and renewed his loyalty to the monarchy. This premise led him on to the core of his subject. Men had fallen into error by embracing the revolution, but many had returned to the old order. Only a few thousand villainous Neapolitans embraced the Jacobins’ nonsense, but they were no reflection on a kingdom of 5 million inhabitants loyal to the monarchy. The Duke of Campochiaro insisted that the king had resisted well, had overcome the revolution and was certain to leave 27  ASN, Archivio Borbone b. 240, Memoria. Ragionamento sull’assoluto dritto e indipendente che possiede La maestà vostra di dominare nel Regno di Napoli’ (hereafter ‘Memoria’), fol. 28; for Ottavio Mormile, Duke of Castelpagano and Campochiaro (1761–1836), see DBI (2012), vol. 77, s.v. ‘Ottavio Mormile’. Appointed minister plenipotentiary to Copenhagen, he was sent to Vienna, and then to Denmark, where he remained until September 1799. He returned to Naples after c.1805 and assumed the role of state councillor. It was not by chance that from 1806 his international career took off under Bonaparte and even more so under Murat from 1808. See De Martino (1971). 28  See De Martino (1971).

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Palermo. He framed it as a request that the sovereign return to Naples; indeed, he framed it as a discourse about the regeneration of the kingdom, with the return of the sovereigns to Naples. The duke advocated clemency and moderation. He then formulated a clear request for reform. He reflected on the need for a law code adapted to real life. Although Ferdinando had tried to make changes, the beneficial effects were not being felt. So many obstacles remained to the happiness of the people. But now that Ferdinando was the only sovereign, he could lay down laws to bring happiness. The laws were incomprehensible and therefore the privilege of a few; every idiot should be able to understand them, to avoid oppression. Moreover, the sovereign could reduce the number of dangerous lawyers who lived at the expense of the state. Noting the lack of any social pact, but also of any privilege—it having ceased with the events of 1799—the duke wrote using a standard metaphor: ‘Like a human body, the king is the heart and all the channels of the state must start and return to him; so justice must flow in them’.29 There were too many privileges, and nobles covered up riots to preserve their feudal privileges. As the lord of six fiefdoms, he admitted that the administration of justice was a commodity and must be taken away from the nobility. In the name of the king, abuses of power were committed in the centre, in the suburbs and everywhere in the pyramid state. He denounced slander, deceit and corruption, adding, ‘The underling, who is the most despicable subject in society, is not paid by the state and pays to be elected’, and he condemned the fact that ‘a underling sent many people to prison on the pretext of false witnesses who were sometimes accomplices, sometimes relatives. In order to be exonerated, many people paid, and the blame always fell on the poorest, because the rich bought their freedom’.30 He concluded by denouncing the appellate courts as founts of idleness and luxury. Thus, many condemnations of the judicial system by Enlightenment reformers were echoed in Campochiaro’s ‘Memoria’, including those of republican revolutionaries such as Nicola Fiorentino. Campochiaro, who was a monarchist, did not hesitate to ask—as some reformers and revolutionaries had done—that the barons be barred from the administration of justice, which was another old drama that afflicted southern Italy.31  ASN, Archivio Borbone, b. 240, ‘Memoria’, fol. 17.  ASN, Archivio Borbone, b. 240, ‘Memoria’, fols. 24v–26r. 31  Galasso (2008), Ajello (1991, 2013). 29 30

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These were the ancient social, economic and political problems of the kingdom, which, since the 1760s, well-known economists and men of the Bourbon institutions had analysed and tried to solve. There had been no lack of long missives and detailed reports to the queen, in particular by Acton, detailing the disorder and chaos in the branch of the Allodiali and in the system of devolution and administration of fiefdoms.32 The history of the kingdom offers much documentation produced by provincial governors and stewards. The same ministers in Naples knew of the disorder, both in the centre and the regions; reforms were already being requested in the second half of the eighteenth century. Like the author of the ‘Rapporto’, the Duke of Campochiaro asked for an end to the power vacuum and the anarchy, and to take back the provinces and the capital, freeing them from exploitation and crime. In this historical phase of the restoration, the duke presented his captatio benevolentiae for his sovereign. In a general climate of slander and libel, he feared repercussions for his past closeness to reformist and Masonic figures; however, noting the end of every social constraint and while proposing a trajectory of sovereign power in the absolute sense (in truth already assumed by Ferdinand IV), the duke did not hesitate to ask for urgent reforms at the heart of justice, the real test of all proposals for reform in the Age of Enlightenment. It is in the light of these proposals that his request for the centralisation of power took on a paradigmatic value, in defence of central power from all aristocratic and administrative centrifugal forces. He called for an end to decorative titles, and in their place a true judicial system founded on the absence of privilege, not merely on chance. It was necessary to abolish the jungle of jurisdictions and venality (especially paying for public positions), to cut the number of judges and to write clear, homogeneous laws. And by leveraging the divine right of monarchical power, he asked for absolutism, but by virtue of a centralised and all-Neapolitan management of powers by the sovereign, so an era of true, not merely supposed, regeneration could begin.33 The author said that the sovereign, on his return to Naples, must fix these anomalies and make the law clear for everyone, and bring every judge to heel. Venality in the judicial system 32  Allodiali was a Magistrature that judged in last instance the cases concerning the royal property. 33  The use of the term rigenerazione (regeneration) is very interesting in ASN, Archivio Borbone, b. 240, ‘Ragionamento sull’assoluto dritto e indipendente che possiede La maestà vostra di dominare nel Regno di Napoli’, fol. 20v; Ozouf (1989, 749).

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should be abolished to stop the corruption. The ruler should be the central figure—and must act. The ‘Memoria’ then described a plan of reforms. By examining the two documents, we can try to draw some conclusions. The first offered a perspective on the queen and the court, Acton, and the king in relation to the queen; the second was an observation on the king and the kingdom. One author was an informant. Both offered advice on how to proceed. The queen’s resilience was perceived as perseverance by Cassaro and his informant, while those of Colajanni’s camp saw her insistence on quitting the kingdom as stubbornness. Acton’s resilience, by contrast, was expressed in his seeking refuge with his family. The king was invited to return to Naples, to overcome the counterpowers and restore order. The final phase of resilience would lie in the pardoning of a majority of people loyal to the Bourbons. Indeed, both the ‘Rapporto’ and the ‘Memoria’ called for pardons to be resumed and the phase of resilience to be successfully completed. Both authors had had the insight that Jacobinism comprised a small minority who led the Neapolitan Republic; where they differed was in ideological standpoint, which seemed much more reasoned and better articulated in the ‘Memoria’. The trauma caused by the Revolution sparked specific reactions in Naples’s rulers, courts, judges and police. The impact of 1799 was only partially absorbed.34 The king and queen returned to Naples in the summer of 1802. The climate of suspicion and accusations that had marked life in the kingdom since 1792 was still present in the restoration period in 1802, when there were conspiracies sparked by public outcry and discontent fuelled by officers who had escaped the inquisitions, and who worked in silence, though suspected by the monarchy. If we add to this the accusations (reported by both authors discussed here) of embezzlement, abuse and slander by generals, ministers, nobles, judges and subordinates, an irreversible crisis appeared clear in these writings—whose authors do not support the republican party—with all its drama at different levels and in different social strata of a kingdom that without reform and with a power vacuum was heading towards a new dynastic separation in the apex roles of its institutions. In short, the prolonged power vacuum (again, noted by both authors) had enabled the king and queen to be successfully resilient, but it still marked the imminent end of the political social balance and the alienation of a key ruling class from the Bourbons.

 Benigno and Pinto (2019), Rao (2021).

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The advice was to some extent ignored. There was a pardon, albeit only a partial one. Some reforms were begun. The great social gap created something new: the perception of the urgency of reforms. In 1806, the French conquered the kingdom of Naples, and the Bourbons fled once more to Palermo.35 Turning to the literature, the Enlightenment’s legacy, such as requests for reform from below, had been evident since the later eighteenth century. This issue has been raised by Anna Maria Rao and Franco Benigno, who make a strong case not only for the external causes, but also for the internal causes which made the Bourbon monarchy implode. There is every reason to discuss the lack of reform, the lack of a pardon and the alienation of the ruling classes and the Neapolitan elites from the monarchy, especially in court circles and among army officers, who gradually transformed the resilience of some social groups into opposition to a deficient monarchy.36

Archives Consulted Archivio di Stato di Napoli (State Archives of Naples), Naples (ASN).

References Aceto, Giovanni. 1848. Della Sicilia e de’ suoi rapporti coll’Inghilterra all’epoca della Costituzione del 1812. Palermo: Edizioni del Grifo. Ajello, Raffaele. 1991. I filosofi e la regina: Il governo delle Sicilie da Tanucci a Caracciolo (1776–1786). Rivista Storica Italiana 103 (2–3): 398–454. ———. 2013. Dalla Magia al patto sociale: Profilo storico dell’esperienza istituzionale e giuridica. Naples: Arte tipografica. Benigno, Francesco, and Carmine Pinto. 2019. Borbonismo: Discorso pubblico e problemi storiografici: Un confronto (1989–2019). Meridiana 95. Broers, Michael. 1996. Europe under Napoleon, 1799–1815. London: Arnold. Broers, Michael, and Ambrogio A. Caiani, eds. 2020. A history of European restoration. Vol. 1, Governments, states and monarchy. London: Bloomsbury.  Rao and Villani (1999), Spagnoletti (1997), Galasso (2008).  Rao (1989, 12:215–290), D’Antuono (2020). The main cause of the collapse was the gradually widening fracture between the dynasty and southern Italian civil society. Their mistrust grew from the regime’s blindly reactionary politics. Amongst the Neapolitan elites, this created despondency, which then turned into resistance and opposition (Benigno and Pinto 2019). 35 36

