In January 1724, Felipe V abdicated in favor of his son Luis I, who then had less than 17 years, and that he would star in the shortest reign in Spain when he died eight months later. This plot is the one that has given rise to the Movistar Plus series, ‘The brief life’, and that has put in the focus to which they were the first Bourbons of the Spanish monarchy.
One of the facts that is most latent in Spanish fiction the madness that stalked Felipe V, played by Javier Gutiérrez, who He decided to retire to the Palacio de la Granja de San Ildefonso after his abdication and get away from the court. We review that there is true in what the series ‘The Brief Life’ counts.
The first Bourbon of the Spanish Crown
Felipe v He came to the world at the Versailles Palace in December 1683in the French court, but he would die in his Spanish in 1746 after having become the first Bourbon to reign in Spain as he was the descendant of the last Austria, Carlos II, who had not had his own offspring. This resulted in a war of succession that was an internal and external conflict, before the Austrian suitor, but being the winner ended up being recognized as a king by all nations.
Already Since his arrival in Spain in 1701 with 17 yearsFelipe V already showed his instability, when he left the advice regularly to be lying, lamenting, crying for no reason or with the peculiarity of opting to sleep during the day and being awake at night until late at dawn, something that was documented.
These peculiarities of the first Bourbon in the Spanish crown marked part of his reign, of which the absolutist character has also arrived, and the fact of having been the longest to date with 45 years divided into two stages with the premature death of his successor Luis I, and which focuses the plot of ‘The brief life’.
The origin of the madness of Felipe V: a bipolar disorder
In fiction, several known episodes are reflected on the madness of Felipe V, such as when he thought it was a frog, he believed dead or intense sexual activity, and that through a study of the neurology magazine generated by the level of consanguinity reached in the royal family.
A high level that generated mental problems in different members of the royal family, not only in Felipe V, also reached their son and second successor, Fernando VI, but who, in another of his children, Carlos III did not develop for having a lower consanguinity. As for its intense sexual activity, a topic that is also shown in ‘The short life’, is due to hypomanic episodes, a mania that was characterized by greater psychomotor activity and endowed with greater energy, something that also led him to think that he could ride in the horses painted in the tapestries.
Felipe V’s serious episodes of madness worsened even When the death of the King of France occurredhe could be the successor to the crown, giving rise to scenes in which he bit, shouted, his needs were done in bed or stopped cutting his hair and nails.
In the last years of Felipe V, the monarch managed to relieve part of his mental problems thanks to music, specifically to the performances of the Famous Castrati Farinelliwhich hired exclusively, and that helped him personally attend his duties as a king until his death was killed in 1746.
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