Kingdom of Portugal

From Hispanopedia
Kingdom of Portugal
Reino de Portugal e dos Algarves[lower-alpha 1]
1139–1910
Motto: A Unidade é a maior força, agora e para sempre
("Unity is the greatest strength, now and forever")
Anthem: "Hymno Patriótico" (1808–1826)
"Patriotic Anthem"
File:Hymno Patriotico.ogg

"Hymno da Carta" (1826–1910)
"Anthem of the Charter"
File:Hino da Carta.ogg
Kingdom of Portugal in 1190
Kingdom of Portugal in 1190
Kingdom of Portugal in 1890
Kingdom of Portugal in 1890
StatusFormer state
CapitalCoimbra (1139–1255)
Lisbon (1255–1808 and 1822–1910)
Rio de Janeiro (1808–1822)
Common languagesPortuguese
Mirandese, Andalusi Arabic
Religion
Catholic
GovernmentMonarchy
King 
• 1139–1185
Afonso I (first)
• 1908–1910
Manuel II (last)
History 
• Proclamation of Afonso I as King of Portugal at the Battle of Ourique
25 July 1139
• Treaty of Zamora (recognition of independence by the Kingdom of León)
5 October 1143
1580–1640
• Restoration of independence
1 December 1640
1808–1814
• Revolution and proclamation of the Republic
5 October 1910
Area
152791,000 km2 (35,000 sq mi)
191092,391 km2 (35,672 sq mi)
Population
• 1527
1,262,376
• 1770
2,850,444
• 1910
5,969,056
CurrencyPortuguese real
ISO 3166 codePT
Preceded by		 Succeeded by
County of Portugal
Couto Misto
Almoravids
Almohad Empire
Marinids
First Portuguese Republic

The Kingdom of Portugal began in 1139, when Afonso I proclaimed himself King of Portugal, and ended in 1910, after almost eight hundred years of monarchy, with the proclamation of the First Portuguese Republic.

Origins

Main article: Birth of the Kingdom of Portugal

In 806 the First County of Portugal was established, which lasted until 1071, with its capital in the city of Porto, under the dynasty of Vímara Peres, as a fief of the Kingdom of Galicia. In 1093 the Burgundy dynasty managed to take power in the Second County of Portugal, in this period under the influence of the Kingdom of León. In 1139 Count Afonso I proclaimed himself King of Portugal and achieved independence from the Kingdom of León, which León recognized in 1143. In 1147 Portugal conquered the present-day capital, Lisbon.

In 1179 Pope Alexander III, through the bull Manifestis Probatum, recognized Portugal as an independent country and as a vassal of the Christian church.

Burgundy dynasty

The rise to power of Afonso Henriques in 1128 and his coronation as King in 1139 began the Reconquista of the territories occupied by the Muslims. He took Santarém in 1148, Lisbon in 1147, Alcácer do Sal in 1158 and Évora in 1165. Sancho I succeeded in taking in 1189 the city of Silves, capital of the Kingdom of the Algarve, and began a war against Alfonso IX of León that would end with a truce and the repopulation of large areas of the interior of the country.

Afonso II of Portugal continued the disputes with the Kingdom of León but in 1212 joined the Kingdoms of Navarre, Castile, Aragon and various military orders to win the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa. The internal disputes with his siblings and with Alfonso IX of León himself brought about his excommunication by Pope Honorius III. The country remained under interdict until the death of the King in 1223.

Sancho II made peace with León and defeated the Muslims in the Alentejo. His brother Afonso III made peace with the Crown of Castile thanks to his marriage to Beatrice of Castile and managed to keep the Algarve under Portuguese rule.

Portrait of Denis of Portugal.

