POD: Sebastian, the "desired" King of Portugal, is victorious in the Battle of Alcácer-Quibir.
Kings of Portugal and Algarves
1557-1613: Sebastian I "The Desired" (House of Aviz) [1]
1613-1651: John IV (House of Aviz) [2]
1651-1678: Afonso VI (House of Aviz) [3]
1651-1701: Fernando II "The Great" (House of Aviz) [4]
Emperors & Empresses of Hispania
1701-1734: Fernando VI "the Great" (House of Aviz) [4]
1734-1749: Afonso VII (House of Aviz) [5]
1749-1763: Elizabeta I (House of Aviz / House of Brandenburg) [6]
1763-1798: Carlos III (House of Brandenburg) [7]
1798-1808: Enrique V (House of Brandenburg) [8]
1808-1818: Jorge I (House of Guadalajara) [9]
1818-1827: José I (House of Wettin) [10]
Emperors/Empresses of Spain and Ultramar
1827-1873: José I (House of Wettin) [10]
1873-1888: Maximilian I (House of Wettin) [11]
1888-1914: Elizabeta II (House of Wettin) [12]
1914-1915: Enrique VI (House of Wettin-Orleans) [13]
[13] Enrique VI was the oldest son of Elizabeta, being born in 1886 with Enrique being someone who would prove to be an intelligent and charming young prince, worthy as an heir to the throne, especially as he would grow up to be an intelligent and capable young prince in a happy marriage with Princess Catherine of Tuscany. Despite this, his reign would prove to be the shortest so far in Iberian history as it would only last seven months between being King on November 3, 1914 to his assassination on May 17, 1915 by an anarchist terrorist, leaving __________ the new Emperor.
Kings of Portugal and Algarves
1557-1613: Sebastian I "The Desired" (House of Aviz) [1]
1613-1651: John IV (House of Aviz) [2]
1651-1678: Afonso VI (House of Aviz) [3]
1651-1701: Fernando II "The Great" (House of Aviz) [4]
Emperors & Empresses of Hispania
1701-1734: Fernando VI "the Great" (House of Aviz) [4]
1734-1749: Afonso VII (House of Aviz) [5]
1749-1763: Elizabeta I (House of Aviz / House of Brandenburg) [6]
1763-1798: Carlos III (House of Brandenburg) [7]
1798-1808: Enrique V (House of Brandenburg) [8]
1808-1818: Jorge I (House of Guadalajara) [9]
1818-1827: José I (House of Wettin) [10]
Emperors/Empresses of Spain and Ultramar
1827-1873: José I (House of Wettin) [10]
1873-1888: Maximilian I (House of Wettin) [11]
1888-1914: Elizabeta II (House of Wettin) [12]
1914-1915: Enrique VI (House of Wettin-Orleans) [13]
[1] Born to D. John Manuel, heir of Portugal and his wife Joanna of Austria in 1554, Sebastian was called the "the Desired" at his birth, for him being born remedied the dire situation the dynasty of Aviz had found itself in recent years, with the extinction of many of it's cadet branches and the lack of fertility apparent in the main line, including the death of his father just two weeks before his birth. Heir apparent at the moment he was born, Sebastian's birth would indeed prove a blessing when his grandfather died just three years later, and Sebastian became King Sebastian the I.
Tall, slim and blond, Sebastian was raised under the iron rule of his grandmother, Catherine of Austria, who shared the regency of her grandson with his uncle, Cardinal Henry of Evora. Due to this, the church, especially the Jesuits, played a strong hand in his upbringing and the King was raised as a true crusader, whose jesuits teachers inspired in him a desire to expand christianity around Portugal's colonies but especially to the enemies of the Portuguese in Africa, the morrocan infidels. The fact that the young King started excreting seminal fluids at the age of 9 did not bypass the sight of his grandmother, the regent, and soon the head jesuit in the care of Sebastian's education was shooed off the court. It was around this time that some rumours would sprout that the young King had suffered from pedophilia, although the Portuguese court, essentially killed the rumours.
"Sebastianus Rex, a painting of the King during his early twenties, shortly before the invasion of Morocco."
During his regency, the influence of the Church in Portugal increased dramatically, as churchmen entered various positions of import in the court of the realm, and expanded the activities of the inquisition to many of the lands Portugal under it's sway. Portugal adquired some cities in India and Indonesia around this time, but most importantly, a deal was crafted with the Chinese that saw Macau become part of the growing Portuguese Empire.
Eventually, Sebastian came of age, although his regents continued holding influential posts in his government. Plans were crafted for Sebastian to marry Margot of France or an Austrian Princess, but Sebastian and the patrons of the respective women never came to an agreement, either due to the tense political and religious situation of France at the time or due to the overtures of the pope. Sebastian had also hinted to his uncle and neighbour, Philip of Spain, that he would be interested in marrying Isabella Clara Eugenia, his eldest daughter, or one of the younger daughters of the Spanish monarch, but no agreement was ever settled upon. Historians debate whether this was because of some kind of homosexuality, bisexuality or asexuality from Sebastian, or a simple disinterest in such matters of state. Other historians refer to some misgivings about his illnesses, or psycological scars caused by his rape as a young child. Eventually, Sebastian would indeed find a wife, but not one would think of...
But Sebastian's one main obsession remained - to crusade against the muslim infidels, and win victory in a crusade. Sebastian's youthful idealism that turned into fanaticism in his adulthood, for Morocco was in his view the one main thorn on Portuguese honour. While constructing their Empire, the Portuguese had waged many smaller wars against the Moroccans, conquering many port cities but they had never been succesful in wider endeavours - but that was about to change. The Portuguese nobility and bourgeouise had good reasons to support their King's endeavours in the country to their south - mainly for prestige, security, trade and food for Portugal's population. Thus, Sebastian eventually forged a plan when an opportunity raised itself - Sultan Abdullah Mohammed of Morocco requested Portuguese assistance from his uncles, who had amassed an army in Ottoman Algiers and were now invading the country. Thus, Sebastian and the flower of Portugal's nobility embarked on a fleet that numbered in the hundreds, and soon, almost 18000 men landed in Portuguese cities in the Moroccan coast.
In a rather disappointing turn of events (for Sebastian), he fell ill almost as soon as he landed, and the Duke of Aveiro was thus forced to take command of the expedition. While not very experienced militarily, the young Duke was discovered to a fine logistician and a able listener, and soon, the Portuguese and their Moorish allies dragged Abd Al-Malik and his armies to the coast, where a recovered Sebastian re-invigorated the morale of his armies that handily defeated the Ottoman supported armies of Abd Al-Malik, killing both the pretender and his brother in the process. Sebastian himself was almost killed twice in the battle, but escaped the fighting wounded. It was a resounding Portuguese victory nonetheless, and one that made Sebastian's name rung through every hall in Christendom. A grateful Sultan Abdullah signed a treaty of alliance with Portugal and handed them many ports cities, but most importantly, gave the Portuguese suzerainty over the Gharb and Rif regions of the Portuguese coast, allowing Portugal to expand agricultural production to this new region with many southern portuguese immigrants setting up farms of wheat and many American crops that would serve handily in feeding Portugal - and in the Rif, the security of cities such as Tangiers and Ceuta was finally secured, and with trade with Saadi Morocco blooming, they became the very centers of the Luso-Moroccan trade and the Trans-Saharan trade.
To the surprise of many, Sebastian stayed in his new Moroccan possessions for three years, establishing a temporary capital in Tangiers. There, a mature and changed man finally escaped the shadow of his youth. Sebastian took to Kingship with a new, larger than life confidence, but a sense of wisdom not present before the conquest. Many of the German, Flemish and Italian mercenaries brought to Africa by Sebastian were given land and convinced to stay in Morocco, as were many portuguese soldiers. This policy soon gave results, and the rebellious Rifian tribes soon found a worthy enemy in these crusaders.. Many locals were also encouraged to convert to Christianity, and many did, as there seemed there was no going back to the muslim order supported by the Ottoman Empire. Anyway, the new provinces of the Portuguese Empire had needs of all kinds of people in it's bureaucracies, militaries and government, and many of the locals were given a ticket in as long as they embraced the church.
Perhaps most importantly for Sebastian, was one particular woman who embraced the Church (eventually). A rather unknown sister of Sultan Abdullah by one of his father's other wives, the young muslim Princess and the Christian King became quick companions - something that worried his uncle Henry, who held court in Lisbon during Sebastian's absence. And Cardinal Henry's worries would prove to be right. In the woman whom history records initially as Princess Fatima of Morocco, who would eventually become Maria de Fatima, Queen of Portugal, Sebastian had found a kindred spirit upon whom he could lay down his woes. To Sebastian's close band of friends, Sebastian's closeness with the muslim woman should have been a case of worry, but as in all, the friendship they shared proved stronger than their duty to their faith, and they kept the King's secret, well, a secret.
When Sebastian landed in Lisbon in 1581, he brought many riches from Africa and many of Sultan Abdullah's courtiers and diplomats, and the news of the marriage contract between the King and the Sultan's sister spread through the Kingdom like wildfire. Surely, the King had been bewitched. It was only Queen Maria's public conversion to Christianity and her rather sizeable dowry that allowed for many gifts to be showered on the Portuguese nobility that allowed the Cortes to ratify the marriage, that was consumated shortly afterwards. But there remained a great deal of dissent and anger, both internally and internationally.
