Ferdinand VII, King of Spain

Ferdinand VII (1784-1833) king of Spain, the eldest son of Charles IV and Queen Maria Luisa. In 1807, as a result of his plot against his parents and their prime minister, Godoy, he was banished from Madrid. When Napoleon invaded Spain in 1808, Charles IV abdicated in favor of his son, but Napoleon brushed him aside and put his brother, Joseph Bonaparte, on the Spanish throne. For six years Ferdinand lived in exile on the estate of the French foreign minister, Talleyrand, at Valençay, where the treaty (1813) was signed with Napoleon that restored Ferdinand to the throne. He refused to accept Napoleon’s liberal Constitution of Cadiz (1812) and launched a period of counter-revolutionary terror. The revolution of 1820 forced Ferdinand to recognize the 1812 constitution, but three years later with the aid of the French troops he restored the absolutism. The second terror lasted until Ferdinand’s death in 1833.
See: Francisco de Goya. Portrait of Ferdinand VII.