Charles III

King of the Two Sicilies (r. 1734-1759) and king of Spain (r. 1759-1788)

• Born: January 20, 1716
• Birthplace: Madrid, Spain
• Died: December 14, 1788
• Place of death: Madrid, Spain

Charles III’s Bourbon Reforms rejuvenated the economic and political administration of Spain and its colonies. While upholding the doctrine of political absolutism, these reforms promoted Enlightenment ideals of humanitarianism, rationalism, and secularism in Spanish government and culture. As a consequence, Charles became the most successful of Europe’s “enlightened despots.”

Early Life

Charles III was born in Madrid, Spain, on January 20, 1716, the first son of Phillip V of Spain and Elizabeth Farnese of Parma. He was born into Spain’s Bourbon Dynasty, which was founded in 1700 by his father, who was the grandson of Louis XIV (r. 1643-1715), the great French Bourbon king. Phillip’s accession to the throne was secured and legitimated by the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714). Charles’s mother was very ambitious for her son, but her hopes for his accession to the Spanish throne seemed blocked by the aspirations of her older stepchildren, Louis and Ferdinand VI. As it happened, however, Louis died at a relatively young age, and Phillip and Ferdinand were both afflicted by melancholia, providing an opening for Charles eventually to emerge as king of Spain.

Charles’s preparation for the Spanish monarchy began early. In October, 1731, he became duke of Parma and Piacenza, and in 1734 he became Charles IV, king of the Two Sicilies. In 1736, he married Maria Amalia of Saxony, niece of the Holy Roman Emperor. As monarch of the kingdom of the Two Sicilies, Charles imposed political absolutism on a very violent and contentious society, and he relied heavily on astute advisers to train him in the art of statecraft. His reign was characterized by a remarkable public building program, Enlightenment values, and subordination of the church to the state.

Life’s Work

In August, 1759, Ferdinand VI of Spain died; Charles resigned as king of the Two Sicilies in favor of his third son, Ferdinand, and left for Spain to become Charles III. He was well received by the Spanish people, but this festive mood was dimmed by the death of Maria Amalia. Charles never remarried. At this moment in life, he appeared homely and small in stature, colorless in personality, yet a man of considerable intelligence and devotion to duty and family. He reflected a curious blend of devout Roman Catholic faith and Enlightenment rationalism. He read extensively in history and economics, and he exhibited a deep passion for hunting and other sports.

Charles was appalled by Spain’s political, economic, and cultural backwardness, and he resolved to restore his country to its former glory. He quickly initiated a road construction program to promote better communication within the country and a stronger national economy. He also built irrigation canals to help increase the amount of land under cultivation, and he erected numerous public buildings in Spain’s urban centers.

Even so, Charles’s popularity never extended to the rest of his government, which was dominated by Italian ministers. This was an unfortunate mistake on Charles’s part, because he himself had not been in Spain since 1731 and was largely uninformed about the country and its people. His inattention to the attitudes of his subjects resulted in a number of unwise decrees that led to the Madrid Riot of March 23, 1766. This upheaval compelled the king to replace his Italian foreign advisers with talented and reform-minded Spaniards such as the conde de Aranda, the conde de Floridablanca, the conde de Campomanes, and Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos. As a group, they reinforced Charles’s notions of political absolutism, colonial and economic reform, and subordination of church and nobility to the state.

Charles’s early efforts to restore Spanish pride and power were not completely successful. In 1761, he joined the Family Compact with France to prevent England’s victory over France and its hegemony in the New World and Europe. In 1762, Charles formally entered the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763) and experienced disastrous reverses in the Caribbean and the Philippines. During the Paris peace negotiations of 1762-1763, France ceded the western half of Louisiana to Spain, but Charles had to relinquish the Floridas to England in order to regain Havana. He also managed to regain Manila.

In spite of this debacle, Charles reaffirmed his commitment to the Family Compact over the next two decades. By 1770, he was forced to concede British dominion over the Falkland Islands. During the American Revolution, he joined France in supporting the rebels in order to weaken and embarrass England. In 1779, Charles offered to mediate the dispute, but England’s refusal led him to declare war and intervene militarily on the rebel side. The French-Spanish intervention proved decisive. Although a massive Spanish assault on Gibraltar was repulsed, Spain won a series of victories in North America and kept constant pressure on British military forces. In 1782, Spain captured Minorca. In 1783, Charles allowed the Family Compact to lapse, and in the Treaty of Paris (1783) he received the Floridas and Minorca and secured a British pledge to leave Honduras.

