The Neapolitan republicans (a few hundreds in all) had not been voted nor welcomed by the millions inhabitants populating the kingdom; on the contrary, the population strongly opposed them. Therefore, their only power consisted in the foreign armies, with no prestige or consensus.

Portrait of Duke Ferdinand IV of Bourbon Antonio Calì (attr.)

They were in all respects “traitors of their country” subdued to foreign invaders and responsible for a very violent civil war, although pro-Risorgimento historiography has always presented them as heroes and “martyrs”: but from the point of view of their lawful sovereign their actions could not go unpunished: common sense shows that, and we can be sure that other acclaimed sovereigns – or Heads of State – sometimes would not have behaved in a very different way in a similar tragic situation. Ferdinand and Carolina came back to Naples in triumph and with full consensus of the populations who had spontaneously fought on their behalf. They reigned in peace until 1805, but then the Napoleonic storm broke again over them. At the beginning of 1806 the French Emperor conquered the Kingdom of Naples and put his brother Joseph on its Throne. Once again, the royal couple and the Court had to move to Palermo, and the spontaneous Sanfedist guerrilla started over again (although this time there was no new “Royal and Catholic Army”), and lasted until 1810, and in Calabria until the Restoration.

In 1808, from Paris, Napoleon decided that Joseph had to go to Madrid and put on the Throne of Naples his brother-in-law Gioacchino Murat, who will remain in charge until 1815, the year of the European Restoration. Moreover, in 1815, Murat, in despair for the final victory of the restoration forces, staked everything and landed in Calabria inviting the farmers to rise up in arms against the Bourbon: the farmers shot on him, arrested him and then executed him.

The Last Years of His Kingdom

By the final defeat of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna, the whole Europe began a new phase of its history known as Restoration.
This time Ferdinand chose to be officially called "King of the Two Sicilies" (and therefore became Ferdinand I) and decided to implement a perhaps too generous policy of national reconciliation. In fact, not only did he leave unpunished Murat’s collaborators, but often confirmed them in their positions, roles and privileges they had acquired under the Napoleonic regime; and he did this especially for military officers, a thing he would be forced to regret very soon.
At the Court, a clash was in progress between Minister de' Medici, pro-liberal and mason, the Minister of Police Antonio Capece Minutolo, Prince of Canosa, Catholic and intransigent, counterrevolutionist and loyal to the Bourbon, implacable enemy of mason sects and of all revolutionary trends. Ferdinand, however, gave prevalence to de' Medici, and this caused another pro-constitution revolution in 1820, which was organised and implemented by the mason sect of the political secret society of the Carbonari.
At the beginning Ferdinand accepted to grant the constitution; but the situation was different than in the past, and he knew well that - according to the principle of legitimacy set by the Congress of Vienna and the agreements decided by the Holy Alliance - Metternich would soon take actions against the revolutionists. And in fact he did so. A Congress of the Holy Alliance was held in Ljubljana, and an intervention against Naples was decided. The Neapolitan Parliament sent Ferdinand himself to Ljubljana to plead the cause of the constitution; but, of course, when he arrived there Ferdinand asked Metternich to intervene against the Neapolitan revolutionists, which Metternich did.
So Ferdinand could restore absolutism and live in peace the very last years of his long and tormented kingdom.