Sebastian's uncle, Philip of Spain was amongst the most outraged. Sebastian marrying a infidel princess was a source of great affront on it's own, but Philip had wished for Sebastian to marry his eldest daughter, in the hopes of forcing Portugal to join and finance his holy league. Philip led a diplomatic effort to have the pope nullify the marriage, and the pope would have agreed on it if not for the portuguese royal families visit to Rome later that year - with a heavily pregnant Queen Maria giving birth to a set of twins in the pope's own palace. Forced by Sebastian to become godfather to his first children, for he and his wife would indeed have many more in the future, the pope could not well deligitimize his own god-children, and the fact that Queen Maria's conversion seemed genuine and the increasing amounts of conversions amongst the moslems of Portugal's moroccans domains made it clear that the marriage was having some kind of positive result.
Sebastian and Philip would remain estranged for a long time, but would eventually rebuild their alliance, due to political reasons at the time. Sebastian had curtailed the inquisition, indeed, for it was amongst the inquisition itself that the doubters and "traitors" who had attempted to ruin the King's marriage had found support in, but he would continue a wide array of christianisation efforts in Portugal's colonies overseas, guided by new, better trained and equipped religious orders under the patronage of the Portuguese crown who worked to know and comprehend the populations they were trying to convert, to very succesful degrees. Soon, Christianity was making new breaks in India, Africa and Indonesia, and Macau became a center for the difusion of christianity to other places in China and Empires such as Japan and Korea. Portuguese Bandeirantes moved beyond the line of Tordesillas during his reign, starting the colonization of the Brazilian interior. When the Dutch attempted to usurp and conquer Portuguese colonies in an attempt to increase the Republic's revenues, it backfired immediatelly, as Sebastian moved to support Philip the II and the growing and very powerful Portuguese navy threw themselves like rabid dogs on Dutch shipping and trading.
In Sebastian's reign, the lesser Sunda Islands were conquered by the Portuguese, ruled from Flores, Timor and Malacca, this increased base of power allowed the Portuguese to conquer more trading outposts in the Greater Sunda Islands, especially in Sumatra and Java. Portugal established many vassals in the islands, fighting off the Ottoman supported local sultanates with support from the locals. This saw many Indonesian princes convert to Christianity, thus introducing the religion to many places in the region, and increased Portuguese influence immenselly.
Other than that, Sebastian followed a rather neutral and internal policy for the rest of his reign. He was mostly interested in the produces of his Empire, and strongly invested in Portugal itself - becoming the patron of many cities and settlements in the metropolis and overseas, building ports, hospitals, churches and monasteries, roads, forts, universities and trading depots. He was an avid lover of coffee, which quickly became the national beverage during his reign, alongside having a deep taste for the cuisine of the natives of Brazil, which he had been introduced too by the native servants of a courtier. Seing an opportunity to diversefy portuguese agriculture, Sebastian had many Columbian crops introduced to Europe and to a lesser degree Africa and Asia, especially potatoes, who became a peculiar favourite of the Sebastianist royal family.
Many Catholics from the Germanies, the Netherlands, Scandinavia and the British isles found refuge and welcome in Portugal during his reign, numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Many of these men and women brought with them new ways of thinking and technology, and they integrated quickly into the portuguese population, greatly boosting the manpower of the Portuguese crown. Sebastian is famous for becoming the first of Portugal's absolute monarchs, starting a period known as the "Sebastianist Autocracy". He would eventually die, surrounded by his wife, many children and grandchildren. He was suceeded by his son, John.
[2] He was the oldest son of Sebastian and his wife, Maria, born in 1584. He was an unpopular successor to the throne, as his mother Maria had been practically disowned from her genealogies while his father was seen as a bewitched heretic, though he himself was a pious Catholic. The rest of Europe had looked on, aghast, at what they saw as a match made in hell. Ascending to the throne, he knew well that his position was insecure. Astute in his political dealings, he established a council and pushed through laws of religious freedom, even going so far as to suggest that morganatic marriages should be more commonplace in royalty. Despite this controversial opinion, he married Margaret of Austria, who was initially betrothed to his cousin Philip III of Spain, causing great tension between the two kings. He and Margaret fell in love over time, and they had sixteen children together. The king and queen were patrons of the arts, founding dozens of schools that focused on languages and arithmetic, and he was an avid hunter and a participant in jousts and tournaments. He preserved the laws for the military that his father had created. He was a king who ruled as well as reigned. He knew the importance of war and a high international profile in staking his claim to be a great warrior-king of Portugal. He successfully continued his father's Moroccan crusade, successfully defeating Abu Marwan Abd al-Malik I Saadi. In battle he was brave, if impetuous, which led equally to triumph and disaster. He bargained hard over taxation and other issues with interest groups, often by appearing not to bargain at all. He enhanced royal power and concentrated decision-making in a tight personal executive but used a wide range of offices, gifts and his own personal charisma to build up an elective personal affinity among the ranks of the nobility upon whom his reign depended. He died of old age, beloved by his people and deeply mourned.
Afonso VI of Portugal
[3] Afonso was born in 1607 as the first child of John IV and Margaret of Austria and was taught many subjects growing up as the heir-apparent to the Portuguese throne, which would help mold him in becoming a intelligent and capable Prince. In 1626 he married Princess Sophia of England (b. 1606), the younger sister of Henry IX of England. Despite the controversy surrounding the marriage (due to the couple's different religions), Afonso and Sophia were a loving couple and had five children together.
Afonso's reign as King of Portugal continued many of the policies of his predecessors, but also saw some other events happen. These include "Prince of Brazil" becoming the title of the heir-apparent to the Portuguese throne, support of a failed Catholic rebellion in Japan, and the establishment of New Porto (OTL Cape Town) near the Cape of Good Hope in 1667.
Afonso died in 1678 at the age of 71, and was succeeded by his grandson, Fernando.
[4] Fernando was the second son of the first son of Afonso. His father was Prince Jao of Brazil and his mother was Joana of Spain. Unfortunately, his father and older brother, Afonso, died of an influenza outbreak when Fernando was only ten years old. His grandfather immediately sent for him so he could learn how to rule.
Fernado was a bookish boy who loved learning of times of the old. He was quite interested in the history of Iberia, particularly by the old empire of Hispania. Historians would wonder if he had plans to recreate the empire even when he was only a teenager. Considering his ambitious pursuits even before his grandfather died and the fact that everyone knew that Charles II of Spain, often called the Bewitched was unlikely to have children, this was most likely the case.
In 1678, seventeen-year-old, Fernando became King of Portugal and the Algarves. Almost immediately, he began to consolidate his rule and made many investments. There were some rumors that he was plotting to invade Spain, but historians suspect, he was merely preparing for the succession crisis that would follow Charles' death. wanting to be sure he could contend with the forces of Archduke Charles and Philip of Anjou, his main rivals. While that wasn't necessarily the most diplomatic thing to do, it was pragmatic.
Secondly, he went looking for alliances. He sent his grandmother to England in hopes that she could convince her great-nephew to support Portugal. He even sent a message to his main trading rival the Dutch Republic to hash out an agreement. He sent a letter to Pope Innocent, asking for advice on a bride, knowing he would choose a relative of his. As he suspected, Pope Innocent offered his niece, Giulia Pignatelli whose family was among the aristocrats of Naples.
Fernando would marry Giulia in 1697. It would be love at first sight for the royal couple with Fernado saying that he married her for his ambitions, but she had managed to steal his heart. They would have twelve children. Giulia would be his regent for his time away.
In 1701, Charles II of Spain finally passed away. Fernando had been named his heir and he wasted no time, entering Spain, racing to Castile before any of his rivals could get there. Unfortunately, his plan to have the support of the bishop of Rome was derailed by Pope Innocent dying just a year before. Worse, Pope Clement was forced to name Archduke Charles King of Spain when the imperial army began invading Italy. And the Dutch Republic found it swarmed by French troops.
However, Fernado was not down and out yet. He still had Britain on his side and he was in control of the troops of Spain. Not to mention the troops of the countries under his control.
Fernando had the Archbishops of Toledo crown him the Emperor of Hispinia before he marched of to fight both sides who thankfully were fighting each other. He first attack Italy, to free the pope from imperial control. He used Giulia's relatives in Naples to spread false information that he would march on Rome, allowing him to take the troops waiting outside Naples by surprise. He then freed Sicily before making his way to Rome.
By this time, France had also been marching on the Imperial armies, causing them to be split in two ways. It wouldn't take long before Archduke Charles was forced to withdraw, leaving Spain and France to duke it out.
After Rome was freed Pope Clement wasted no time refuting his earlier words while confirming Fernado's status as Emperor of Hispinia, giving him the title of Defender of the Faith.
The war with France would last until 1711. It would end with a treaty and a double betrothal. Fernado's oldest son would marry the princess of France while his daughter would marry the Dauphin.
Fernando returned home triumphantly. He would award his allies with titles and dynastic marriages. He would work to consolidate his empire, knowing that his ancestor Emperor Charles had struggled doing so.
Scandal broke out in 1727 when the Prince of Brazil revealed that he had eloped with a woman of Tupiniquim tribe. Her true name is lost to history, but the prince referred her as Antonia. Considering he was supposed marry the Princess of France. This sparked outrage with King Louis and the Pope demanding that either the prince refuted his marriage or he be removed from the line of succession.
The Prince of Brazil argued that his ancestor Sebastian had a similarly controversial marriage and Antonia was willing to convert to Christianity. Pressured by the Pope and by France, Fernando disinherited his son and forbade him from returning to his homeland so long as he kept his bride. However, Fernando was coaxed by Julia to allow him to continue holding the title Prince of Brazil.