The reign of Denis I was a period of uninterrupted peace. His brother Afonso disputed his legitimacy and a civil war took place. Hostilities between Portugal and the Crown of Castile ended in 1297 through a Treaty of Alliance, secured through the marriage of his daughter Constance of Portugal and Ferdinand IV of Castile. In turn, Denis's son and the future Afonso IV married Beatrice of Castile. A new civil war broke out, this time between the King and the heir; the disputes ended in 1293 thanks to the mediation of Elizabeth of Portugal.

Peter I managed to strengthen the central power of the government by eliminating the jurisdiction of the aristocracy and the clergy. His son, Ferdinand I, was a weak but extremely ambitious King. Thus, in 1369 he claimed the throne of the Crown of Castile upon the death of Peter I of Castile as a legitimate descendant, through his mother, of Sancho IV of Castile. His rivals were Peter the Ceremonious, Charles II of Navarre and John of Gaunt, who was married to Constance of Castile, the only daughter of Peter I. In the end, the one chosen to occupy the Castilian throne was Henry of Trastámara, bastard brother of Peter I, who was confirmed by Pope Gregory XI. When Ferdinand I died without sons, his daughter Beatrice of Portugal was named heir of the country and queen de jure, but her earlier marriage to John I of Castile provoked an internal insurrection of the nobility, which saw the independence of their country in danger, in favor of John of Aviz, bastard brother of Ferdinand I.

Tomb of Afonso I of Portugal. Monastery of Santa Cruz (Coimbra)

Aviz dynasty

Painting of the wedding of John I and Philippa of Lancaster in 1387.

The accession of John of Aviz to the crown of the Kingdom of Portugal marked the enthronement of the Aviz dynasty. On coming to the throne he had to face the invasion of John I of Castile, who invoked the legitimate right of his wife, Beatrice of Portugal; he was defeated at the Battle of Aljubarrota in 1385. During his reign Portuguese expansion began, thanks to the conquest of Ceuta in 1415 and the expeditions of notable seafarers such as Henry the Navigator, Vasco da Gama and Pedro Álvares Cabral. Portuguese dominion became effective over Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, various cities of India, Macau and Timor.

Afonso V focused his expansionist attention on North Africa and on the exploratory expeditions of the Atlantic Ocean. In 1475 he attempted to interfere in Castilian politics after the death of Henry IV of Castile and the aspirations of the latter's sister, Isabella I, and of Joanna la Beltraneja, niece of the Portuguese King. That year he married Joanna and proclaimed himself King of Castile and León, but he was ultimately defeated at the Battle of Toro in 1476 by his cousin Ferdinand II of Aragon, husband of Isabella I.

During the reign of John II of Portugal the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494) was signed, intended to delimit the zones of conquest of the New World. Likewise, he established marriage ties with the Catholic Monarchs, marrying his son and heir Afonso of Portugal, who predeceased his father, to Isabella of Aragon. The death of John II of Portugal without a legitimate heir meant that he was succeeded by his cousin and brother-in-law Manuel of Viseu, who had married Isabella of Aragon, widow of the Infante Afonso, in 1497. The birth of Miguel da Paz, who was named Prince of Asturias at birth, was seen by the Catholic Monarchs as the attempt to unify the three crowns under a single regime, but his death in 1500 cut short the aspirations of unification. In a second marriage Manuel married another daughter of the Catholic Monarchs, Maria of Aragon, with whom he had the future heirs of the Crown of Portugal.

John III of Portugal reigned as a fervently Catholic King, introducing into the country the Society of Jesus in 1534 and the Inquisition in 1536. He continued the Portuguese expansionist policy, but it suffered attacks from pirates and the French in the Atlantic Ocean and from the Ottoman Empire in India. Portuguese embassies reached places as remote as China and Japan. The death of his heirs apparent, and especially that of John of Portugal, meant that he was succeeded by his grandson Sebastian I, son of the latter. Sebastian I was a very weak and frail King, and his accession to the crown at only three years of age led to the regency first of his grandmother Catherine of Habsburg and later of his great-uncle Henry the Cardinal.