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Colletta, Pietro. 1957. In Storia del reame di Napoli dal 1734 sino al 1825, ed. Nino Cortese, vol. 3. Naples: Libreria Scientifica. Conforti, Luigi. 1889. Napoli nel 1799. Critica e documenti inediti. Naples: Anfossi. ———. 1890. La Repubblica napoletana e l’anarchia regia (1799): Narrazioni, memorie, documenti inediti. Avellino: Pergola. Croce, Benedetto. 1912. La Rivoluzione Napoletana del 1799: Biografie, racconti, ricerche. Rome: Laterza. Cuoco, Vincenzo. 1999. Saggio storico sulla Rivoluzione napoletana. Milan: Rizzoli. D’Antuono, Giuseppina. 2018. Cittadinanza e identità femminile nell’Europa rivoluzionaria: Discorsi e attività politica (1793–1799). In Femminile e maschile nel Settecento, ed. Cristina Passetti and Lucio Tufano, 65–77. Florence: Firenze University Press. ———. 2020. Lumi Diritti Democrazia nel Settecento Mediterraneo: Nicola Fiorentino (1755–1799). Rome: Aracne. De Francesco, Antonio, ed. 2003. La democrazia alla prova della spada: Esperienza e memoria del 1799 in Europa. Milan: Guerini. De Lorenzo, Renata. 2001. Un Regno in bilico: Uomini, eventi e luoghi nel Mezzogiorno preunitario. Rome: Carocci. De Martino, Armando. 1971. Antico regime e rivoluzione nel Regno di Napoli: Crisi e trasformazione degli ordinamenti giuridici. Naples: Jovene. De Nicola, Carlo. 1999. Diario napoletano dal 1798 al 1825. Vol. 2. Naples: Luigi Regina. De Torrebruna, Giovanni Antonio. 1799. Istruzioni dirette agl’inglesi per opporsi alle invasioni del nemico, nelle diverse possessioni di Sua Maestà il Re della Gran Brettagna. Palermo: Stamperia Reale. Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (DBI). 1925–2020. Formica, Marina. 1987. Tra semantica e politica: Il concetto di popolo nel giacobinismo italiano (1796–1799). Studi Storici 3: 699–721. ———. 1994. La città e la rivoluzione. Roma 1798–1799. Rome: Istituto per la storia del Risorgimento italiano. ———. 2003. Le repubbliche giacobine. In Almanacco della Repubblica. Storia d’Italia attraverso le tradizioni, le istituzioni e le simbologie repubblicane, ed. M. Ridolfi, 19–31. Milan: Bruno Mondadori. Galasso, Giuseppe. 2008. Storia del Regno di Napoli. In Il Mezzogiorno borbonico e napoleonico (1734–1815), vol. 4. Turin: Utet. Lomonaco, Francesco. 1974. Rapporto fatto al cittadino Carnot, Ministro della guerra, sulle segrete cagioni, e su’ principali avvenimenti della catastrofe napoletana successiva ‘Raccolta’. Vol. 6. Matera: BMG.  First published Lugano: G. Ruggia, 1835. Massafra, Angelo, ed. 2002. Patrioti e insorgenti in provincia: Il 1799 in Terra di Bari e Basilicata. Bari: Edipuglia.

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Ozouf, Mona. 1989. Rigenerazione. In Dizionario critico della Rivoluzione francese, ed. F. Furet and M. Ozouf, 748–758. Milan: Bompiani. Pii, Eluggero, ed. 1992. I linguaggi politici delle rivoluzioni in Europa (XVII– XIX secolo): Atti del Convegno Lecce, 11–13 ottobre 1990. Florence: Olschki. Rao, Anna Maria. 1989. Il riformismo borbonico a Napoli. In Storia della società italiana. Vol. 12, Il secolo dei Lumi e delle riforme, ed. G. Cherubini, F. della Peruta, E. lepore, M.  Mazza, G.  Mori, G.  Procacci, and R.  Villari, 15–290. Milan: Nicola Teti. ———. 1992. Esuli: L’emigrazione politica italiana in Francia (1792–1802). Naples: Guida. ———. 2002. Folle controrivoluzionarie: Le insorgenze popolari nell’Italia giacobina e napoletana. Rome: Carocci. ———. 2021. La Repubblica Napoletana del 1799. Naples: FedOA. Rao, Anna Maria, and Pasquale Villani. 1999. Napoli 1799–1815: Dalla Repubblica alla Monarchia amministrativa. Naples: Edizioni del Sole. Ruocco, Giovanni, and Luca Scuccimarra, eds. 2011. Il governo del popolo: Dall’antico regime alla rivoluzione. Rome: Viella. Sansone, Alfonso. 1901. Gli avvenimenti del 1799 nelle Due Sicilie. Palermo: Anfossi. Spagnoletti, Angelantonio. 1997. Storia del Regno delle due Sicilie. Bologna: Il Mulino. Trampus, Antonio. 2017. La Naissance du langage politique moderne: L’héritage des Lumières de Filangieri à Constant. Paris: Classiques Garnier.

CHAPTER 13

‘We Alone Know’: How King Frederick VI of Denmark and His Regime Coped with Defeat in 1814 Michael Bregnsbo

Between 1660 and 1848, Denmark was an absolutist monarchy. So absolutist, in fact, the country had that contradiction in terms, an absolutist constitution—the Royal Law of 1665, under which the king held all legislative, judicative, fiscal and executive power.1 And in the Danish state, there were not yet Assemblies of Estates of the Realm or other kinds of corporate organs with any say in political affairs.2 Danish landowners 1  The Danish monarchy of the period was not identical with the present-day state of Denmark as it also consisted of the kingdoms of Norway, Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands, and the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. It also had small colonies in India, Africa and the Caribbean. Norway was ceded in 1814  in return for the tiny German duchy of Lauenburg, bordering on Holstein. 2  Jespersen (1987).

M. Bregnsbo (*) Institut for Historie, Det Humanistiske Fakultet, University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark e-mail: [email protected] © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 F. Persson et al. (eds.), Resilience and Recovery at Royal Courts, 1200–1840, Queenship and Power, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20123-3_13

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constituted a powerful, privileged elite, but this was in their capacity as owners of landed estates, not because they belonged to the nobility. Anyone—noble or commoner—could buy landed estates and would then automatically acquire a landlord’s privileges (including exemption from taxation and signorial rights over their tenant peasants). Conversely, nobility was not worth much if one was a nobleman who owned no land.3 Absolutism had been introduced in 1660 in direct confrontation with the nobility, so commoners and foreigners who owed their careers entirely to their (absolutist) king were given preferential treatment for appointments and promotions within the civil service. The same went for officers in the army and the navy; indeed, the composition of the Danish officer corps was dominated by people of common extraction to an extent highly unusual by European standards.4 The Danish monarch who concerns us here, King Frederick VI, was born in 1768, the son of the mentally incapacitated King Christian VII and the British-born Queen Carolina Matilda (Fig. 13.1). His parents had divorced in 1772 due to his mother’s affair with the German-born physician and statesman, Count Johann Friedrich Struensee. The latter was executed and the queen was banished to her family’s original homeland, the electorate of Hanover. Crown Prince Frederick was brought up in isolation by the power-holders who had staged the coup against Struensee in 1772: his step-grandmother Dowager Queen Juliana Maria and her son, the heir presumptive Prince Frederick, half-brother of the king. Yet in 1784, once he had received confirmation, Crown Prince Frederick could take his seat in the Privy Council, and during his first meeting, he carried out a well-prepared coup where the old guards from 1772 were ousted. From then on, he ruled as crown prince regent on behalf of his sick father, King Christian VII.5 The decades after 1784 were characterised by governance often described as ‘enlightened absolutism’.6 As Denmark was neutral in the many European wars of the period, trade and shipping under the neutral Danish flag prospered, and the period is called ‘the flourishing period of trade’ in Danish historiography. However, by capitalising on its neutral status, it became a thorn in Britain’s side, and in 1801, the British launched a naval attack on Copenhagen.  S. Jensen (1954, 5–10).  Jespersen (1995), Lind (1987). 5  Engberg (2009, 13–104). 6  Munck (1990, 245–263). 3 4

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Fig. 13.1  Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg, Frederik VI. © Nationalmuseum, Stockholm

Due to the death of Denmark’s ally, the Russian Tsar Paul, and the ensuing international political reshuffles, this war soon ended, and Danish neutrality was re-established.7 However, by 1807, neutrality was no longer an option. A British ultimatum was presented to Crown Prince Regent Frederick: Denmark should conclude an alliance with Britain, whereby the considerable Dano-Norwegian navy would be placed under British command; alternatively, Denmark could hand over her navy to Britain for the duration of the war as a pledge of her neutrality. Both offers were declined, but after a British bombardment of Copenhagen that went on for three nights, the capital surrendered and the navy was handed over to the British.8 Crown Prince Frederick (who became King Frederick VI on his 7 8

 Feldbæk (1980).  Munch-Petersen (2007).

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father’s death in 1808) now concluded an alliance with Napoleon and stuck to it till the bitter end, being dragged down with the emperor of the French. Further, in 1813, the Danish state suffered a monetary collapse which took decades to recover from.9 The reason why King Frederick VI stuck with Napoleon despite the allies putting out feelers about changing sides was Norway. The government in Copenhagen knew that Sweden wanted to acquire Norway, as it had done for centuries. And Napoleon was the only one willing to guarantee Frederick VI his possession of Norway. The problem was that the allies needed Sweden’s military forces and the Swedish crown prince, Charles John (none other than Napoleon’s former marshal Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte), for the final showdown with Napoleon, and Charles John’s price for joining the war was Norway. For that reason, Frederick VI saw no alternative but to persevere with Napoleon. In January 1814, however, facing a combined Russo-Swedish invasion of the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein and the Danish province of Jutland, he had to give up and cede Norway to the king of Sweden, thus losing 85 per cent of Denmark’s territories. In doing so, he became the greatest loser of the Napoleonic Wars area-wise.10 King Frederick VI and his regime survived the defeat of 1814 and the ensuing calamities. The question examined in this essay is how the king and the institution of monarchy coped on an ideological and discursive level with the consequences of the disastrous defeat. The regime was shaken to the core and so was public confidence. Recent research has shown that public disaffection with the king and his regime was far more widespread and bitter than hitherto assumed. When Frederick VI returned to Copenhagen from the Congress of Vienna in 1815, he was cheered by the citizens of Copenhagen. Originally, it was thought that the people were showing their backing for their beloved king, despite the many disasters that had hit the country. Yet, recent research has pointed out that people thought the king was returning with a new and free constitution, and that was why they were out on the streets cheering. As soon as it turned out King Frederick had no intention whatsoever of changing the political system, the cheering stopped.11 As the system was absolutist, disaffection with the king and the government could not be published or uttered publicly, but private letters and  Feldbæk (1993, 193 ff.).  Bregnsbo (2014). 11  Glenthøj (2013, 86). 9

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diaries provide clear indications, especially in 1819 and 1820 as the economic crisis peaked.12 There were disturbances in the streets of Copenhagen, traditionally dismissed as anti-Jewish riots soon quelled by the authorities, but closer studies of the sources have established that the disturbances were not only aimed against the Jews but against the absolutist system as such; that Copenhagen saw frequent street disturbances in 1819 and 1820; and that due to the extent of the disturbances, the authorities were convinced that revolution was imminent and acted accordingly.13 The regime responded to widespread popular dissatisfaction with increased control and police surveillance and other repressive measures.14 King Frederick, for his part, obstinately opposed any changes to the absolutist system he had inherited, convinced that he could not change the absolutist system—and the absolutist constitution it was based on— which had been passed down to him.15 In the Danish literature, there are two contrasting views on this. One tradition sees him as an oppressive, wilful and small-minded tyrant, a die-hard adherent of absolutism whose inflexibility cost the country and the people dear.16 The other tradition does not deny that King Frederick was a stubborn absolutist and had his shortcomings intellectually, politically and strategically, and that not all of his decisions were wise; however, many of the foreign political calamities are put down to international relations, over which he had no influence. He is also said to have been a personally honest, hard-working and well-­ meaning man who lived modestly, thought only of the good of his people and was deeply committed to his royal vocation, which he had inherited from his ancestors, and that he felt duty-bound to uphold, and with the absolutist constitution, the Royal Law, unchanged. According to this tradition, he was a patriarch, a father to the country, and not a tyrant.17 Popular disaffection with both the king personally and the absolutist system as such was widespread. The system nevertheless survived till 1848, outliving Frederick VI, who died in 1839. It is not the aim here to explain the political and social reasons for the survival of the regime. Frederick VI’s regime after 1814 was the focus of widespread popular dissatisfaction, but nonetheless refused to introduce political reforms or constitutional  Glenthøj (2012, 153–158).  Rasmussen (2010). 14  Bonderup (2003), K. P. Pedersen (2014), S. C. Pedersen (2011). 15  Engberg (2009, 424–504). 16  For example, Engberg (2009), Mentz (2007), Rubin (1895, 16–19, 608–620). 17  For example, Bregnsbo (2014), Glenthøj (2012), H. Jensen (1944), Vammen (1996). 12 13

