Ferdinand II of The Two Sicilies - Later Reign

Later Reign

Between 1848 and 1851, the policies of King Ferdinand caused many to go into exile. Meanwhile, an estimated 2,000 suspected revolutionaries or dissidents were jailed.

After visiting Naples in 1850, Gladstone began to support Neapolitan opponents of the Bourbon rulers: his "support" consisting of a couple of letters that he sent from Naples to the Parliament of London, describing the "awful conditions" of the Kingdom of Southern Italy and claiming that "it is the negation of God erected to a system of government". Gladstone had not actually been to Southern Italy and therefore some of his accusations were unreliable, however reports of misgovernment in the Two Sicilies were widespread throughout Europe during the 1850s. Gladstone's letters provoked sensitive reactions in the whole of Europe, and helped to cause the diplomatic isolation of the Kingdom prior to the invasion and annexation of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies by the Kingdom of Piedmont, with the following foundation of modern Italy. The British Government, which had been the ally and protector of the Bourbon dynasty during the Napoleonic Wars, had already additional interests to limit the independence of the Kingdom governed by Ferdinand II. The British Government possessed extensive business interests in Sicily and relied on Sicilian sulfur for certain industries. The King had endeavored to limit British influence, which had been beginning to cause tension. As Ferdinand ignored the advice of the British and the French governments, those powers recalled their ambassadors in 1856.

A soldier attempted to assassinate Ferdinand in 1856 and many believe that the infection he received from the soldier's bayonet led to his ultimate demise. He died on 22 May 1859, shortly after the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Sardinia had declared war against the Austrian Empire. This would later lead to the invasion of his Kingdom by Giuseppe Garibaldi and Italian unification in 1861.