Despite the loss of its original basis of papal legitimacy, the Order continued to function under Ferdinand I and his successor heads of the House of Bourbon-Two Sicilies. It has continued to do so after the fall of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies; the view of the Bourbon-Sicily family is that the grand magistry was never united with the Sicilian crown, but remained independent. Ferdinand's words, in a decree of 8 March 1796, were: "In his (the king's) royal person there exists together two very distinct qualities, the one of monarch of the Two Sicilies, and the other of grand master of the illustrious, royal and military Constantinian Order, which though united gloriously in the same person form nonetheless at the same time two separate independent lordships".