alternatehistory.com

Los Reyes estan muertos

In early June, King Ferdinand IV of Spain had declared his brother Charles III as heir apparent, and left Madrid for his country estate. There he wallowed in his manic depression, eating less and less until he died on September 5th.

On that same day, on the other side of the peninsula, King Joseph I of Portugal was on his way back from visiting his mistress in an unmarked, unguarded carriage and was attacked by masked assassins. The King was shot in the abdomen and would die of his wounds late that evening. Princess Maria was up waiting to confront her father over his behavior, would see her father die at his bedside. Maria would fall into a state of shock, mourning and melancholia for several weeks after her father passed. The assassins were quickly captured and tortured. Prime Minister Sebastião José de Carvalho de Melo swiftly investigated the attack, and pinned the blame (rightly or wrongly) on the powerful Tavora family, and other nobles he saw as enemies complicit in the act.

The Marchioness Leonora of Távora, her husband the Count of Alvor, and all of their children and grandchildren were imprisoned, along with the Duke of Aviero, the Marquis of Aloma, the Count of Atouguia, and Gabriel Malagrida, the Jesuit confessor of Leonora of Távora, and Teresa of Tavora, the King’s mistress.

Before the young future Queen Maria I came out of her melancholia by November, Melo had tried and executed Leonora and her husband, the Duke of Aviero, the Marquis of Aloma, and the Count of Atouguia. The intention and sentence was to proceed with the execution of the rest of their families who remained imprisoned after Queen Maria I of Portugal had her formal coronation on November 3rd.

While much of the delay in the Queen’s coronation was due to her own emotional state, the Prime Minister was not entirely wrong about the risk of a contest of succession over the throne. The Tavora’s were not the only noble family that desired a male on the throne, and the rush to try and execute them and the leading candidate the Duke of Aviero was done to mitigate any potential plots or uprisings. This fear is what persuaded young Queen Maria to keep Melo in his position, despite her and her mother’s uncertainty over him; though his harsh stance would not be without consequences to come.

On November 16th, after the public executions of all the adult sons of the Tavora, Aviero, Aloma and Atouguia families, the court would see just the revolt and protest they had feared. Minor nobles, and dispossessed peasants (many still homeless from the 1755 earthquake) and Jesuits, after the crown had seized noble and Jesuit lands, along with rabble-rousers attracted to such events gathered in protest in Lisbon, and threatened to march on the Palace. This however was no armed rebellion, but Melo took no chances and sent the army to disperse the ‘rebellious rioters’, resulting in over 100 civilian deaths.

After this event, Queen Maria interceded, and put a stop to the executions of the surviving women and children of the accused families. Only Teresa, the King’s former mistress, and Gabriel Malagrida, the Jesuit Confessor, would still be executed by burning at the stake in December.

The new King of Spain, Charles III meanwhile would take his time and not arrive in Barcelona until late November. He would honor the Treaty of Vienna, and not join Spain, Naples and Sicily. However, Charles had also not ratified the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, and he desired to see his descendants maintain control over the regions. Charles Emmanuel III, King of Sardinia also had designs on Plaisence and threatened to occupy it, prompting Charles III to station troops on the border of the Papal states prior to his departure for Barcelona.

It would take a new treaty, between Austria, Spain and France and other parties at the end of the year to resolve differences and set things in motion for the next phase of the grand war.