March 8, 1751 - Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies
His long reign over Naples and Sicily was marked by repeated cycles of exile, restoration, and repression — a ruler who turned to foreign powers and harsh crackdowns to hold territory he struggled to govern on his own terms. The suppression of constitutional movements, the reliance on Austrian military support, and the brutal treatment of liberals who sought reform define the arc of his rule more than any diplomatic achievement. He consolidated two kingdoms into one in 1816, but that unification served dynastic convenience as much as it did any coherent vision of governance.
From Wikipedia
Ferdinand I (Italian: Ferdinando I; 12 January 1751 – 4 January 1825) was King of the Two Sicilies from 1816 until his death. Before that he had been, since 1759, King of Naples as Ferdinand IV and King of Sicily as Ferdinand III. He was deposed twice from the throne of Naples: once by the revolutionary Parthenopean Republic for six months in 1799, and again by a French invasion in 1806, before being restored in 1815 at the end of the Napoleonic Wars.
Ferdinand was born in Naples as the third son of King Charles VII and Queen Maria Amalia. In August 1759, Charles succeeded his half-brother Ferdinand VI of Spain as King Charles III, but treaty provisions made him ineligible to hold all three crowns. On 6 October, he abdicated his Neapolitan and Sicilian titles in favour of his third son, Ferdinand, because his eldest son Philip had been excluded from succession due to intellectual disability and his second son Charles was heir-apparent to the Spanish throne. Ferdinand was the founder of the cadet House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies.
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