History UsefulNotes / FerdinandVI

His first chance to inherit the throne, when he was ten years old (after the premature death of all his three older brothers, including the heir and temporary king, Louis), was nullified by Elisabeth. The aristocracy did want Ferdinand to take the throne, as the good queen was unpopular among common people and noblemen alike for her treatment of her stepsons[[note]]which also caused rumours that she poisoned Louis I to advantage her biological children, especially Charles, though he actually died from smallpox[[/note]] and how she dominated the king, alongside the accusations she received for focusing too much on her ambition to put her children on the European thrones, and for neglecting Spain's internal policy and ignoring the American territories (she was also unfavourably compared to her predecessor, Queen Maria Luisa of Savoy, beloved for her devotion to her adoptive country, her effective regencies despite her inexperience and young age, and her bravery and firmness when ruling in absence of Philip during the War of Spanish Succession). However, she was the one in command, and instead forced Philip V to return from his abdication and become king again despite the fact that his mental health was too weak to actually rule. Louis's death also left Ferdinand without the only person who had been close to him during his lonely childhood and making even more isolated.

Only after Philip V's death, did Ferdinand and Barbara manage to snatch control over their life. He finally became King of Spain, and one year later, he kicked his stepmother out of the court and fired one of her main followers, the Marquis of Villarias, after Barbara advised him to do so when Elisabeth and Villarias kept scheming against him. At the time, Spain was typically involved in a foreign war that promised few to no benefits, in this case the War of the Austrian Succession, but as soon as it ended, Ferdinand decreed a staunch policy of neutrality towards everybody in the world. He instead focused in reforming the Spanish Empire with the help of a chamber of Enlightened consultants, of which the greatest were the Francophile Zenón de Somodevilla, Marquis of Ensenada, and the Anglophile José de Carvajal y Lancáster, who formed a sort of duo of [[FriendlyEnemy Friendly Enemies]]. Ensenada in particular was a invaluable asset for Ferdinand, issuing endless reforms to modernize the empire and doing a gigantic job to expand and strengthen the Spanish Armada, although this moved Great Britain to use their influence to have him disgraced so his plans of challenging their sea dominance never came to fruition. Ferdinand allowed the demotion after discovering, apparently for real, that the zealous Ensenada planned to start a private war against the British in spite of the king's neutral policy.

A more controversial measure, though, also undergone by Ensenada with Ferdinand's acquiescence, was the 1749 Great Gypsy Round-up, a state move (in the line of a similar measure by Portugal some years earlier) that attempted to eradicate the presence of [[UsefulNotes/{{Romani}} Roma people]] in Spain, considered unruly and lazy people, by forcefully separating all their families and installing their men as miners, their women as factory workers and their children (if old enough) as a related workforce. As the goal of this policy was explicitly that of extinguishing their race, some have called it an attempt of genocide, although in this case nobody was meant to be killed, the method being simply to impede them from marrying and procreating so the population would die off naturally. The project was ultimately a failure, in any case, as it lacked enough manpower and support by the population to be even feasible (only 9,000 people were arrested), and ultimately Romani people were instead exiled from Spain, except for those below the age of 14, which were put under the care of religious societies. Some have entertained the notion that the policy only worsened the situation for the next centuries, completely alienating the remaining Roma community from Spanish society and driving it into its current rates of criminality and underworld-dwelling.

In 1758, however, Ferdinand saw his beloved wife die of illness, an event that [[DespairEventHorizon absolutely sank his life]]. The fair king [[DrivenToMadness lost his sanity]] in the course of a year, known as the "Year without a King" because of his mental collapse, during which he became a recluse that was afraid of everything, refused to eat or talk, tried to bite people, danced around undressed, slept on chairs and pretended to be dead, among other bizarre anecdotes. Multiple times he [[DrivenToSuicide tried to kill himself or asked for assisted suicide with poison or weapons]], but this was always denied to him, as the court had hope that he would recover. Experts are unsure whether all of this came solely from his crumbling mental health or was rather caused by a neurological right frontal lobe condition. In any case, he was clearly beyond recovery and died one year later at 45 due to health complications caused by the whole thing, putting an end to his existential misery and reuniting in death with his beloved.

The youngest of the four sons of Philip V and his first wife, Maria Luisa of Savoy, he had a [[LonelyAtTheTop notoriously lonely early life]], as his mother died of tuberculosis when he was just five months old, while his domineering stepmother Elisabeth Farnese only cared about the future of her own children, seeing him as an obstacle to her ambitions for their claims to the European thrones. His second oldest brother, Philip, died at two weeks old four years before Ferdinand was even born, while another brother, Philip Peter, suffered from poor health and died at the end of 1719 at the age of seven. The strict Spanish etiquette also prevented the princes to keep contact with their father, and they could only communicate with letters in French, the language used at court, which Elisabeth Farnese exploited to isolate Ferdinand from court and from his father. During this period, he only had one person for company, his only surviving older brother, Louis, who was six years older than him, and they had a close relationship, but Louis unfortunately passed away at just 17. This was only the beginning of a lifetime marked by either clinical depression or bipolar disorder, especially given that being properly in their rocker [[RoyallyScrewedUp was not exactly a thing of the French royal lines]]. He grew to be a real life example of TheEeyore, insecure and mistrustful, and only found joy in shooting and music, especially in the famous Italian singer Farinelli, of whom he was a generous patron, as like with his father, his voice was capable of giving him feel better.

His first chance to inherit the throne, when he was ten years old (after the premature death of all his three older brothers, including the heir and temporary king, Louis), was nullified by Elisabeth, who instead forced his father Philip V to return from his abdication and become king again despite the fact that he was clearly depressed and with his mental health too weak to actually rule. Elisabeth was unpopular for her treatment of her stepsons[[note]]which also caused rumours that she poisoned Louis I to advantage her biological children, especially Charles, though he actually died from smallpox[[/note]] and how she dominated the king, alongside the accusations she received for focusing too much on her ambition to put her children on the European thrones, and for neglecting Spain's internal policy and ignoring the American territories (she was also unfavourably compared to her predecessor, Queen Maria Luisa of Savoy, beloved for her devotion to her adoptive country, her effective regencies despite her inexperience and young age, and her bravery and firmness when ruling in absence of Philip during the War of Spanish Succession), but then again, she was the one in command, and Elisabeth was especially unpopular with the nobles, who wanted Ferdinand to take the throne. Meanwhile, Louis died. Ferdinand took it badly, and his situation only got worse, as his brother's death meant that he had lost the one who was close to him during his lonely childhood and that he became even more isolated.

A more controversial measure, though, also undergone by Ensenada with Ferdinand's acquiescence, was the 1749 Great Gypsy Round-up, a state move (in the line of a similar measure by Portugal some years earlier) that attempted to eradicate the presence of [[UsefulNotes/{{Romani}} Roma people]] in Spain, considered unruly and lazy people, by forcefully separating all their families and installing their men as miners, their women as factory workers and their children (if old enough) as a related workforce. As the goal of this policy was explicitly that of extinguishing their race, some have called it an attempt of genocide, although in this case nobody was meant to be killed, the method being simply to impede them from marrying and procreating so the population would die off naturally. Romani people were exiled from Spain, except for those below the age of 14, which were put under the care of the religious societies. The project was ultimately a failure, in any case, as it lacked enough manpower and support by the population to be even feasible (only 9,000 people were arrested). Some have entertained the notion that the policy only worsened the situation for the next centuries, completely alienating the Roma community from Spanish society and driving it into its current rates of criminality and underworld-dwelling.