In 1733, the Austria succession war would break out. Unfortunately, Fernando would be unable to participate as he was dying in bed. To the shock of Europe, just before he died, Fernando recanted his disinheriting of the Prince of Brazil, calling for him to come home.
[5] When Fernando the Great died shortly after reinstating Afonso, Prince of Brazil in the succession, Prince Julião (second son of Fernando and Giulia, named for Saint Julian and his mother) acted quickly. Prince Julião knew that if he tried to overthrow Afonso he’d have a civil war on his hands; Afonso was decently popular due to the wealth he sent back from Brazil and Afonso could easily stay in Brazil for years, dragging the war on.
So instead of challenging his brother’s rule, Prince Julião set about insuring his own children would have a decent chance at inheriting. He targeted the main difference between Antonia and Maria Fatima: Maria Fatima was a wealthy princess and Antonia had no wealth or influence.
So, when Afonso and Antonia arrived in Portugal, they found the Portuguese court ready to crown Afonso and acknowledge Antonia as his wife, but as a morganatic marriage. Antonia would not be crowned queen and her children could not inherit. This of course, left Prince Julião’s children as Afonso’s probable heirs and his wife, Princess Anne of York, as chief lady of the Portuguese court. Anne was the niece of the English King, Prince Julião and Anne’s marriage was part of the price for English support in the War of Spanish Succession.
After initially pushing back, Afonso decided to accept the compromise, at least temporarily. But he by no means left alone the matter of his children’s inheritance. Throughout his reign he promoted various officers and lords who married Brazilian natives and worked hard to integrate Brazilian and Portuguese interests.
Afonso also tried to arrange marriages for his three children by Antonia, but he found most of Europe’s monarchs hesitant to marry their children to his. So, he was forced to accept substandard marriages mostly to mid tier level Portuguese nobles.
On the other hand, Prince Julião managed to arrange splendid marriages for his four children, arranging ties with England, Poland, the Dutch Republic, and a strong internal match.
This left the situation ripe for a civil war, and in 1749, when Afonso passed away, war erupted between Elizabeta, Electress of Brandenburg and Antonia. Countess of Amarante
[6] Elizabeta, second daughter of Prince Julião, born 1720, had married into the English Branch of the House of Brandenburg and, by default, upon the abdication of the rights of her brother-in-law, John III of England, Prince Harold, Duke of Clarence, had become Elector of Brandenburg and Elizabeta the Electress. When her uncle died, and her cousins deemed to be ineligible for the throne due to their parents morgantic marriage, Elizabeta and Harold were put forward by many of the imperial nobles as candidates for the throne, with Harold being Emperor jure uxoris, and their several children being made Princes of the Empire. But this was not unchallenged, her eldest cousin, Antonia, after her mother, had married a minor Portuguese nobleman, the Count of Amarante. Some argued that despite their marriage being morgantic, Antonia was the legitimate heir, and without the ties to England, Brandenburg and the Holy Roman Empire, the Dutch Republic or Poland, she was the most unproblematic claimant. The closest male heir was a fourth cousin once removed and was commented in court to be practically a commoner - if there was one thing that the Countess of Amarante and the Electress of Brandenburg and defacto Empress could agree on, Lorenz von Pombal, could not be allowed to claim the crown, and he mysteriously vanished. Both sides claimed the other did it and provided evidence that appeared to support their claims, but nobody could ever prove without a doubt which side was right.
The Von Pombal incident was the first salvo in the start of a difficult clash of personalities. Some say it was a civil war, but Elizabeta sat on the throne and Antonia had little support in Iberia, and none outside, but even the Holy Roman Empire had no desire to clash with the Iberian titan, and they had, quite decisively, sought to side with the Brandenburg claim. If Elizabeta was going to be Empress, then she and her children would be forced to abdicate any and all claims to England, and once her husband died, it would be expected that Brandenburg would pass to the Duke of Gloucester. The former was stipulated by both England and Iberia, the latter more by the Holy Roman Empire, and Elizabeta, knowing that her place on the throne was somewhat dependent on the support or Emperor Rudolf III, and his brother, Stanislaus II of Poland, who was also her brother in law. This subsequently meant that her sister Doroteia was forced to abdicate her own claim to the Empire, under pressure from the nobility in Poland, with only Henry, Prince of Orange, and his wife, Benedita, formally permitted to retain their place in the Iberian line of succession.
This all meant that, crucially the Empire of Hispanola had a woman in charge, and this changed the culture at court. Harold refused to attempt to influence his wife, happy to correspond with his Regent in "his little Electorate" as some nobles dismissively referred to it. But even those nobles realised that this meant that, for the time being, Hispanola could influence the Holy Roman Empire politically and sway some of its decisions, but the only hold that the HRE had on Elizabeta was military support whilst she secured her legitimate claim against Antonia.
Once this was done, by 1754, Antonia was banished to Malacca along with her sisters and their families, of whom half would die on the dangerous trip of scurvy, pirates and malnutrition. This meant that Hispanola no longer required the support of the HRE, and with their English and Dutch ties, now effectively controlled entry to the Mediterranean and the English Channel. Even though the three states were blocked from uniting by laws and statute, they would work together for a greater good and effective trading partnership.
In 1756, crisis erupted again when a man known as Francis of Alicant, claiming to be the son of her late sister, Ana, who had married the Duke of Valencia. As Francis claimed, Ana and the Duke had been traveling on their sailing ship which had sunk off the northern coast of Spain, Ana had been pregnant, had survived only long enough to give birth, and the Duke's body had never been found. Only a ring that had belonged to her sister had been given to Francis on his eighteenth birthday, the previous year, and only now had he tracked the true ownership down. Much of this is true, that the ring belonged to Ana, that Ana and her husband had drowned, and even that letters from Ana to her sister in Brandenburg had stated that Ana had believed herself to be pregnant. Whilst Elizabeta could not deny that Francis certainly had the look of an Aviz noble, she could not support his birthright as this would nullify her own claim and that if her own children to the throne they had won, and now with Emperor Rudolf III watching onward and aware that Harold and Elizabeta had turned their attention to meddling in the affairs of the HRE, she also knew that Rudolf could easily place his imperial power behind Francis if so desired.
And so, after several weeks of courtiers telling the Ambassador from the HRE that Francis was upstairs playing his harpsichord, he was dispatched to be Governor of Malacca. Being sent to Malacca became synonymous with being sentenced to death, due to the number of people that Elizabeta sent there to either govern in her stead or as political exiles. Even Elizabeta knew that Malacca would, eventually, become a problem. But in the meantime, it had rid her of Francis (died on the way) and the Tupiniquim Claimants (of whom half died on the way).
At least she had five healthy adult children by the time that 1769 rolled round and her Tin Jubilee was celebrated. Four years later and she was dead, not from age, or battle, nor assassin or accident, but from an allergic reaction to a fruit known as a pineapple that she had imported at great cost.
She was succeeded by her son, Carlos.
[7] A strapping young man of twenty, Carlos was already married with two children when he ascended to the imperial throne. His wife, Diana of France had three more children after becoming empress.
Carlos gave his mother a grand funeral, calling for God to judge his mother fairly.
The first twenty years of his reign were relatively peaceful until the revolutionary war broke out in France. As a princess of France, Diana urged her husband to help her nephew King Louis out. Carlos was reluctant to get involved in other countries' affairs. Instead, he looked to making sure that this would never happen in his empire, introducing a lower tax for his poorer subjects, along with other poor relief laws. He also created laws and institution that would boost the power of the middle class. This of course, did not go over well with several senior members of his court.
His refusal to get involved in the French revolutionary wars would bite him on the butt, along with his new laws having angered many of the nobles. When Napoleon of the French Republic invaded Spain, Carlos was betrayed by a conspiracy led by the Duke of Camiña and the Duke of Hijar who conspired to capture the royal family and hand them over to the French Republic. However, Carlos received warning from another member of the conspiracy (who is unclear) and sent his wife and children to Brazil while he fled to Portugal.
Unfortunately, he never made it. His pursuers caught up to him and his entourage. What was supposed to be bloodless arrest turned into a violent struggle which ended with the Emperor dead. He was succeeded by the Prince of Brazil, Enrique.
Enrique V of Hispania
[8] Born in 1762 with his twin sister Elizabeta to Carlos III and Diana of France and becoming Prince of Brazil the following year Enrique grew up having a lavish lifestye, and as he got older one that included partying and feasting. His marriage to Maria of Braganza wasn't happy as the couple bickered often and Enrique would have more time being with his many misstresses than his own wife and three children.
Upon hearing of his father's death just after arriving in Brazil, Enrique immediately went back to Hispania, leaving his mother and siblings behind. He fought off Napoleon's forces and executed the Dukes of Camiña and Hijar and exiled their famlies out of the country. The next ten years of Enrique's reign went without much fanfare as he left the governing of the country to his advisors while he held extravagent balls and grand feasts.
Napoleon (now a Emperor) made another attempt at invading Hispania in 1808, prompting Enrique to send his wife and children away to Brazil. He then was captured and arrested, but the carriage containing him mysteriously went missing before it's arrivial in France. This has lead to many conspiracy theories to emerge on what happened to Enrique and the carriage. Napoleon then placed the Count of Guadalajara on the Hispanic throne before the Prince of Brazil could come back to Madrid.
