Joseph Napoleon Bonaparte, King of Naples and Sicily, King of Spain and the Indies, Count of Survilliers (January 7, 1768 – July 28, 1844) was the older brother of French Emperor Napoleon I, who made him King of Naples and Sicily (1806–1808) and later King of Spain. He was nominally king of Spain from June 6, 1808 to December 11, 1813, but from June 13, 1812 he was back in France[citation needed].
Bonaparte was born Giuseppe Napoleone Buonaparte to Carlo Buonaparte and Letizia Ramolino at Corte in Corsica. As a lawyer, politician, and diplomat, he served in the Cinq-Cents and was the French ambassador to Rome. He married Julie Clary on August 1, 1794 in Cuges-les-Pins, France. Julie later had two children, Zénaïde Laetitia and Charlotte Bonaparte , who Joseph claimed as heirs. Had two illegitimate children with Maria Giulia countess of Atri, Giulio born in 1806 and Teresa in 1808
The Château de Villandry had been seized by the French Revolutionary government and in the early 1800s Joseph's brother, Emperor Napoleon, acquired the château for him. In 1806, Bonaparte was given military command of Naples, and shortly afterward was made king by Napoleon. He became King of Spain two years later after his sister's husband, Joachim Murat, was made king of Naples. The Spanish people nicknamed him Pepe Botella ("Bottle Joe") and the usual hypothesis has to do with an alleged tendency to drunkenness[citation needed]. Another theory though, points the name as a maligned confusion where when Joseph Bonaparte went outside of the castle where he resided, he looked around with a spyglass - which looked like a bottle, or was made to look like a bottle by his detractors [citation needed].
Joseph Bonaparte's supporters were called josefinos or afrancesados (frenchified). During his reign, he ended the Spanish Inquisition, partly because Napoleon was at odds with Pope Pius VII at the time.
Despite such efforts to win popularity, Bonaparte's foreign birth and support, plus his membership in a Masonic lodge [citation needed], virtually guaranteed he would never be accepted as legitimate by the bulk of the Spanish people. During his rule of Spain, Venezuela declared independence (1810) from Spain, the first nation to do so. During the Peninsular War, his command of French forces in Spain proved to be only nominal, as his commanders insisted on checking with the king's younger brother before carrying out Joseph's instructions. These facts, combined with the constant threat of assassination, made his reign an exceedingly unpleasant experience for him.
Bonaparte abdicated and returned to France after defeat at the Battle of Vitoria. He was seen by Bonapartists as the rightful Emperor of the French after the death of Napoleon's own son Napoleon II in 1832, although he did little to advance his claim. He lived for a time in the United States, initially in New York City and Philadelphia, where his house became the center of activity for French expatriates[1], but later moved to an estate in Bordentown, New Jersey. Joseph Bonaparte died in Florence, Italy and was buried in the Les Invalides building complex in Paris. [2]
-courtesy of Wikipedia