In 1758, however, Ferdinand saw his beloved wife die of illness, an event that [[DespairEventHorizon absolutely sank his life]]. The fair king [[DrivenToMadness lost his sanity]] in the course of a year, known as the "Year without a King" because of his mental collapse, during which he became a recluse that was afraid of everything, refused to eat or talk, tried to bite people, danced around undressed, slept on chairs and pretended to be dead, among other bizarre anecdotes. Multiple times he [[DrivenToSuicide tried to kill himself or asked for assisted suicide with poison or weapons]], but this was always denied to him, as the court had hope that he would recover. Experts are unsure whether all of this came solely from his crumbling mental health or was rather caused by a neurological right frontal lobe condition. In any case, he was suffering from severe depression and died one year later at 45 due to health complications caused by the whole thing, putting an end to his existential misery and reuniting in death with his beloved.

The succession passed to his half-brother [[UsefulNotes/CharlesIIIOfSpain Charles]], the oldest son of Elisabeth Farnese who had been busy meanwhile re-conquering the Italian territories lost by Spain in the change of dynasties, ruling as the popular king of Naples. Proving to be another skilled, competent monarch, Charles built over what Ferdinand did and ensured his work would not be in vain - at least in the short run.

He had a [[LonelyAtTheTop notoriously lonely early life]], as his mother died of tuberculosis when he was just five months old, while his domineering stepmother Elisabeth Farnese only had love for her own children, seeing him as an obstacle for their claims to the throne. This was only the beginning of a lifetime marked by either clinical depression or bipolar disorder, especially given that being properly in their rocker [[RoyallyScrewedUp was not exactly a thing of the French royal lines]]. He grew to be a real life example of TheEeyore, insecure and mistrustful, and only found joy in shooting and music, especially in the famous Italian singer Farinelli, of whom he was a generous patron.

His first chance to inherit the throne, when he was ten years old (after the premature death of all his three older brothers, including the heir and temporary king, Louis), was nullified by Elisabeth, who instead forced his father Philip V to return from his abdication and become king again despite the fact that he was clearly depressed and with his mental health too weak to actually rule. Elisabeth was unpopular for her treatment of her stepsons[[note]]which also caused rumours that she poisoned Louis I to advantage her biological children, especially Charles, though he actually died from smallpox[[/note]] and how she dominated the king, alongside the accusations she received for focusing too much on her ambition to put her children on the European thrones, and for neglecting Spain's internal policy and ignoring the American territories (she was also unfavourably compared to her predecessor, Queen Maria Luisa of Savoy, beloved for her devotion to her adoptive country, her effective regencies despite her inexperience and young age, and her bravery and firmness when ruling in absence of Philip during the War of Spanish Succession), but then again, she was the one in command.

Even when Ferdinand married Portuguese princess Barbara of Braganza, the court soon mandated a cloistered life for them that was almost house arrest, as Elisabeth and her followers feared that Ferdinand and Barbara could have any contact with the nobility who wanted him as a king as soon as possible: they could only receive visits from four people per day that are documented by Elisabeth herself, few specific ambassadors were allowed to visit them, they couldn't eat in public, they couldn't leave the palace, either for walks or for pilgrimages to visit temples, monasteries and convents, and the Queen Mother denied Ferdinand political power and prevented visits from his father. Ferdinand himself was initially disappointed with Barbara, since she was unattractive, with scars from smallpox on her face and an unappealing robust physique, but she was very intelligent and cultured, and during the years as heirs where they had to live under house arrests, Ferdinand and Barbara got to know each other and [[PerfectlyArrangedMarriage fell deeply in love]], sharing a love for music, and their happy marriage gave him one of the few pillars of support through his life.

As a trivia fact, their union was part of a literal DoubleInLawMarriage of princesses performed by Spain and Portugal, with the ghosts of previous wars hopefully put behind, in an attempt to rebuild ties in the Iberian Peninsula. While Ferdinand married Barbara, her brother Joseph married his half-sister Mariana Victoria, all in a curious ceremony hosted on a bridge built for the occasion over the Caia river, which separates the two countries. Mariana Victoria's marriage was similarly happy in general, although Joseph's proneness to love affairs would annoy her to no end. Barbara, influential in the affairs of State, was especially focused on maintaining a good relationship between her home country and her adoptive country, alongside her father Joao V and the Portuguese ambassador. In her, Ferdinand found a faithful companion that never got involved in plots and schemes like his stepmother, which made her quite popular in Spain, and he relied on her advice.

Ferdinand went into history as an uneventful king in all senses, as under his command the Spanish Empire passed a decade devoid of the kind of things that usually go into pop culture (wars, conquests, revolts, royal douchebaggery...), but [[BoringButPractical by those very reasons]] he is considered a fairly good king, the first of the only two imperial Bourbons who were competent and stable kings overall alongside his younger half-brother [[UsefulNotes/CharlesIIIOfSpain Charles III]], and among the few kings of the new dynasty that can be considered good rulers. By achieving the miracle of keeping Spain out of any conflict and promoting reforms that brought important scientific, literary, artistic and economic production, he helped Spain recover from its previous [[UsefulNotes/WarOfTheSpanishSuccession war of succession]] and secured its entry into UsefulNotes/TheEnlightenment. Like his father Philip V, however, he had a [[RoyallyScrewedUp fragile mental health]] all of his life and ultimately died in the midst of a tragic yet colourful insanity.

Only after Philip V's death, did Ferdinand and Barbara manage to snatch control over their life. He finally became King of Spain, and one year later, he kicked his stepmother out of the court and fired one of her main followers, the Marquis of Villarias, after Barbara advised him to do so when Elisabeth and Villarias kept scheming against him. At the time, Spain was typically involved in a foreign war that promised few to no benefits, in this case the War of the Austrian Succession, but as soon as it ended, Ferdinand decreed a staunch policy of neutrality towards everybody in the world. He instead focused in reforming the Spanish Empire with the help of a chamber of Enlightened consultants, of which the greatest were the Francophile Zenón de Somodevilla, Marquis of Ensenada, and the Anglophile José de Carvajal y Lancáster, who formed a sort of duo of [[FriendlyEnemy Friendly Enemies]]. Ensenada in particular was a invaluable asset for Ferdinand, issuing endless reforms to refloat the empire and doing a gigantic job to modernize the obsolete and weakened Spanish Armada, although this moved Great Britain to use their influence to have him disgraced so his plans of challenging their sea dominance never came to fruition. Ferdinand allowed the demotion after discovering, apparently for real, that the zealous Ensenada planned to start a private war against the British in spite of the king's neutral policy.

In 1758, however, Ferdinand saw his beloved wife die of illness, an event that [[DespairEventHorizon absolutely sank his life]]. The fair king [[DrivenToMadness lost his sanity]] in the course of a year, known as the "Year without a king" because of his mental collapse, during which he became a recluse that was afraid of everything, refused to eat or talk, tried to bite people, danced around undressed, slept on chairs and pretended to be dead, among other bizarre anecdotes. Multiple times he [[DrivenToSuicide tried to kill himself or asked for assisted suicide with poison or weapons]], but this was always denied to him, as the court had hope that he would recover. Experts are unsure whether all of this came solely from his crumbling mental health or was rather caused by a neurological right frontal lobe condition. In any case, he was suffering from severe depression and died one year later at 45 due to health complications caused by the whole thing, putting an end to his existential misery and reuniting in death with his beloved.

