Charles III of Spain

Charles III of Spain, called "the Politician" or "the Best Mayor of Madrid" (Madrid, January 20, 1716-ibid., December 14, 1788), was Duke of Parma and Plasencia —as Carlos I— between 1731 and 1735, King of Naples —as Carlos VII— and King of Sicily —as Charles V— from 1734 to 1759 and of Spain from 1759 until his death in 1788.

Carlos was the third son of Felipe V to reach adulthood and the first he had with his second wife, Isabel Farnesio, so it was his half-brothers Luis I and Fernando VI who succeeded their father in a first moment. Their death without issue would lead Carlos to occupy the Spanish throne.

Carlos served family politics as a piece in the struggle to recover Spanish influence in Italy: he initially inherited the duchies of Parma and Plasencia from his mother in 1731; but later, when Felipe V reconquered the Kingdom of Naples and Sicily in the course of the War of the Polish Succession (1733-1738), he became king of those territories with the name of Carlos VII. He married Maria Amalia of Saxony in 1738, daughter of Frederick Augustus II, Duke of Saxony and Lithuania and King of Poland.

Childhood and youth

Carlos III, about ten years old. Jean Ranc's picture.

He was born on January 20, 1716 at four in the morning in the Real Alcázar in Madrid. Her caretaker was María Antonia de Salcedo. Later, a group of men under the charge of Francisco María Spínola y Spínola, Duke of San Pedro, were responsible for him. On January 15, 1724, his older half-brother Luis inherited the throne by his father's abdication in his favor, but he passed away in August and his father became king again.

In 1729, he moved to Seville with his father. The European nations, with the Treaty of Utrecht between 1713 and 1715 and the Treaty of Hannover of September 1725, signed in response to the Treaty of Vienna of April 1725, established their positions in Europe. Spain had lost many territories and influence after the War of Succession. However, this situation would not last long since Felipe V's plans included recovering his territories in Italy.

From Seville, the monarch launched a plan to ensure the succession of his son in the Duchy of Parma, signing the Treaty of Seville with England and France. However, on the death of the Duke of Parma, the Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI invaded those territories and Felipe V, not receiving support from the two powers, threatened to declare war on his own. In 1731, the Holy The Roman Empire adhered to the Treaty of Seville and Carlos III, at the age of 15, left Spain for Italy to occupy his posts.

On February 1, 1733, Augustus II, King of Poland, died, whose monarchy was not hereditary, but elected by the Polish Parliament, the Sejm. Felipe V sent an emissary from Seville to Warsaw to negotiate the candidacy of the Infante Don Felipe and that of the Infante Carlos. However, his candidates had little chance against others with support from Austria and France. Felipe V moved to Madrid and signed the Treaty of El Escorial, First Family Pact, with which Spain abandoned its Polish claim and decided to ally with France to fight against the Holy Roman Empire in exchange for French help in its campaign against Naples and Sicily, under Austrian control, and to recapture Gibraltar. The war in Italy was won, and on May 10, 1734, the Infante Don Carlos ordered his father to be proclaimed king. However, Felipe V ceded Naples and Sicily to his son.

King of Naples and Sicily

Charles as King of Naples and Sicily, King of the Two Sicilies by Giuseppe Bonito, Madrid, Museo del Prado.

During his reign in Naples and Sicily (Charles VII, Carlo VII in Italian, or simply Carlo di Borbone, as he is often called there), he tried to reform and modernize the kingdom, unifying it, winning the affection of the citizens along with his wife Maria Amalia of Saxony.

Carlos married 14-year-old María Amalia de Sajonia in 1738. She was a German princess from a rich and fertile family, and her marriage had a political interest, however it was also well-matched. They were married by proxy at the Dresden Palace in Saxony on May 9, 1738 and the wedding took place in Naples on June 9 of that year.

He tried to give the capital, Naples, the appearance that a Court should have. He placed emphasis on improving public buildings, such as the Hospice, and tried to adapt the viceregal palace in accordance with the fashion that had prevailed since the construction of Versailles. He also had palace complexes built in other parts of the kingdom, such as the Royal Palace of Caserta, one of the largest royal palaces in the world, the work of the architect and urban planner Luigi Vanvitelli. Another of his contributions was the Teatro de San Carlos, for opera performances.

North Facade of the Royal Palace of Caserta and passeggio monumental park, both designed by Luigi Vanvitelli.

