Manuel Godoy

Manuel Godoy (Badajoz, 1767-Paris, 1851) belongs to this type of person, historical whose ignorance seems proportional to his importance. Traditionally, he has been considered one of the most fatal rulers in Spanish history, depraved and ambitious without limits, ultimately responsible for the ravings of the Crown that gave rise to the invasion of Napoleon. As the reader of this book will verify, this image, however, is far from reality. A dark provincial gentleman, Godoy lived a spectacular ascent and enrichment that led him to obtain the most prominent titles and honors of the monarchy. His close personal relationship with the kings Carlos IV and María Luisa de Parma allowed him to exercise an all-powerful power from 1792 to 1808, overcoming criticism and conspiracies and daring to confront the aristocracy and the Church in the interior, and England and post-revolutionary and Napoleonic France. in Europe. But Godoy lost his ambition and wanted to prolong, in vain, an idea of ??the monarchy already condemned to his disappearance. His fall was as spectacular as his rise, and he was condemned to live the second half of his long life in exile. In this biography - the most complete and balanced on Godoy, according to his prologue, the academic Carlos Seco Serrano - the reader will find new points of view and a good number of unpublished data on the reign of Carlos IV and on the genesis of the war of independence. The solidity of the text and its scientific rigor are endorsed by the exhaustive bibliography and the extensive archive documentation on which it is based, the product of more than a decade of work by its author.