Ferdinand went into history as an uneventful king in all senses, as under his command the Spanish Empire passed a decade devoid of the kind of things that usually go into pop culture (wars, conquests, revolts, royal douchebaggery...), but [[BoringButPractical by those very reasons]] he is considered a fairly good king, the first of the only two imperial Bourbons who were competent and stable kings overall alongside his younger half-brother [[UsefulNotes/CharlesIIIOfSpain Charles III]] and among the few kings of the new dynasty that can be considered genuinely good rulers. By achieving the miracle of keeping Spain out of any conflict and promoting reforms that brought important scientific, literary, artistic and economic production, he helped Spain recover from its previous [[UsefulNotes/WarOfTheSpanishSuccession war of succession]] and secured its entry into UsefulNotes/TheEnlightenment. Like his father Philip V, however, he had a [[RoyallyScrewedUp fragile mental health]] all of his life and ultimately died in the midst of a tragic yet colourful insanity.

He had a [[LonelyAtTheTop notoriously lonely early life]], as his mother died of tuberculosis when he was just five months old, while his domineering stepmother Elisabeth Farnese only had love for her own children, seeing him as an obstacle for their claims to the throne. This was only the beginning of a lifetime marked by either clinical depression or bipolar disorder, especially given that being properly in their rocker [[RoyallyScrewedUp was not exactly a thing of the French royal lines]]. He grew to be a real life example of TheEeyore, insecure and mistrustful, and only found joy in shooting and music, especially in the famous Italian singer Farinelli, of whom he was a generous patron. His first chance to inherit the throne, when he was ten years old, after the premature death of all his three older brothers, including the heir and temporary king, Louis, was nullified by Elisabeth, who instead forced his father Philip V to return from his abdication and become king again despite the fact that he was clearly depressed and with his mental health too weak to actually rule, so she was the one ruling over Spain. Even when Ferdinand married Portuguese princess Barbara of Braganza, sealing a PerfectlyArrangedMarriage that became one of the few steady emotional supports in his life, the court soon mandated a cloistered life for them that was almost house arrest, as Elizabeth Farnese and her followers feared that Ferdinand and Barbara could have any contact with the nobility who wanted him as a king as soon as possible: they could only receive visits from four people per day that are documented by Elizabeth herself, few specific ambassadors were allowed to visit them, they couldn't eat in public, they couldn't leave the palace, either for walks or for pilgrimages to visit temples, monasteries and convents, and the Queen Mother denied Ferdinand political power and prevented visits from his father. Elizabeth Farnese's treatment of her stepsons (which also caused rumours that she poisoned Louis I to advantage her biological children, especially Charles, though he actually died from smallpox) and how she dominated the king, alongside the accusations she received for focusing too much on her ambition to put her children on the European thrones, especially in Poland, for neglecting Spain's internal policy and ignoring the colonies, made her unpopular, especially in the eyes of the nobility and when compared to her predecessor, the king's double second cousin, Queen Maria Luisa of Savoy, who was well beloved by her people for her devotion to her adoptive country, her effective regencies despite her inexperience and young age and her bravery and firmness when ruling during a very difficult time for Spain, the War of Spanish Succession, where Philip often had to fight to invalidate his rights to the throne and his wife ruled in his absence. The future king was initially disappointed with Barbara, since she was unattractive and with scars from smallpox on her face combined with a robust physique that wasn't very appealing, but she was very intelligent and cultured, and during they years as heirs where they had to live under house arrests, Ferdinand and Barbara got to know each other better and fell deeply in love, sharing a love for music, and their happy marriage gave him one of the few pillars of support through his life. In Barbara, he found a faithful companion that never got involved in plots and schemes like his stepmother, and he relied on her advice.

As a trivia fact, their union was part of a literal DoubleInLawMarriage of princesses performed by Spain and Portugal, with the ghosts of previous wars hopefully put behind, in an attempt to rebuild ties in the Iberian Peninsula. While Ferdinand married Barbara, her brother Joseph married his half-sister Mariana Victoria, all in a curious ceremony hosted on a bridge built for the occasion over the Caia river, which separates the two countries. Mariana Victoria's marriage was similarly happy in general, although Joseph's proneness to love affairs would annoy her to no end.

Only after Philip V's death, did Ferdinand manage to snatch control over his own life. He finally became King of Spain, and one year later, he kicked his stepmother out of the court and fired a minister that supported her, Villarias, after Barbara advised him to do so when she kept scheming against him alongside her followers, including said minister. At the time, Spain was typically involved in a foreign war that promised few to no benefits, in this case the War of the Austrian Succession. As soon as it ended, Ferdinand decreed a staunch policy of neutrality towards everybody in the world and focused in reforming the Spanish Empire with the help of a chamber of Enlightened consultants, of which the greatest were the Francophile Zenón de Somodevilla, Marquis of Ensenada, and the Anglophile José de Carvajal y Lancáster, who formed a sort of duo of [[FriendlyEnemy Friendly Enemies]]. Ensenada in particular was a invaluable asset for Ferdinand, issuing endless reforms to refloat the empire and doing a gigantic job to modernize the obsolete and weakened Spanish Armada, although this moved Great Britain to use their influence to have him disgraced so his plans of challenging their sea dominance never came to fruition. Ferdinand allowed the demotion after discovering, apparently for real, that the zealous Ensenada planned to start a private war against the British in spite of the king's neutral policy.

A more controversial measure, though, also undergone by Ensenada with Ferdinand's acquiescence, was the 1749 Great Gypsy Round-up, a state move (in the line of a similar measure by Portugal some years earlier) that attempted to eradicate the presence of [[UsefulNotes/{{Romani}} Roma people]] in Spain, considered unruly and lazy people, by forcefully separating all their families and installing their men as miners, their women as factory workers and their children (if old enough) as a related workforce. As the goal of this policy was explicitly that of extinguishing their race, some have called it an attempt of genocide, although in this case nobody was killed, the method being simply to impede them from marrying and procreating so the population would die off naturally. Romani people were exiled from Spain, except for those below the age of 14, which were put under the care of the religious societies. The project was ultimately a failure, in any case, as it lacked enough manpower and support by the population to be even feasible (only 9,000 people were arrested). Some have entertained the notion that the policy only worsened the situation for the next centuries, completely alienating the Roma community from Spanish society and driving it into its current rates of criminality and underworld-dwelling.

The aforementioned exchange of princesses had achieved a relative peace between the two conquistador countries, although it came at the cost of an improbable inner conflict. By bribing the Portuguese with large amounts of land in UsefulNotes/SouthAmerica, which eventually doubled the size of UsefulNotes/{{Brazil}}, José de Carvajal convinced Portugal not to support British contraband nor engage in unauthorized expansionist adventures against Spain. This policy caused unrest among the Spanish Jesuits stationed in South America and the Guaraní indigenous communities which were ruled by the Jesuits: in the Spanish Empire the natives were legally protected against slavery, but in the Portuguese Empire they weren't (in fact, they were usual targets of slavery, especially at the hands of mestiços and other natives). Moving to Spanish territory would mean abandoning productive land and settlements where the Jesuits had enjoyed almost a [[TheTheocracy theocracy]], with their own governments and private armies. Thus, feeling abandoned by their country, the Jesuits and their natives revolted, so Spain and Portugal had to team up against them to drown the riot. Worse enough, the whole conflict was ultimately AllForNothing, as the peace achieved by the exchange was short-lived, and it would not take many years for Spain and Portugal to come to blows again after Ferdinand was gone from the throne.