[9] Jorge I, born 1774 in the Viceroyalty of Mexico was a minor member of the Imperial family, descended from a son of Fernando VI, whose son had a daughter who married a wealthy merchant who was created Count of Guadalajara, whose grandson just happened to be in Madrid at the time or the Napoleonic Insurrection. Jorge had all the right qualities that Napoleon desired, he was handsome and charismatic, had little to no political ambition and a legitimate claim to the Imperial throne. And he was single, but Napoleon had a widowed and childless sister, Pauline, whom he proposed Jorge would marry, creating a familial tie between the House of Bonaparte and the House of Guadalajara-Aviz, the pair would marry shortly after Jorge was crowned, and Pauline would be pregnant within the first year of marriage.
You would think that the military behemoth of France and Hispania would have dominated the continent, and it did, more than enough to steamroll the Holy Roman Empire into an unwilling partnership. This resulted in the League of Three Emperors - and those arrayed against them were the Brandenburg Powers, the deposed Polish and Dutch nobles had fled to England where the Royal House of Brandenburg still held the throne, communicating eagerly with the Imperial House of Brandenburg in exile in Brazil, with only the Electoral House of Brandenburg falling under the sway of the Emperors.
The League attempted to repossess Brazil and other assets of the Empire of Hispania, but the English provided ongoing military support from their own bases and this ensured that the former Prince of Brazil, Joao, would install himself as Emperor of Brazil (and of Hispania in Exile).
Four Emperors. Three Houses of Brandenburg. Two Imperial Courts in Exile. One French Puppet. You knew things were going to get messy very quickly, and they did. The American and Brazilian Fronts of the Napoleonic Wars opened up by 1814, carnage ensued as the naval might of the English clashed with the sheer manpower that the Three Emperors could simply funnel into combat.
This did no help with Jorge's image in Hispania, with rebellions erupting across Spain and Portugal. Jorge was hesitant about using force to subdue his own citizens, and as the people rose up, the nobles that had thrown their hats in with him found themselves either dead or having to flee for their lives. Jorge made plans for Pauline and his six children to flee to France to the safety of the French Imperial Court, and he planned to follow them.
He did, by other routes, having arrived in Paris and his brother-in-laws court, he demanded military support to settle the rebellion, even if it did not put him back on the throne. Napoleon refused, he could see that Hispania had rapidly devolved into a lost cause that Brazil and the Brandenburgs would soon be staking their own claim into. Let them calm the waters, then simply recapture the Empire after. But distressed and incensed by the refusal to help, Jorge brought a pistol from somewhere on his person and shot Napoleon point blank.
Jorge was sentenced to death, and in the space of a week, the League of Three Emperors was done by two of its members. Only Emperor Rudolf VI remained.
After a period of rebellion, Joseph of Wettin and Brandenburg would eventually sit on the Imperial Throne of Hispania.
[10] Joseph of Wettin-Brandenburg was born to Carlota of Brandenburg, the daughter of João, Prince of Brazil and Regent of the Realm and Maximilian of Saxony, a much older but kind man, in the Palace of Campagna in the city of Buenos Aires. With his grandfather leading the efforts at recapturing the metropolis, which forced him to gallivant around Spanish America for much of the war, it was his mother Carlota and her quiet but supportive and isolated husband whom ruled much of Spanish America. Raised in the growing, cosmopolitan example of a Spanish American city that was Buenos Aires, José was a happy, well-educated child that charmed all around him. Raised in the catholic faith, he inherited from his German father a tolerance of those of other faiths and cultures.
Eventually, tragedy struck. With the downfall of Napoleon and the hated Jorge over in Europe, the victory over the hated revolutionaries should have been an ocasion of victory. But instead - the first years of young José in Iberia were ones of a torturous regency as a boy King. His grandfather, João, would be assassinated by a /Guadalajaran/ (the infamous supporters of Jorge I) while travelling over the Atlantic, while his distraught mother, receiving the news, would die along with what could have been José's youngest sibling of six in a shocking abortion. Thus, it was José himself who would be taken to Spain alongside his mourning family. Landing in Lisbon in early 1819, José was immediatelly separated from his father (Maximilian's brother, Frederick Augustus, had decided to join with Napoleon in his dream of recreating a Polish state - he was not succesful) due to the demands of his /Brandenburgian/ kinsmen in the Kingdom of Prussia and from the United Kingdom. Maximilian was sent to Africa, where he was made Governor-General of Spain territorries in South Africa.
José was raised in Lisbon, away from the cortes of Spain. Jorge had left a deep legacy in Spain, usually famine, war and death, but he had also given Spain's it's first charter and had attempted to unite the various cortes of Hispania into a single one, although, he was unsuccesful in this. With the deposed government of Jorge, the growth of the political class that had remained behind opposed to Jorge, and the returning royalists, a thin balance was established that would rule Spain for José six years regency. It was a tenuous, constitutional government that was still slowly coming to it's own, and many historians denote that it was only the strong monarchism of the Iberian population in those days that saved Hispania from civil war.
Eventually, Joseph came of age - perhaps the single one thing his government had wished to avoid, for they had made Hispania's government their own during the Emperor's boyhood, and they had not exactly given themselves a favourable picture in the young King's mind - Joseph had been severely mishandled by Hispania's many ministers. Immediatelly the young sovereign took an interest in the workings of government - having been inspired by the over-stretched, bloated but working and liberal system his grandfather had put in function during his stay in the Americas, and moved against his government in earnest.
The Royal coup of 1827 - perhaps the most decisive moment in the history of the Hispanic world, would cement a new royalist, liberal, constitutional order in history. The Empire was renamed into "The Empire of Spain and Ultramar", as Hispania was simply considered archaic and Ultramar was a common denominator of refering to the colonies overseas. The Imperial Family and Cortes in Madrid would launch a new wave of modernization, which would see the establishment of Spain's Ultramarine colonies, essentially autonomous dominions in it's various colonies in America, all which would receive their own Cortes and would be able to elect their Governor-Generals, with a single, supreme Imperial Cortes back in the homeland. The deep ties that would be forged between Metropolis and the now Ultramarine provinces would grown unbreakable, with Joseph visiting his American lands various times during his reign.
The Charter of 1827, despite essentially restructuring the Empire in a democratic, constitutional way, would still give a lot of leeway to the person of the Emperor, power that the Emperor would often times use in primacy over his government. One of the great examples of this was in what remained of Spanish Italy, in the Kingdom of Naples and in the Kingdom of Sicily. The two Kingdoms had been given by Napoleon to his brother, Joseph, in 1818, whom had ruled them well and had grown popular in those Kingdoms - and in 1818, Joseph had stood down, refusing to support his brother, and thus, the various coalition powers had not moved against him, but had kept him on a steady watch. All, but Spain, whom essentially still claimed the territory. While José's regents had many times attempted to organize moves to recover these lands, those had never came - and when Joseph Bonaparte's son, Augusto, rose to the throne in 1829, José saw a chance to close old wounds and heal. Despite the historical enmity between the two families, José would come back to Madrid with an official alliance, a royal marriage for his older sister, Maria Leopoldina, who would become the Queen of the (Napoleonic) Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and increased trade and influence in Italy.
Joseph would eventually marry Antoinette of Orleans, the daughter of King Phillipe VII of France, whom would become the King of France after the restoration of 1818 and the extinction of the main line of Bourbon. Phillipe, or as he was called by his close friends, Louis Phillipe, had been trying to regain France's status as a world power and found new links in Europe and overseas, but France found itself very isolated in the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars. Thus, José aproached his neighbour with good intentions - an alliance between France and Spain, a marriage to one of Phillipe's daughters and trade. The Emperor would then marry the youngest of the French Princesses. The Emperor would provide great guidance to his father-in-law in his own efforts at cementing democracy and Constitutionalism in France at the time.
The Hispanic world of Emperor José's time was one of great development and growth - Ultramarine America exploded demographically, due to immigration and the development of proper, modern infrastructure, and places such as California, Texas, Patagonia, Amazonia and much of the interior of South America were populated on the Emperor's watch. The military was reformed, the navy was expanded and new military strategies, tactics, weapons and technologies, such as the first submarine, were introduced in these times. Iberian, collectivelly a mashup of Portuguese, Castillian, Catalan and other Iberian languages was made the official language of the Empire - it was a mostly colonial and urban language, but it was quickly enforced in schools and rapidly spread to the population, although with great variations in both Spanish Europe, Spanish Africa and Spanish America.
Railways and Ports became a moniker of Imperial life - indeed, railways would prove essential in the annexation of Morocco in 1866 and would serve to connect much of the Empire's land. Africa beneath Mozambique and Angola would become Spanish clay, with the two colonies eventually being connected by what became known as the Pink Railway. Portuguese islands in Indonesia brought great riches, with Malaysia, the lesser Sunda Islands, New Guinea and Borneo, alongside Spanish Ceylon, Macau and Formosa being put under a single government headed from Malacca.
Nonetheless, time marched on, and the beloved Emperor grew older and older. He and his French wife would have 12 children, and would be famous in Europe for keeping a very active sexual and love relationship well into their old age. Eventually however, the Emperor grew tired and tired, and when Empress Antonia confessed to the Emperor a wish to "retire", he, to her surprise, agreed. The Emperor would then happily abdicate, taking his beloved wife and setting sail for the Caribean to live out his last days with his beloved. His heir, Maximilian, would succeed him.
[11] Named for his grandfather, Maximilian was raised to be the heir of his father's vast lands. He chafed in his father's shadow a bit, but never to the point of resentment. In 1863, he would marry Princess Elizabeth of England. Ten years later, his father would retire and he would become the second emperor of his family. However, Maximilian showed very little intreast in statecraft, wanting instead to explore what the world had to offer.
His father gave him good advice, telling him to see to it that his kingdom was in order and to make sure his heir was grown with children of his own before going on an adventure. However, Maximilian did not want to wait. He wanted to taste the world now. He made a vow, he would just go on one expidition and then he would return home to his family and his kingdoms.