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changes. How did the regime seek to legitimise itself and win round a sceptical or openly hostile public? How were the king and his regime spoken about publicly by adherents of the system? It cannot have been easy to speak out in defence of the regime when the odds were stacked against it, but speak out they did, and in favour of absolutism; that was what they were ordered and paid to do. However, there was more than one way of achieving that aim, and surely they chose arguments they assumed would best convince their audience. This is not to imply that their assumptions were correct or even that people bought their arguments, but rather that shifts in the argumentation will reflect the mounting challenges the regime faced, ideologically and politically. The question to be considered here is which arguments were used by advocates of the king and the regime and which arguments could they have used. It will be answered using source material such as public proclamations and by sermons, anthems, cantatas and speeches on the king’s birthday and other red-letter days, analysed using discourse analysis. Inspiration has been found in Quentin Skinner’s notion of texts as speech acts, which should be analysed in relation to other texts as written answers, reactions or support of such texts. Skinner’s ‘rhetorical redescriptions’, where a concept is given another new meaning, positive or negative, as part of an ongoing political conflict, have also been fruitful.18 The analysis falls into two: 1814–1830, starting with Denmark’s loss of Norway and its immediate aftermath, and 1831–1839, from the introduction of the consultative stænderforsamlinger or Assemblies of the Estates of the Realm to the death of King Frederick VI.

1814–1830 When the regime’s advocates referred to the king, it was as ‘Frederick’, ‘the Sixth Frederick’ or ‘our dear Frederick’, and the royal couple was simply referred to as ‘Frederick and Marie’, altogether more free and easy than the official title, ‘His Majesty King Frederick’.19 Rather than a mighty, lofty and absolute potentate, he was spoken of as if he were a close relative or at least a good acquaintance. In this way, the king was humanised, and his and the regime’s damaged prestige was bolstered up. A recurrent metaphor about the relationship between the king and his subjects was that of a father and his  Skinner (2000).  Andresen (1817), Bruun (1815), Olden (1815).

18 19

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children. The king was depicted as the good, considerate father of his country, taking good care of the welfare of his grateful children, his subjects, and the relationship between them as one of close, affectionate and trusting reciprocity.20 The traditional, hierarchical aspects of absolutism, emphasising the duty of the subjects to show unconditional obedience and submission, were played down in order to strike a more affectionate, egalitarian tone. However, the king’s subjects were compared to minors, something that hardly chimed with the liberals’ growing demands for civil rights and constitutionalism. The origins of the absolutist system and the legitimacy that derived from it were subjects of which little was said. Some argued that the very fact that the regime had existed for over 150 years was itself proof that it was good and legitimate. The advocates of the system were well aware that there were other kinds of political regimes in Europe, but they stressed that this was of no concern to the Danes.21 Otherwise, the adherents of the system often invoked history to emphasise that the royal family was ages old, thus stressing its continuity and hence its legitimacy. References to old Norse mythology, legends and the Middle Ages remained common.22 Such historical references, stressing the historical legitimism, not only accorded with Europe after the Congress of Vienna, but also were in line with the Romantic fascination with the Middle Ages. Less was said about the regime’s functions and obligations, and little that was specific; nonetheless, the concepts of ‘peace’, ‘justice’ and ‘freedom’ were often-­ recurring phrases.23 Freedom, which expressly included freedom of the press, might seem surprising. For example, in a speech to mark the king’s birthday in 1830, the grammar schoolteacher—and thus a servant of the state and the king—Christian Kalkar dwelt on the subject. ‘Man must be free to communicate his thoughts’, he said, although not in a way that evil could unimpededly place its arrow on the bow of shrewdness and shoot them at the hearts of the fellow citizens—but in a way that what is living in the human heart should be allowed to express 20  Anonymous Sang i Anledning (1815a), Anonymous Velkomst-Sang (1815b), Bruun (1815), Gesner (1827), Jessen (1815), Klausen (1823), Olden (1815). 21  Liebenberg (1821, 3–5, 6, 14–16). 22  Anonymous Sang i Anledning (1826), Anonymous Velkomst-sang (1815b), Grundtvig (1815), Jørgensen (1822, 9, 18, 20), Olden (1815), Schmidt (1815), Steenstrup (1815, 24). 23  For example, Anonymous Sang for Den Danske Studenterforening (1823), Anonymous, Sang i Anledning… Kongens Fødselsdag (1824), Andresen (1817), Feldmann (1816), Klausen (1818), Michelsen (1820), Olden (1815), Schmidt (1815).

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itself freely and thriftily. No inquisition under what name whatsoever must lurk at the oral expressions, no spirit of darkness must under the name of censorship suppress the noble truths or suppress those voices raised in order to speak the cause of justice; even what appears as disapproval of the obsolete institutions, what is wrong and incorrect, what is reproaching and condemning, must be allowed to express itself; because only then would opposing voices be heard, only then would the fight for justice and truth be fought, only then would the dearest treasure of truth be unshrouded from the veil in which it is wrapped.24

Earlier in his speech, Kalkar had defined freedom as ‘the right to have exclusive disposal of one’s person, one’s thoughts and emotions, one’s speech and communication, one’s property and trade’, provided that it did not violate someone else’s freedom. This kind of freedom, which he termed ‘civic freedom’, did not seem to entail political freedom.25 On the same day, another grammar schoolteacher, Peter Frandsen, delivered a speech in Holstein in which he warned against those who believed that a free constitution would be a panacea against all evils. Quite the contrary, he stressed, in many countries, this point of view had led to bitter conflict between kings and their subjects. Fortunately, this was not the case in Denmark, he went on, because they had succeeded in uniting ‘two otherwise incompatible things’, namely freedom and absolutism. And this system had now stood the test of time for 170 years and meant that Denmark was truly ‘the land of freedom’.26 These were surprising words from two loyal supporters of absolutism, giving public addresses to celebrate an absolutist regent. One might think freedom and absolutism would be diametrically opposed concepts, but Frandsen managed to redescribe them with a rhetoric in which they were two sides of the same coin. The reason for the strong emphasis on freedom was probably because, as an arch-liberal core value, it was now standard in public opinion, to the point where not even the adherents of the absolutist system could ignore it, much less speak up against it. Instead, at the very least, they had to pay it lip service. Attention was often called to the enlightened reforms of the 1780s and 1790s, and especially the agricultural reforms, under which the Danish peasants were supposedly granted freedom by the then crown prince regent on  Kalkar (1830, 16–17). All translations are my own unless otherwise noted.  Kalkar (1830, 14–15). 26  Frandsen (1830, 7, 8, 10, 16). 24 25

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behalf of his father, King Christian VII.27 In March 1827, on the occasion of a nationwide collection in churches to benefit the victims of a huge flood in parts of the country, the rural parson, Georg Frederik Weinschenck, delivered a sermon reminding his congregation (and later his readers) of all the boons the regime had granted the people back in the late eighteenth century. He underscored that no one was more touched by the plight of the victims of the current disaster than ‘our benign king’. He continued that the king would have come to their aid if only he had had the means; unfortunately, the country had been hit by so many unprovoked calamities in his reign—the British bombardment of Copenhagen in 1807, the ensuing war in 1807–1814, the monetary breakdown of 1813 and the loss of Norway the following year—that the king’s treasury did not have the means to assist the many victims, so therefore he had no other option but to appeal to his subjects for donations. In an attempt to increase his audience’s willingness to contribute, Weinschenck called attention to the many useful reforms the king had undertaken when he was a young crown prince regent, before said calamities had struck. Weinschenck sought especially to move the hearts of the peasantry: before King Frederick had seized power as crown prince regent back in 1784, the peasants had been ‘poor and wretched’ and treated like slaves. Few had been able to read, none to write, and all told that they had simply been considered ‘inarticulate beasts’. But then the young crown prince regent, now their king, had intervened to improve their living conditions and secured their rights, and consequently the peasantry was now ‘free, honest, enlightened and happy’.28 The reforms Weinschenck praised so highly and enthusiastically had been introduced more than a generation earlier. Their frequent mention by such advocates served to bolster the regime, but simultaneously revealed that there were no more recent reforms for which the regime could take the credit. In other words, the finery the absolutist regime was strutting around in was not borrowed; it was its own and distinctly tattered. The national setbacks and dire economic circumstances after 1814 were deep-felt and long-lasting and could not be ignored even by the spokesmen of the absolutist regime. But they were able to turn even this to good account. As the song written for the king’s birthday in 1817 went, he was ‘good in good times and even better in bad times’.29  Munck (1990).  Weinschenck (1825, 14–18). 29  Anonymous Tale paa Dannerkongens (1817). 27 28

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1831–1839 The duchy of Holstein and the small duchy of Lauenburg were not only part of the Danish state, but also member states of the German Confederation. As such each was entitled to an Assembly of the Estates according to the final accords of the Viennese Congress. However, since it would be problematic if some of the absolutist Danish state’s territories had such an assembly whereas others did not, the Danish government had been dragging its feet ever since 1815. After the Revolutions of 1830 shook Europe, the German Confederation told King Frederick VI that no further delay could be accepted. Thus, in 1831, the Danish government officially proclaimed that provincial Assemblies of the Estates were to be introduced in the Danish monarchy, and in 1834, the exact organisation and structure of those assemblies were specified and announced to the public in a new ordinance. There would be four Assemblies of the Estates: one for the duchies of Holstein and Lauenburg, one for the duchy of Schleswig and the kingdom of Denmark that would be divided between two assemblies. Despite their name, they were not composed of estates of the realm in the traditional sense; rather, the electorate was divided into three electoral groups (called ‘estates’), namely the great landowners, houseowners in towns and farmers whose farms were above a certain size, regardless of whether they were owner-occupiers or tenant farmers. Other members of the assemblies, such as academics, were appointed by the king. The assemblies had consultative powers only. The government committed itself to present any new legislative or fiscal initiatives to the assemblies to discuss and pass recommendations. The government could comply with these recommendations or not, as it pleased.30 To begin with, the Assemblies of the Estates were seen as advisory bodies, and thus mere extensions to the existing absolutist system of government, especially as it was emphasised that they in no way restricted the king’s absolutist powers. Thus, in 1835, the top civil servant and official governmental representative to the assembly for the eastern provinces of Denmark, Anders Sandøe Ørsted, delivered a speech to newly elected members in which he spelled out that introducing such assemblies changed nothing ‘in the very constitution of the happy state in which Denmark had now for 175 years found itself’. The assemblies should be considered a complement, ‘a new and comprehensive means in order [for the king] always to be able to  H. Jensen (1931–1934).

