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By Root 2750 0

allies to convince the prince - a surly and suspicious individual - that she had been murdered. Even more absurdly he was persuaded that Godoy intended to seize the throne when his father died, and this in turn gave fresh material to the conspirators, who could now spread it abroad that Ferdinand, who they naturally painted in the most glowing terms, was to be deprived of his birthright. By the same token, of course, Spain was to be deprived of her salvation: already Ferdinand was being portrayed as el rey deseado, the handsome young prince who would put all to rights by chasing out the hated Godoy and his cronies.

All this lent a certain urgency to Godoy’s diplomacy. First, he made a series of attempts to escape the alliance with France, which was self-evidently not only undermining him but failing to deliver the only positive goals that had ever been hoped for from it. As will be recalled, the favourite had struggled frantically to avoid being sucked back into open war with Britain after 1803, by, for example, attempting to form a league of neutrals that could band together to resist any attempt at coercion. Then, once the fighting had been resumed, he had done all that he could to keep Spain from having to engage in real fighting. In the period before Trafalgar, Spain’s admirals were for months hampered by a complete want of support from Madrid. Streams of orders had been issued for the arming and provisioning of Spain’s navy, but these had been accompanied by little in the way of money and, after a series of measures that appear as little less than sabotage, on 14 October the Spanish commander at Cádiz, Federico Gravina, was in effect informed that there was none left. ‘Our expenses,’ wrote the favourite, ‘have for some time been exorbitant . . . Such is our state, and the result is that we must not only avoid any outlay that can be avoided, but make such payments as are absolutely indispensable with all the delay that can be managed.’8 Already unhappy, Godoy was shaken still further by the fact that in May 1805 a United States deputation headed by James Monroe not only demanded that Spain pay compensation for all the American ships she had taken in the period of her alliance with France, but also hinted at a determination to seize Florida, which was at this point still a Spanish possession. Though doubt and indecision had stayed Godoy’s hand in 1805 in the face of Russian attempts to get Spain to join the Third Coalition, the overwhelming catastrophe of Trafalgar made him move swiftly in the direction of a separate peace with Britain and, ultimately, an outright attack on France.

This prospect, it has to be said, was very much to Godoy’s taste. Given command of the Spanish forces sent to invade Portugal in 1801, he had been entranced by visions of military glory and come to fancy himself a great general. Surrounded now by little more than a crowd of flatterers, Godoy acquired an overly favourable view of his attempts to reform the army. As far back as the War of the Oranges, in fact, he had written in the following vein to Maria Luisa:

To the devil with files of papers when I am on the point of making the enemy listen to reason at the cannon’s mouth. Never shall I be able to live without soldiers in future; the sight of them thrills me and I was born never to leave them. I cannot express to Your Majesty the pleasure that swells my heart . . . Let me never hear talk of political intrigues again, and be sent with my soldiers to the ends of the earth! I want never to leave the colours. May Your Majesty deign to let me serve her with the sword for no shorter time than I have served her with the pen!9

The only problem, of course, was that Spain could not hope to take on France alone. In these circumstances, Napoleon’s unexpected war with Prussia therefore seemed an ideal opportunity: the Prussian army, after all, had for many years been the model for Spain’s own troops, and it was generally expected that it would prevail over the French. The result was one of the least well-timed calls to arms in the history