See Khevenhiiller, Annales Ferdinandi II.; the various histories of the Thirty Years’ War; Ranke, Die Rom. Päpste, vol. ii.; and Hurter, Geschichte Ferdinands II. This last is written from a Roman catholic standpoint.

FERDINAND II., king of Naples, grandson of the preceding, and son of Alphonso II., was born probably in 1468. Alphonso finding his tenure of the throne uncertain on account of the general dissatisfaction of his subjects, abdicated in his son’s favour in 1495, but notwithstanding this the treason of a party in Naples rendered it impossible to defend the city against the approach of Charles VIII. Ferdinand fled to Ischia; but when the French left Naples, the Neapolitans, irritated by their conduct during the occupation of the city, recalled him; and with the aid of the great general of Ferdinand V. of Spain, Gonzalo de Cordova, he was able completely to rid his state of its invaders shortly before his death on the 7th October 1496.

FERDINAND II. (1810-1859), king of the Two Sicilies, grandson of the preceding, and son of Francis I., was born at Palermo, January 12, 1810. On succeeding his father in 1830, he published an edict in which he promised to “give his most anxious attention to the impartial administration of justice,” to reform the finances, and to “use every effort to heal the wounds which had afflicted the kingdom for so many years;” but these promises seem to have been meant only to lull discontent to sleep, for while the existing burden of taxation was only slightly lightened, corruption began gradually to invade all departments of the administration, and an absolutism was finally established harsher than that of all his predecessors, and supported by even more extensive and arbitrary arrests. Ferdinand, was naturally shrewd, but badly educated, grossly superstitious, and possessed of inordinate self-esteem. Though he kept the machinery of his kingdom in a high state of efficiency, he made little account of the wishes or welfare of his subjects, and did not deem it of much importance to be on good terms either with them or with foreign states. In 1832 he married Christina, daughter of Victor Emmanuel, and shortly after her death in 1836 he took fora second wife Maria Theresa, daughter of Archduke Charles of Austria. After his Austrian alliance the bonds of despotism were more closely tightened, and the increasing discontent of his subjects was manifested by abortive attempts at insurrection in 1837, 1841, 1844, and 1847, and in 1848 by a general rising in Sicily, on account of which the king judged it prudent to promise a constitution. A dispute, however, arose as to the nature of the oath which should be taken by the members of the chamber of deputies, and as neither the king nor the deputies would yield, serious disturbances began to occur in the streets of Naples; and the king, making these the excuse for withdrawing his promise, on the 13th March 1849 dissolved the national parliament. The efforts at revolt were renewed in Sicily, but were speedily quelled, chiefly by the bombardment of tho principal cities of the state, an expedient which won for Ferdinand the epithet of “Bomba.” During the last years of his reign espionage and arbitrary arrests prevented all serious manifestations of insubordination among his subjects. In 1851 the political prisoners of Naples were calculated by Mr Gladstone to number 13,000, and so great was the scandal created by the rule of terror which prevailed that in 1856 France and England, though vainly, made diplomatic representations to induce a mitigation of its rigour and the proclamation of a general amnesty. An attempt was made to assassinate Ferdinand in 1857. He died May 22, 1859.

See Correspondence respecting the Affairs of Naples and Sicily, 1848-49, presented to both Houses of Parliament by command of Her Majesty, 4th. May 1849; Two Letters to the Earl of Aberdeen, by Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, 1st. ed. 1851 (an edition published in 1852, and the subsequent editions, contain an Examination of the Official Reply of the Neapolitan Government) ; supplementary chapter to the English translation of Coletta’s History of Naples; and Dawburn, Naples and King Ferdinand, 1858.

FERDINAND II. of Aragon and Sicily. See Ferdinand V. of Castile.

FERDINAND II. (1136-1188), younger son of Alphonso VIII. (el Emperador), became king of Leon on the death of his father in 1157. The history of his reign of thirty-one years is obscure. A dispute that arose between him and some of his powerful nobles gave his brother Sancho III. of Castile a pretext for invading his territory (1158), but the timely submission of Ferdinand averted serious disaster. The death of Sancho shortly afterwards led to a military occupation of Castile by Ferdinand, professedly in the interests of his nephew Alphonso III.; and this occupation lasted till the marriage of Alphonso to Leonora, daughter of Henry II. of England, in 1170. Meanwhile Ferdinand, having repudiated his wife Dona Urraca, had become involved in a war with his father-in-law Alphonso I. of Portugal, which resulted in the defeat and capture of the latter at Badajoz in 1169. The later years of the reign of Ferdinand II. were distinguished by sundry successes over the Moors, especially by a brilliant victory at Santarem (civ. 1181); and also by the incorporation of the great military order of Alcantara, which received its first regular charter from Pope Alexander III. in 1177. He died at Benavente (Leon) in 1188, and was succeeded by his son Alphonso IX.

