Meanwhile, although in exile in Sicily, the Neapolitan government, effectively controlled by Queen Maria Carolina, wife of King Ferdinand IV of Naples, appointed Fabrizio Ruffo, a progressive government minister and one of the last laymen to hold the dignity of cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church, to organize a resistance movement. On 8 February 1799, British and Neapolitan ships landed 5,000 troops and volunteers under Ruffo's command in Calabria. This force soon expanded into an unruly army of laymen and clerics, nobles and peasants, rich and poor, men, women, and children. Dubbed "la Armata cristiana della Santa Fede" ("the Christian Army of the Holy Faith"), this horde made up for its lack of training and equipment with enthusiasm, ferocity, and suicidal courage.