Portugal in the Hispanic Monarchy

When Henry I of Portugal died without issue in 1580, the Portuguese throne was left vacant. For this reason Philip II of Spain claimed his dynastic rights as the son of Isabella of Portugal and grandson of Manuel I of Portugal. The King of the House of Habsburg asserted his claim by sending the Duke of Alba at the head of a Castilian army, which at the Battle of Alcântara (1580) defeated the Portuguese opposition led by the pretender Dom António, and allowed Philip II to be recognized as King of Portugal. The dynastic union aeque principaliter[1] with the other Hispanic kingdoms meant the creation of a great world empire, the Empire on which the Sun never sets.

This union continued with the kings Philip II of Portugal (Philip III of Spain) and Philip III of Portugal (Philip IV of Spain), known as the Philippine dynasty. The last of them, Philip III of Portugal, had to face the long Portuguese rebellion begun by the 8th Duke of Braganza. He took advantage of the Catalan Revolt (1640) to seize the Portuguese throne, with the help of Cardinal Richelieu, and take the name John IV of Portugal. The Portuguese victories at the battles of Elvas in 1659 and Villaviciosa in 1665 reinforced the independence of Portugal, finally recognized by the Treaty of Lisbon of 1668, by then in the time of the last Habsburg, Charles II.

Braganza dynasty

Proclamation of John IV as King of Portugal.

With the accession of John IV of Portugal to the Portuguese throne in 1640, the Braganza dynasty took power and achieved, after a long war, definitive independence from the Spanish crown. This was due to the difficulty for the Spanish armies of facing all the open conflicts: the Thirty Years' War, the revolt of Catalonia and the uprisings in Portugal, Sicily and Naples.

The new king established an alliance with the Kingdom of England, arranging the marriage of his daughter Catherine of Braganza to Charles II of England. With the conclusion of this pact, Portugal ceded the possessions of Tangier and Bombay to England, while at the same time managing to recover, thanks to English help, the territories of Luanda, São Tomé and Príncipe and Brazil, which at that time were occupied by the United Provinces. The loss of Malacca and Ceylon to the Dutch meant that the gold, sugar and diamonds of Brazil became from then on Portugal's main source of income.

In 1667 Peter II took power as regent, sidelining his brother Afonso VI and finally acceding to the throne in 1683. John V brought Portugal into the Grand Alliance. After the Lisbon Earthquake of 1755, King Joseph I modernized the country, the work of the Marquis of Pombal, Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, but he reinforced his absolute power. The attempt to assassinate the king led the Marquis of Pombal to repress and punish families of the noble opposition, reluctant toward his proposals for change, and also to expel the Society of Jesus, with the approval of the Papacy.

In 1779 Maria I came to the throne, reigning together with her husband Peter III. The dismissal of the Marquis of Pombal was welcomed by the people but was the first step in the Portuguese decline, accentuated by the Continental Blockade imposed by Napoleon against England and by the Napoleonic invasions (Portugal was occupied as many as four times, 1807–1811). The royal family moved to Brazil, which did not prevent Brazil from becoming independent of the metropolis a few years later, in 1822.

Crisis of the 19th century

Flight of John VI and his family from the port of Belém.

Portugal's refusal to cut its ties with the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland provoked the invasion of the country by the troops of Napoleon Bonaparte, which occupied Lisbon on 1 December 1807. British help succeeded in restoring independence in the Napoleonic Invasion of Spain, with the last French troops expelled in 1812. The flight of the royal family to Rio de Janeiro during the war caused this Brazilian city to become the capital of the kingdom between 1808 and 1821.