After much arguing with his council, his wife, his sibilings and his parents, it was finally agreed that he would go on an expidition in Africa. He left behind a regency council headed by his younger brother. He was only supposed to be gone for three years as was the agreement.
But as time grew on, letters became less frequent until they stopped completely. Men were sent to find out what had happened to Maximilian, but they came back empty-handed. Finally in 1888, Maximilian was declared deceased and his daughter would take the throne.
[12] Elizabeta was the only daughter of Maximilian. She had an older brother, also named Maximilian, but he had always been sickly and died of a heart attack shortly before their father was declared dead, and his wife had birthed a premature stillborn child. She continued her grandfather's policies, signing a series of treaties with the United Kingdom that defined their colonial borders along the Congo river. She was already married to Philippe, Count of Paris, a happy marriage that had produced seven children between them. As a patron of the arts, she took active part in creating literary festivals and promoting upcoming authors. She also took a personal interest in deep-sea and maritime exploration, going on many oceanographical voyages while her loyal husband worked tirelessly as regent. She appointed a government of national unity and did her best to increase the monarchy's connection with its subject, going on frequent state trips with her family. She ingratiated herself with the people with her candor and piety. She died unexpectedly in her residence via suffocation by an abnormal swelling in her throat.
Tall, slim and blond, Sebastian was raised under the iron rule of his grandmother, Catherine of Austria, who shared the regency of her grandson with his uncle, Cardinal Henry of Evora. Due to this, the church, especially the Jesuits, played a strong hand in his upbringing and the King was raised as a true crusader, whose jesuits teachers inspired in him a desire to expand christianity around Portugal's colonies but especially to the enemies of the Portuguese in Africa, the morrocan infidels. The fact that the young King started excreting seminal fluids at the age of 9 did not bypass the sight of his grandmother, the regent, and soon the head jesuit in the care of Sebastian's education was shooed off the court. It was around this time that some rumours would sprout that the young King had suffered from pedophilia, although the Portuguese court, essentially killed the rumours.
"Sebastianus Rex, a painting of the King during his early twenties, shortly before the invasion of Morocco."
During his regency, the influence of the Church in Portugal increased dramatically, as churchmen entered various positions of import in the court of the realm, and expanded the activities of the inquisition to many of the lands Portugal under it's sway. Portugal adquired some cities in India and Indonesia around this time, but most importantly, a deal was crafted with the Chinese that saw Macau become part of the growing Portuguese Empire.
Eventually, Sebastian came of age, although his regents continued holding influential posts in his government. Plans were crafted for Sebastian to marry Margot of France or an Austrian Princess, but Sebastian and the patrons of the respective women never came to an agreement, either due to the tense political and religious situation of France at the time or due to the overtures of the pope. Sebastian had also hinted to his uncle and neighbour, Philip of Spain, that he would be interested in marrying Isabella Clara Eugenia, his eldest daughter, or one of the younger daughters of the Spanish monarch, but no agreement was ever settled upon. Historians debate whether this was because of some kind of homosexuality, bisexuality or asexuality from Sebastian, or a simple disinterest in such matters of state. Other historians refer to some misgivings about his illnesses, or psycological scars caused by his rape as a young child. Eventually, Sebastian would indeed find a wife, but not one would think of...
But Sebastian's one main obsession remained - to crusade against the muslim infidels, and win victory in a crusade. Sebastian's youthful idealism that turned into fanaticism in his adulthood, for Morocco was in his view the one main thorn on Portuguese honour. While constructing their Empire, the Portuguese had waged many smaller wars against the Moroccans, conquering many port cities but they had never been succesful in wider endeavours - but that was about to change. The Portuguese nobility and bourgeouise had good reasons to support their King's endeavours in the country to their south - mainly for prestige, security, trade and food for Portugal's population. Thus, Sebastian eventually forged a plan when an opportunity raised itself - Sultan Abdullah Mohammed of Morocco requested Portuguese assistance from his uncles, who had amassed an army in Ottoman Algiers and were now invading the country. Thus, Sebastian and the flower of Portugal's nobility embarked on a fleet that numbered in the hundreds, and soon, almost 18000 men landed in Portuguese cities in the Moroccan coast.
In a rather disappointing turn of events (for Sebastian), he fell ill almost as soon as he landed, and the Duke of Aveiro was thus forced to take command of the expedition. While not very experienced militarily, the young Duke was discovered to a fine logistician and a able listener, and soon, the Portuguese and their Moorish allies dragged Abd Al-Malik and his armies to the coast, where a recovered Sebastian re-invigorated the morale of his armies that handily defeated the Ottoman supported armies of Abd Al-Malik, killing both the pretender and his brother in the process. Sebastian himself was almost killed twice in the battle, but escaped the fighting wounded. It was a resounding Portuguese victory nonetheless, and one that made Sebastian's name rung through every hall in Christendom. A grateful Sultan Abdullah signed a treaty of alliance with Portugal and handed them many ports cities, but most importantly, gave the Portuguese suzerainty over the Gharb and Rif regions of the Portuguese coast, allowing Portugal to expand agricultural production to this new region with many southern portuguese immigrants setting up farms of wheat and many American crops that would serve handily in feeding Portugal - and in the Rif, the security of cities such as Tangiers and Ceuta was finally secured, and with trade with Saadi Morocco blooming, they became the very centers of the Luso-Moroccan trade and the Trans-Saharan trade.
To the surprise of many, Sebastian stayed in his new Moroccan possessions for three years, establishing a temporary capital in Tangiers. There, a mature and changed man finally escaped the shadow of his youth. Sebastian took to Kingship with a new, larger than life confidence, but a sense of wisdom not present before the conquest. Many of the German, Flemish and Italian mercenaries brought to Africa by Sebastian were given land and convinced to stay in Morocco, as were many portuguese soldiers. This policy soon gave results, and the rebellious Rifian tribes soon found a worthy enemy in these crusaders.. Many locals were also encouraged to convert to Christianity, and many did, as there seemed there was no going back to the muslim order supported by the Ottoman Empire. Anyway, the new provinces of the Portuguese Empire had needs of all kinds of people in it's bureaucracies, militaries and government, and many of the locals were given a ticket in as long as they embraced the church.
Perhaps most importantly for Sebastian, was one particular woman who embraced the Church (eventually). A rather unknown sister of Sultan Abdullah by one of his father's other wives, the young muslim Princess and the Christian King became quick companions - something that worried his uncle Henry, who held court in Lisbon during Sebastian's absence. And Cardinal Henry's worries would prove to be right. In the woman whom history records initially as Princess Fatima of Morocco, who would eventually become Maria de Fatima, Queen of Portugal, Sebastian had found a kindred spirit upon whom he could lay down his woes. To Sebastian's close band of friends, Sebastian's closeness with the muslim woman should have been a case of worry, but as in all, the friendship they shared proved stronger than their duty to their faith, and they kept the King's secret, well, a secret.
When Sebastian landed in Lisbon in 1581, he brought many riches from Africa and many of Sultan Abdullah's courtiers and diplomats, and the news of the marriage contract between the King and the Sultan's sister spread through the Kingdom like wildfire. Surely, the King had been bewitched. It was only Queen Maria's public conversion to Christianity and her rather sizeable dowry that allowed for many gifts to be showered on the Portuguese nobility that allowed the Cortes to ratify the marriage, that was consumated shortly afterwards. But there remained a great deal of dissent and anger, both internally and internationally.
Sebastian's uncle, Philip of Spain was amongst the most outraged. Sebastian marrying a infidel princess was a source of great affront on it's own, but Philip had wished for Sebastian to marry his eldest daughter, in the hopes of forcing Portugal to join and finance his holy league. Philip led a diplomatic effort to have the pope nullify the marriage, and the pope would have agreed on it if not for the portuguese royal families visit to Rome later that year - with a heavily pregnant Queen Maria giving birth to a set of twins in the pope's own palace. Forced by Sebastian to become godfather to his first children, for he and his wife would indeed have many more in the future, the pope could not well deligitimize his own god-children, and the fact that Queen Maria's conversion seemed genuine and the increasing amounts of conversions amongst the moslems of Portugal's moroccans domains made it clear that the marriage was having some kind of positive result.
Sebastian and Philip would remain estranged for a long time, but would eventually rebuild their alliance, due to political reasons at the time. Sebastian had curtailed the inquisition, indeed, for it was amongst the inquisition itself that the doubters and "traitors" who had attempted to ruin the King's marriage had found support in, but he would continue a wide array of christianisation efforts in Portugal's colonies overseas, guided by new, better trained and equipped religious orders under the patronage of the Portuguese crown who worked to know and comprehend the populations they were trying to convert, to very succesful degrees. Soon, Christianity was making new breaks in India, Africa and Indonesia, and Macau became a center for the difusion of christianity to other places in China and Empires such as Japan and Korea. Portuguese Bandeirantes moved beyond the line of Tordesillas during his reign, starting the colonization of the Brazilian interior. When the Dutch attempted to usurp and conquer Portuguese colonies in an attempt to increase the Republic's revenues, it backfired immediatelly, as Sebastian moved to support Philip the II and the growing and very powerful Portuguese navy threw themselves like rabid dogs on Dutch shipping and trading.
