• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 2688 0

fresh backing from London, Bentinck now applied considerable pressure, threatening to withdraw the British subsidy unless the administration was remodelled to include a respectable proportion of prominent Sicilians, the exiled barons freed, the court and government purged of treacherous elements, and the British ambassador appointed commander-in-chief of the Sicilian army. Faced with these demands, the court resisted, only to cave in when Bentinck ordered the military occupation of Palermo. Ferdinand agreed to withdraw from the government in favour of his son Francis, who now acted as Prince Regent. As for Maria Carolina, she was defiant to the last. ‘This is a repetition of Bayonne!’ she shouted at the British general sent to secure her person. ‘Bonaparte did not treat the Spanish royal family worse than Bentinck has treated us! Was it for this that I escaped the axes, conspiracies and betrayals of the Neapolitan Jacobins? Was it for this that I helped Nelson to win the Battle of the Nile? For this that I brought your army to Sicily? General, is this your English honour?’25

As Francis quickly released the exiled barons and rescinded the unconstitutional measures taken by his father, the way now seemed clear for reform, but Ferdinand and Maria Carolina had no intention of letting their son have a free hand, and strove by every means to block any advance. Their relations with Bentinck were therefore in a state of permanent crisis: eventually he had to virtually deport the queen, who went into exile in first Constantinople and then Vienna, where she died in 1814. Yet, step by step, progress was made. In March 1812 a new ministry was formed which included the reformist leaders, Belmonte and Castelnuovo. In May new elections were called; and on 20 July the basis of a new constitution was agreed by the assembly. This document purported to be an exact copy of British political organization. There was to be a House of Lords and a House of Commons; parliament was to meet on an annual basis and to have the power of legislation; ministers were to be appointed by the king but be responsible to parliament; all taxation had to originate in the Commons; the monarchy lost its estates in return for a civil list; and Sicily was to enjoy the principle of the rule of law and trial by jury. Feudalism was now specifically abolished: baronial jurisdiction vanished, the old fees were in theory swept away, and the estates of the nobility converted into freeholdings. And last but not least, Sicily was given complete autonomy from Naples. All this was happily sanctioned by Bentinck, a somewhat vainglorious figure much influenced by concepts of liberal imperialism he had picked up in the course of several years’ service in India under Lord Wellesley.

Despite being hailed by Bentinck as a great victory for Sicilian patriotism, the affair appears rather as a coup on the part of a faction of the nobility who were eager to break the power of the monarchy and advance their own economic interests. The abolition of feudalism in Sicily, as elsewhere, meant almost nothing in social terms. The peasants were effectively dispossessed of numerous and vital customary rights, deprived of access to the commons, and encumbered with greater burdens than ever (though all feudal dues were supposedly abolished, the decision as to what was and what was not a feudal due was left to litigation). By contrast the nobility, as well as gaining immensely from the unrestricted control they now possessed of their estates, had also to be paid compensation for what they were deemed by the courts to have lost. Furthermore, although a free market in land was created, entails per se were never abolished, the estates of the nobility therefore being guaranteed. Yet the predominance of the barons proved disastrous for the cause of constitutionalism, the political crisis of 1810-12 having exposed deep divisions in Sicilian society. Economically, the nobility had since the late eighteenth century been challenged by a non-noble oligarchy that had derived considerable income from usury,