Ferdinand's happy marriage with Barbara was only marred by the lack of heirs (Barbara didn't have a strong physical health, suffered from asthma and was only pregnant once as a result, giving him a son in 1733, but he was unfortunately stillborn), although he had enough half-brothers to ensure succession. She was also influent in the affairs of State, focusing on maintaining a good relationship between her home country and her adoptive country alongside her father Joao V and the Portoguese ambassador, and didn't have the political ambition that made her mother-in-law so controversial, which made her quite popular. In 1758, however, Ferdinand saw his beloved wife die of illness, an event that [[DespairEventHorizon absolutely sank his life]]. The fair king [[DrivenToMadness lost his sanity]] in the course of a year, known as the "Year without a king" because of his mental collapse, during which he became a recluse that was afraid of everything, refused to eat or talk, tried to bite people, danced around undressed, slept on chairs and pretended to be dead, among other bizarre anecdotes. Multiple times he [[DrivenToSuicide tried to kill himself or asked for assisted suicide with poison or weapons]], but this was always denied to him, as the court had hope that he would recover some day. Experts are unsure whether all of this came solely from his crumbling mental health or was rather caused by a neurological right frontal lobe condition. In any case, he was suffering from severe depression and died one year later at 45 due to health complications caused by the whole thing, putting an end to his existential misery and reuniting in death with his beloved.

Ferdinand VI of Spain (23 September 1713 – 10 August 1759), known as Ferdinand the Prudent or the Fair, and for a change [[TheGoodKing actually earning those nicknames]], was King of Spain from 1749 to his death. He was the third ruler of the Spanish-French Bourbon dynasty, although many consider him the second given that his predecessor, Louis I, reigned very briefly at all.

Ferdinand went into history as an uneventful king in all senses, as under his command the Spanish Empire passed a decade devoid of the kind of things that usually go into pop culture (wars, conquests, revolts, royal douchebaggery...), but [[BoringButPractical by those very reasons]] he is considered a fairly good king and the first of the few imperial Bourbons who were good kings overall. By achieving the miracle of keeping Spain out of any conflict and promoting reforms that brought important scientific, literary, artistic and economic production, he helped Spain recover from its previous [[UsefulNotes/WarOfTheSpanishSuccession war of succession]] and secured its entry into UsefulNotes/TheEnlightenment. Like his father Philip V, however, he had a [[RoyallyScrewedUp fragile mental health]] all of his life and ultimately died in the midst of a tragic yet colourful insanity.

He had a [[LonelyAtTheTop notoriously lonely early life]], as his mother died of tuberculosis when he was just five months old, while his domineering stepmother Elisabeth Farnese only had love for her own children, seeing him as an obstacle for their claims to the throne. This was only the beginning of a lifetime marked by either clinical depression or bipolar disorder, especially given that being properly in their rocker [[RoyallyScrewedUp was not exactly a thing of the French royal lines]]. He grew to be a real life example of TheEeyore, insecure and mistrustful, and only found joy in shooting and music, especially in the famous Italian singer Farinelli, of whom he was a generous patron. His first chance to inherit the throne, after the premature death of his unruly brother Louis, was nullified by Elisabeth, who instead forced his father Philip V to return from his abdication and become king again despite the fact that he was clearly depressed and with his mental health too weak to actually rule, so she was the one ruling over Spain. Even when Ferdinand married Portuguese princess Barbara of Braganza, sealing a PerfectlyArrangedMarriage that became one of the few steady emotional supports in his life, the court soon mandated a cloistered life for them that was almost house arrest, as Elizabeth Farnese and her followers feared that Ferdinand and Barbara could have any contact with the nobility who wanted him as a king as soon as possible: they could only receive visits from four people per day that are documented by Elizabeth herself, few specific ambassadors were allowed to visit them, they couldn't eat in public, they couldn't leave the palace, either for walks or for pilgrimages to visit temples, monasteries and convents, and the Queen Mother denied Ferdinand political power and prevented visits from his father. Ferdinand and Barbara shared a love for music, and their happy marriage gave him one of the few pillars of support through his life. In Barbara, he found a faithful companion that never got involved in plots and schemes like his stepmother, and he relied on her advice.

As a trivia fact, their union was part of a literal DoubleInLawMarriage of princesses performed by Spain and Portugal, with the ghosts of previous wars hopefully put behind, in an attempt to rebuild ties in the Iberian Peninsula. While Ferdinand married Barbara, her brother Joseph married his half-sister Mariana Victoria, all in a curious ceremony hosted on a bridge built for the occasion over the Caia river, which separates the two countries. Mariana's marriage was similarly happy in general, although Joseph's proneness to affairs would annoy her to no end.

Only after Philip V's death, did Ferdinand manage to snatch control over his own life. He finally became King of Spain and kicked Elisabeth out of the court after Barbara advised him to do so. At the time, Spain was typically involved in a foreign war that promised few to no benefits, in this case the War of the Austrian Succession. As soon as it ended, Ferdinand decreed a staunch policy of neutrality towards everybody in the world and focused in reforming the Spanish Empire with the help of a chamber of Enlightened consultants, of which the greatest were the Francophile Zenón de Somodevilla, Marquis of Ensenada, and the Anglophile José de Carvajal y Lancáster, who formed a sort of duo of [[FriendlyEnemy Friendly Enemies]]. Ensenada in particular was a invaluable asset for Ferdinand, issuing endless reforms to refloat the empire and doing a gigantic job to modernize the obsolete and weakened Spanish Armada, although this moved Great Britain to use their influence to have him disgraced so his plans of challenging their sea dominance never came to fruition. Ferdinand allowed the demotion after discovering, apparently for real, that the zealous Ensenada planned to start a private war against the British in spite of the king's neutral policy.

A more controversial measure, though, also undergone by Ensenada with Ferdinand's acquiescence, was the 1749 Great Gypsy Round-up, a state move (in the line of a similar measure by Portugal some years earlier) that attempted to eradicate the presence of [[UsefulNotes/{{Romani}} Roma people]] in Spain, considered unruly and lazy people, by forcefully separating all their families and installing their men as miners, their women as factory workers and their children (if old enough) as a related workforce. As the goal of this policy was explicitly that of extinguishing their race, some have called it an attempt of genocide, although in this case nobody was killed, the method being simply to impede them from marrying and procreating so the population would die off naturally. The project was ultimately a failure, in any case, as it lacked enough manpower and support by the population to be even feasible (only 9,000 people were arrested). Some have entertained the notion that the policy only worsened the situation for the next centuries, completely alienating the Roma community from Spanish society and driving it into its current rates of criminality and underworld-dwelling.