His years as King of the Two Sicilies gave him valuable experience as King of Spain. The barons and the Church monopolized more than 50% of the land, and in the case of the former, they also had jurisdiction over them, thus preventing their vassals from having access to the courts. The king limited his political influence, making clear the supremacy of the Crown, but his economic power remained intact. On July 3, 1738, on the occasion of his marriage, he founded the Insigne and Royal Order of San Gennaro, of which he was his first Grand Master.

Coat of Charles of Bourbon as king of Naples and Sicily.

In 1740, one of his advisors, the Duke of Salas, allowed the Jews to return to the kingdom, from where they had been expelled by Carlos V, in order to boost economic activity. The people and the Church opposed it and Salas was dismissed, repealing the permit. Shortly after, Archbishop Giuseppe Spinelli tried to introduce the Inquisition, but the people also opposed this measure and had to give up.

During these years, the monarch also met some of the men who would most influence his life, such as Bernardo Tanucci, a jurist whom he named Minister of Justice first and of Foreign Affairs later, and who remained a member of the Regency Council when Carlos III inherited the Spanish throne.

The fact that he was the one who ordered to begin the systematic excavation of the populations buried by the eruption of Vesuvius in the year 79: Pompeii, Herculaneum, Oplontis and Villas Stabianas stands out. Not only that, but in 1752, by ordering the construction of a road to the south (precursor of the current Statale 18), the remains of the city of Paestum, which had been covered by weeds for years, came to light (part of the amphitheater lies right under that road). It was a particularly important find, because there were three Greek temples in a very good state of preservation. Felice Gazzola (a trusted aristocrat and military cult of Carlos, whom he had served since his time as Duke of Parma) and Francesco Sabatini were in charge of his study.

The death without issue of his half-brother Ferdinand VI, entrusted to Carlos the Crown of Spain, which he took over in 1759, leaving with great sadness, both the kings and the people, the crown of the Kingdom of Naples and Sicilia to his third son, Fernando.

King of Spain

After the deaths of Luis I and Ferdinand VI without issue, the throne of Spain passed to Carlos III, the third son of Felipe V and the first son of his marriage to Isabel Farnesio, with great experience of government as King of Naples. He returned to Madrid on December 9, 1759 and introduced, for the first time in Spain, divine Law as the source and justification of his royal sovereignty. Fray Sebastián de Jesús as a child predicted that he was going to be king. Carlos III, upon his death, promoted the beatification process, through a letter addressed in May 1771 to the Cardinal Archbishop of Seville, Francisco de Solís.

Foreign Policy

The Seven Years' War (1756-1763)

The first issue the king discussed was the Seven Years' War. The Spanish monarch was forced to take part in the war after the British occupation of Honduras and the loss of the French colony of Quebec, which required Spanish intervention in the conflict to stop British expansionism in the Americas.

In 1761 the Third Family Pact was signed and Spain entered the war. The monarch was wrong as to the real help that France could provide and the state of her troops. An English squadron of 53 ships with an army of 14,000 men managed to take Havana due to the lack of training of the militias, in a much lower number than the English, and the incompetence of the governor of the city, Juan de Prado. Shortly after a squadron from India bombarded and took Manila. The English were unable to extend their rule over the Philippines thanks to the resistance of the guerrillas organized by Simón de Anda. The war ended with the Peace of Paris in 1763. Spain ceded Florida and territories in the Gulf of Mexico to Great Britain, to return change from Havana and Manila. French Louisiana passed into the hands of Spain, more prepared to defend it. Portugal, an ally of the British, recovered the colony of Sacramento.

American War of Independence (1776-1783)

Great weapons of Carlos III with real mantle, royal cimera of Castile and the motto A solis ortu usque ad occasum (From sunrise to sunset), origin of the phrase attributed to Philip II: In my domains the sun is not set, referring to the fact that the sun never stood in the Spanish territories, as they covered the two hemispheres. Also included is the word Santiagoin reference to the Holy Pattern of Spain, Santiago el Mayor, and more specifically to the traditional motto Santiago and close Spain. They were used by their successors until 1931, although in the century xix He fell into disuse.

American borders proposed by Spanish diplomacy towards the end of the U.S. Independence War. August 3, 1782

Spain continued the French alliance. The revolt of the Thirteen Colonies against George III gave both powers the opportunity for revenge. Thus, in the American War of Independence, Spain intervened alongside France and against Great Britain.

Since the Declaration of Independence (July 4, 1776) the insurgents received Spanish help in an underhanded way. In 1779 relations were broken. Gibraltar was unsuccessfully besieged, but Menorca was recovered. Bernardo de Gálvez, governor of Louisiana, occupied Florida. England, isolated and unable to subdue the rebels, had to sign peace.