30

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know what would serve as the good of the people’. To drive home the point, he called the assemblies ‘the king’s council’.31 This was the regime’s official position on the assemblies. However, in the late 1830s, they were increasingly termed ‘the people’s council’, and the sceptre of the absolute king was even being compared to a ‘tree of freedom’.32 So it was the spokesmen of the regime who adopted liberal terminology, making rhetorical redescriptions from ‘king’ to ‘people’. Correspondingly, the term ‘estate’ fell into disuse, probably because it sounded old-­fashioned and divisive compared to ‘people’. All this was clearly designed to show assemblies as far more representative, far more liberal and far more powerful than they really were, by suggesting that they in fact represented the nation as a whole. The electorate and the powers of the assemblies were strongly limited, but even so the election campaigns and debates led to the emergence of a political public and a political press in Denmark.33 It soon evolved to an extent— and frankness—that alarmed the government to the point of considering prepublication censorship. Its plans were leaked to the public in 1835, and a petition appealing to the king to drop the idea was organised. Among the petition signers were many civil servants and officers—many of whom, of course, were employed in the service of the king—as well as tradespeople. In his answer to the appeal, the king expressed his astonishment, and continued: because just as Our paternal concern has always been to contribute to do all that was in Our royal power to work for the good of the state and the people, correspondingly, no one but We alone will be able to evaluate what will be for the true good and benefit of the two.34

The opposition were quick to paraphrase his answer as ‘We alone know’, and ever since it has been said that this was Frederick VI and his regime in a nutshell. And indeed, this attitude does seem at odds with the principles of the consultative, advisory Assemblies of the Estates just introduced. However, the rhetorical and discursive context ought to be considered when trying to explain Frederick VI’s ‘We alone know’ proclamation. In Ørsted’s opening  Ørsted (1836, 1–5).  For people’s council, see, for example, Grundtvig (1839, 225–230), Holst (1840, 8–9), Larsen (1840, verse 9), Melbye (1840), Johansen (1840, 17), Andreas Moltke (1840, 46) (C. H. Visby 1840), 122 (H.–V. Kaalund 1840), 128 (M. H. Bornemann 1840); for tree of freedom, see Blicher (1840, 15). 33  Juelstorp (1992). 34  Collegial-Tidende for Danmark, no. 38, 1835. 31 32

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address to the Assembly of the Estates for the Danish islands, he as the king’s representative had said that its members would not necessarily agree on everything, and differences of opinion neither could nor should be avoided. And precisely because not everyone would be of the same opinion, it would be up to the king ‘to keep everything in a proper balance’. Indeed, the king would distinguish between the different opinions, ‘and, just as the people until now had relied and in the future could still rely on his wisdom and paternal affection, in the same way the more certain he would be able to evaluate what would be for the good of the people after the matter had once been the object of discussion from so many sides’.35 The language here bore similarities with the ‘We alone know’ proclamation, and no wonder, because Ørsted had a hand in both that and the proclamation that introduced the Assemblies of the Estates as well as his own speech.36 A comparison of the ‘We alone know’ proclamation with Ørsted’s speech sheds new light on the intention and meaning of the proclamation. The opposition may have paraphrased it as ‘We alone know’, but the proclamation itself had ‘evaluate’, not ‘know’. And evaluating is quite different from knowing. Ørsted’s speech stressed that the king—being absolutist—was above the narrow vested interests of certain groups or classes, and thus in a position to see what was good for the society. Thus, the meaning of ‘We alone know’ was not that the king was omniscient and wiser than everybody else but that—unlike the members of the Assemblies of the Estates, and by virtue of being absolute—he was above vested interests, and thus, having considered the assemblies’ points of view, was uniquely placed to make balanced decisions for the benefit of all. The ‘We alone know’ proclamation with such a subtext added would run as follows: because just as Our paternal concern has always been to contribute to do all that was in Our royal power to work for the good of the state and the ­people, correspondingly, no one but We alone—who as an absolutist monarch is above the vested interests of certain groups and classes, and having listened to and considered the points of view expressed by the Assemblies of the Estates—will be able to evaluate what will be for the true good and benefit of the two’.37  Ørsted (1836, 4, 10–11).  H. Jensen (1937). 37  A similar kind of rhetoric, though not as consistent as Ørsted’s, can be found in a sermon on the occasion of the opening of the Assembly of Estates of the duchy of Holstein by Hertzbruch (1835, 20–21), and in the opening speech on the same occasion by the King’s representative, Höpp (1835, 6–7). 35 36

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This is probably what the king had meant. Certainly, the appeal was a success, as the plans for prepublication censorship were abandoned.38 As long as old King Frederick VI was alive, everyone knew that the prospects of real change to the regime were minimal. But on his demise in December 1839, the widespread expectation was that the winds of change would soon be blowing. It was evident even in the published sermons and elegies that marked the king’s death. One Danish poet wrote in memory of the late king and in praise of the new one: From you the Dane will fully expect his freedom: Freedom for all that descends from spirit: Freedom for the word on the lips of the free man! Freedom for the pen in the free hand! Freedom for everything, only bound by reason! The freedom which life is endeavouring.39

The anticipated effect of the word ‘freedom’ can be seen from its mention in every line of the poem. Similar expectations of a change in political direction were found in a published sermon in memory of the late king. Its author, the village pastor Ole Peter Momme, mentioned the introduction of the Assemblies of the Estates and praised the late king for voluntarily curbing his absolute power. Therefore, he was a truly great man.40 Prior to King Frederick’s death, the official position had been that the Assemblies of the Estates placed no restrictions on the king’s absolute powers, but according to Momme, this had nonetheless been the case. Plainly, a radical reinterpretation of the nature of the regime was possible within a very short time. The way the system was conceptualised and conceptualised itself in the reign of Frederick VI was outdated the moment he died—and one might argue that it had been so for a long time.

Conclusion Denmark’s was a political regime forced onto the defensive, devoid of ideological renewal and self-confidence, still less new and positive visions. That applied to both King Frederick VI and his system. The regime survived ideologically and politically by yielding to the liberal discourse; by  H. Jensen (1937, 275 ff.).  Kaalund (1840, 122). 40  Momme (1840, 19). 38 39

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depicting the king in familiar, humane terms; by seeking its legitimacy in history and old Norse mythology; and to an ever-larger extent by including liberal vocabulary, turned to its own ends by rhetorical redescription. The ‘We alone know’ attitude was not characteristic of King Frederick and his regime, not in practice, and scarcely in theory either. On the contrary, the Assemblies of the Estates were conceptualised by a regime intent on appreciating and securing liberal core values such as a free debate and participation in public affairs, for which the assemblies were the vehicle. The fact that they had only advisory and consultative powers was seen as an advantage, as their king—their absolutist king—could thus ignore vested interests and make decisions to benefit society as a whole. It was an enervated system trying to carry on.

References Andresen, A.P. 1817. Flensburgs Huldigung Sr. Königl. Maj. bey der Anwesenheit der Königl. Familie den 4. August 1817 allerunterth, gewidmet und überreicht. Flensburg: n.p. Anonymous. 1815a. Sang i Anledning af Kongens Fødselsdag. n.p.: n.p. ———. 1815b. Velkomst-Sang, Deres høikongelige Majestæt Kong Frederik den Sjette af Slagelse Byes Indvaanere allerunderdanigst helliget den 31. Maj 1815. Slagelse: n.p. ———. 1823. Sang for Den danske Studenterforening paa den 28de Januar 1823. Copenhagen: n.p. ———. 1824. Sang i Anledning af Hans Majestæt Kongens Fødselsdag 1824. n.p.: n.p. ———. 1817. Tale paa Fødselsfest ved Hans Majestæts høie Ankomst til Skuespilhuset den 30te Januar 1817. Copenhagen: n.p. ———. 1826. Sang i Anledning af Hans Majestæts høie Ankomst til Skuespilhuset. n.p.: n.p. Blicher, Steen Stensen. 1840. In Johansen. Mindeqvadi 15. Bonderup, Gerda. 2003. Myndighederne og Dr. Dampe. Historie 1: 1–49. Bornemann, M.H. 1840. In Johansen. Mindeqvadi 128. Bregnsbo, Michael. 2014. The motives behind the foreign political decisions of Frederick VI during the Napoleonic wars. Scandinavian Journal of History 39 (3): 335–352. Bruun, Niels Thorup. 1815. Kroningsfesten den 31. Juli 1815. Copenhagen: n.p. Collegial-Tidende [official journal of the royal Danish government] 28 Feb 1835. Engberg, Jens. 2009. Den standhaftige tinsoldat: En biografi om Frederik 6. Copenhagen: Politikens Forlag.

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Feldbæk, Ole. 1980. Denmark and the armed neutrality 1800–1801: small power policy in a world war. Copenhagen: Københavns Universitet, Institut for økonomisk Historie. ———. 1993. Danmarks økonomiske historie 1500–1840. Herning: Systime. Feldmann, Masius Johann. 1816. Rede bei der Feier des Königl. Geburtsfestes in dem Gymnasium in Altona, gehalten am 29. Jan. 1816. Altona: n.p. Frandsen, Peter Schreiner. 1830. Das unumschränkte Dänemark das Land der Freiheit: Rede bei der Feier des Königlichen Geburtsfestes am 28. Jan. 1830 im Hörsaale des Gymnasii in Altona gehalten. Altona: n.p. Gesner, Johan Ludvig. 1827. Gud velsigne Kongen! Prædiken holden den 28. Jan. 1827. Maribo: n.p. Glenthøj, Rasmus. 2012. Skilsmissen: Dansk og norsk identitet før og efter 1814. Odense: Syddansk Universitetsforlag. ———. 2013. Enevælde under afvikling: Schlegel og tidens skiftende opfattelse af kongemagt og konstitution. In Frihetens forskole. Professor Schlegel og eidsvollsmennenes læretid i København, ed. Ola Mestad, 68–91. Oslo: Pax. Grundtvig, N.F.S. 1815. Fædrene-Aaret: Dannekvad til Hs. Maj. Kong Frederik den Siette. Copenhagen: n.p. Grundtvig, N. F. S. 1839. 28de Mai. Morskabslæsning for den danske Almue 15. Hertzbruch, J.C.J. 1835. Predigt am Tage der Eröffnung der Versammlung der Stände des Herzogthums Holstein, am 1. Oct. 1835, in der Sct. Laurentii-Kirche in Itzehoe gehalten. Itzehoe: n.p. Holst, H.P. 1840. Sørgetale i Studenterforeningen 28. Januar 1840. Copenhagen: n.p. Höpp, J. P. 1835. Zeitung der Provinzialstände Holsteins 1. Jensen, Hans. 1931–1934. Danske Stænderforsamlingers Historie 1830–1848. Vol. 2. Copenhagen: Gads Forlag. ———. 1937–1938. Vi alene vide: Et kildekritisk Bidrag til Vurdering af dansk Enevælde. Historisk Tidsskrift 10: 261–277. ———. 1944. Frederik VI. In Danmarks Konger, ed. Knud Fabricius, 388–418. Copenhagen: Jespersen & Pios Forlag. Jensen, Sigurd. 1954. Stands- og klasseforhold i Danmark i tiden mellem slutningen af 1700-tallet og i dag. In Ståndssamhällets upplösning i Norden. Åbo: Nordiska Historikermötet. Jespersen, Knud J.V. 1987. Absolute monarchy in Denmark: change and continuity. Scandinavian Journal of History 12: 307–316. ———. 1995. The rise and fall of the Danish nobility 1600–1800. In The European nobilities in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, ed. H.M.  Scott, vol. 2, 41–70. London: Longman. Jessen, Juliane Marie. 1815. I Anledning af Kong Frederik den Sjettes og Dronning Marie Sophie Frederikkes Salvings-Act den 31. Julii 1815. Copenhagen: n.p.