Ferdinand's happy marriage with Barbara was only marred by the lack of heirs (Barbara didn't have a strong physical health, suffered from asthma and was only pregnant once as a result, giving him a son in 1733, but he was unfortunately stillborn), although he had enough half-brothers to ensure succession. In 1758, however, Ferdinand saw his beloved wife die of illness, an event that [[DespairEventHorizon absolutely sank his life]]. The fair king [[DrivenToMadness lost his sanity]] in the course of a year, known as the "Year without a king" because of his mental collapse, during which he became a recluse that was afraid of everything, refused to eat or talk, tried to bite people, danced around undressed, slept on chairs and pretended to be dead, among other bizarre anecdotes. Multiple times he [[DrivenToSuicide tried to kill himself or asked for assisted suicide with poison or weapons]], but this was always denied to him, as the court had hope that he would recover some day. Experts are unsure whether all of this came solely from his crumbling mental health or was rather caused by a neurological right frontal lobe condition. In any case, he was suffering from severe depression and died one year later at 45 due to health complications caused by the whole thing, putting an end to his existential misery and reuniting in death with his beloved.

A more controversial measure, though, also undergone by Ensenada with Ferdinand's acquiescence, was the 1749 Great Gypsy Round-up, a state move (in the line of a similar measure by Portugal some years earlier) that attempted to eradicate the presence of [[UsefulNotes/{{Romani}} Roma people]] in Spain, considered unruly and lazy people, by forcefully separating all their families and installing their men as miners, their women as factory workers and their children (if old enough) as a related workforce. As the goal of this policy was explicitly that of extinguishing their race, some have called it an attempt of genocide, although in this case nobody was killed, the method being simply to impede them from marrying and procreating so the population would die off. The project was ultimately a failure, in any case, as it lacked enough manpower and support by the population to be even feasible (only 9,000 people were arrested). Some have entertained the notion that the policy only worsened the situation for the next centuries, completely alienating the Roma community from Spanish society and driving it into its current rates of criminality and underworld-dwelling.

The aforementioned exchange of princesses had secured a relative peace between the two conquistador countries, although it came at the cost of an improbable inner conflict. By bribing the Portuguese with large amounts of land in UsefulNotes/SouthAmerica, which eventually doubled the size of UsefulNotes/{{Brazil}}, José de Carvajal convinced Portugal not to support British contraband nor engage in unauthorized expansionist adventures against Spain. This policy caused unrest among the Spanish Jesuits stationed in South America and the Guaran8 indigenous communities which were ruled by the Jesuits: in the Spanish Empire the natives were legally protected against slavery, but in the Portuguese Empire they weren't (in fact, they were usual targets of slavery, even at the hands of mestiços and other natives). Moving to Spanish territory would mean abandoning productive land and settlements where the Jesuits had enjoyed almost a [[TheTheocracy theocracy]], with their own governments and private armies. Thus, feling abandoned by their country, the Jesuits and their natives revolted, so Spain and Portugal had to team up against them to drown the riot. Worse enough, the whole conflict was ultimately AllForNothing, as the peace achieved by the exchange was short-lived, and it would not take many years for Spain and Portugal to come to blows again after Ferdinand was gone from the throne.

Ferdinand went into history as an uneventful king in all senses, as under his command the Spanish Empire passed a decade devoid of the kind of things that usually go into pop culture (wars, conquests, revolts, royal douchebaggery...), but [[BoringButPractical by those very reasons]] he is considered a fairly good king and the first of the only two imperial Bourbons who weren't complete hacks. By achieving the miracle of keeping Spain out of any conflict and promoting reforms that brought important scientific, literary, artistic and economic production, he helped Spain recover from its previous [[UsefulNotes/WarOfTheSpanishSuccession war of succession]] and secured its entry into UsefulNotes/TheEnlightenment. Like his father Philip V, however, he had a [[RoyallyScrewedUp fragile mental health]] all of his life and ultimately died in the midst of a tragic yet colourful insanity.

Only after Philip V's death, did Ferdinand manage to snatch control over his own life. He finally became King of Spain and kicked Elisabeth out of the court, after Barbara advised him to do so. At the time, Spain was typically involved in a foreign war that promised few to no benefits, in this case the War of the Austrian Succession. As soon as it ended, Ferdinand decreed a staunch policy of neutrality towards everybody in the world and focused in reforming the Spanish Empire with the help of a chamber of Enlightened consultants, of which the greatest were the Francophile Zenón de Somodevilla, Marquis of Ensenada, and the Anglophile José de Carvajal y Lancáster, who formed a sort of duo of [[FriendlyEnemy Friendly Enemies]]. Ensenada in particular was a invaluable asset for Ferdinand, issuing endless reforms to refloat the empire and doing a gigantic job to modernize the obsolete and weakened Spanish Armada, although this moved Great Britain to use their influence to have him disgraced so his plans of challenging their sea dominance never came to fruition. Ferdinand allowed the demotion after discovering, apparently for real, that the zealous Ensenada planned to start a private war against the British in spite of the king's neutral policy.

A more controversial measure, though, also undergone by Ensenada with Ferdinand's acquiescence, was the 1749 Great Gypsy Round-up, a state move (in the line of a similar measure by Portugal some years earlier) that attempted to eradicate the presence of [[UsefulNotes/{{Romani}} Roma people]] in Spain, considered an unruly and lazy people, by forcefully separating all their families and installing their men as miners, their women as factory workers and their children (if old enough) as a related workforce. As the goal of this policy was explicitly that of extinguishing their race, some have called it an attempt of genocide. Although in this case nobody was killed, the method being simply to impede them from marrying and procreating so the population would die off. The project was ultimately a failure, as it lacked enough manpower and support by the population to be even feasible (only 9,000 people were arrested). Some have entertained the notion that the policy only worsened the situation for the next centuries, completely alienating the Gypsy community from Spanish society and driving it into its current rates of criminality and underworld-dwelling.

The aforementioned exchange of princesses had secured a relative peace between the two conquistador countries, although it came at the cost of an improbable inner conflict. By bribing the Portuguese with large amounts of land in UsefulNotes/SouthAmerica, which eventually doubled the size of UsefulNotes/{{Brazil}}, José de Carvajal convinced Portugal not to support British contraband nor engage in unauthorized expansionist adventures against Spain. This policy caused unrest among the Spanish Jesuits stationed in South America and the Guarani indigenous communities which were ruled by the Jesuits: in the Spanish Empire the natives were legally protected against slavery, but in the Portuguese Empire they weren't (in fact, they were usual targets of slavery, even at the hands of mestiços and other natives). Moving to Spanish territory would mean abandoning productive land and settlements where the Jesuits had enjoyed almost a [[TheTheocracy theocracy]], with their own governments and private armies. Feeling abandoned by their country, the Jesuits and their natives revolted, so Spain and Portugal had to team up against them to drown the riot. Worse enough, the whole conflict was ultimately AllForNothing, as the peace achieved by the exchange was short-lived, and it would not take many years for Spain and Portugal to come to blows again after Ferdinand was gone from the throne.

The succession passed to his half-brother Charles, the oldest son of Elisabeth Farnese who had been busy meanwhile re-conquering the Italian territories lost by Spain in the change of dynasties, ruling as the popular king of Naples. Proving to be another skilled, competent monarch, Charles built over what Ferdinand did and ensured his work would not be in vain - at least in the short run.