In Sebastian's reign, the lesser Sunda Islands were conquered by the Portuguese, ruled from Flores, Timor and Malacca, this increased base of power allowed the Portuguese to conquer more trading outposts in the Greater Sunda Islands, especially in Sumatra and Java. Portugal established many vassals in the islands, fighting off the Ottoman supported local sultanates with support from the locals. This saw many Indonesian princes convert to Christianity, thus introducing the religion to many places in the region, and increased Portuguese influence immenselly.
Other than that, Sebastian followed a rather neutral and internal policy for the rest of his reign. He was mostly interested in the produces of his Empire, and strongly invested in Portugal itself - becoming the patron of many cities and settlements in the metropolis and overseas, building ports, hospitals, churches and monasteries, roads, forts, universities and trading depots. He was an avid lover of coffee, which quickly became the national beverage during his reign, alongside having a deep taste for the cuisine of the natives of Brazil, which he had been introduced too by the native servants of a courtier. Seing an opportunity to diversefy portuguese agriculture, Sebastian had many Columbian crops introduced to Europe and to a lesser degree Africa and Asia, especially potatoes, who became a peculiar favourite of the Sebastianist royal family.
Many Catholics from the Germanies, the Netherlands, Scandinavia and the British isles found refuge and welcome in Portugal during his reign, numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Many of these men and women brought with them new ways of thinking and technology, and they integrated quickly into the portuguese population, greatly boosting the manpower of the Portuguese crown. Sebastian is famous for becoming the first of Portugal's absolute monarchs, starting a period known as the "Sebastianist Autocracy". He would eventually die, surrounded by his wife, many children and grandchildren. He was suceeded by his son, John.
[2] He was the oldest son of Sebastian and his wife, Maria, born in 1584. He was an unpopular successor to the throne, as his mother Maria had been practically disowned from her genealogies while his father was seen as a bewitched heretic, though he himself was a pious Catholic. The rest of Europe had looked on, aghast, at what they saw as a match made in hell. Ascending to the throne, he knew well that his position was insecure. Astute in his political dealings, he established a council and pushed through laws of religious freedom, even going so far as to suggest that morganatic marriages should be more commonplace in royalty. Despite this controversial opinion, he married Margaret of Austria, who was initially betrothed to his cousin Philip III of Spain, causing great tension between the two kings. He and Margaret fell in love over time, and they had sixteen children together. The king and queen were patrons of the arts, founding dozens of schools that focused on languages and arithmetic, and he was an avid hunter and a participant in jousts and tournaments. He preserved the laws for the military that his father had created. He was a king who ruled as well as reigned. He knew the importance of war and a high international profile in staking his claim to be a great warrior-king of Portugal. He successfully continued his father's Moroccan crusade, successfully defeating Abu Marwan Abd al-Malik I Saadi. In battle he was brave, if impetuous, which led equally to triumph and disaster. He bargained hard over taxation and other issues with interest groups, often by appearing not to bargain at all. He enhanced royal power and concentrated decision-making in a tight personal executive but used a wide range of offices, gifts and his own personal charisma to build up an elective personal affinity among the ranks of the nobility upon whom his reign depended. He died of old age, beloved by his people and deeply mourned.
Afonso VI of Portugal
[3] Afonso was born in 1607 as the first child of John IV and Margaret of Austria and was taught many subjects growing up as the heir-apparent to the Portuguese throne, which would help mold him in becoming a intelligent and capable Prince. In 1626 he married Princess Sophia of England (b. 1606), the younger sister of Henry IX of England. Despite the controversy surrounding the marriage (due to the couple's different religions), Afonso and Sophia were a loving couple and had five children together.
Afonso's reign as King of Portugal continued many of the policies of his predecessors, but also saw some other events happen. These include "Prince of Brazil" becoming the title of the heir-apparent to the Portuguese throne, support of a failed Catholic rebellion in Japan, and the establishment of New Porto (OTL Cape Town) near the Cape of Good Hope in 1667.
Afonso died in 1678 at the age of 71, and was succeeded by his grandson, Fernando.
[4] Fernando was the second son of the first son of Afonso. His father was Prince Jao of Brazil and his mother was Joana of Spain. Unfortunately, his father and older brother, Afonso, died of an influenza outbreak when Fernando was only ten years old. His grandfather immediately sent for him so he could learn how to rule.
Fernado was a bookish boy who loved learning of times of the old. He was quite interested in the history of Iberia, particularly by the old empire of Hispania. Historians would wonder if he had plans to recreate the empire even when he was only a teenager. Considering his ambitious pursuits even before his grandfather died and the fact that everyone knew that Charles II of Spain, often called the Bewitched was unlikely to have children, this was most likely the case.
In 1678, seventeen-year-old, Fernando became King of Portugal and the Algarves. Almost immediately, he began to consolidate his rule and made many investments. There were some rumors that he was plotting to invade Spain, but historians suspect, he was merely preparing for the succession crisis that would follow Charles' death. wanting to be sure he could contend with the forces of Archduke Charles and Philip of Anjou, his main rivals. While that wasn't necessarily the most diplomatic thing to do, it was pragmatic.
Secondly, he went looking for alliances. He sent his grandmother to England in hopes that she could convince her great-nephew to support Portugal. He even sent a message to his main trading rival the Dutch Republic to hash out an agreement. He sent a letter to Pope Innocent, asking for advice on a bride, knowing he would choose a relative of his. As he suspected, Pope Innocent offered his niece, Giulia Pignatelli whose family was among the aristocrats of Naples.
Fernando would marry Giulia in 1697. It would be love at first sight for the royal couple with Fernado saying that he married her for his ambitions, but she had managed to steal his heart. They would have twelve children. Giulia would be his regent for his time away.
In 1701, Charles II of Spain finally passed away. Fernando had been named his heir and he wasted no time, entering Spain, racing to Castile before any of his rivals could get there. Unfortunately, his plan to have the support of the bishop of Rome was derailed by Pope Innocent dying just a year before. Worse, Pope Clement was forced to name Archduke Charles King of Spain when the imperial army began invading Italy. And the Dutch Republic found it swarmed by French troops.
However, Fernado was not down and out yet. He still had Britain on his side and he was in control of the troops of Spain. Not to mention the troops of the countries under his control.
Fernando had the Archbishops of Toledo crown him the Emperor of Hispinia before he marched of to fight both sides who thankfully were fighting each other. He first attack Italy, to free the pope from imperial control. He used Giulia's relatives in Naples to spread false information that he would march on Rome, allowing him to take the troops waiting outside Naples by surprise. He then freed Sicily before making his way to Rome.
By this time, France had also been marching on the Imperial armies, causing them to be split in two ways. It wouldn't take long before Archduke Charles was forced to withdraw, leaving Spain and France to duke it out.
After Rome was freed Pope Clement wasted no time refuting his earlier words while confirming Fernado's status as Emperor of Hispinia, giving him the title of Defender of the Faith.
The war with France would last until 1711. It would end with a treaty and a double betrothal. Fernado's oldest son would marry the princess of France while his daughter would marry the Dauphin.
Fernando returned home triumphantly. He would award his allies with titles and dynastic marriages. He would work to consolidate his empire, knowing that his ancestor Emperor Charles had struggled doing so.
Scandal broke out in 1727 when the Prince of Brazil revealed that he had eloped with a woman of Tupiniquim tribe. Her true name is lost to history, but the prince referred her as Antonia. Considering he was supposed marry the Princess of France. This sparked outrage with King Louis and the Pope demanding that either the prince refuted his marriage or he be removed from the line of succession.
The Prince of Brazil argued that his ancestor Sebastian had a similarly controversial marriage and Antonia was willing to convert to Christianity. Pressured by the Pope and by France, Fernando disinherited his son and forbade him from returning to his homeland so long as he kept his bride. However, Fernando was coaxed by Julia to allow him to continue holding the title Prince of Brazil.
In 1733, the Austria succession war would break out. Unfortunately, Fernando would be unable to participate as he was dying in bed. To the shock of Europe, just before he died, Fernando recanted his disinheriting of the Prince of Brazil, calling for him to come home.
[5] When Fernando the Great died shortly after reinstating Afonso, Prince of Brazil in the succession, Prince Julião (second son of Fernando and Giulia, named for Saint Julian and his mother) acted quickly. Prince Julião knew that if he tried to overthrow Afonso he’d have a civil war on his hands; Afonso was decently popular due to the wealth he sent back from Brazil and Afonso could easily stay in Brazil for years, dragging the war on.
So instead of challenging his brother’s rule, Prince Julião set about insuring his own children would have a decent chance at inheriting. He targeted the main difference between Antonia and Maria Fatima: Maria Fatima was a wealthy princess and Antonia had no wealth or influence.
So, when Afonso and Antonia arrived in Portugal, they found the Portuguese court ready to crown Afonso and acknowledge Antonia as his wife, but as a morganatic marriage. Antonia would not be crowned queen and her children could not inherit. This of course, left Prince Julião’s children as Afonso’s probable heirs and his wife, Princess Anne of York, as chief lady of the Portuguese court. Anne was the niece of the English King, Prince Julião and Anne’s marriage was part of the price for English support in the War of Spanish Succession.
After initially pushing back, Afonso decided to accept the compromise, at least temporarily. But he by no means left alone the matter of his children’s inheritance. Throughout his reign he promoted various officers and lords who married Brazilian natives and worked hard to integrate Brazilian and Portuguese interests.
Afonso also tried to arrange marriages for his three children by Antonia, but he found most of Europe’s monarchs hesitant to marry their children to his. So, he was forced to accept substandard marriages mostly to mid tier level Portuguese nobles.
On the other hand, Prince Julião managed to arrange splendid marriages for his four children, arranging ties with England, Poland, the Dutch Republic, and a strong internal match.
