Historiography holds Charles as a sort of Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass, best represented by his rather hilarious visage, depicted in art as a crooked guy with sullen eyes, a big Bourbon nose and an infectious smile. Highly popular for his personable nature and prosperous reign, he marked a contrast with his predecessors by being the first king of Spain since The Catholic Monarchs who managed to be competent, grounded and clinically sane all at the same time. Despite living a tumultuous period, with multiple obstacles, ordeals the empire was not prepared for, and unsuccessful wars he saw himself involved with against his will, he still achieved the feat of leaving a Spain bigger and greater than he had found it, which included the Bourbonic recapture of territories that had been lost since the fall of the Spanish House of Habsburg and the optimization of several stats in which the empire had been lacking for the last century or so. His career mirrors that of his predecessor Charles V in a bizarrely high number of points.note
The son of Philip V and the Italian duchess Elisabeth Farnese (a descendant of Alexander Farnese), Charles was not meant to be a king at first, as he had too many relatives in all of his line of succession, just like his father in his youth. Military attempts promoted by Elisabeth and her henchman Cardinal Giulio Alberoni to increase his inheritance had backfired spectacularly, entangling Spain in a hopeless war against a coalition of Great Britain, France, Austria, Savoy and the Netherlands that would have been too much even for the Spain of the previous centuries. Ultimately, Charles came of age as a dispossesed pretender to the duchies of Parma and Tuscany, with a career that seemed uneventful within the busy checkerboard of European politics. Only Sebastián de Jesús, a Franciscan friar reputed to be a miracle-maker and a seer, predicted the young Charles would be king some day, which becomes ironic considering the future king, while strongly Catholic, would never have much patience for cassocks and priests (he would later rule the expulsion of the Jesuits from the empire, sharing the international opinion that their order had become too powerful and uncontrollable).
However, all of this changed after the 1727 Anglo-Spanish War, which gave them Parma back, and then the War of the Polish Succession, when Philip and Elisabeth saw the chance to finally recover the Spanish territories in Italy retained by the Austrian Habsburgs during the Habsburg-Bourbon transition of the Spanish Empire. As the man in charge of Italian affairs in Parma, Charles was given this task, and although he had no military experience and looked frankly unfit for the mission, he was assisted by the veteran José Carrillo, Duke of Montemar, with whose help he drove away the local Austrian army, conquering Naples and Sicily with very little blood and having himself proclaimed their king (much to the chagrin of Pope Clement XII, who was friendly with the Austrians and also saw it as a personal intrusion). He did end up having to cede Parma to the Austrians in exchange for them recognizing his claim, although eventually the duchy would pass to his younger brother Philip. His success even encouraged calls for him to invade and unify all of Italy under his throne in a patriotic precedent to the Wars of Italian Independence, but his chamber didn't consider it worthy the effort due to the obvious reasons of international politicking.
Although not all Neapolitans supported him at first, with too much hype being placed on him, Charles did his best to be a nice Enlightened monarch and keep Naples from being a satellite to Spain during his stay there.note He reformed its economy and public buildings, limited the privileges of the always parasitic clergy, fought off Muslim piracy through both force and diplomacy (his best asset would be another war veteran, the flamboyant José Fulgencio "Capitan Peppe" Martínez), allowed all the Jews back into Naples (although he had to go back due to the measure opening a can of worms) and was the first to initiate the famous archaeological sites of the Vesuvius in Pompeii and Herculaneum, all of which paid off greatly. His circle also included the renowned inventor and polymath Raimondo di Sangro, whom Charles befriended due to their mutual interest in sciences and crafts.
Charles proved himself again with the outbreak of yet another war of succession, this time Austrian. His family back in Spain urged him to contribute to the conflict with his local troops, but Charles refrained, deeming it to be too risky and finding the perfect pretext in a British blockade. However, he finally came out of the gate and defeated the Austrians in improbable fashion in Velletri,note further convincing Europe that his seizing of Naples and Sicily had not been a fluke. By this point, Charles was likely the most popular Neapolitan ruler ever, and he would himself remember fondly his time here, especially given that it was there that he married to Maria Amalia of Saxony, whom he fell in love with quickly. The two were quite of an example of Birds of a Feather, being both skilled statesmen and lovers of hunting, as well as promoters of high culture, and went to have thirteen children and a really happy life together for more than twenty years (they even slept on the same bed, which his father also did with his first wife, but which was almost unknown among royal pairings up to that point). When she died, the devastated Charles could only say that it was the first time ever she made him upset.