He had a [[LonelyAtTheTop notoriously lonely early life]], as his mother died of tuberculosis when he was just five months old, while his domineering stepmother Elisabeth Farnese only had love for her own children, seeing him as an obstacle for their claims to the throne. This was only the beginning of a lifetime marked by either clinical depression or bipolar disorder, especially given that being properly in their rocker [[RoyallyScrewedUp was not exactly a thing of the French royal lines]]. He grew to be a real life example of TheEeyore, insecure and mistrustful, and only found joy in shooting and music, especially in the famous Italian singer Farinelli, of whom he was a generous patron. His first chance to inherit the throne, after the premature death of his unruly brother Louis, was nullified by Elisabeth, who instead forced his father Philip V to return from his abdication and become king again despite the fact that he was clearly depressed and with his mental health too weak to actually rule, so she was the one ruling over Spain. Even when Ferdinand married Portuguese princess Barbara of Braganza, sealing a PerfectlyArrangedMarriage that became one of the few steady emotional supports in his life, the court soon mandated a cloistered life for them that was almost house arrest, as Elizabeth Farnese and her followers feared that Ferdinand and Barbara could have any contact with the nobility who wanted him as a king as soon as possible: they could only receive visits from four people per day that are documented by Elizabeth herself, few specific ambassadors were allowed to visit them, they couldn't eat in public, they couldn't leave the palace, either for walks or for pilgrimages to visit temples, monasteries and convents, and the Queen Mother denied Ferdinand political power and prevented visits from his father.

As a trivia fact, their union was part of a literal DoubleInLawMarriage of princesses performed by Spain and Portugal, with the ghosts of previous wars hopefully put behind, in an attempt ro rebuild ties in the Iberian Peninsula. While Ferdinand married Barbara, her brother Joseph married his half-sister Mariana Victoria, all in a curious ceremony hosted on a bridge built for the occasion over the Caia river, which separates the two countries. Mariana's marriage was similarly happy in general, although Joseph's proneness to affairs would annoy her to no end.

Ferdinand's happy marriage with Barbara was only marred by him turning out to be impotent, which deprived him of a heir, although he had enough brothers to ensure succession. In 1759, however, Ferdinand saw his beloved wife die of illness, an event that [[DespairEventHorizon absolutely sank his life]]. The fair king [[DrivenToMadness lost his sanity]] in the course of a year, during which he became a recluse that was afraid of everything, refused to eat or talk, tried to bite people, danced around undressed, slept on chairs and pretended to be dead, among other bizarre anecdotes. Multiple times he [[DrivenToSuicide tried to kill himself or asked for assisted suicide]], but this was always denied to him, as the court had hope that he would recover some day. Experts are unsure whether all of this came solely from his crumbling mental health or was rather caused by a neurological right frontal lobe condition. In any case, he died shortly after due to health complications caused by the whole thing, putting an end to his existential misery.

The succession passed to his half-brother Charles, a son of Elisabeth Farnese who had been busy meanwhile re-conquering the Italian territories lost by Spain in the change of dynasties. Proving to be another skilled, competent monarch, Charles built over what Ferdinand did and ensured his work would not be in vain - at least in the short run.

Ferdinand's happy marriage with Barbara was only marred by him turning out to be impotent, which deprived him of a heir, even although he had enough brothers to ensure succession. In 1759, however, Ferdinand saw his beloved wife die of illness, an event that [[DespairEventHorizon absolutely sank his life]]. The fair king [[DrivenToMadness lost completely his sanity]] in the course of a year, during which he became a recluse that was afraid of everything, refused to eat or talk, tried to bite people, danced around undressed, slept on chairs and pretended to be dead, among other bizarre anecdotes. Multiple times he [[DrivenToSuicide tried to kill himself or asked for assisted suicide]], but this was always denied to him, as the court had hope that he would recover some day. Experts are unsure whether all of this came solely from his crumbling mental health or was rather caused by a neurological right frontal lobe condition, but in any case, he died shortly after due to health complications caused by the whole thing, putting an end to his existencial misery.

Succession passed to his half-brother Charles, a son of Elisabeth Farnese who had been busy meanwhile re-conquering the Italian territories lost by Spain in the change of dynasties. Proving to be another skilled, competent monarch, Charles built over what Ferdinand did and ensured his work would not be in vain - at least in the short run.

The aforementioned exchange of princesses had secured a relative peace between the two conquistador countries, although it came at the cost of an improbable inner conflict. By bribing the Portuguese with large amounts of land in UsefulNotes/SouthAmerica, which eventually doubled the size of UsefulNotes/{{Brazil}}, José de Carvajal convinced Portugal not to support British contraband nor engage in unauthorized expansionist adventures against Spain, but this caused unrest among the Spanish Jesuits stationed in South America and the Guarani indigenous communities these ruled over: in the Spanish Empire the natives were legally protected against slavery, but in the Portuguese Empire weren't (in fact, they were usual targets of slavery, even at the hands of mestiços and other natives), and moving to Spanish territory would mean abandon productive land and settlements where the Jesuits had enjoyed almost a [[TheTheocracy theocracy]], with their own governments and private armies. Feeling abandoned by their country, the Jesuits and their natives revolted, so Spain and Portugal had to team up against them to drown the riot. Worse enough, the whole conflict was ultimately AllForNothing, as the peace achieved by the exchange was short-lived, and it would not take many years for Spain and Portugal to come to blows again after Ferdinand was gone from the throne.

The aforementioned exchange of princesses had secured a relative peace between the two conquistador countries, although it came to the cost of an improbable inner conflict. By bribing the Portuguese with large amounts of land in South America, which eventually doubled the size of Brasil, José de Carvajal convinced Portugal not to support British contraband nor engage in unauthorized expansionist adventures against Spain, but this caused unrest among the Spanish Jesuits stationed in South America and the Guarani indigenous communities these ruled over: in the Spanish Empire the natives were legally protected against slavery, but in the Portuguese Empire weren't (in fact, they were usual targets of slavery, even at the hands of mestiços and other natives), and moving to Spanish territory would mean abandon productive land and settlements where the Jesuits had enjoyed almost a [[TheTheocracy theocracy]], with their own governments and private armies. Feeling abandoned by their country, the Jesuits and their natives revolted, so Spain and Portugal had to team up against them to drown the riot. Worse enough, the whole conflict was ultimately AllForNothing, as the peace achieved by the exchange was short-lived, and it would not take many years for Spain and Portugal to come to blows again after Ferdinand was gone from the throne.

A more controversial measure, though, also undergone by Ensenada with Ferdinand's acquiescence, was the 1749 Great Gypsy Round-up, a state move (in the line of a similar measure by Portugal some years earlier) that attempted to eradicate the presence of [[UsefulNotes/{{Romani}} Roma people]] in Spain, considered an unruly and lazy people, by forcefully separating all their families and installing their men as miners, their women as factory workers and their children old enough as related workforce. As it goal was explicitly that of extinguish their race, some have called it an attempt of genocide, although in this case nobody was killed, the method being simply to impede them from marrying and procreating so the population would die off. The project was ultimately a failure, as it lacked enough manpower and support by the population to be even feasable (only 9,000 people were arrested), and some have entertained it only worsened the situation for the next centuries, completely alienating the Gypsy community from Spanish society and driving it into its current rates of criminality and underworld-dwelling.