This left the situation ripe for a civil war, and in 1749, when Afonso passed away, war erupted between Elizabeta, Electress of Brandenburg and Antonia. Countess of Amarante
[6] Elizabeta, second daughter of Prince Julião, born 1720, had married into the English Branch of the House of Brandenburg and, by default, upon the abdication of the rights of her brother-in-law, John III of England, Prince Harold, Duke of Clarence, had become Elector of Brandenburg and Elizabeta the Electress. When her uncle died, and her cousins deemed to be ineligible for the throne due to their parents morgantic marriage, Elizabeta and Harold were put forward by many of the imperial nobles as candidates for the throne, with Harold being Emperor jure uxoris, and their several children being made Princes of the Empire. But this was not unchallenged, her eldest cousin, Antonia, after her mother, had married a minor Portuguese nobleman, the Count of Amarante. Some argued that despite their marriage being morgantic, Antonia was the legitimate heir, and without the ties to England, Brandenburg and the Holy Roman Empire, the Dutch Republic or Poland, she was the most unproblematic claimant. The closest male heir was a fourth cousin once removed and was commented in court to be practically a commoner - if there was one thing that the Countess of Amarante and the Electress of Brandenburg and defacto Empress could agree on, Lorenz von Pombal, could not be allowed to claim the crown, and he mysteriously vanished. Both sides claimed the other did it and provided evidence that appeared to support their claims, but nobody could ever prove without a doubt which side was right.
The Von Pombal incident was the first salvo in the start of a difficult clash of personalities. Some say it was a civil war, but Elizabeta sat on the throne and Antonia had little support in Iberia, and none outside, but even the Holy Roman Empire had no desire to clash with the Iberian titan, and they had, quite decisively, sought to side with the Brandenburg claim. If Elizabeta was going to be Empress, then she and her children would be forced to abdicate any and all claims to England, and once her husband died, it would be expected that Brandenburg would pass to the Duke of Gloucester. The former was stipulated by both England and Iberia, the latter more by the Holy Roman Empire, and Elizabeta, knowing that her place on the throne was somewhat dependent on the support or Emperor Rudolf III, and his brother, Stanislaus II of Poland, who was also her brother in law. This subsequently meant that her sister Doroteia was forced to abdicate her own claim to the Empire, under pressure from the nobility in Poland, with only Henry, Prince of Orange, and his wife, Benedita, formally permitted to retain their place in the Iberian line of succession.
This all meant that, crucially the Empire of Hispanola had a woman in charge, and this changed the culture at court. Harold refused to attempt to influence his wife, happy to correspond with his Regent in "his little Electorate" as some nobles dismissively referred to it. But even those nobles realised that this meant that, for the time being, Hispanola could influence the Holy Roman Empire politically and sway some of its decisions, but the only hold that the HRE had on Elizabeta was military support whilst she secured her legitimate claim against Antonia.
Once this was done, by 1754, Antonia was banished to Malacca along with her sisters and their families, of whom half would die on the dangerous trip of scurvy, pirates and malnutrition. This meant that Hispanola no longer required the support of the HRE, and with their English and Dutch ties, now effectively controlled entry to the Mediterranean and the English Channel. Even though the three states were blocked from uniting by laws and statute, they would work together for a greater good and effective trading partnership.
In 1756, crisis erupted again when a man known as Francis of Alicant, claiming to be the son of her late sister, Ana, who had married the Duke of Valencia. As Francis claimed, Ana and the Duke had been traveling on their sailing ship which had sunk off the northern coast of Spain, Ana had been pregnant, had survived only long enough to give birth, and the Duke's body had never been found. Only a ring that had belonged to her sister had been given to Francis on his eighteenth birthday, the previous year, and only now had he tracked the true ownership down. Much of this is true, that the ring belonged to Ana, that Ana and her husband had drowned, and even that letters from Ana to her sister in Brandenburg had stated that Ana had believed herself to be pregnant. Whilst Elizabeta could not deny that Francis certainly had the look of an Aviz noble, she could not support his birthright as this would nullify her own claim and that if her own children to the throne they had won, and now with Emperor Rudolf III watching onward and aware that Harold and Elizabeta had turned their attention to meddling in the affairs of the HRE, she also knew that Rudolf could easily place his imperial power behind Francis if so desired.
And so, after several weeks of courtiers telling the Ambassador from the HRE that Francis was upstairs playing his harpsichord, he was dispatched to be Governor of Malacca. Being sent to Malacca became synonymous with being sentenced to death, due to the number of people that Elizabeta sent there to either govern in her stead or as political exiles. Even Elizabeta knew that Malacca would, eventually, become a problem. But in the meantime, it had rid her of Francis (died on the way) and the Tupiniquim Claimants (of whom half died on the way).
At least she had five healthy adult children by the time that 1769 rolled round and her Tin Jubilee was celebrated. Four years later and she was dead, not from age, or battle, nor assassin or accident, but from an allergic reaction to a fruit known as a pineapple that she had imported at great cost.
She was succeeded by her son, Carlos.
[7] A strapping young man of twenty, Carlos was already married with two children when he ascended to the imperial throne. His wife, Diana of France had three more children after becoming empress.
Carlos gave his mother a grand funeral, calling for God to judge his mother fairly.
The first twenty years of his reign were relatively peaceful until the revolutionary war broke out in France. As a princess of France, Diana urged her husband to help her nephew King Louis out. Carlos was reluctant to get involved in other countries' affairs. Instead, he looked to making sure that this would never happen in his empire, introducing a lower tax for his poorer subjects, along with other poor relief laws. He also created laws and institution that would boost the power of the middle class. This of course, did not go over well with several senior members of his court.
His refusal to get involved in the French revolutionary wars would bite him on the butt, along with his new laws having angered many of the nobles. When Napoleon of the French Republic invaded Spain, Carlos was betrayed by a conspiracy led by the Duke of Camiña and the Duke of Hijar who conspired to capture the royal family and hand them over to the French Republic. However, Carlos received warning from another member of the conspiracy (who is unclear) and sent his wife and children to Brazil while he fled to Portugal.
Unfortunately, he never made it. His pursuers caught up to him and his entourage. What was supposed to be bloodless arrest turned into a violent struggle which ended with the Emperor dead. He was succeeded by the Prince of Brazil, Enrique.
Enrique V of Hispania
[8] Born in 1762 with his twin sister Elizabeta to Carlos III and Diana of France and becoming Prince of Brazil the following year Enrique grew up having a lavish lifestye, and as he got older one that included partying and feasting. His marriage to Maria of Braganza wasn't happy as the couple bickered often and Enrique would have more time being with his many misstresses than his own wife and three children.
Upon hearing of his father's death just after arriving in Brazil, Enrique immediately went back to Hispania, leaving his mother and siblings behind. He fought off Napoleon's forces and executed the Dukes of Camiña and Hijar and exiled their famlies out of the country. The next ten years of Enrique's reign went without much fanfare as he left the governing of the country to his advisors while he held extravagent balls and grand feasts.
Napoleon (now a Emperor) made another attempt at invading Hispania in 1808, prompting Enrique to send his wife and children away to Brazil. He then was captured and arrested, but the carriage containing him mysteriously went missing before it's arrivial in France. This has lead to many conspiracy theories to emerge on what happened to Enrique and the carriage. Napoleon then placed the Count of Guadalajara on the Hispanic throne before the Prince of Brazil could come back to Madrid.
[9] Jorge I, born 1774 in the Viceroyalty of Mexico was a minor member of the Imperial family, descended from a son of Fernando VI, whose son had a daughter who married a wealthy merchant who was created Count of Guadalajara, whose grandson just happened to be in Madrid at the time or the Napoleonic Insurrection. Jorge had all the right qualities that Napoleon desired, he was handsome and charismatic, had little to no political ambition and a legitimate claim to the Imperial throne. And he was single, but Napoleon had a widowed and childless sister, Pauline, whom he proposed Jorge would marry, creating a familial tie between the House of Bonaparte and the House of Guadalajara-Aviz, the pair would marry shortly after Jorge was crowned, and Pauline would be pregnant within the first year of marriage.
You would think that the military behemoth of France and Hispania would have dominated the continent, and it did, more than enough to steamroll the Holy Roman Empire into an unwilling partnership. This resulted in the League of Three Emperors - and those arrayed against them were the Brandenburg Powers, the deposed Polish and Dutch nobles had fled to England where the Royal House of Brandenburg still held the throne, communicating eagerly with the Imperial House of Brandenburg in exile in Brazil, with only the Electoral House of Brandenburg falling under the sway of the Emperors.
The League attempted to repossess Brazil and other assets of the Empire of Hispania, but the English provided ongoing military support from their own bases and this ensured that the former Prince of Brazil, Joao, would install himself as Emperor of Brazil (and of Hispania in Exile).
Four Emperors. Three Houses of Brandenburg. Two Imperial Courts in Exile. One French Puppet. You knew things were going to get messy very quickly, and they did. The American and Brazilian Fronts of the Napoleonic Wars opened up by 1814, carnage ensued as the naval might of the English clashed with the sheer manpower that the Three Emperors could simply funnel into combat.
This did no help with Jorge's image in Hispania, with rebellions erupting across Spain and Portugal. Jorge was hesitant about using force to subdue his own citizens, and as the people rose up, the nobles that had thrown their hats in with him found themselves either dead or having to flee for their lives. Jorge made plans for Pauline and his six children to flee to France to the safety of the French Imperial Court, and he planned to follow them.