One primary goal behind Charles’s diplomatic and military policies was to protect New Spain’s (Mexico’s) silver district in the north-central plateau. In order to secure this objective, Charles’s advisers proposed that a series of buffer zones be established between the silver district and Spain’s enemies, namely the Americans, British, and Russians. Consequently, Texas, New Mexico, and Louisiana were envisioned as buffers that would contain the British and Americans east of the Mississippi River and behind the Great Lakes, and, in 1769, the Spanish occupied California so it could serve as a buffer against the Russians heading southward from Alaska.

Charles also instituted a series of political, economic, and military reforms that are collectively known as the Bourbon Reforms. In 1767, Spain retrenched the fortifications of the northern frontier of New Spain to more defensible locations. This realignment of presidios would save the king some eighty thousand pesos annually.

Charles IIII33IIII revived the captain-generalcy as an administrative unit and applied it to Cuba (including the Floridas and Louisiana), Guatemala, Chile, and Venezuela; he also established the Viceroyalty of La Plata (Buenos Aires) in 1776. Most important of these administrative reforms was the introduction of the intendant system, which streamlined imperial administration, made it more efficient, and eliminated graft and corruption. The intendants assumed responsibility for finances, justice, war, and administration and proved to be very successful in meeting their objectives.

In economic reforms, Charles sought to open trade within the empire while denying it as much as possible to foreigners. He broke the Cádiz monopoly on colonial trade and allowed other Spanish ports to participate in it. Restrictions on internal trade were relaxed, as were trading relations between the colonies and the mother country. Charles abandoned the obsolete flota system of colonial trade in favor of individual registered ships sailing from colonial ports to Spain. By freeing the internal economic system of the empire, Charles succeeded in increasing intercolonial trade and promoted a rising middle class in the colonies and Spain. In general, however, these reforms did not take hold in Spain itself because of internal opposition, war, lack of an industrial base, and competition from other European economic powers.

The Bourbon Reforms were directed at internal Spanish problems, many of which related to the Church. Just as in the Two Sicilies, Charles had become concerned by the concentration of economic and political power in the Church, and he and his officials resolved to make it subordinate to the will of the monarchy. Charles systematically struck at the Church. For example, he decreed that no papal bull would be published without the prior consent of the government. He curbed the activities of the Holy Council of the Inquisition, and he expelled the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) from Spain and its colonies in March or April, 1767. Charles’s motivations in the latter action have never been clearly presented. He apparently resented the society’s popularity among the Spanish people, and he resented its refusal to subordinate itself to the king. Moreover, he suspected that the Jesuits had been behind the Madrid Riot of 1766.

Significance

On December 14, 1788, following two days of high fever, Charles III died in Madrid, leaving Spain in a far better position than it had been before his reign. Spain seemed well on its way toward political and economic recovery. The monarchy was stronger than ever before, and the privileges and power of the clergy had been contained. Prosperity was general throughout the land, and education flourished. Madrid had become a cleaner and more livable city, and the nation’s road system had tied the country closer together than ever before. Moreover, Spain’s cultural life had been deeply influenced by the Enlightenment. Yet this reform program did not long survive Charles, because his successors were not equal to the standards he had set for the monarchy and nation. Consequently, despite Charles’s reign, Spain continued its slide into the nineteenth century.

Bibliography

Durant, Will, and Ariel Durant. Rousseau and Revolution. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1967. Although occupying a small portion of the volume, there is a fine and illuminating account of Charles’s life and career. It reveals his character, personality, and cultural contributions to the Spanish Enlightenment.

Gibson, Charles. Spain in America. New York: Harper & Row, 1966. A fine overview of Spanish imperial policy with a good but brief section on Charles and the Bourbon Reforms. Oriented toward the nonspecialist.

Herr, Richard. The Eighteenth Century Revolution in Spain. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1958. An excellent look at the intellectual revolution that occurred in Spain under the Bourbons, especially Charles’s reign. Determines that the origins of Spanish liberalism date from Bourbon rule and emphasizes the role of France in Spain’s intellectual upheaval.

Hull, Anthony H. Charles III and the Revival of Spain. Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1980. Examines Charles’s life and reign.

Petrie, Sir Charles. King Charles III of Spain: An Enlightened Despot. New York: John Day, 1971. The best biography of Charles; a very positive view of his life and career with extensive information on his early years.

Stein, Stanley J., and Barbara H. Stein. Apogee of Empire: Spain and New Spain in the Age of Charles III, 1759-1789. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003. Examines Charles’s attempts to reform Spain’s political, economic, and social institutions and to modernize Spain’s relationship with its colonies. Concludes that Charles’s efforts ultimately failed, and Spain was ill prepared for future upheaval in Europe and its colonies.