Only after Philip V's death Ferdinand managed to snatch control over his own life, finally becoming King of Spain and kicking Elisabeth out of the court after Barbara advised him to do so. At the time, Spain was typically involved in a foreign war that promised few to no benefits, in this case the War of Austrian Succession, but as soon as it ended, Ferdinand decreed a staunch policy of neutrality towards everybody in the world and focused in reforming the Spanish Empire with the help of a chamber of Enlightened consultants, of which the greatest were the Francophile Zenón de Somodevilla, Marquis of Ensenada, and the Anglophile José de Carvajal y Lancáster, who formed a sort of duo of [[FriendlyEnemy Friendly Enemies]]. Ensenada in particular was a invaluable asset for Ferdinand, issuing endless reforms to refloat the empire and doing a gigantic job to modernize the obsolete and weakened Spanish Armada, although this moved Great Britain to use their influence to have him disgraced so his plans of challenging their sea dominance never came to fruition. Ferdinand allowed the demotion after discovering, apparently for real, that the zealous Ensenada planned to start a private war against the British in spite of the king's neutral policy.

As a trivia fact, their union was part of a literal DoubleInLawMarriage of princesses performed by Spain and Portugal, with the ghosts of previous wars hopefully put behind, in an attempt ro rebuild ties in the Iberian Peninsula. While Ferdinand married Barbara, her brother Joseph married his half-sister Mariana Victoria, all in a curious ceremony hosted on especially built bridge over the Caia river, which separates the two countries. Mariana's marriage was similarly happy in general, although Joseph's proneness to affairs would annoy her to no end.

Ferdinand went into history as an uneventful king in all senses, as under his command the Spanish Empire passed a decade devoid of the kind of things that usually go into pop culture (wars, conquests, revolts, royal douchebaggery...), but [[BoringButPractical by those very reasons]] he is considered a fairly good king and the first of the only two imperial Bourbons who weren't complete hacks. By achieving the miracle of keeping Spain out of any conflict and promoving reforms that brought important scientific, literary, artistic and economic production, he helped Spain recover from its previous [[UsefulNotes/WarOfTheSpanishSuccession war of succession]] and secured its entry into UsefulNotes/TheEnlightenment. Like his father Philip V, however, he had a [[RoyallyScrewedUp fragile mental health]] all of his life and ultimately died in midst of a tragic yet colourful insanity.

He had a [[LonelyAtTheTop notoriously lonely early life]], as his mother died in childbirth, while his domineering stepmother Elisabeth Farnese only had love for her own children, seeing him as an obstacle for their claims to the throne. This was only the beginning of a lifetime marked by either clinical depression or bipolar disorder, especially given that being properly in their rocker [[RoyallyScrewedUp was not exactly a thing of the French royal lines]]. He grew to be a real life example of TheEeyore, insecure and mistrustful, and only found joy in shooting and music, especially in the famous Italian singer Farinelli, of whom he was a generous patron. His first chance to inherit the throne, after the premature death of his unruly brother Louis, was nullified by Elisabeth, who instead forced his father Philip V to return from his abdication and become king again despite being ill and crazy as a box of frogs. Even when Ferdinand married Princess Barbara of Portugal, sealing a PerfectlyArrangedMarriage that became one of the few steady emotional supports in his life, the court soon mandated a cloistered life for them that was almost house arrest, as the powers that be feared that Ferdinand and Barbara could have any contact with the nobility who wanted him as a king as soon as possible.

As a trivia fact, their union was part of a literal DoubleInLawMarriage of princesses performed by Spain and Portugal, with the ghosts of previous wars hopefully put behind, in an attempt ro rebuild ties in the Iberian Peninsula. While Ferdinand married Barbara, her brother Joseph married his sister Mariana Victoria, all in a curious ceremony hosted on especially built bridge over the Caia river, which separates the two countries. Mariana's marriage was similarly happy in general, although Joseph's proneness to affairs would annoy her to no end.

Only after Philip V's death Ferdinand managed to snatch control over his own life, finally becoming King of Spain and telling Elisabeth to get lost and never return. At the time, Spain was typically involved in a foreign war that promised few to no benefits, in this case the War of Austrian Succession, but as soon as it ended, Ferdinand decreed a staunch policy of neutrality towards everybody in the world and focused in reforming the Spanish Empire with the help of a chamber of Enlightened consultants, of which the greatest were the Francophile Zenón de Somodevilla, Marquis of Ensenada, and the Anglophile José de Carvajal y Lancáster, who formed a sort of duo of [[FriendlyEnemy Friendly Enemies]]. Ensenada in particular was a invaluable asset for Ferdinand, issuing endless reforms to refloat the empire and doing a gigantic job to modernize the obsolete and weakened Spanish Armada, although this moved Great Britain to use their influence to have him disgraced so his plans of challenging their sea dominance never came to fruition. Ferdinand allowed the demotion after discovering, apparently for real, that the zealous Ensenada planned to start a private war against the British in spite of the king's neutral policy.

He had a [[LonelyAtTheTop notoriously lonely early life]], as his mother died in childbirth, while his domineering stepmother Elisabeth Farnese only had love for her own children, seeing him as an obstacle for their claims to the throne. This was only the beginning of a lifetime marked by either clinical depression or bipolar disorder, especially given that being properly in their rocker [[RoyallyScrewedUp was not exactly a thing of the French royal lines]]. He grew to be a real life example of TheEeyore, insecure and mistrustful, and only found joy in shooting and singing, especially in the famous Italian singer Farinelli, of whom he was a generous patron. His first chance to inherit the throne, after the premature death of his unruly brother Louis, was nullified by Elisabeth, who instead forced his father Philip V to return from his abdication and become king again despite being ill and crazy as a box of frogs. Even when Ferdinand married Princess Barbara of Portugal, sealing a PerfectlyArrangedMarriage that became one of the few steady emotional supports in his life, the court soon mandated a cloistered life for them that was almost house arrest, as the powers that be feared that Ferdinand and Barbara could have any contact with the nobility who wanted him as a king as soon as possible.

Only after Philip V's death Ferdinand managed to snatch control over his life, finally becoming King of Spain and telling Elisabeth to get lost and never return. At the time, Spain was typically involved in a foreign war that promised few to no benefits, in this case the War of Austrian Succession, but as soon as it ended, Ferdinand decreed a staunch policy of neutrality towards everybody in the world and focused in reforming the Spanish Empire with the help of a chamber of Enlightened consultants, of which the greatest were the Francophile Zenón de Somodevilla, Marquis of Ensenada, and the Anglophile José de Carvajal y Lancáster, a sort of [[FriendlyEnemy Friendly Enemies]]. Ensenada in particular was an invaluable asset for Ferdinand, issuing endless reforms to refloat the empire and doing a gigantic job to modernize the obsolete and weakened Spanish Armada, although this moved Great Britain to intrigue to have him disgraced so his plans of challenging their sea dominance never came to fruition. Ferdinand allowed the demotion after discovering, apparently for real, that the zealous Ensenada planned to start a private war against the British in spite of the king's neutral policy.