The Treaty of Paris ended the war. Spain recovered Menorca, Florida and the coast of Honduras, although it could not achieve the same with Gibraltar, which the English flatly refused to cede. Spain, in this way, contributed to the independence of the United States, a fact that created a precedent for the emancipation of the Spanish colonies in the xix century.

In 1785, the Count of Aranda, to populate Louisiana and avoid the settlement of the Anglo-Saxons, suggested that King Louis XVI could settle the last Acadians there who had not assimilated in France. Negotiations with Vergennes ended in April 1784. Spain undertook to pay the cost of transport and France undertook to pay the pensions owed to the Acadians. In 1785 seven ships were armed and left Nantes for New Orleans. 1,596 Akkadians were transported on the ships the Bon Papa and the Saint-Rémy armed by Jean Peltier Dudoyer, the Bergère armed by Joseph Monesron Dupin, the Caroline, captained by Nicolas Baudin, the Beaumont, the Amitié and the City of Arcangel.

Russia and Prussia

Two new powers, Russia and Prussia, entered the European political map of the 18th century under the reigns of two enlightened despots: Catherine II and Frederick II respectively. Both monarchs aroused interest and admiration in Spain, although Russian expansion had reached the Pacific and an Anglo-Russian alliance in the Mediterranean was feared. Such an event not only did not materialize, but Russia opposed the British claim to control all maritime movements in wartime.

Mediterranean

Charles III had signed a trade treaty with the Ottoman Empire while king of Naples and Sicily, considering this empire a brake on English, Austrian and Russian interests. The Monarch excluded an alliance that he estimated would not be well received in the country, but intervened in Oran, which depended on the Ottoman Empire, with the double objective of freeing the sea from Barbary pirates and obtaining economic concessions. In 1775 he sent a military expedition against Algiers under the command of General Alejandro O'Reilly that ended in disaster. After two new attacks, in 1783 and 1784, the Spanish-Algerian Treaty of 1786 was signed.

Peaceful

In various areas of the Pacific Ocean, the Viceroyalty of Peru and the Viceroyalty of New Spain had the authorization of King Carlos III to expand Spanish power and consolidate it in the Great Ocean. Thus, there were several attempts to incorporate the coast of Oregon and Alaska into the Viceroyalty of New Spain with large expeditions to Canada and Alaska such as those of Bruno de Heceta, Bodega y Quadra, López de Haro and others. Meanwhile, in the South Pacific Ocean (called the South Sea at that time) the Viceroyalty of Peru led by Manuel de Amat y Junyent ordered two expeditions: the first, in which Easter Island was discovered by Felipe González de Haedo taking possession of it in the name of Carlos III in 1770, and the second in 1772, led by Domingo de Bonechea who arrived in the Tuamotu archipelago and the Society Islands where he established Spanish sovereignty and that of the king over the islands. The heads of the main villages of Tahiti accepted the sovereignty of Spain and to be subjects of the Spanish crown. However, the process of occupation of Polynesia was abandoned due to the little support they gave to this initiative in Madrid and due to the religious problems of the kingdom, for which reason they left the Spanish presence in that area and abandoned at the end of 1775.

Domestic politics: enlightened despotism

Carlos III with the habit of the Order of Charles III, towards 1783-1784. Oil of Mariano Salvador Maella (Palacio Real).

In domestic politics, he tried to modernize society using the absolute power of the Monarch under an enlightened program.

In line with the Enlightenment typical of his time, Carlos III made important changes —without breaking the basic social, political and economic order, enlightened despotism— with the help of a team of enlightened ministers and collaborators, such as the Marquis of Esquilache, Aranda, Campomanes, Floridablanca, Wall and Grimaldi.

The Esquilache reforms

Currency of 4 maravedis with the effigy of Carlos III.

Portrait of the monarch by Goya.

The Monarch appointed the Marquis of Esquilache Secretary of the Treasury. This incorporated lordships to the Crown, controlled the ecclesiastical sectors and reorganized the Armed Forces. His reform program and the Spanish intervention in the Seven Years' War required more income, which was achieved with an increase in tax pressure and new formulas, such as the creation of the National Lottery. At the same time, he liberalized the grain trade, which led to a rise in the prices of basic necessities due to the speculation of hoarders and the bad harvests of recent years. Campomanes supported this measure, but the people held the Sicilian responsible for everything.