The mention of his inner life makes necessary to add that, in spite of his exuberant, funny personality, Charles had slightly darker side as well. Having inherited both of his parents' ambitions, he was a massive "Well Done, Son" Guy and would do just everything for them, to the point that he had zero trouble explaining his sex life to them in their letters whenever they wanted to know how much would it take for an heir to be produced. He was also disciplined to a fault, and after his wife's death this only went through the roof. Charles never re-married nor dedicated any thought to the pleasures of flesh again,note developing an almost Stoic worldview that any energy he could spend in sex was better invested in any other of his kingly matters, and rumoredly took the custom to stroll barefoot in the chilling cold of his yard in order to focus himself and strengthen his mind. This complemented the many practical interests he maintained all of his life, as he loved practicing carpentry and metalworking and went to make many of his personal items, like his walking stick. Combined with his building projects and his signature tan caused by his love of hunting (not only with firearms, but also with bows and arrows, as he was apparently a Master Archer), those hobbies gained him the nickname of the "The Construction Worker King" mentioned above.
His ascension to the throne of the Spanish Empire came by surprise, when his half-brother Ferdinand VI, a fellow ambassador of the Enlightenment with his own merits, went insane due to a mix of terrible mental health and the loss of his own beloved wife. Eventually, leaving the throne of Naples and Sicily to his younger son Ferdinand, he moved to Spain and became Charles III, with the symbolic title of Lord of the Two Sicilies. The experience he gained in ruling another, more manageable kingdom for twenty years would not be lost in his reign in Spain, where, as said above, he became basically the second Spanish king in several generations that actually knew what he was doing. Building over the works of his predecessor, he engaged in a heavy, all-around program of economic, politic, cultural and military reforms to revitalize the Spanish Empire and make a reality again out of the Pretentious Latin Motto inscribed on Ferdinand's naval station of La Carraca, tu regere imperio fluctus Hispane memento ("remember, Hispanic/Iberian, that you once dominated the empire of the seas"). Far from the grandiosely interventionist policies of the Spanish Habsburgs, his personal project was to achieve a state historians have called an "armed neutrality", making the Spanish Empire a nation in peace with everybody but ready to repeal any threat, although this would turn easier said than done in the convoluted map of the 18th century.
Also unusually for a Spanish monarch, Charles knew how to choose his consultants and soon surrounded himself with an entourage of skilled ministers, including Pedro Rodríguez de Campomanes, Pablo de Olavide, Jerónimo Grimaldi, Ricardo Wall, José Moñino y Redondo, Count of Floridablanca, Leopoldo de Gregorio, Marquis of Esquilache, and Pedro Pablo Abarca, Count of Aranda. Their list of reforms and implementations might exceed the range of this article, but we could mention overall Charles and company worked, within the parameters of the period's enlightened absolutism, from turn the Spanish Empire from a mere collection of domains with a common sovereign to a true nation state, which included creating the current national anthem (the Marcha Real, originally called Marcha de Granaderos, one of the oldest anthems in the world - and one of the four that currently have no lyrics, to many Spaniards' chagrin) and flag (the red and yellow Rojigualda, a military issue that went to displace, though not completely banish, the red and white Cross of Burgundy).
As said above, Charles was never quick to declare war, but soon after ascending got dragged into the Seven Years' War due to the British invasion of the Spanish Honduras and the French colony of Quebec, the last by virtue the Pacte de Famillie with the French branch of the House of Bourbon, led by his cousin Louis XV. His biggest mistake, however, was overestimating France's strength and willpower during the conflict, as well as those of his own troops (even if he knew Spain was not prepared yet for a conflict like that, he might have been under the impression that everybody in the country was as diligent as his inner circle). Charles toyed with the ambition to assimilate Portugal again a la Philip II and re-capture the island of Jamaica, but instead found himself losing the cities of Havana and Manila, which counted as big blows even if Spanish guerrillas stopped the British from advance further in any. After peace was declared, he was forced to cede Florida and other minor lands to the British Empire in order to recover them, although he at least received Louisiana as a gift from Louis, both as a way to compensate for the displeasure and because France had lost all of its colonial power and had no chances anymore to defend it in a new war.