A more controversial measure, though, also undergone by Ensenada with Ferdinand's acquiescence, was the 1749 Great Gypsy Round-up, a state move (in the line of a similar measure by Portugal some years earlier) that attempted to eradicate the presence of [[UsefulNotes/{{Romani}} Roma people]] in Spain, considered an unruly and lazy people, by forcefully separating all their families and installing their men as miners, their women as factory workers and their older children as relates workforce. As it goal was explicitly that of extinguish their race, some have called it an attempt of genocide, although in this case nobody was executed, the method being simply to impede them from marrying and procreating so the population would die off. The project was ultimately a failure, as it lacked enough manpower and support by the population to be even feasable (only 9,000 people were arrested), and some have entertained it only worsened the situation for the next centuries, completely alienating the Gypsy community from Spanish society and driving it into its current rates of criminality and underworld-dwelling.

The aforementioned exchange of princesses had secured a relative peace between the two conquistador countries, although it came to the cost of an improbable inner conflict. By bribing the Portuguese large amounts of land in South America, which eventually doubled the size of Brasil, José de Carvajal convinced Portugal not to support British contraband nor engage in unauthorized expansionist adventures against Spain, but this caused unrest among the Spanish Jesuits stationed in South America and the Guarani indigenous communities these ruled over: in the Spanish Empire the natives were legally protected against slavery, but in the Portuguese Empire weren't (in fact, they were usual targets of slavery, even at the hands of mestiços and other natives), and moving to Spanish territory would mean abandon productive land and settlements where the Jesuits had enjoyed almost a [[TheTheocracy theocracy]], with their own governments and private armies. Feeling abandoned by their country, the Jesuits and their natives revolted, so Spain and Portugal had to team up against them to drown the riot. Worse enough, the whole conflict was ultimately AllForNothing, as the peace achieved by the exchange was short-lived, and it would not take many years for Spain and Portugal to come to blows again after Ferdinand was gone from the throne.

As a trivia fact, their union was part of a literal DoubleInLawMarriage of princesses performed by Spain and Portugal, with the ghosts of previous wars hopefully put behind, in an attempt ro rebuild ties in the Iberian Peninsula. While Ferdinand married Barbara, her brother Joseph married his sister Mariana Victoria, all in a curious ceremony hosted on especially built bridge over the Caia river, which separates the two countries. Mariana's marriage was similarly happy in general, although Joseph's [[YourCheatingHeart proneness to affairs]] would annoy her to no end.

Ferdinand VI of Spain (23 September 1713 – 10 August 1759), known as Ferdinand the Prudent or the Just, and for a change actually earning those nicknames, was King of Spain from 1749 to his death. He was the third ruler of the Spanish-French Bourbon dynasty, although many consider him the second given that his predecessor, Louis I, briefly reigned at all.

Ferdinand went into history as an uneventful king in all senses, as under his command the Spanish Empire lived ten years without the kind of things that usually go into pop culture, but he is considered a fairly decent king and the first of the only two Spanish Bourbons who weren't complete hacks. By achieving the miracle of keeping Spain out of any war and promoving reforms that brought important scientific, literary, artistic and economic production. Like his father Philip V, however, he had a [[RoyallyScrewedUp fragile mental health]] all of his life and ultimately died in midst of a tragic yet colourful insanity.

He had a notoriously lonely early life, as his mother died in childbirth, while his domineering stepmother Elisabeth Farnese only had love for her own children, seeing him as an obstacle for their claims to the throne. This was only the beginning of a lifetime marked by clinical depression, especially given that being properly in their rocker was not exactly a thing of the French royal lines. He grew to be a real life example of TheEeyore, insecure and mistrustful, and only found joy in shooting and singing, especially in the famous Italian singer Farinelli, of whom he was a generous patron. His first chance to inherit the throne, after the premature death of his unruly brother Louis, was nullified by Elisabeth, who instead forced his father Philip V to return from his abdication and become king again despite being ill and crazy as a box of frogs. Even when he married Princess Barbara of Portugal, sealing a PerfectlyArrangedMarriage that became one of the few steady supports in his life, the court soon mandated a cloistered life for them that was almost house arrest, as the powers that be feared that Ferdinand and Barbara could have any contact with the nobility who wanted him as a king as soon as possible.

Only after Philip V's death Ferdinand managed to snatch control over his life, finally becoming King of Spain and telling Elisabeth to get lost and never return. At the time, Spain was typically involved in a foreign war that promised few to no benefits, in this case the War of Austrian Succession, and as soon as it ended, Ferdinand decreed a staunch policy of neutrality towards everybody and focused in reforming the Spanish Empire with the help of a chamber of Enlightened consultants, of which the greatest were the Francophile Zenón de Somodevilla, Marquis of Ensenada, and the Anglophile José de Carvajal y Lancáster, which were a sort of Friendly Enemies. Ensenada was in particular an invaluable asset for Ferdinand, issuing endless reforms to refloat the empire and doing a gigantic job to modernize the obsolete and weakened Spanish Armada, although this moved Great Britain to intrigue to have him disgraced so his plans of challenging their sea dominance never came to fruition (Ferdinand allowed it after discovering Ensenada did plan to start a private war against the British in spite of the king's neutral policy).

A more controversial measure, though, also undergone by Ensenada with Ferdinand's acquiescence, was the 1749 Great Gypsy Round-up, a state move in the line of a similar measure by Portugal some years earlier that attempted to eradicate the presence of Roma people in Spain, considered an unruly and lazy people, by separating all their families and forcefully installing their men as miners, their women as factory workers and their older children as workforce. As it goal was explicitly that of extinguish their race, some have called it an attempt of genocide, although in this case nobody was executed, the method being simply to impede them from marrying and procreating so the population would die off. The project was ultimately a failure, as it lacked enough manpower and support by the population to be even feasable (only 9,000 people were arrested), and some have entertained it only worsened the situation for the next centuries, completely alienating the Gypsy communities and driving them into their current rates of criminality and underworld-swelling.

Being married to a Portuguese princess meant that a tense peace with the other Iberian country could be achieved, although it came to the cost of an improbable inner conflict. José de Carvajal convinced Portugal of ceasing expansionistic attempts and stopping support of British contraband in exchange for large amounts of land in South America, which basically doubled the size of Brazil, but this caused unrest among the local Spanish Jesuits and the Guarani indigenous communities they ruled over: in the Spanish Empire natives were legally protected against slavery, but in the Portuguese Empire not only they weren't, but in fact they were usual targets, and moving to Spanish lands would mean abandon productive land and settlements where the Jesuits enjoyed almost a theocracy, with their own governments and private armies. Feeling abandoned by their country, the Jesuits revolted, so Spain and Portugal had to team up against them. Worse enough, the whole conflict was ultimately AllForNothing, as war between Spain and Portugal came again to blows after Ferdinand was gone from the throne.

Ferdinand's happy marriage with Barbara was only marred by him turning out to be impotent, which deprived him of a heir, even although he had enough brothers to ensure succession. In 1759, Ferdinand saw his beloved wife die of illness in 1759, an event that absolutely sank his life. He completely lost his sanity in the course of a year, during which he became a recluse that was afraid of everything, refused to eat or talk, tried to bite people, danced around undressed, slept on chairs and pretended to be dead, among other bizarre anecdotes. Multiple times he tried to kill himself or asked for assisted suicide, but this was always refused, as the court had hope that he would recover some day. Experts are unsure whether all of this came from clinical depression or was rather due to a neurological right frontal lobe condition, but in any case, he died shortly after. Succession passed to his half-brother Charles, son of Elisabeth Farnese, which ensured Ferdinand's work was not in vain - at least in the short run.