Charles IV of Spain - Abdication

Abdication

When King Charles was told that his son Ferdinand was appealing to Napoleon against Godoy, he took the minister's side. When the populace rose at Aranjuez in 1808, the king abdicated on 19 March, in favour of his son, to save the minister who had been taken prisoner. Ferdinand took the throne as Ferdinand VII but was mistrusted by Napoleon, who had stationed 100,000 soldiers in Spain by that time.

Charles IV found refuge in France and became a prisoner of Napoleon. The latter, posing as arbiter, summoned both Charles IV and his son to Bayonne in April 1808 and coaxed Charles (who had a difficult time restraining himself from assaulting his son) to retract his earlier abdication and abdicate once again, on 5 May 1808, in favour of Napoleon. Napoleon then made his brother, Joseph Bonaparte, king of Spain.