In March 1766, the Esquilache Mutiny took place. Its trigger was the order to change the long cape and wide-brimmed hat of the people of Madrid for the short cape and three-cornered hat. Tension rose thanks to the billboards that circulated around the capital and appeared in public places, billboards whose vocabulary and spelling could only come from men of culture. The manipulation carried out by noble and ecclesiastical sectors turned it into a direct attack on the reformist policy carried out by foreign ministers of the king's government.

In Madrid, the high point of the revolt occurred when the crowd that had gathered in front of the Royal Palace ran into the Walloon Guard, which in 1764 had charged into the crowd during the wedding of one of the king's daughters, Infanta María Luisa, with the future Emperor of Austria. A scuffle ensued and there were casualties on both sides, without the Spanish Guard intervening. Carlos III sought the opinion of his advisers, and although he received conflicting opinions, he ended up following the advice of the count of Revilla Gigedo, who declared that he would resign from his position rather than order the crowd to be shot.

From Madrid, the uprising moved to cities such as Cuenca, Zaragoza, La Coruña, Oviedo, Santander, Bilbao, Barcelona, Cádiz and Cartagena among many others. But while in Madrid the complaints were directed at the national government, in the provinces the complaints were directed against local authorities, revealing an underlying problem of corruption and administrative incompetence.

The mutineers demanded a reduction in the price of food and the abolition of the Supply Board, the repeal of the clothing order, the dismissal of foreign ministers of Carlos III, their replacement by Spaniards, and a general pardon. The Monarch banished Esquilache and appointed the Count of Aranda in his place. Steps were taken to expedite the importation of grain from Sicily and the council governments were reformed, adding to these elected deputies from the plain state.

Religious politics

With the foreign ministers gone, the king leaned on the Spanish reformers, such as Pedro Rodríguez de Campomanes, the Count of Aranda or the Count of Floridablanca. Campomanes, appointed prosecutor of the Council of Castilla, tried to show that the real instigators of the Esquilache mutiny had been the Jesuits. A commission of inquiry was appointed and its main accusations were:

• His great riches.
• Control of appointments and ecclesiastical policy.
• Your support for the pope.
• Your allegiance to the Marquis of the Ensenada.
• His participation in the Guaranítica War.
• Your intervention in that riot.

Sectors of the nobility and various religious orders were clearly against it. For all these reasons, by royal decree of February 27, 1767, the Society of Jesus was expelled from Spain and its domains and all the Company's possessions were confiscated.

Reforms

They wanted to take advantage of the expulsion of the Jesuits to carry out a reform of education that should be based on scientific disciplines and research. He subjected the universities to royal patronage and created the Reales Estudios de San Isidro in Madrid (1770), as a modern middle school destined to serve as a model, and also the School of Arts and Crafts, which have lasted until the xx, when they were renamed Vocational Training Schools, EFP. The Jesuit properties were used to create new teaching centers and university residences. Their riches, to benefit the most needy sectors, were allocated to the creation of hospitals and hospices.

He promoted a new plan for University Studies, which was harshly contested by the University of Salamanca, proposing his own plan, which was eventually implemented years later.

The impulse towards agricultural reform during the reign of Carlos III came from the Economic Societies of Friends of the Country created by his minister José de Gálvez. Campomanes, influenced by the physiocracy, focused his attention on the problems of agriculture. In his Treatise on the Amortization Royalty , he defended the importance of this to achieve the well-being of the State and citizens and the need for a more equitable distribution of land.

In 1776 provisionally and then, definitively in 1777, he created the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata in the south of Spanish America as a split from the Viceroyalty of Peru due to its enormous area, due to Portugal's ambition over the entire Spanish-Portuguese border in South America and the successive expeditions of Great Britain and France on the coasts of Patagonia.

In 1787, Campomanes drew up a project to repopulate the uninhabited areas of the royal lands of Sierra Morena and the middle valley of the Guadalquivir, creating the New Populations of Andalusia and Sierra Morena. For this, and supervised by Pablo de Olavide, royal mayor of Andalusia, Central European immigrants were brought. They were mainly German and Flemish Catholics, to promote agriculture and industry in an area that was depopulated and threatened by banditry. The project was financed by the state. Thus, new settlements were founded, such as La Carolina, La Carlota or La Luisiana, in the current provinces of Jaén, Córdoba and Seville.

The army was reorganized, endowed with Ordinances in 1768 destined to last until the 20th century, colonial trade was promoted by forming companies, such as the one in the Philippines, and through the Free Trade Regulations of 1778 that liberalized trade with America. The Decree of free grain trade of 1765 also stands out.