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Johansen, V., ed. 1840. Mindeqvad i Anledning af Frederik den Sjettes Død. Copenhagen: J. Nielsens Forlag. Jørgensen, Jørgen Wilhelm. 1822. Overblik over enkelte Dele af Fædrelandets Historie, som Middel til rigtig at bedømme og tillidsfuld at betragte dets nærværende Tilstand. Tale holden i Anledning af Borgerfesten den 28. Jan. 1822 paa Gymnasiet i Odense. Odense: n.p. Juelstorp, Søren. 1992. Politicization of the general public in Denmark during the 1830s. Scandinavian Journal of History 17: 125–144. Kaalund, N. 1840. In Johansen. Mindeqvadi 122. Kalkar, Christian A.H. 1830. Folkeoplysningen er Statens sikkreste Værn: En Tale, holden paa Kongens Fødselsdag d. 28de Januar 1830. Odense: n.p. Klausen, Gottlieb Ernst. 1818. Die Macht des Beispiels. Rede in Jamben. Bei der Feier des Königl. Geburtsfestes am 28. Januar 1818, im Hörsaale des Gymnasii in Altona gehalten. Altona: n.p. ———. 1823. Prolog bei der Gegenwart Ihrer Königl. Majestäten und der Königlichen Prinzessinnen im Theater zu Altona am 5. Juli 1823 gesprochen. Altona: n.p. Larsen, Lars. 1840. En dansk Bondes Vise og en kjærlig Erindring om Kong Frederik VI og et godt Haab om Kong Christian VIII. n.p.: n.p. Liebenberg, M.F. 1821. Hold fast ved det du haver! Et Ord til Medchristne og Medborgere, fremsagt paa den sidste Dag i Aaret 1820. Copenhagen: n.p. Lind, Gunner. 1987. Military and absolutism: the army officers of Denmark-­ Norway as a social group and political factor, 1660–1848. Scandinavian Journal of History 12: 221–243. Melbye, Ulrik Kristian. 1840. Gravsang, Danmarks Konge, Frederik VI’s Minde hellige. n.p.: n.p. Mentz, Søren. 2007. Kronprins Frederik: En kæk soldat i den retfærdige sags tjeneste. In København 1807: Belejring og bombardement, ed. Peter Henningsen, 76–103. Copenhagen: Gad. Michelsen, Br. 1820. Sang i Anledning af vor Konges Fødselsdag den 5te Febr. 1820. n.p: n.p. Moltke, Andreas. 1840. In Johansen. Mindeqvadi 17. Momme, Ole Peter. 1840. Sørgetale over Kong Frederik den Sjette, holdt den 16. Januar 1840. Horsens: n.p. Munch-Petersen, Thomas. 2007. Defying Napoleon: How Britain bombarded Copenhagen and seized the Danish fleet in 1807. Stroud: Sutton. Munck, Thomas. 1990. The Danish reforms. In Enlightened absolutism: reform and reformers in later eighteenth-century Europe, ed. H.M.  Scott, 245–263. Basingstoke: Macmillan. Olden, G.H. 1815. Folkesang ved Deres Majestæters Ankomst til Skuespilhuset den 4de September 1815. Copenhagen: n.p.

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Ørsted, Anders Sandøe. 1836. Tidende for Forhandlingerne ved Provindsialstænderne for Sjællands, Fyens og Lolland-Falsters Stifter samt for Island og Færøerne 1. Pedersen, Sune Christian. 2011. Postal censorship and control of public sentiment in late absolutist Denmark. In Scandinavia in the age of revolution 1740–1820, ed. Pasi Ihalainen, Michael Bregnsbo, Karin Sennefelt, and Patrik Winton, 79–91. Farnham: Ashgate. Pedersen, Karl Peder. 2014. Kontrol over København. Studier i den sene enevældes sikkerhedspoliti 1800–48. Odense: Syddansk Universitetsforlag. Rasmussen, Jens. 2010. Jødefejden og de beslægtede uroligheder, 1819–20: Indledning til den store Scene? Kirkehistoriske samlinger 2010: 131–165. Rubin, Marcus. 1895. Frederik VI’s Tid fra Kielerfreden til Kongens Død: Økonomiske og historiske Studier. Copenhagen: P. G. Philipsens Forlag. Schmidt, D.P., and H.  Schmidt. 1815. Zur Krönungs- und Salbungsfeier Seiner Majestät Frederik des Sechsten und Seiner Gemahlin Marie Sophie Friederike am 31. July 1815. n.p.: n.p. Skinner, Quentin. 2000. Visions of politics. Vol. 1, Regarding methods. Cambridge: CUP. Steenstrup, Hans Resen. 1815. Tale i Selskabet til Oplysningens og Industriens Fremme i Lollands-Falsters Stift, holden i Anledning af H. M. Kongens Fødselsdag i Aaret 1815. Copenhagen: n.p. Vammen, Hans. 1996. Vi alene vide? Frederik VI og hans systemer. In Guldalderens verden: 20 historier fra nær og fjern, ed. Bente Scavenius, 48–55. Copenhagen: Gyldendal. Visby, C.H. 1840. In Johansen. Mindeqvadi 46. Weinschenck, G.F. 1825. Tale holden den 6. Marts 1825 i Anledning af Oversvømmelsen den 3.–4. Februar. Slagelse: n.p.

CHAPTER 14

‘Cholera Adunque è Malattia Nervosa’: The 1836–1837 Cholera Epidemic in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies: Reception, Resilience, and Revolution Maria Gabriella Tigani Sava

This essay considers responses to the outbreak of cholera in the kingdom of the Two Sicilies in 1836–1837, focusing on the resilience of the Bourbon monarchy to the threats posed by the disease and cholera riots. It offers a cultural reading of cholera, making occasional forays into the growing field of the history of emotions.1 As Projit B. Mukharji writes, cholera ‘has been the epidemic best served by historians’, from the classic works of Charles E.  Rosenberg, Robert

1

 Reddy (2001), Rosenwein (1998), Stearns and Stearns (1986).

M. G. Tigani Sava (*) Faculty of Arts, Department of History, University of Malta, Msida, Malta © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 F. Persson et al. (eds.), Resilience and Recovery at Royal Courts, 1200–1840, Queenship and Power, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20123-3_14

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J. Morris, Geoffrey Bilson, Richard J. Evans, and Frank M. Snowden to Mukharji’s most recent contribution.2 The latter has recently traced the history of the ‘cholera cloud’, as we shall see, and states that the ‘majority of these cholera histories are social histories’.3 This seems especially true of the experience of cholera in southern Italy. Rosenberg notes that disease should be ‘understood in context, as a time- and place-specific aggregate of behaviors, practices, ideas, and experiences’, and David Gentilcore has shown how the experience of illness can be studied as a cultural phenomenon.4 In this regard, essays by Frank Delaporte and Pamela K. Gilbert concern Paris and Britain, respectively, both using the notion of the social body, influenced by Foucault and Poovey.5 The experience of cholera in the Two Sicilies has received far less scholarly attention. In her 1976 essay, Anna L. Forti Messina focuses on the demographic aspects of the epidemic, while Snowden’s book concentrates on the fifth cholera epidemic in Naples (1884–1911), exploring the revival of religiosity and superstition and the wave of racism against gypsies.6 Salvatore Russo retraces the main social and political events in Syracuse in the 1830s.7 Two more recent essays by Rosamaria Alibrandi and Pascal James Imperato are worth mentioning. Alibrandi discusses the public health laws and regulations issued by the Bourbon government, including those in the face of the cholera pandemic emergency of 1837, while Imperato deals with the social and economic consequences of the second world cholera pandemic (1826–1849), with a reference to two rural towns, San Prisco and Forio d’Ischia.8 The present essay considers the responses to cholera first among the circle of doctors and scientists at the Bourbon court and then among the Catholic clergy, focusing in particular on the role played by fear of God’s wrath and for the social order. The third section discusses how King Ferdinand dealt with the epidemic, oscillating between paternalism and authoritarianism, and the final section concentrates on the poison plots 2  Muckharji (2012, 305), see Rosenberg (1987), Morris (1976), Bilson (1980), Evans (1988), Snowden (1995), Muckharji (2012), passim. 3  Muckharji (2012, 305). 4  Rosenberg (2003, 494), Gentilcore (1997). 5  Delaporte (1986), Gilbert (2008), Foucault 1998 (1961), Foucault 1998 (1966), Foucault 2003 (1975), Poovey (1995). 6  Forti Messina (1976), Forti Messina (1979), Snowden (1995). 7  Russo (1987). 8  Alibrandi (2012), Imperato et al. (2015).

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and cholera riots in Sicily, which threatened the ‘stability of the society’.9 A wide range of sources have been consulted, including medical reports, contemporary accounts, chronicles, sermons, periodicals, correspondence, and legislation; both halves of the realm are considered, with the lighthouse of Messina as the traditional point of reference: the kingdoms al di qua del faro (the kingdom of Naples) and al di là del faro (the kingdom of Sicily). I will start ‘on this side of the lighthouse’ with the mainland part of the Two Sicilies, where cholera struck first.

Different Opinions on the Disease and Its Treatment The Marquis Cesare de Sterlich tells us that the first case of cholera was recorded in Naples and was made public on 2 October 1836.10 Initially, cholera was not recognised as a disease and was thought ‘an illusion, a hearsay, a plot’, or even as a ‘political thing’.11 There were differences of opinion about everything to do with cholera: its nature, diagnosis, prevention, and treatment. As Gilbert observes, in the Victorian context, ‘the first and main opposition from the very beginning was between contagionists (those who believed the disease was propagated through direct human contact) and non-contagionists (those who believed that the disease usually arose from environmental causes)’.12 The same opposition occurred in the Two Sicilies. An example was offered by Luigi Ajello, an ordinary member of the Medical Faculty of the Supremo Magistrato di Salute di Napoli who, in a letter addressed to his colleague Mario Giardini, defended the contagionists’ thesis, because ‘in view of its rapid and ever-­ increasing propagation, we were more and more certain that cholera was

9  For fear, see Bourke (2003), Robin (2004), Laffan and Weiss (2012). For threats to social stability, see Morris (1976), Durey (1979), Evans (1988), Cohn (2017). 10  De Sterlich (1837, 13). 11  De Sterlich (1837, 12): ‘una illusione, una diceria, un intrigo’, ‘una cosa tutta politica’. 12  Gilbert (2008, 93).

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contagious, a thesis that has been denied so far (and still is denied) by many people, and by others cholera has been perceived as problematic’.13 On 16 April 1831, the Medical Faculty of Naples, through the Supreme Magistrate for Health, delivered a report on ‘cholera-morbus’, as it was called then, to King Ferdinando II, based on diplomatic correspondence and, above all, on the observations and data collected in the Russian Empire by a medical committee established in Moscow on the orders of the Bourbon monarchy. The report contained a description of the disease, its course, and curative methods. Despite the divergence of opinion found among Russian doctors, we read that ‘The Medical Faculty does not hesitate in declaring that cholera is to be considered a contagious disease’.14 A young pathologist from Palermo, Filippo Parlatore, agreed; in his successful work on cholera, he asked his colleagues, ‘What epidemic, if it depends on general weather conditions, proceeds so slowly over the space of many years and does not travel rapidly through the kingdoms to attack almost all the towns of a nation or a part of the world?’15 Another perspective is offered by Count Domenico Rotondo, a surgeon and clinician at the Royal University of Naples, who claimed that cholera was indeed a nervous disease.16 Several scientists embraced the then prevalent holistic approach to illness, prompting Gentilcore to examine the ‘ways in which illness was perceived in early modern society’, pointing out that ‘the emotions or passions, as one of the Galenic six “non-naturals”, had to be carefully managed to conserve or restore health’, and therefore ‘strong emotions, anger, fright, impression, delusions, imagined things’ were considered as 13  There was another Supreme Magistrate for Health, the royal body responsible for public health, in Palermo, set up under the Public Health Act of 1819 (Collezione delle leggi dei reali (1839, 379–380). Ajello (1837, 4): ‘ci accertammo sempre più d’essere il Cholera contagioso, il che fin a quel punto da molti negavasi (e tuttora si nega), e da altri tenevasi per problematico. La Facoltà Medica di questo Supremo Magistrato per altro, sempre uniforme ne’ suoi pareri e conseguente sempre a se stessa, tenne ferma l’opinione sull’esser contagioso il Cholera-morbus, avendolo scorto tanto da giornali medici, quanto dalle relazioni ministeriali e consolari’. All translations are my own unless otherwise noted. 14  Rapporto sul cholera-morbus (1831, 26): ‘La Facoltà medica non esita a dichiarare propendere per la opinione, che il Cholera-morbus sia da considerarsi come una malattia contagiosa’. 15  Parlatore (1837, 95): ‘Quale epidemia, qualora da generali atmosferiche dipende, così lentamente procede per lo spazio di tanti anni e non percorre rapidamente i regni per attaccare quasi tutti i paesi di una nazione o di una parte del mondo’? 16  Rotondo (1837, 10): ‘Cholera adunque è malattia nervosa’.

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major causes of illness.17 Bearing in mind the fact that scholarship on the history of emotions often treats the terms ‘emotions’ and ‘passions’ as synonyms, and that the Bourbon kingdom does not fall within the traditional historical boundaries of the early modern period, our sources can be said to confirm Gentilcore’s thesis.18 Indeed, in early 1835, when the epidemic had already broken out in the kingdom of Sardinia, the Supremo Magistrato Di Salute di Napoli published an education booklet on the methods of cholera prevention. Among those proposed, the first concerned the ‘illnesses of the soul’: ‘Affections of the soul … Fear, anger, excessive pleasures, and all that morally influences the nervous system, should be kept as far away as possible.’19 Paolo De Filippis, a member of the Supreme Health Council, shared this opinion. He was sent to France in 1832 to examine cholera more closely. In his report, he talked of ‘all debilitating passions’ and ‘disorderly habits in lifestyle’ among the possible causes.20 Moreover, Pasquale Panvini, a Sicilian abbot and doctor at the Conservatorio delle projette (known as Conservatorio di Santo Spirito) in Palermo, also emphasised the connection between cholera and mood. He was sent by the Sicilian government to France and Britain to study cholera, which was understood to be ‘eminently contagious’. He also remarked that the removal of negative emotions, such as fear, afflictions, sadness, and hypochondria, would prevent contagion.21 Several physicians, clinicians, chemists, and apothecaries in the Bourbon kingdom elaborated on differing theses as to the nature of the disease, some of which shared the nineteenth-century notion of ‘cholera clouds’, a global phenomenon recently studied by Muckharji, which have been described as ‘intangible objects in motion’—or objects without an essence—with ‘a non-stable essential identity’, and yet perceived in other ways, for example, as ‘meteorological objects’ or the ‘embodiment of God’s judgement’ (according to the Protestant faithful), and as ‘miasmas

 Gentilcore (1997, 185, 194–195).  See Dixon (2003). 19  Istruzione popolare (1835, 7): ‘Affezioni di animo … La paura, la collera, i piaceri troppo vivi, a buon conto tutto ciò che moralmente influisce a esaltare con forza il sistema nervoso, dee tenersi per quanto è possibile lontano’. 20  Memoria sul cholera-morbo (1833, 9, 11): ‘tutte le passioni debilitanti’, ‘abitudini disordinate nel regime di vita’. 21  Panvini (1835, 5, 25): ‘eminentemente contagioso’. 17 18

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and aerial effluvia’, identified by the medical literature.22 Similar ideas were put forward by Giovanni Raffaele, a doctor from Palermo, who argued that the main cause of cholera was ‘miasmatic’, where miasmas were ‘volatile deleterious particles, unknown in their chemical composition, capable of spreading in the air’.23 Moreover, Raffaele stated that cholera was ‘a miasmatic poisoning’ and proposed methods of treatment for expelling the poison, providing a list of all the remedies each pharmacy should make available to patients.24 Antonio Grillo, professor of anatomy at the Royal University of Naples, defined cholera as both contagious and epidemic, claiming that it spread through ‘choleric effluvium’ arising from ‘choleric miasmas’, which inflamed the skin.25 When it came to transmission, some experts believed that miasmas were spread by meteors in the atmosphere, and others that they were spread by the putrefaction of animals, or by winged insects such as the ‘drago cholericus’.26 A similar divergence of opinions concerned not only the nature of cholera, but also its methods of prevention and treatment. To take only those most widely believed to be effective, in his 1835 book, written ‘in disastrous times of political ferment’, Panvini provided a list of remedies.27 For example, his advice for sufferers in the early stages of cholera was ‘warm infusions made of tea, of chamomile, elderflower, lime flower, poppy heads’, alternating with ‘sweat potions based on nitrum stibiatum, spirit of mint and Sydenham’s laudanum’, and then ‘putting hot bricks at the feet, legs, arms and all around the length of the patient’s body’.28 Ajello seems to have used a different remedy to Panvini, provided by the chemist Vincenzo Pepe: the anti-cholera wine of the Ospedale Santa Maria di Loreto (a hospital founded by the king), made with the fruit of the plane tree.29 It was successfully tested in other hospitals across the kingdom,  Muckharji (2012, 307, 309, 311).  Raffaele (1837, 36): ‘particelle deleterie volatili, sconosciute nella loro chimica composizione, capaci di spargersi nell’aria’. 24  Raffaele (1837, 37): ‘un avvelenameno miasmatico’. 25  Ragionamento sulla colera asiatica (1837, 14–19): ‘effluvii colerici’, ‘miasmi colerici’. 26  Ragionamento sulla colera asiatica (1837, 24). 27  Panvini (1835, 4): ‘tempi disastrosi di politiche fermentazioni’. 28  Panvini (1835, 13): ‘infusi caldi di tè, di fiori di camomilla, di sambuco, di tiglio, di teste di papavero, etc.’; ‘pozioni sudorifere con nitro stibiato, con spirito di menta, e col laudano di Sydhenam’; ‘l’applicare de’ mattoni fortemente [riscaldati ai piedi, alle gambe, alle braccia, e tutto attorno la periferia del corpo’. Nitrum stibiatum, aka vitriolate of tartar, was potassium sulphate. 29  Ajello (1837, 24). 22 23

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according to Gaetano Cupido, a doctor who was a member of the Health Commission in Calabria Citeriore.30 Another method to combat cholera was to use steam heaters, as described by Baron Giuseppe Corvaja. An ancient technique, the heaters were made of a grid built in the shape of a cradle on which the patient’s bed was placed and covered with a heavy woollen blanket. Then, by means of a long tin barrel that was placed inside the bed, spirit of wine—heated by an iron lamp—was directed to the patient’s head.31 According to Marquis de Sterlich, one measure was considered superior to all other preventive methods, namely the extensive use of camphor, both in solid form and as spirits of camphor. In his own words, ‘all were conquered by camphorated spirits. It was just camphor, only this was used, only this was wanted’.32

Divine Wrath, Fear, and Social Order In nineteenth-century England, Gilbert writes, the clergy ‘shaped the public perception of the epidemic’ as much as doctors did.33 I would argue that the same was true of the Catholic clergy in the kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Sermons, exhortations, and instructions addressed to the faithful from the pulpits of the various provinces of the kingdom helped to foster a cultural climate in which the cholera epidemic was largely associated with such concepts as ‘divine punishment’, ‘sin’, and ‘moral behaviour’. All these ideas led back to the emotion of fear, which Gentilcore has labelled ‘both an emotional response to illness and illness itself’.34 Fear of cholera was then understood to be one of the predisposing causes of contagion. Filippo Parlatore, in his brief treatise on cholera, stated that ‘the main cause of the development of contagious diseases has always been considered to be fear and oppression of the soul’, and that in Palermo almost everyone afraid of catching cholera died of it, because the fear of cholera added to the strength of the disease.35 ‘Quite a few people  Metodo pratico per curarsi (1836, 11).  La colera combattuta dalla ragione (Naples: Seguin, 1836, 64). 32  De Sterlich (1837, 67): ‘tutti furon vinti dallo spirito canforato. Non si parlò che di questo, non si usò che questo, non si volle che questo’. 33  Gilbert (2008, 18). 34  Gentilcore (1997, 186). 35  Parlatore (1837, 117): ‘Siccome principal causa dello sviluppo delle malattie contagiose è stato in tutti i tempi considerato il timore e la oppressione dello spirito’. 30 31

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owe their lives to peace of mind and courage, because they learned to support any misfortune with a strong heart’.36 What emerges from two religious tracts written by clerics close to Ferdinando II, Monsignor Daniello Maria Zigarelli and Cardinal Filippo G. Caracciolo, was that fear of cholera was entangled with divine wrath, moral culpability, and social order.37 The question of divine wrath has received little attention in the academic literature, Stephen B.  Murray argues, even though it ‘had a strong place in the Christian tradition’.38 Zigarelli, in his Antidoti spirituali of 1837, proposed eight ‘spiritual antidotes’ to combat cholera, which he described as ‘a scourge wielded by the Divine hand’.39 Divine wrath was provoked by ‘the injustices, dissipation, slander and ambitions of mortal life’.40 From this religious perspective, the only possibility of appeasing divine wrath was ‘a drug of a spiritual nature’, to include ‘repentance’ and ‘expiation’, as well as ‘bodily sobriety and spiritual fasting’.41 According to Ute Frevert, emotions are tools of power, and Corey Robin writes that fear can be a powerful ‘instrument of political governance’.42 This can be seen in the kingdom of the Two Sicilies in the 1830s, where God’s wrath was leveraged in pursuit of at least two political goals: first, to keep the community united around the Catholic Church and its values, and second, to maintain the status quo. For example, in his 1835 pastoral letter, Cardinal Caracciolo, archbishop of Naples, stated that ‘just as today’s religious indifferentism, the spirit of independence, licence and the incorrect way of life invoke the scourges of God on Europe … so only sincere penance and changing your ways will let you

36  Parlatore (1837, 118): ‘Alla tranquillità dello spirito, ed al coraggio non pochi deggiono la loro via, chè seppero qualsiasi disgrazia con animo forte sostenere’. 37  Hamlin (2009, 92). 38  Murray (2011, 6), for the wrath of God, see Hanson (1957). 39  Zigarelli (1837, 5): ‘un flaggello scoccato dalla Divina mano’. 40  Zigarelli (1837, 13): ‘le ingiustizie, le crapule, le maldicenze, le calunnie e le ambizioni della carriera mortale’. 41  Zigarelli (1837, 5, 11–13): ‘un farmaco spirituale’, ‘Sì, persuadiamoci che i flagelli non cessano nelle di loro svariate forme, se non cessano i peccati; se non va soddisfatta la divina vendetta col pentimento, e con le espiazioni … La incontinenza è feconda di mali corporali e spirituali: espone la salute a gravi rischi, a funeste occasioni e tristi risulta menti; rende l’uomo tutto sensuale spirituale in tutto ciò che nuoce all’anima’. 42  Frevert (2011), Robin (2004, 3).

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escape the scourge’.43 For his part, Zigarelli added that even reading unethical texts could be as harmful as immoral behaviour, since it threatened the social order established by God. The books to avoid, therefore, were obscene, heterodox or anti-political … which corrupt the heart and deliver infernal maxims, subverting the Christian ethic and order, and offending subordination to our Mother Church, shaking faith, discipline, and obedience to the powers that be, ordained of God.44

Zigarelli went on to recommend ‘the consumption of healthy food’, where ‘food’ stood for nourishment of the soul, such as the Sacraments, which should be carefully observed by worshippers.45 The last antidote was noteworthy as it concerned ‘the use of external spiritual items’, thus falling within the field of ‘thing’ theory.46 According to Bill Brown, ‘objects’ become ‘things’ when they acquire a meaning that goes beyond their function in everyday life; this would be the case for relics, which are no longer mere objects but things with an emotional value, or ‘emotional objects’, as Sarah Randles calls them.47 Zigarelli claimed that methods of preventing cholera were spiritual, as were its causes. His suggestion was that his followers wear the medal of the Holy Patriarch San Benedetto, the miraculous medal with the image of the Madonna di Montevergine, or kiss the dress of the Madonna del Carmelo, to whom God, as a sign of ‘his immense goodness’, had assigned ‘some particular supernatural powers’.48 In 1836–1837, Ferdinando II was confronted by a cholera epidemic that threatened his kingdom, perhaps more so than an army at its doors. As a man of faith, seeing the signs of divine anger in the epidemic, he asked the bishops to pray hard to keep it away from his kingdom. At the 43  Lettera pastorale (1835, 7): ‘così come l’odierno indifferentismo religioso, lo spirito di indipendenza, di licenza e il modo di vivere scorretto invocano sull’Europa i flagelli di Dio … così solo la penitenza sincera e il cambiamento di vita possono farti sfuggire il flagella’. 44  Zigarelli (1837, 16): ‘libri osceni, eterodossi o antipolitici che corrompono il cuore, e somministrano massime infernali, sovvertitrici della morale cristiana e dell’ordine, e urtano la subordinazione alla Chiesa nostra madre, scuotendo la fede, la disciplina, nonché l’ubbidienza alla autorità di Dio’. 45  Zigarelli (1837, 14): ‘uso de’ cibi sani’. 46  Zigarelli (1837, 25): ‘l’uso di oggetti spirituali esterni’. For thing theory, the seminal work is Brown (2001), complemented by Brown (2003). 47  Randles (2019, 3). 48  Zigarelli (1837, 25): ‘della sua immensa bontà’, ‘de’ particolari soprannaturali effetti’.

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king’s appeal, Archbishop Caracciolo promptly replied with his pastoral letter about spiritual preparation that now the spread of the terrible scourge was imminent. It was one of the ways in which the Bourbon king directed the health policy of his kingdom, to which we will now turn.

Between Paternalism and Authoritarianism Most of the sources I have analysed describe the conduct of the Bourbon monarchy during the health emergency in similar tones and scarcely free of flattery, painting a picture of benevolent paternalism, the focus of the hopes of the poorest families in the kingdom.49 Salvatore De Renzi recounted the story of the king’s visit to the Ospedale Santa Maria di Loreto, where His Majesty observed ‘the condition of the beds, the medicines, the way the hospital service was run and any other interesting object’.50 It seems that some concerns were expressed by King Ferdinando in other circumstances, such as during his visits to the Ospedale della Consolazione and the Ospedale degli Incurabili, where he listened to the complaints of the sick. Yet, regardless of the danger of contagion, Ferdinando ‘crossed the main streets of the city’s most populous districts’, to get applause from his subjects.51 Emanuele Bidera (or Bideri), an artist who moved from Palermo to Naples during the cholera epidemic, left an eyewitness account of the king’s walkabout, in a narrative that echoed De Renzi’s words. Here is a significant passage: On this day of common misery, the Magnanimous Benefactor Ferdinando II appeared in this way. After visiting the hospitals, he got out of his royal carriage and crossed the dirt street of Porto, where the epidemic was raging, and, like a loving father, he came to comfort his subjects. Amid that crowd, a voice rose, We will die poisoned! And I will be with you, replied the Magnanimous One, if this is the will of the Lord. A thousand voices suffocated by tears repeated everywhere, like the echo ringing in the valley, like the hymn of the Angels to the Creator: Bless you! Bless you! Bless you!

49  For the Bourbon kings’ paternalism, see Moscati (1967), Galasso et  al. (1994), and Barbagallo (2017), for the health laws and regulations of the kingdom of Naples, see Alibrandi (2012, 96–123). 50  De Renzi (1837, 19–20): ‘osservò la condizione de’ letti, delle medicine, del metodo di servizio e d’ogni altro interessante oggetto’. 51  De Renzi (1837, 20): ‘attraversò le principali strade de’ quartieri più popolosi della città’.

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From that day on, dismay was replaced with trust, despair with hope, anger with resignation.52

Likewise, the Marquis de Sterlich depicted Ferdinando II as a charitable and very generous king, a caring father towards those most in need: And in fact, he bought enormous quantities of wheat, which was sold to the people at a very low price … He took large sums of money from his private purse which he gave secretly to the ministers, to doctors, to priests and to all those known for their help given to the sick. … He rewarded with a generous hand those who, according to their office, distinguished themselves at this time; he visited the hospitals, checking one by one and with the most scrupulous attention the beds, the sheets, and everything else which the sick needed.53

In the same vein, Giovanni Pagano extolled the virtues of the king, who ‘had turned his whole heart to the progress of his realm and the happiness of his subjects’.54 The official records show that when the epidemic entered the capital, Ferdinando II took further emergency measures. For example, he instituted central and provincial Committees for Health; he put the entire kingdom into quarantine; he ordered health inspections of postal correspondence and of people and carriages coming from infected regions such 52  Bidera (1837, 33): ‘E tale apparve il Magnanimo e Benefico Ferdinando II in questo giorno di tristezza e di comune miseria. Egli dopo aver visitato gli ospedali dei colerosi, scendeva dal suo real cocchio, discorreva la lurida strada di Porto, ove infieriva il morbo e con l’egida dell’amore di un padre veniva a confortare le sgomentate menti di que’ popolani … In mezzo a quella moltitudine si alza una voce: moriamo avvelenati! – Ed io sarò con voi, rispose il Magnanimo, se Iddio così ha prefisso. Ecco mille voci soffogate dal pianto ripetere dovunque, come l’eco della ripercossa valle, come l’inno degli Angioli al Creatore: Benedetto! Benedetto! Benedetto! Da quel giorno, allo sgomento successe la fiducia, alla disperazione la speranza, all’ira la rassegnazione’. 53  Sterlich (1837, 58): ‘Ed infatti egli comperava immensa quantità di grani e a bassissimo prezzo facea darne al popolo … Spogliava il suo privato erario di esorbitanti somme dandole segretamente in mano dei ministri del comune dei medici dei sacerdoti e di tutti quelli ch ei sapea si adoperavano al sollievo degli infermi … Premiava con larga mano coloro che secondo il proprio uficio si distinguevano in questa congiuntura; visitava gli ospedali esaminandone uno per uno e con la più scrupolosa attenzione i letti le lenzuola e tutt’altro che serviva ai cholerici’. 54  Pagano (1853, 9): ‘avea volto tutto l’animo suo al Progresso del Reame, e alla felicità dei suoi sudditi’.

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as Tuscany and broke off most communications with the Papal States and Apulia. Seven new hospitals, some with isolation wards, were set up in all the districts of Naples, and the king promised that the royal treasury would provide food, medicines, and care for those most in need. In the summer of 1837, despite desperate attempts to prevent the infection from reaching the island, cholera struck Sicily. The public health authorities adopted the most rigorous measures, trying to intercept any communication with the continental part of the kingdom. They imposed cordons sanitaires and set up patrols of civilians and landowners to monitor and prevent any landing on the island. The government ordered death penalty for anyone who crossed a cordon sanitaire or falsified health licences.55 But ‘measures and penalties were useless: cholera penetrates and invades everything’.56 In April 1837, the Supreme Magistrate of Palermo it seems allowed eight small fishing boats and the ship Archimede from Naples to dock. Forty days later, cholera broke out in the harbour district of Kalsa, and rumours began to circulate of a plot hatched by the Bourbon monarchy against the islanders. This marked the beginning of a series of popular uprisings in Sicily, which brought about a change in the traditional paternalist policy of the Bourbon king, Ferdinando II, tipping it into authoritarianism.

Cholera Riots, Poison, and a Rickety Throne What happened in Sicily and why did Bourbon policy degenerate into ruthless authoritarianism? The literature is divided on the nature of the cholera riots in Western Europe between the 1830s and the 1890s. Did they have social or political causes or both? Cohn concludes that nearly all cholera riots had a common class configuration, except for Sicily, where the cholera riots were more political in nature.57 Franco Della Peruta agrees with Cohn’s thesis, arguing that the Sicilian cholera riots weakened the Bourbon regime.58

 Sansone (1890, xviii–x), see also Misure di custodia sanitaria (1831, 3 ff.).  Notizia storica (1846, 8): ‘Ma cure e pene inutili: … Il colera penetra e invaderà ogni cosa’. 57  Cohn (2017). 58  Della Peruta (1974, 274). 55 56

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This brings us to what Cohn calls the ‘myths of poisoning’—the belief that there was a poison plot—which reinforced popular anger towards the government in Naples.59 Carlo Gemelli and Giuseppe La Farina left accounts of the cholera riots, which historians of Italy have overlooked. Both tell us that in the 1830s, in Palermo, Syracuse, Catania, and several minor towns, cholera fused with revolution. Popular political claims centred on a desire for independence from Naples, fuelled by hatred of the Bourbon government, which had social motivations, such as the financial hardship of the Sicilian peasants. In early July 1837, after the outbreak in Palermo, cholera also appeared in Syracuse. There is a striking first-hand account by Salvatore Chindemi, an anticlerical republican, who supported the thesis of the ‘political use of cholera’ elaborated by some European liberals. He was certain that the epidemic was conceived as a tool in the hands of a ‘cabal of absolutist governments’ to stop revolution, and certainly cholera was known as ‘the first agent of the Tsar’.60 According to Chindemi, the Bourbon monarchy pursued a ‘cholera policy’ as part of their strategy to eliminate their enemies (the secessionists), and the epidemic left society in a ‘state of anarchy’.61 Regarding the poison plot theory, La Farina commented that ‘There was sedition and riots in Naples and its provinces. The government disclosed that liberals had poisoned food and water to incite rebellion. So, the rumours of poisoning were not denied; they were believed, and the people compounded their mistake, looking everywhere for poisons and poisoners’.62 Similarly, Gemelli wrote that among the lower classes, who were hungry, ignorant, and suspicious, there was a common belief that cholera was ‘heinous government work’.63 The anti-Bourbon priest Emilio Bufardeci said that it was the liberals who had spread the idea of a Bourbon conspiracy, to incite the masses to revolt. Amid the claims and counterclaims, there were witch-hunts to find the people responsible for the

 Cohn (2017, 1).  Chindemi (1988, 59): ‘cabala di Governi assolutisti’, ‘il primo agente dello zar’. 61  Chindemi (1988, 38): ‘una confusione di opinioni, di interessi, di sentimenti e di bisogni’, ‘anarchia pensante’. 62  La Farina (1860, 2:521): ‘Nacquero sedizioni e tumulti in Napoli e nelle provincie. Il governo divulgò che i liberali avvelenavano i cibi e le acque per incitare alla ribellione. Così le voci di avvelenamento erano, non smentite, accreditate, ed. il popolo confirmato nel suo errore, ricercava dappertutto veleni e avvelenatori’. 63  Gemelli (1867, 1:127): ‘opera nefanda del governo’. 59 60

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spread of cholera.64 Gemelli recounted the story of a trial ordered by Francesco Mistretta, an examining magistrate, against Andrea Vaccaro, a provincial administrator, because boxes containing a mysterious substance were found in his house. The trial involved the Swiss Giuseppe Schweitzer, who was in Syracuse with his cosmorama (an exhibition of panoramic paintings) together with his young wife Maria Lepyck. Schweitzer was believed to be a Bourbon spy, and the couple was arrested. Later, both were lynched by an angry mob, along with some police officers.65 King Ferdinando, worried about the stability of his kingdom and intent on suppressing popular revolt, sent his alter ego, the police minister Marquis Del Carretto, to Sicily to take charge. Fear of an impending Bourbon military expedition, betrayals, confusion, and discouragement weakened the liberal forces, which were soon overwhelmed. In Messina, the insurrection collapsed before it had even begun; Palermo was devastated by cholera; and in Catania, Del Carretto instituted a court martial to punish the rebels. On 10 August, he reached the city of Syracuse, which was punished for its betrayal by the removal of its honorary title of ‘Capital of the Valley’. Back in Catania, Del Carretto ordered numerous arrests, life sentences, and death sentences. Bourbon revenge and the brutal torture inflicted on the rebels reinforced the fear of the Bourbon police, which was superimposed on the panic spread by the cholera epidemic. In the autumn of 1837, the epidemic ended. However, the economic recession, backwardness, and social and political tensions would continue in southern Italy until the completion of the unification process in 1861, and on for years to come.

Conclusion This essay offers a cultural reading of the experience of the cholera epidemic that struck the Bourbon kingdom of the Two Sicilies between 1836 and 1837, examining first the scientific response and subsequently the clerical response. Both say much about how society perceived and reacted to the disease, and informed by the history of emotions, the nature of the fear of cholera is shown to be intertwined with religious belief. The political response to the health emergency led by Ferdinando II of Bourbon leads to the question of the cholera riots, examining the cultural context  Bufardeci (1868).  Bufardeci (1868).

64 65

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of latent sociopolitical tensions and, crucially, the ‘myth of poisoning’, which, contrary to the literature, was not only a popular prejudice, but was also shared by intellectuals. The academic dialogue about the history of cholera still has much to give and other paths to explore.

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Index1

A Absolutism, 107, 118, 119, 209, 216, 219–222 Architecture, 133 B Bribery, 192 C Ceremony, 44, 85, 96, 96n39, 97 Cholera, 3 Civil war, 4, 7, 9–12, 14–19, 49 Confessor, 24, 77, 78 Copper, 24–27, 34 Corruption, 192, 194, 208, 210 Court, 8–10, 15, 24, 25, 26n30, 29, 35, 42–45, 43n6, 44n7, 47–50, 47n20, 52, 54, 57n65, 58, 59, 66–68, 70–72, 70n26, 74–80, 87,

93n34, 101, 110, 114, 117, 123–125, 127, 128, 130–132, 134–137, 143, 148–150, 154, 156, 158, 164, 165, 168, 171, 177, 179, 186, 192, 202–204, 206, 208, 210, 211, 234, 246 Crisis, 2, 5, 6, 99n48, 105–119, 128, 158, 163, 174, 175, 179, 181, 210, 219 Cultural nation, 106, 114 D Defeat, 23, 117, 133–138, 193, 215–228 Diet, 28, 29, 145, 148, 177 Diplomacy/diplomats, 26, 29, 30, 33, 33n71, 44, 44n9, 45, 47, 50–52, 54, 57, 59, 108, 148, 164, 190, 192 Dowager Queen, 216

 Note: Page numbers followed by ‘n’ refer to notes.

1

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2023 F. Persson et al. (eds.), Resilience and Recovery at Royal Courts, 1200–1840, Queenship and Power, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-20123-3

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252 

INDEX

Dynastic survival, 164, 174, 175, 180, 181 Dynasty, 3–5, 22, 42–46, 50, 54, 57, 59, 87, 88, 90, 96, 99, 99n48, 101, 106, 107, 109–112, 115, 141–158, 163–181, 211n36 E Emblems, 33, 34, 86, 87, 87n7, 89, 90, 90n22, 90n23, 92–95, 92n26, 93n35, 93n36, 97–101, 98n47, 100n50 Emotions, 222, 233, 236, 237, 239, 240, 246 Enlightenment, 59, 124, 125, 130, 133, 136, 143, 147, 148, 152n43, 153n44, 154, 208, 211 Epidemics (pandemics), 3, 128, 150, 152–156, 158, 233, 234 Exile, 48, 53, 65–80, 205 F Favour, 18, 21, 53, 55, 68, 69, 78, 106, 107, 143, 147–149, 153, 153n44, 197, 203, 220 Ferdinand IV, king of Naples and Sicily, 155 Festivals, 85, 86, 88, 90, 101 Fiscal-military state, 34 French Revolution, 3, 5, 185–198 Funeral, 96, 97 G Golden fleece, 22, 28 H Heir, 5, 9, 11, 45, 47, 52, 54, 55, 57, 66, 70, 77, 80, 97, 113, 146, 148,

149, 155, 163–166, 171, 172, 174, 175, 177–181, 196, 216 Historiography, 21–23, 28, 124, 132, 186, 202, 216 I Ignorance, 142, 168, 171, 189 Infanta, 4, 9, 23 Inoculation, 3, 142–158, 154n48 K Kingship, 85 L Liberalism, 47 Library, 32 M Maria Carolina, Queen of Naples, 155 Marital diplomacy, 44, 44n9 Marriage, 5, 8, 9, 42, 43, 43n5, 47, 50–53, 52n44, 57–59, 69, 77, 78, 88, 89, 92, 95, 151, 155, 166, 167, 171, 174, 179 Medical doctors/physicians, 142–145, 147–149, 151–154, 156, 157, 166, 216, 234, 236–239, 243 Mercantilism, 107, 114, 119 Monastery, 8, 12–15, 13n14, 17 N Neapolitan revolution, 128 Networks, 23, 28, 47, 76, 112, 147, 149 Nobility/aristocracy, 15, 44, 47, 50, 79, 88, 106–109, 111, 114–117, 119, 129–131, 137, 145–147, 154, 158, 187, 208, 216

 INDEX 

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P Patronage, 75, 76 Piety, 48, 57, 58, 93, 100 Pregnancy, 163, 179 Propaganda, 5, 86–89, 93, 93n34, 96, 97, 101, 196

Soft power, 44, 44n9 Spectacle, 86 Succession, 9, 11, 23, 24, 42, 48, 56, 58, 77, 79, 95, 101, 111, 123, 124, 155, 158, 163, 164, 173–176, 178, 179, 181, 187

Q Queen, 155

V Variolisation, 142, 156 Venality, 209 Virtues, 5, 87, 88, 92, 93, 97, 98n47, 100, 107–109, 113n19, 115–119, 209, 226, 233, 243 Virtuous monarchy, 106, 108, 109, 114

R Rebellion, 47, 47n20, 245 Reform, 4, 72, 106–109, 111, 113–117, 119, 124, 125, 125n5, 133–138, 208–211, 219, 222, 223 Revolution, 6, 185–199, 206, 207, 210, 219, 233 Royal family, 4, 10, 17, 47, 66, 68, 144, 147, 150, 155, 156, 177, 179, 186, 187, 191, 221 S Sex, 165, 171, 179 Silver, 27, 27n40, 56 Smallpox, 3, 141–158

W War, 3, 5, 7–19, 26–28, 33, 35, 45, 46, 51, 54–56, 54n53, 66, 72, 73, 77, 93, 97, 100, 105, 110, 111, 116, 158, 163, 164, 187, 188, 191–195, 198, 216–218, 223 Wedding, 48, 69, 87, 88, 92, 96, 101, 150, 168