On August 10, 1759, Ferdinand VI died without a descendant. As a result, his stepbrother Charles, then King of Naples and Sicily, inherited the Spanish throne. The first of seven children of Philip V and his second wife Isabel Farnese, Charles VII had reigned for a period of almost 24 years in Naples. In 1738, he had married the Pricess María Amalia of Saxony, and their thirteen children we