thumb|230px|Ferdinand al VII-lea, rege al Spaniei
'''Ferdinand al VII-lea de Burbon''' (rege al Spaniei în 1808. În urma expulzării regelui impus José Bonaparte, a urcat din nou pe tron, domnind din 1813 până la moartea sa, mai puţin în 1823, când a fost obligat să abdice de Consiliul Regenţei. 

Fiu şi moştenitor al lui poporului spaniol. Cu toate acestea, în scurt timp s-a dovedit a fi un suveran absolutist, nepreocupat de dorinţele supuşilor săi, care îl considerau lipsit de scrupule, răzbunător şi orientat spre trădare. Înconjurat de o suită de admiratori, prin politica sa a urmărit să-şi asigure propria bunăstare.   

Ferdinand al VII-lea a fost criticat de toţi istoricii care i-au studiat activitatea, şi a fost trecut în analele Istoriei Spaniei ca „''Regele Trădător''”. Deşi nu poate fi acuzat de toate problemele din timpul domniei sale, a fost monarhul spaniol cel mai criticat de istoriografia naţională spaniolă, care din secolul al XIX-lea a repetat, chiar fără simţ critic, o serie de acuzaţii la adresa personajului. În cadrul istoriografiei recente s-a încercat o analiză critică a personalităţii regelui şi a domniei sale, dar până acum niciun studiu nu l-a pus într-o lumină favorabilă.  

{|align=right

|{{Infobox_Monarch | name =Ferdinand VII of Spain 
| title          =  King of Spain
| image          =250px
| reign          =1808; ''1808'' <ref name=null>Gazeta de Madrid de 19 de Agosto [http://www.boe.es/datos/imagenes/BOE/1808/115/A01041.tif page 1041]</ref>/1813-1833
| coronation     =
| predecessor    =Charles IV of Spain <br> Joseph Bonaparte
| successor      =Isabella II or Charles V (for the Carlists)
| suc-type       =
| heir           =
| consort        =i) Mara Antonia of the Two Sicilies <br /> ii) Maria Isabel of Portugal <br /> iii) Maria Josepha of Saxony <br /> iv) Maria Christina of the Two Sicilies
| issue          =Isabella II<br /> Luisa Fernanda
| royal house    =House of Bourbon
| royal anthem   =
| father         =Charles IV of Spain
| mother         =Maria Louisa of Parma
| date of birth  =October 14, 1784
| place of birth =El Escorial, Madrid, Spain
| date of death  =
| place of death = Madrid, Spain
| buried         =
}}

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'''Ferdinand VII''' (King of Spain twice, in 1808, and from 1813 to 1833 (from 1808 to 1813 in dispute with Joseph Bonaparte).

The eldest surviving son of Charles IV, king of Spain, and of his wife Maria Louisa of Parma, he was born in the vast palace of El Escorial near Madrid.

==Early life==

In his youth he occupied the painful position of an heir apparent who was jealously excluded from all share in government by his parents and the royal favorite Manuel de Godoy, his mother's lover. National discontent with a feeble government produced a revolution in 1805. In October 1807, Ferdinand was arrested for his complicity in the Conspiracy of the Escorial in which liberal reformers aimed at securing the help of the emperor Napoleon. When the conspiracy was discovered, Ferdinand betrayed his associates and grovelled to his parents.

==Abdication and restoration==

When his father's abdication was extorted by a popular riot at Aranjuez in March 1808, he ascended the throne<ref>Gazeta de Madrid de 25 de marzo [http://www.boe.es/datos/imagenes/BOE/1808/025/A00297.tif pages 297] and  [http://www.boe.es/datos/imagenes/BOE/1808/025/A00298.tif 298]</ref> but turned again to Napoleon, in the hope that the emperor would support him. He was in his turn forced to make an abdication on May 6, 1808<ref>Gazeta de Madrid de 13 de mayo [http://www.boe.es/datos/imagenes/BOE/1808/046/A00458.tif pages 458] and [http://www.boe.es/datos/imagenes/BOE/1808/046/A00459.tif 459].</ref> but his father had relinquished his ''rights'' to Spanish throne on May 5, 1808 (the previous day) in favour of Emperor Napoleon<ref>Gazeta de Madrid de 14 de octubre [http://www.boe.es/datos/imagenes/BOE/1808/134/A01293.tif pages 1293] and [http://www.boe.es/datos/imagenes/BOE/1808/134/A01294.tif 1294]</ref>, and Ferdinand was imprisoned in France for almost seven years at the Chateau of Valençay in the town of Valençay.

While the Spanish authorities accepted these renounces and the choice of new monarch, Joseph Bonaparte, by Napoleon, the Spanish people upraised and the Peninsular War began. After the Battle of Bailén, the Spaniards went into Madrid and the Council of Castile declared null and void the abdications of Bayonne on August 11, 1808.<ref name=null/> Several days after, on August 24, Ferdinand VII was proclaimed kig of Spain again, <ref>Gazeta de Madrid de 6 de septiembre [http://www.boe.es/datos/imagenes/BOE/1808/120/A01119.tif página 1119]</ref> and Regencies were set up acting in his royal name and on his behalf. Subsequently, on January 14, British government acknowledged Ferdinand VII as king of Spain.<ref>[http://books.google.es/books?id=fZ4yAAAAIAAJ&pg=RA1-PA84&lpg=PA89-IA2&ots=h1n4eJ_lz_&dq=january+1809+apodaca+canning#PPA84,M1 A treatise on the laws of commerce and manufactures and the contracts relating thereto : with an appendix of treaties, statutes, and precedents por Joseph Chitty (1824)]</ref>

On juntas had governed in Spanish America, a new world had been born of foreign invasion and domestic revolution. Spain was no longer an absolute monarchy under the liberal Cortes in his absence and without his consent. Thus he had come back to assert the Bourbon doctrine that the sovereign authority resided in his person only.

Meanwhile, the Royalist sentiment was strong in many areas. In the case of the forces led by Bolívar himself, his first permanent victory did not occur until 1817. The Manila galleons and tax revenues from the Spanish Empire were interrupted, and Spain was all but bankrupt.

Ferdinand's restored autocracy was guided by a small ''camarilla'' of his Caradja on December 1 1814, "himself enters the houses of his first ministers, arrests them, and hands them over to their cruel enemies"; and again, on January 14 1815, "The king has so debased himself that he has become no more than the leading police agent and gaoler of his country."

As the Spanish king he was the head of the Spanish Duke of Wellington the first Protestant member of the order.

==Revolt==<!-- This section is linked from Italian unification -->
In Jesuits upon his return; now the Society had become identified with repression and absolutism among the liberals, who attacked them: twenty-five Jesuits were slain in Madrid in 1822. For the rest of the 19th century, expulsions and re-establishment of the Jesuits would continue to be touchmarks of liberal or authoritarian political regimes.

When at the beginning of Henry IV, and of reconciling that fine kingdom with Europe," and in May the revolutionary party carried Ferdinand to Cádiz, he continued to make promises of amendment until he was free.

When freed after the Battle of Trocadero and the fall of Cadiz he revenged himself with a ferocity which disgusted his far from liberal allies. In violation of his oath to grant an amnesty he revenged himself, for three years of coercion, by killing on a scale which revolted his "rescuers" and against which the Duke of Angoulême, powerless to interfere, protested by refusing the Spanish decorations offered him for his military services.