ALCUDIA, Manuel de Godoy, Duke of, “Prince of the Peace,” Spanish statesman, was born of poor but noble parentage at Badajoz on the 12th May 1767 (died 1851). In 1784 he came to Madrid to join the royal bodyguard, and by his handsome presence and agreeable manners soon attracted notice. The queen regarded him with great favour, and the weak-minded Charles IV. raised him rapidly from dignity to dignity, until in 1792, on the disgrace of Aranda, he became prime minister. One of the first steps he took on his accession to power was to declare war against the French convention. Though success at first attended the Spanish arms, the position of matters was reversed in a second campaign, and the war was concluded by the treaty of Basle, signed on the 22d July 1795, for negotiating which Godoy received his title of Prince of the Peace and a large landed estate. He was also made at the same time a grandee of Spain of the first class. In 1796 he formed an offensive and defensive alliance with the French republic, which involved Spain in a war with England. Next year he was married to Maria Theresa de Bourbon, niece of the king by a morganatic marriage of his brother Luis. As it was understood that Godoy had already married Dona Josef a Tudo, this second alliance, though it brought him nearer to the king, did much to increase his unpopularity with the nation. On the 28th March 1798 he found himself forced to resign his position in the ministry, but he never lost the favour of the king, who appointed him grand admiral in 1799. About the same time he was restored to power, and entered into an alliance with Napoleon, having for its object the partition of Portugal· The war, in which Godoy himself commanded, was of short duration, the treaty of Badajoz, signed on the 6th June ...