The Works of Lord Byron. Vol. 2Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron
General
The Works of Lord Byron. Vol. 2
Byron, George Gordon Byron, Baron
English poetry
[Manuel de Godoy (1767-1851) received the title of _Principe de la Paz_,
Prince of the Peace, in 1795, after the Treaty of Basle, which ceded
more than half St. Domingo to France. His tenure of power, as prime
minister and director of the king's policy, coincided with the downfall
of Spanish power, and before the commencement of the Peninsular War he
was associated in the minds of the people with national corruption and
national degradation. He was, moreover, directly instrumental in the
betrayal of Spain to France. By the Treaty of Fontainebleau, October 27,
1807, Portugal was to be divided between the King of Etruria and Godoy
as Prince of the Algarves, Portuguese America was to fall to the King of
Spain, and to bring this about Napoleon's troops were to enter Spain and
march directly to Lisbon. The sole outcome of the treaty was the
occupation of Portugal and subsequent invasion of Spain. Before Byron
had begun his pilgrimage, Godoy's public career had come to an end.
During the insurrection at Aranjuez, March 17-19, 1808, when Charles IV.
abdicated in favour of his son Ferdinand VII., Godoy was only preserved
from the fury of the populace by a timely imprisonment. In the following
May, by which time Ferdinand himself was a prisoner in France, he was
released at the instance of Murat, and ordered to accompany Charles to
Bayonne, for the express purpose of cajoling his master into a second
abdication in favour of Napoleon. The remainder of his long life was
passed, first at Rome, and afterwards at Paris, in exile and dependence.
The execration of Godoy, "who was really a mild, good-natured man,"
must, in Napier's judgment, be attributed to Spanish venom and Spanish
prejudice. The betrayal of Spain was, he thinks, the outcome of
Ferdinand's intrigues no less than of Godoy's unpatriotic ambition.
Another and perhaps truer explanation of popular odium is to be found in
his supposed atheism and well-known indifference to the rites of the
Church, which many years before had attracted the attention of the Holy
Office. The peasants cursed Godoy because the priests triumphed over his
downfall (Napier's _History of the War in the Peninsula_, i. 8;
Southey's _Peninsular War_, i. 85 note, 93, 215, 280).]
9.
Bears in his cap the badge of crimson hue,
Which tells you whom to shun and whom to greet.
Stanza l. lines 2 and 3.
The red cockade, with "Fernando Septimo" in the centre.
10.
The ball-piled pyramid, the ever-blazing match.
Stanza li. line 9.
All who have seen a battery will recollect the pyramidal form in which
shot and shells are piled. The Sierra Morena was fortified in every
defile through which I passed in my way to Seville.
11.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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