The insurrections in the cities of Porto and Lisbon in 1820 brought about the return of John VI to Europe, with his heir apparent remaining in Brazil. He was the first king to accept a constitution. On 7 September 1822 Pedro I of Brazil, son of John VI, proclaimed the independence of the Empire of Brazil and later led a revolt against his father to seize power in Portugal. In 1826, upon the death of his father, he claimed his dynastic rights to the crown of Portugal, but was forced to abdicate after seven days in favor of his daughter Maria II, on the condition that she marry Miguel of Braganza when she reached the proper age (a union that never took place). Discontent among the population led Miguel of Braganza to seize power in 1828 under the name Miguel I of Portugal, during his reign, of only seven years, for Maria II to return afterward.

House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha

Main article: House of Braganza-Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
Ferdinand II of Portugal, first king of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in Portugal.

Queen Maria II of Portugal, last monarch of the House of Braganza, married in 1836 Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, king jure uxoris of Portugal under the name Ferdinand II from the birth of their first son in 1837. On Maria's death on 15 November 1853 their son, Peter V, came to the throne at 16 years of age; King Ferdinand acted as regent until 16 September 1855, when Peter came of age.

After the political crisis between 1868 and 1872, which coincided with the Sexenio Democrático in Spain, the political system recovered its stability and the rotation of the main political parties began: the Regenerator Party (conservative) and the Progressive Party.

In 1908 King Carlos I of Portugal and the heir apparent Luís Filipe of Braganza were assassinated in the city of Lisbon. Manuel II was proclaimed king. He accused the prime minister João Ferreira Franco Pinto Castelo-Branco of being responsible for the regicide. In addition, Castelo-Branco had governed in a dictatorial manner during his last years, for which he was dismissed by the new king. The Revolution of 1910 proclaimed the First Portuguese Republic and forced the king into exile in England.

In 1932, after the death of the last king of Portugal, María Pía Murça Laredó, daughter of Armando Mauricio Laredó y Laredó and María Amelia Murça Berhen,[2] proclaimed herself "Duchess of Braganza", styled herself Maria Pia of Saxe-Coburg Braganza and claimed to have dynastic rights, asserting, without any verifiable proof, that she was the legitimized illegitimate daughter of Carlos I and therefore supposedly the sister of King Manuel II,[3] in accordance with the text of the Cortes of Lamego, which said: "if the King dies without sons, in the case of his having a brother, the latter shall possess the kingdom in his lifetime". She claimed the title of Duchess of Braganza (through the constitutional branch of the Royal House) and maintained that she was the legitimate Queen of Portugal.[2]

List of monarchs of Portugal

Main article: Kings of Portugal

House of Burgundy (1139–1385)

House of Aviz (1385–1495)

House of Aviz-Beja (1495–1580)

House of Austria (1581–1640)

House of Braganza (1640–1853)

House of Braganza-Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (1853–1910)

  • Peter V the Hopeful (1853–1861)
  • Luís I the Popular (1861–1889)
  • Carlos I the Martyred (1889–1908)
  • Manuel II the Patriot or the Lost King (1908–1910)

Pretenders to the Portuguese throne (1910–present)

Main article: List of pretenders to the Portuguese throne

Pretenders of the Constitutional line

Pretenders of the Miguelist line

Pretenders of the Saxe-Coburg Braganza line

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ From 1248 the kingdom was called the Kingdom of Portugal and the Algarve or simply the Kingdom of Portugal; between 1815 and 1822 it was associated with the Kingdom of Brazil to form the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves.

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Elliot, John H. (2002). España en Europa. Estudios de historia. Escritos seleccionados comparada (in español). Valencia: Universitat de Valencia. pp. 79–80. ISBN 84-370-5493-1.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 Soares (1983), p. 27.
  3. ↑ Pailler, Jean; Maria Pia: A Mulher que Queria Ser Rainha de Portugal. Lisboa: Bertrand, 2006.

Bibliography

  • Soares, Fernando Luso; Maria Pia, Duquesa de Bragança contra D. Duarte Pio, o senhor de Santar. Lisboa: Minerva, 1983.
  • Chronicon Lusitanum Bilingual text, Latin – French, with introduction and annotations in the latter language, on the website of Philippe Remacle (1944–2011).
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