Shortly after the end of the war, his reign featured a bizarre event in the form of the Esquilache Riots, in which the population rose against one of his ministers, Leopoldo de Gregorio, Marquess of Esquilache, for the offbeat reason of him trying to ban the traditional Spanish apparel of long cape and broad-brimmed-hat, which the Marquess considered too good to conceal weapons and one's identity. This was not the whole reason, of course, but only the straw that broke the camel's back — Esquilache had introduced experimental reforms that resulted in hunger, was unpopular for his Italian heritage and snobism, and was perceived by the lower classes as a Toxic Friend Influence on Charles. As a result, for several days a gigantic mob swept Madrid in Esquilache's search and, upon hearing he was taking refuge in the Royal Palace, assaulted the place and fought the also unpopular Waloon guard that defended it since the times of Philip V. Charles was bewildered, but ultimately acknowledged they had a point, fired Esquilache and the Waloons, and put his people to fix the problems. Still, the incident led to the expulsion of the Company of Jesus on the unlikely accusation of having incited the riots, as other Catholic countries had already done the same due to their dangerous influence on education and politics.
Another war followed when Sultan Mohammed III of Morocco broke peace and tried to conquer the Spanish ports in Africa, but he was repealed in Melilla, with peace being re-established. Charles decided to try to capture Algiers, a center of Muslim piracy and slave-hunting vaguely allied to Morocco, to show Mohammed his strength in the land, but the subsequent invasion, promoted and grievously mismanaged by Alexander O'Reilly, backfired completely. The failure led Charles and his staff to change tactics, resorting to safer naval bombardments under the command of Antonio Barceló, and this time it worked, forcing Muhammad V of Algiers into a treaty that momentarily mitigated piracy and reduced much of the historical tensions between Spain and the Muslim Northern Africa.
The American Revolution was the last big crossroads for Charles and his government. Great Britain called for Spain to mediate in the conflict, while Louis XVI of France, wanting revenge against Great Britain and not having colonies of his to worry about, called for supporting the rebels in order to weaken the British Empire. The Spaniards were wary of an emergent American nation that might become not only too ambitious for the Spanish interests in America, but also a precedent for similar movements within the Spanish Empire; they considered helping the British to repress the revolt, as well as secretly supporting both the British and the rebels in order to enlengthen the conflict and weaken both. Ultimately, Charles accepted to mediate and not to take risks, but when Great Britain and France rejected all his propositions, the Politician and his circle saw no better option than joining the international party for the revolution. By the intervention of imperial governors Luis de Unzaga and Bernardo de Gálvez, the former of which even came up with the name "United States of America" to begin with, Spain helped the rebels to secede from the British Empire and re-gained Florida and Menorca in exchange, only failing to retake Gibraltar.note
Some have considered this move a mistake in hindsight, as the success of the United States certainly set an example for the future Spanish American Wars of Independence against the Spanish Empire itself, in which the British themselves lent a hand and eventually ended up gaining economic control of many of the scattered republics that Balkanized themselves out of the Spanish viceroyalties - not to mention that soon the United States would not turn out to be the grateful neighbor the Spaniards and French had hoped in the best case, with quarrels about trade and the Mississippi frontier starting almost as soon as the war ended. Charles' final decision was not unreasonable either, however, as given the variety and power of their allies, it was foreseeable that the United States were going to secede either with or without Spanish help, and joining the stronger side to try and get a piece of the cake was the only way to make the best of the situation. It may be also reasoned that the Spanish viceregal administration, radically different from the British colonial system, should produce wholly different circumstances in case of possible revolutions – which did, in many and not always fortunate ways.
When Charles died, in any case, his Spain died with him: he would effectively be the last great Spanish emperor. The country went off the rails again by the mix of a rather disastrous successor and the outbreak of The French Revolution, which made Louis XVI literally lose his head and shook things all around of the world. His son Charles IV, whom the Third was rumoured to have bemoaned himself to be a hopelessly unfit heir, continued many of his policies, but his lack of will and political ability lost him among the conservative backlash against the Revolution, and ultimately got him manhandled by his own son, Ferdinand VII, who proceeded to sell the empire to Napoléon Bonaparte and then run it to the ground.
In media
Film- He's played by Adolfo Marsillach in the film Esquilache.
- He's played by Luis Escobar in the miniseries Goya (1985).