He did, by other routes, having arrived in Paris and his brother-in-laws court, he demanded military support to settle the rebellion, even if it did not put him back on the throne. Napoleon refused, he could see that Hispania had rapidly devolved into a lost cause that Brazil and the Brandenburgs would soon be staking their own claim into. Let them calm the waters, then simply recapture the Empire after. But distressed and incensed by the refusal to help, Jorge brought a pistol from somewhere on his person and shot Napoleon point blank.
Jorge was sentenced to death, and in the space of a week, the League of Three Emperors was done by two of its members. Only Emperor Rudolf VI remained.
After a period of rebellion, Joseph of Wettin and Brandenburg would eventually sit on the Imperial Throne of Hispania.
[10] Joseph of Wettin-Brandenburg was born to Carlota of Brandenburg, the daughter of João, Prince of Brazil and Regent of the Realm and Maximilian of Saxony, a much older but kind man, in the Palace of Campagna in the city of Buenos Aires. With his grandfather leading the efforts at recapturing the metropolis, which forced him to gallivant around Spanish America for much of the war, it was his mother Carlota and her quiet but supportive and isolated husband whom ruled much of Spanish America. Raised in the growing, cosmopolitan example of a Spanish American city that was Buenos Aires, José was a happy, well-educated child that charmed all around him. Raised in the catholic faith, he inherited from his German father a tolerance of those of other faiths and cultures.
Eventually, tragedy struck. With the downfall of Napoleon and the hated Jorge over in Europe, the victory over the hated revolutionaries should have been an ocasion of victory. But instead - the first years of young José in Iberia were ones of a torturous regency as a boy King. His grandfather, João, would be assassinated by a /Guadalajaran/ (the infamous supporters of Jorge I) while travelling over the Atlantic, while his distraught mother, receiving the news, would die along with what could have been José's youngest sibling of six in a shocking abortion. Thus, it was José himself who would be taken to Spain alongside his mourning family. Landing in Lisbon in early 1819, José was immediatelly separated from his father (Maximilian's brother, Frederick Augustus, had decided to join with Napoleon in his dream of recreating a Polish state - he was not succesful) due to the demands of his /Brandenburgian/ kinsmen in the Kingdom of Prussia and from the United Kingdom. Maximilian was sent to Africa, where he was made Governor-General of Spain territorries in South Africa.
José was raised in Lisbon, away from the cortes of Spain. Jorge had left a deep legacy in Spain, usually famine, war and death, but he had also given Spain's it's first charter and had attempted to unite the various cortes of Hispania into a single one, although, he was unsuccesful in this. With the deposed government of Jorge, the growth of the political class that had remained behind opposed to Jorge, and the returning royalists, a thin balance was established that would rule Spain for José six years regency. It was a tenuous, constitutional government that was still slowly coming to it's own, and many historians denote that it was only the strong monarchism of the Iberian population in those days that saved Hispania from civil war.
Eventually, Joseph came of age - perhaps the single one thing his government had wished to avoid, for they had made Hispania's government their own during the Emperor's boyhood, and they had not exactly given themselves a favourable picture in the young King's mind - Joseph had been severely mishandled by Hispania's many ministers. Immediatelly the young sovereign took an interest in the workings of government - having been inspired by the over-stretched, bloated but working and liberal system his grandfather had put in function during his stay in the Americas, and moved against his government in earnest.
The Royal coup of 1827 - perhaps the most decisive moment in the history of the Hispanic world, would cement a new royalist, liberal, constitutional order in history. The Empire was renamed into "The Empire of Spain and Ultramar", as Hispania was simply considered archaic and Ultramar was a common denominator of refering to the colonies overseas. The Imperial Family and Cortes in Madrid would launch a new wave of modernization, which would see the establishment of Spain's Ultramarine colonies, essentially autonomous dominions in it's various colonies in America, all which would receive their own Cortes and would be able to elect their Governor-Generals, with a single, supreme Imperial Cortes back in the homeland. The deep ties that would be forged between Metropolis and the now Ultramarine provinces would grown unbreakable, with Joseph visiting his American lands various times during his reign.
The Charter of 1827, despite essentially restructuring the Empire in a democratic, constitutional way, would still give a lot of leeway to the person of the Emperor, power that the Emperor would often times use in primacy over his government. One of the great examples of this was in what remained of Spanish Italy, in the Kingdom of Naples and in the Kingdom of Sicily. The two Kingdoms had been given by Napoleon to his brother, Joseph, in 1818, whom had ruled them well and had grown popular in those Kingdoms - and in 1818, Joseph had stood down, refusing to support his brother, and thus, the various coalition powers had not moved against him, but had kept him on a steady watch. All, but Spain, whom essentially still claimed the territory. While José's regents had many times attempted to organize moves to recover these lands, those had never came - and when Joseph Bonaparte's son, Augusto, rose to the throne in 1829, José saw a chance to close old wounds and heal. Despite the historical enmity between the two families, José would come back to Madrid with an official alliance, a royal marriage for his older sister, Maria Leopoldina, who would become the Queen of the (Napoleonic) Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and increased trade and influence in Italy.
Joseph would eventually marry Antoinette of Orleans, the daughter of King Phillipe VII of France, whom would become the King of France after the restoration of 1818 and the extinction of the main line of Bourbon. Phillipe, or as he was called by his close friends, Louis Phillipe, had been trying to regain France's status as a world power and found new links in Europe and overseas, but France found itself very isolated in the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars. Thus, José aproached his neighbour with good intentions - an alliance between France and Spain, a marriage to one of Phillipe's daughters and trade. The Emperor would then marry the youngest of the French Princesses. The Emperor would provide great guidance to his father-in-law in his own efforts at cementing democracy and Constitutionalism in France at the time.
The Hispanic world of Emperor José's time was one of great development and growth - Ultramarine America exploded demographically, due to immigration and the development of proper, modern infrastructure, and places such as California, Texas, Patagonia, Amazonia and much of the interior of South America were populated on the Emperor's watch. The military was reformed, the navy was expanded and new military strategies, tactics, weapons and technologies, such as the first submarine, were introduced in these times. Iberian, collectivelly a mashup of Portuguese, Castillian, Catalan and other Iberian languages was made the official language of the Empire - it was a mostly colonial and urban language, but it was quickly enforced in schools and rapidly spread to the population, although with great variations in both Spanish Europe, Spanish Africa and Spanish America.
Railways and Ports became a moniker of Imperial life - indeed, railways would prove essential in the annexation of Morocco in 1866 and would serve to connect much of the Empire's land. Africa beneath Mozambique and Angola would become Spanish clay, with the two colonies eventually being connected by what became known as the Pink Railway. Portuguese islands in Indonesia brought great riches, with Malaysia, the lesser Sunda Islands, New Guinea and Borneo, alongside Spanish Ceylon, Macau and Formosa being put under a single government headed from Malacca.
Nonetheless, time marched on, and the beloved Emperor grew older and older. He and his French wife would have 12 children, and would be famous in Europe for keeping a very active sexual and love relationship well into their old age. Eventually however, the Emperor grew tired and tired, and when Empress Antonia confessed to the Emperor a wish to "retire", he, to her surprise, agreed. The Emperor would then happily abdicate, taking his beloved wife and setting sail for the Caribean to live out his last days with his beloved. His heir, Maximilian, would succeed him.
[11] Named for his grandfather, Maximilian was raised to be the heir of his father's vast lands. He chafed in his father's shadow a bit, but never to the point of resentment. In 1863, he would marry Princess Elizabeth of England. Ten years later, his father would retire and he would become the second emperor of his family. However, Maximilian showed very little intreast in statecraft, wanting instead to explore what the world had to offer.
His father gave him good advice, telling him to see to it that his kingdom was in order and to make sure his heir was grown with children of his own before going on an adventure. However, Maximilian did not want to wait. He wanted to taste the world now. He made a vow, he would just go on one expidition and then he would return home to his family and his kingdoms.
After much arguing with his council, his wife, his sibilings and his parents, it was finally agreed that he would go on an expidition in Africa. He left behind a regency council headed by his younger brother. He was only supposed to be gone for three years as was the agreement.
But as time grew on, letters became less frequent until they stopped completely. Men were sent to find out what had happened to Maximilian, but they came back empty-handed. Finally in 1888, Maximilian was declared deceased and his daughter would take the throne.
[12] Elizabeta was the only daughter of Maximilian. She had an older brother, also named Maximilian, but he had always been sickly and died of a heart attack shortly before their father was declared dead, and his wife had birthed a premature stillborn child. She continued her grandfather's policies, signing a series of treaties with the United Kingdom that defined their colonial borders along the Congo river. She was already married to Philippe, Count of Paris, a happy marriage that had produced seven children between them. As a patron of the arts, she took active part in creating literary festivals and promoting upcoming authors. She also took a personal interest in deep-sea and maritime exploration, going on many oceanographical voyages while her loyal husband worked tirelessly as regent. She appointed a government of national unity and did her best to increase the monarchy's connection with its subject, going on frequent state trips with her family. She ingratiated herself with the people with her candor and piety. She died unexpectedly in her residence via suffocation by an abnormal swelling in her throat.
[13] Enrique VI was the oldest son of Elizabeta, being born in 1886 with Enrique being someone who would prove to be an intelligent and charming young prince, worthy as an heir to the throne, especially as he would grow up to be an intelligent and capable young prince in a happy marriage with Princess Catherine of Tuscany. Despite this, his reign would prove to be the shortest so far in Iberian history as it would only last seven months between being King on November 3, 1914 to his assassination on May 17, 1915 by an anarchist terrorist, leaving __________ the new Emperor.
Last edited:
