Austria and the Neapolitan police. The latter first enticed them to a descent in Calabria, by false reports of insurrection; then arrested and executed them. As regards foreign affairs, the only event worthy of notice, previous to 1848, was the dispute with Great Britain concerning the monopoly of the sulphur commerce carried on in Sicily by a company of French merchants, through a concession granted to them by the Neapolitan government. The mediation of France in 1840 made the king withdraw the concession, thus preventing a rupture between Great Britain and Naples. During the Italian movement of 1848, Ferdinand was compelled to yield to the wishes of the people, and grant a constitution; but, at the same time, he sent fifteen thousand men to join the national war in Lombardy. But the outburst of the 10th of May in the capital, caused by the secret instigations of the royal police itself, gave him a pretext to reassert his absolute sway over his subjects. He recalled the troops which were on their march to the north of Italy, and twice dissolved the parliament till the old order of things, so well and so truly described by Mr. Gladstone in his Letters to Lord Aberdeen, was fully restored. The island of Sicily, which had been the first to give the signal of revolution in southern Italy by the victorious struggle of Palermo in January, 1848, became involved in a war which, when the king again got the upper hand, proved fatal to her liberty as well as to that of Naples. The cause of It was the Sicilians insisting on having the constitution of 1812 restored to them, and on having a separate administration of their local interests. The inharmonious attempts at mediation of the French and British, produced no good for the Sicilians, and the Neapolitan fleet was allowed to bombard Messina. Soon afterwards the whole island fell a prey to the revenge of King Ferdinand and his satellites. Through the long series of Neapolitan calamities in this century, the names of Del Carretto, Peccheneda, Merenda, &c., became infamous in the records of corruption and tyranny; and those of Poerio, Settembrini, Conforti, &c., and, later, of Pisacane and Nicotera, famous in the list of the martyrs of freedom. Ferdinand died May 22, 1859, leaving the crown to his son Francis II.—A. S., O.
Ferdinand, Duke of Parma, born 20th January, 1757, was the son of Philip of Bourbon, who had succeeded to the last of the Farnesi.—(See Farnese and Ferdinand I. of the Two Sicilies). His father dying in 1765, Dutillot, marquis of Felino, prime minister to Philip, was appointed regent. The latter had joined the movement of reform against feudal and ecclesiastical privileges; and the administration of his minister, even during the regency, was very beneficial to the state. Pope Clement XIII. published in 1768 an admonitory brief, which produced no effect. The duke remained neutral during the wars of the French republic, and Napoleon sold his protection to him for a large sum of money in 1796, besides robbing Parma of Corregio's chef-d'œuvre, the St. Jerome. Ferdinand died 9th October, 1802, and after his death Parma and Piacenza were governed as a dependency of France.—A. S., O.
Ferdinand I. and II. of Tuscany. See Medici.
Ferdinand III., Grand-duke of Tuscany of the house of Lorraine, was born at Florence on the 6th of May, 1769. He succeeded Pietro Leopoldo, when the latter was called to the imperial throne at the death of Joseph II. in March, 1790. He married a daughter of Ferdinand I. of the Two Sicilies. When the war between France and Austria broke out in Italy, he prudently avoided joining it, and in 1795 a treaty of peace was concluded by him with the French government. He maintained himself in his dominions until 1799, when, through a suspicion that he was not faithful to his engagements with France, he was first banished from his states, and subsequently, at the peace of Luneville, compelled to give them up. In 1814, however, he was restored to Tuscany, and was the only Italian prince who did not adopt the system of brutal reaction which prevailed everywhere else. Though he was not a friend to free institutions, he ruled mildly. A certain amount of intellectual freedom which he allowed to his subjects, together with the traditions of the reforms that had been effected in Tuscany by his father, acquired for him a popularity which lasted until the development of the national idea throughout Italy and the errors committed by his son Leopold, destroyed it for ever. He died 18th June, 1824.—A. S., O.
Ferdinand, Mario, Duke of Genoa. See Victor Emmanuel.
FERDINANDS OF SPAIN.
FERDINAND I. of Arragon, second son of John I. of Castile and Eleanor of Arragon, born in 1373. On the death of Henry III., his elder brother, in 1407, Ferdinand I. became, jointly with the dowager-queen, guardian of the kingdom; and, owing to the small promise which the young king, John II., gave of kingly qualities, the grandees of the kingdom offered the crown to Ferdinand. The prince, however, conceiving himself bound to act as the guardian of his brother's child, refused it, and bade the nobles obey their lawful king, as he would set them the example. He gained several victories over the Moors, and handed down to his ward a power which he himself was far better suited to wield. In 1412 Ferdinand unexpectedly became king of Arragon, on the death of Don Martin—partly by the vote of the cortes, and partly in right of his mother Eleanor. To this crown by similar, and in these days not unusual means, were added those of Sicily and Cerdeña. Ferdinand died in 1416.—His son, Alonso, added to his inheritance the crown of Naples; his second son, D. Juan, became king of Navarre; and his daughter, Doña Maria, was married to the king of Castile, whose rights Ferdinand had so faithfully guarded—F. M. W.
Ferdinand II. of Arragon.—See Ferdinand V. of Castile.
Ferdinand I. of Castile, son of Sancho III., king of Navarre and Castile, succeeded his father in 1035 in the latter kingdom, and inherited the crown of Leon and of Asturias through his wife. Doña Sancha, whose brother, Veremund III., perished in an unprovoked attack upon Ferdinand's kingdom of Castile in 1037. In the early part of his reign he was involved in hostilities with his brother Garcia IV., who had inherited the paternal kingdom of Navarre, fomented, it would seem by courtiers who found it their interest to sow dissension between the brother kings. Garcia perished in 1054, in a treacherous attack on his brother's camp, near Burgos. Ferdinand, however, generously allowed the crown of Navarre to pass to the son of his ill-fated brother. Ferdinand reigned twenty-eight years, and is said by the Spanish historians to have subjugated the Moorish kings of Toledo, Seville, and Saragossa, and extended his conquests from the Tagus to the Guadiana. His wife, Doña Sancha, is said to have urged him on to these wars, and assisted him, by the sacrifice of her jewels, in equipping his last expedition against the king of Toledo. In virtue of his extensive power, Ferdinand assumed the title of Emperor, which was disputed by Henry III. of Germany. In the contests which thus arose, the celebrated Ruy Diaz (see Cid) first became famous, and led an army of ten thousand men into France, intending to march into Germany; but the war was terminated by the recognition of Ferdinand's independence. Ferdinand died in 1065, and, following his father's unwise example, divided his dominions, leaving Castile to his eldest son Sancho, Leon to Alfonso, Galicia (including the Portuguese provinces) to Garcia, and the cities of Zamora and Toro to his two daughters.—F. M. W.
Ferdinand II. of Leon, second son of Alfonso VII., inherited the kingdoms of Leon and Galicia in 1157. He was engaged in war with the king of Navarre, and afterwards with his own nephew, Alfonso VIII. of Castile. In 1177 he was again engaged in hostilities with Alfonso I. of Portugal, who attacked Badajoz, but fell into Ferdinand's hands, who treated him with singular courtesy. Ferdinand died in 1188, and was succeeded by his son, Alfonso VIII.—F. M. W.
Ferdinand III. of Castile, called Saint Ferdinand, was the son of Alfonso IX. of Leon, and of Berenguela, daughter of Alfonso VIII. of Castile. Berenguela, on the death of her father in 1214, administered the kingdom of Castile for her younger brother, Henry I., during three years, and at his death resigned her own claim to the throne in favour of her son Ferdinand in 1217. At this time Berenguela had been repudiated by her husband, and the latter, with the aid of the powerful counts of Lara, made great efforts to possess himself of the crown of Castile, but the prudence of Berenguela defeated his intrigues. Ferdinand was married when young to Beatrice, daughter of Philip of Germany. As king of Castile, he extended his dominions by conquests over the Moors in Andalusia, and when, in 1230, he succeeded his father in the kingdom of Leon, his wars against the infidels were carried on with greater energy; he captured Cordova, and the kings of Murcia and Granada became his tributaries. These exploits, together with his restoration of the cathedral of Toledo, procured him the title of Saint.
