Which son of Charles III of Spain could have been better for Spain than Charles IV?

Which son of Charles III of Spain could have been better for Spain than Charles IV?

  • Philip, Duke of Calabria

    Votes: 1 9.1%
  • Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies

    Votes: 1 9.1%
  • Infante Gabriel

    Votes: 9 81.8%
  • Infante Antonio Pascual

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Infante Francisco Javier

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    11
  • Poll closed .
My line of thought for this thread was inspired by this thread (https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...-a-lasting-line-on-the-spanish-throne.413140/), but I didn't want to bring it up there for fear of railroading the discussion.

Basically, King Charles III of Spain was one of the better (if not the best) Bourbon rulers of Spain, but the reign of his heir, Charles IV, was, in many ways, a disaster, and partly laid the seeds for the dynasty's loss of power and empire. Which of his five other sons do people think would have made better Kings of Spain than Charles IV?

The other contenders are Philip, Duke of Calabria (Charles III's eldest son, removed from succession due to mental problems), Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies (God, that kingdom name sounds so stupid), Infante Gabriel (Charles III's favourite son), Infante Antonio Pascual and Infante Francisco Javier (b. 1757, d. 1771 OTL). I myself am in favour of Gabriel.

I haven't included Charles III's eldest son Philip, Duke of Calabria because he, ahem, had enough problems to deal with.

Any thoughts?
 
Personally of all of Charles III's children, I think Gabriel was probably the best equipped to continue his father's legacy than any of his other children. Philip is out for obvious mental health reasons, Ferdinand would probably fall into similar pitfalls as his older brother Carlos IV, given that...he kinda fell into similar pitfalls as King of Naples & Sicily (and later the Two Sicilies, and no I don't think the Kingdom name sounds stupid, but I suppose it's a matter of perspective).

Antonio Pascual, personally I see him as essentially Ferdinand VII before Ferdinand VII was conceived. He was a fervant supporter of absolutism and disliked Godoy, both of which were the policies shared with his nephew, so I can imagine him being at least somewhat successful in not ending up being Godoy's and by extension, Napoleon's puppet.

As for Francisco Javier...well, I'm not really equipped with how he developed personality-wise. Considering he died of smallpox at the age of 14, one couldn't exactly pull a Miguel da Paz with him, as one could with say Philip, Duke of Calabria given an earlier PoD that butterflies away his mental disabilities, so I don't know how he'd turn out.
 
So, I've thought about a brief scenario: OTL Charles IV and Ferdinand either die young, fall ill and die, suffer from the same mental disabilities that Philip, Duke of Calabria suffered from, or any combination of the three. Then, when Charles III becomes King of Spain in 1759, he brings Gabriel with him to Spain and abdicates the thrones of Naples and Sicily to Antonio Pascual. Thus, Gabriel, Charles III's OTL favourite and most talented son, is placed where he can do the most good, while Antonio Pascual is placed where he can "do the least harm", in a manner of speaking.
 
Well to be fair, in Antonio's defense, I think he could very well do better than even Ferdinand I in this scenario. Granted, due to revolutions, the Two Sicilies effectively became a Austrian client-state (and his successors later earned the ire of the British and French, one of the contributing factors to the fall of the Two Sicilies.) A Ferdinand VII-type figure in Bourbon Sicily, would be one to quell any and all dissent, from liberal and reactionary-alike. Of course whether or not the Two Sicilies will fall into the same trap that killed it under Antonio, I do not know.
 
my half arse joking answer is that Philip could have done better for Spain than Carlos IV. IV, and through his wife's lover, Godoy, was bad for the country. It was under their reign that the seeds for the destruction of the empire were planted.

Gabriel was supposedly the top of the bunch.
 
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