Mariana, Hist. Gen. de Espana, XI. v., viii., xiii.,xvi.; Gayangos, Mohammedan Dynasties, ii. 522.

FERDINAND III. of Naples. See Ferdinand V. of Spain.

FERDINAND III. (1200-1252), usually known as Saint Ferdinand, was the son of Alphonso IX. of Leon, and of Berenguela, sister of Henry I. of Castile. On the death of Henry without issue in 1217, the just title of Blanche, the elder of the surviving sisters, was set aside and Berenguela procured the proclamation of Ferdinand. He rapidly secured the homage of the towns and the submission of the nobles, especially of the brothers Alvaro and Fernando de Lara. On the death of his father in 1230 he ultimately, though not without dispute, became king of Leon as well as of Castile, thus finally uniting the two kingdoms under one crown. Following up the advantage which had been gained for the Christian arms by his father and the allied kings in the great battle at Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212, he devoted all his energies to the prosecution of the Moorish war. Among his conquests may be mentioned those of Ubeda in 1234, of Cordova in 1236, of Jaen in 1245, and of Seville in 1248. He was planning an invasion of Africa when he died at Seville on the 30th of May 1252, leaving his kingdom to his eldest son Alphonso X. (Alonso el Sabio).

Though not canonized till centuries afterwards (by Clement X. in 1671), he came to be popularly known as el Santo from a very early period. Distinguished though he was for great military talent, he was still more remarkable for his religious zeal. Like his younger cousin Saint Louis of France, he was supremely a champion of the Catholic faith. It was not on the field of battle alone that his ardour was displayed. His Spanish panegyrists never fail to relate how it was his wont to assist in carrying wood for burning the followers of the Albigensian heresy, and how sometimes with his own royal hands he applied the torch to the pile. While as a crusader he is hardly eclipsed by Louis, he contrasts very favourably with him as a sincere friend of learning. He was the original founder (1243) of the university of Salamanca, which his son and successor did so much to foster and encourage. He it was also who caused to be translated into the vulgar tongue the Fuero Juzgo (Forum Judicum) or code of Visigothic laws, which as collected and translated at his instance has the double interest of being one of the oldest extant specimens of Castilian prose, and also of being the foundation of Las Siete Partidas, the code for Christian Spain, which was finally drawn up by Alphonso the Wise.

His body now lies in the Capilla Real of Seville Cathedral, where it is exhibited as a relic on certain annual occasions (in May, August, and November). His day in the Spanish calendar is May 30.

See Mariana, Hist. Gem, XII. vii.—XIII. viii; and compare Conde, Dominαcion de los Arabes en Espana, IV. iii.-vi.

FERDINAND III. (1769-1824), grand-duke of Tuscany, and archduke of Austria, second son of the emperor Leopold IL, was born on the 6th May 1769. On his father becoming emperor in 1790, he succeeded him as grand-duke of Tuscany. Ferdinand was the first sovereign to enter into diplomatic relations with the French republic; and although afterwards compelled by England and Russia to join the coalition against France, he concluded peace with that power in 1795, and by observing a strict neutrality saved his dominions from invasion by Napoleon till 1799, when he was compelled to vacate his throne, and a provisional republican government was established at Florence. Shortly afterwards the French arms suffered severe reverses in Italy, and Ferdinand was restored to his territories, but in 1801 Tuscany was converted into the kingdom of Etruria, and he was again compelled to return to Vienna. In lieu of the sovereignty of Tuscany, he obtained in 1802 the electorship of Salzburg, which he exchanged in 1805 for that of Würzburg. In 1806 he was admitted as grand-duke of Würzburg to the confederation of the Rhine. He was restored to the throne of Tuscany after the abdication of Napoleon in 1814, but had again to vacate it for a short time in 1815, when Murat proclaimed war against Austria. The final overthrow of the French supremacy at the battle of Waterloo secured him, however, in the undisturbed possession of his kingdom during the remainder of his life. The mild and righteous rule of Ferdinand, his solicitude for the welfare of his subjects, his enlightened patronage of art and science, his encouragement of commerce, and his sympathy with freedom render him an honourable and striking exception to the generality of Italian princes. He died on the 18th of June 1824.