Other reformist measures of the reign were the creation of the Banco de San Carlos, in 1782, and the construction of public works, such as the Imperial Canal of Aragon and a plan of radial highways, originating in Madrid and destined for Valencia, Andalusia, Catalonia and Galicia.

Distribution of the population of Spain by current provinces according to the census of Floridablanca (1787). During the reign of Charles III, the need to increase the population of the nation was a constant concern.

He drew up an ambitious industrial plan in which the luxury goods industries stand out as leading-edge: Porcelain from Buen Retiro, Cristales de la Granja, and moved the Platería Martínez to a building on Paseo del Prado, but many others were missing for the production of consumer goods, throughout the Spanish geography.

Among the theoretical approaches for the development of the industry, the Discourse on the promotion of the popular industry of Campomanes stood out, to improve with it the economy of rural areas and make possible their self-sufficiency. The Economic Societies of Friends of the Country took charge of the industry and its theory at this time.

He built public hospitals, lighting services and garbage collection, use of cobblestones, a good sewage network. In Madrid, an ambitious expansion plan, with large avenues, monuments such as the Fuente de Cibeles, Fuente de Neptuno, Puerta de Alcalá, the Fuente de la Alcachofa, the construction of the botanical garden (transferring the old Paseo de Migas to Paseo del Prado Calientes), the San Carlos hospital (now the Reina Sofía Museum), the Prado Museum building (originally intended as the Natural History Museum).

Society

The nobility

Carlos III eating before his courtby Luis Paret and Alcázar (1775). Museo del Prado.

It decreased in number, due to the disappearance of the hidalgos in the censuses due to the restrictive measures towards this group by the king. It represented 4% of the total population. Its economic power increased thanks to marriages between families of the high nobility, which led to a progressive accumulation of patrimonial assets. Through a decree in 1783, the king approved manual work and recognized it, favoring the nobles. From that moment on, the nobles could work, which they could not do before, they could only live off their wealth. The noble titles increased with the concessions made by Felipe V and Carlos III. The Military Order of Carlos III, the Royal Maestranzas with noble statutes and the Royal Corps of the Nobility of Madrid were created. In return, numerous restrictions were placed on estates and lordships, although they never disappeared during the reign.

The Clergy

The Church possessed vast wealth. The clergy being 2% of the population, according to the Cadastre of Ensenada owned a seventh of the farmland in Castilla and a tenth of the sheep. To the immovable property were added the collection of tithes, from which the real thirds were deducted, and other income such as mortgage income or rentals. The richest diocese was that of Toledo, with an annual income of 3,500,000 reales. Carlos III helped distribute the wealth among the most needy in the country and abolished some laws issued by the church that suppressed the rights of the people.

The Flat State

It was the largest group. In it were the peasants who enjoyed a certain economic stability. The laborers suffered miserable situations. According to the Ensenada Cadastre, artisans represented 15% of all wage earners and had better salaries than peasants. The bourgeoisie timidly began to stand out in Spain. Located on the periphery of the peninsula, it was identified with the reformist purposes and the Enlightenment ideals of the century. It was especially important in Cádiz, due to its links to American commerce, Barcelona and Madrid.

Art

King Carlos III promoted art and crafts with the creation of numerous royal manufactories: as king of Naples he founded the Royal Laboratory of Hard Stones of Naples (1737), the Royal Tapestry Factory of Naples (1737), the Royal Porcelain Factory of Capodimonte (1743) and the Royal Majolica Factory of Caserta (1753). Later, as Carlos III of Spain, he founded the Royal Laboratory of Mosaics and Hard Stones of Buen Retiro (1759), the Royal Porcelain Factory of Buen Retiro (1759), the Royal Martínez Silver Factory (1778) and the Royal Factory of Clocks (1788).

Gypsies

Since the failure of the Great Raid of 1749, the gypsies were subject to a very problematic situation, which was intended to be resolved with a series of legislative initiatives from 1763, finally substantiated in the Real Pragmática of September 19, 1783, for purposes clearly assimilating and of a utilitarian nature, after said pragmatics, their origin or differentiated or inferior nature (infected root) is no longer considered; the use of the names gypsy or new Spanish (considered offensive); freedom of residence is granted (except in the Court and Royal Sites for now) and new ways of earning a living are allowed, including admission to guilds, but trades such as owning taverns or shearing horses are prohibited, of vital importance for the gypsy people; their traditional clothing and their gerigonza (their differentiating language, Caló) are also prohibited, and once again the obligation to settle is established, abandoning nomadism; all of this under severe penalties for those who disobedient, who would be considered lazy and subject to the corresponding penalties without distinction from other vassals (the general penal code is applied to them).

