The white enamel dial of this watch is typical of that made for Godon, with minute ring inner to the hour numerals. It was a custom in Spain for important personalities to have their watches and clocks engraved or marked on the dial by the inscription: Soy dc......followed by their name (I belong to....). Watches with portrait of the King were usually ordered by the King to be presented in recognition of loyalty. Due to the laurel branches engraved on the back, the quality of the watch and of the miniature portrait of the King, this watch was certainly presented to a very high personality. Francois Louis Godon, Maitre en 1787, settled in Paris but almost exclusively working for the Court of Spain, used to sign his work: Reloxero de Camara de S.M.C. ( Watch maker to Sa Majeste Catholique, the King of Spain). He made several extremely fine clocks and watches. One of the exclusive features of his work, was to fit most of his clocks and watches with unusual dials on which with outer ring for hours and inner ring for minutes. Charles IV of Spain The second son of Charles III and Marie-Amelie of Saxony, Charles was born at Naples in 1748. He died at Rome in 1819 having succeeded his father to the Spanish throne in 1788. Of a good and loyal nature, but idle in enterprise and weak-charactered, Charles was dominated throughout his reign by his cousin Marie-Louise of Parma, an ambitious and dissolute woman whom he had married in 1765 and who, with her favourite Godoy, for a long period controlled all in both the palace and the kingdom. In 1792, year that marked the beginning of the waning of Godoy's influence, a short war with Algeria terminated with the loss of Oran, the only African town remaining to Spain of the three conquered by Ximenes. Immediately thereafter the noble efforts of Charles IV to succour Louis XVI, and his hostile attitude after his execution, drew the armies of the Convention down on him in a war that lasted two years during which the French passed the Ebro and invaded Castille before imposing the Treaty of Basle by the terms of which Spain lost its part of St. Domingo on 22nd July 1795. Soon after Charles IV was forced to decide between England which, even before the peace of Basle, had not respected his flag but which would only attack his navy and colonies, and France which could easily attack by land and dominate even the heartland of his kingdom. He allied himself with the latter against the English in a defensive and offensive treaty, 18th August 1796, which later, in 1801, would lead him against his will to attack the Regent of Portugal, his son-in-law, in order to force him to close his ports to English trade. Even if this led in June 1801 to the acquisition of the Portuguese town of Olivenca, it was offset by the retrocession of Louisiana on which the French insisted in the Treaty of Amiens in 1802, and in 1805, when war had once more broken out between the two great powers by the common disaster which befell the combined French and Spanish fleets at Trafalgar, 21st November 1895. Malhandled by Napoleon, who insisted on an annual tribute of 72 millions, at the same time as the English sacked his galleons arriving from the Americas; fearful that English influence would raise the Spanish colonies in revolt, the court of Madrid made a secret arrangement with its enemies in June 1806, its defection being reversed only with the victory of Jena. h11808 the French entered the northern provinces of Spain. The ever growing demands of Napoleon who, in exchange for Portugal subjected by Junot, demanded the cession of the lands between the Pyrenees and the Ebro, together with dissensions within his family born of the hatred, shared by most of Spain, of his son Ferdinand for the favourite Godoy, overwhelmed the aging King; the rising of Aranjuez decided him to abdicate in favour of Ferdinand who wished to exile his parents to Badajoz. Charles in turn revolted against this, declared that his abdication had been enforced and appealed to Napoleon whom he travelled to encounter at Bayonne. Thither also went Ferdinand to maintain his own interest. There however, on 6th May, the young Prince was forced to restore the crown of Spain to his father who immediately ceded it to Napoleon who presented it to his brother Joseph. Following his selfdethronement, the old King lived for a while at Compiegne, then in Marseille until 1811 and subsequently in Rome.