Those cases in which an individual refused to abide by the laws in terms of residence, language, trades, clothing and others, the first time he was arrested he would be branded with a hot iron on his back (in substitution of the penalties previously provided: death or cutting off the ears), in case of being arrested a second time they would be sentenced to capital punishment, this law did not apply to minors under sixteen, who would be separated from their families and educated by the Charity boards or councils.

Rear projection

Detail of the equestrian statue of Carlos III at Puerta del Sol in Madrid.

When the king died in 1788, the history of enlightened reformism in Spain ended, as the almost immediate outbreak of the French Revolution the following year provoked a reaction of terror that turned the reign of his son and successor, Charles IV, into a much more conservative period. Immediately, the French invasion would drag the country into a cycle of revolution and reaction that would mark the following century, leaving no room to continue a serene reformism like the one developed by Carlos III.

Reproduction of the Spanish flags chosen by Carlos III in 1785 as war and civil pavilions, and gallardete

Among the most lasting aspects of his heritage, we should perhaps highlight the advance towards the configuration of Spain as a nation, which he endowed with some symbols of identity (such as those that in the future would become its national anthem and flag) and even a capital worthy of the name, since he strove to modernize Madrid (with the construction of promenades and public sanitation and lighting works) and to magnify it with monuments (the Puerta de Alcalá, the Prado Museum — date from his time. conceived as the Natural History Office—, the San Carlos hospital or the construction of the new Botanical Garden, replacing the old Migas Calientes) and with representative buildings destined to house the services of the growing public administration. The promotion of internal transport and communications (with the organization of the Post Office as a public service and the construction of a radial network of highways that covered the entire Spanish territory, converging on the capital) has undoubtedly been another political factor that has acted in the same sense, increasing the cohesion of the various Spanish regions. These are just some of the reasons why Carlos III was known as the "best Mayor of Madrid".

• Wikisource contains original works of or about Carlos III de España.

Marriage and children

María Amalia de Saxony, queen consorte de Naples y Sicily; queen consorte de España. Portrait of Mengs, 1761.

He married Maria Amalia of Saxony (1724-1760), daughter of Frederick Augustus II, in 1737. They had thirteen children, but only seven reached adulthood:

• María Isabel Antoniaof Spain (6 September 1740-31 October 1742).
• María Josefa AntoniaInfanta de España (20 January 1742-3 April 1742).
• Isabel Ana, infant of Spain (30 April 1743-5 March 1749).
• Maria Josefa Carmela, infant of Spain (6 July 1744-8 December 1801). Important figure in the Goya picture, The family of Carlos IV. He died without descendants.
• María Luisa, Infanta de España (24 November 1745-15 May 1792). Married with Leopoldo II of Austria, Emperor of the Holy German Roman Empire; with descendants.
• Felipe Antonioof Spain and Duke of Calabria (13 June 1747-19 September 1777). He was excluded from the succession to the throne of Spain and that of Naples because of his condition of mental impairment.
• Carlos IVKing of Spain (11 November 1748-19 January 1819). Married with María Luisa de Borbón-Parma, Princess of Parma; with descendants.
• María Teresa Antonia, Infanta de España (2 December 1749-2 March 1750).
• Fernando IKing of the Two Sicilies (12 January 1751-4 January 1825). Married with Maria Carolina of Habsburg, archduchess of Austria; with descendants.
• Gabriel, infant of Spain (12 May 1752-23 November 1788). Married with Mariana Victoria of Braganza, infanta of Portugal; although he died young (before his father, which was devastating for Charles III who died shortly after) of smallpox as his wife; he survived only one son.
• Maria, Infanta de España (3 July 1754-11 May 1755).
• Antonio Pascualinfant of Spain (31 December 1755-20 April 1817). Married with María Amalia de Borbón, Infanta de España; without descendants.
• Francisco Javier, infant of Spain (15 February 1757-10 April 1771). He died without descendants.

Ancestors

Predecessor: Antonio Farnesio	Duque de Parma y Plasencia 1731-1735	Successor: Carlos II
Predecessor: Carlos VI of Naples and IV of Sicily	King of Naples and Sicily (King of the Two Sicilies) 1734-1759	Successor: Fernando IV of Naples and III of Sicily
Predecessor: Fernando VI	King of Spain 1759-1788	Successor: Carlos IV