The Monarchs of Modern Portugal
The Four Kings
Os quatro reis
What follows is a summary of the monarchs of the Portuguese Confederation.
Louis I (December 22, 1799-March 16, 1876)
Louis I of Portugal in the habit of the Order of Santiago
Louis I of Portugal, circa 1850
King Louis I of Portugal, born in Madrid, Spain on December 22, 1799, was the first King of the Portuguese Confederation. He was the firstborn son of Louis, the eldest son of Ferdinand, Duke of Parma, and Maria Luisa, Duchess of Lucca, a daughter of King Charles IV of Spain. In 1801, Louis became King Louis I of Etruria. Two yeas later, in 1803, King Louis I of Etruria died at the age of 29. As a result, at only three years old, Prince Louis became King Louis II of Erturia. In 1808, at only eight years of age, King Louis II of Etruria then became King Louis I of the Portuguese Confederation, while still remaining king of the Kingdom of Etruria. Throughout his formative years as the "Boy King of Portugal" or "Menino rei de Portugal", the young Louis grew up in and around the new Portuguese capital of Porto and resided in the palaces within the city. He was also under the strict tutelage of the Portuguese Regent Bernardim Freire de Andrade, a man whom the young Louis grew to admire for the guidance that he gave to him. After Louis I turned of age on December 22, 1817, the regency ended, although correspondence continued between the King and Freire, as the young king often needed assistance when it came to certain affairs of state. After the regent's death in 1823, King Louis I personally attended his funeral in Porto.
While Louis I was born in Spain and was originally from an Italian noble family, Louis grew up and spent his formative years within Portugal and as a result felt and identified as Portuguese. As an adult, he only faintly remembered his young boyhood days as a King in central Italy. He once stated; “I am Spanish by birth, Italian by blood and Portuguese in mind and spirit, and thus a perfect synthesis of three lands and successors of Ancient Rome.” While Louis I spent almost all of his time living in Portugal, he had a few villas in central Italy, where he was still a King on paper and where he spent some of his vacations throughout his lengthily reign. On September 5, 1820, Louis I married Princess Maria Teresa of Savoy, a daughter of King Victor Emmanuel I of Sardinia, in a lavish Roman Catholic ceremony in Coimbra. As a result, the princess became Queen Maria Teresa of Portugal. In 1823, with the birth of his first son Prince Charles Louis or Carlos Luis, the title of the Prince of Algarve, analogous the former title of Prince of Wales in Great Britain or Crown Prince in other nations, was created by Louis I and the Portuguese government.
Throughout reign of Louis I, the Portuguese Confederation was little more than a puppet of the French Empire. Portugal was also under the strict guidance of the French Empire, and as a result was not allowed to deviate from the interests of French and later Franco-Spanish foreign policy. Nevertheless, Portugal was able to keep its vast and ancient empire, which stretched from Africa to the East Indies. During the Franco-Spanish War of 1827, King Louis I, now an adult, had hopes that Portugal, thanks to its contribution to the war against Spain, would be allowed by France to annex some land from Spain, such as the region of Galicia, a region of Spain which had many linguistic and historical ties to Portugal, the disputed town of Olivenza and perhaps some land form the region of Extremadura that was once under Portuguese control during the Middle Ages. However, Napoleon wanted all of Spain for himself and cared little for the wishes of the young King of his Portuguese puppet. As a result, Portugal gained from Spain only the disputed town of Olivenza, which was renamed as Olivença, a town which Spain had annexed from Portugal in the Treaty of Badajoz in 1801, back when Spain was an ally of Napoleonic France.
The long reign of King Louis I was marked by numerous events, mostly the consolidation of the government of the Portuguese Confederation, the expansion of Portuguese trade routes throughout French India, the Dutch East Indies and Africa, the strengthening of relations and ties between Portugal and France and later France-Spain, among other events. One of the most important events of his reign was the return of Lisbon to Portugal. On October 14, 1850, after forty-two years of existence, the Franco-Spanish Empire allowed for the disbandment of the Free City of Portugal and the return of Lisbon to Portuguese control in exchange for over forty years of a faithful alliance and friendship between Portugal and the French Empire/Franco-Spanish Empire. Over a period of five years, the Portuguese royal family, court and government gradually moved over from Porto to Lisbon. On November 1, 1855, the transition was officially declared complete and Lisbon was officially re-declared as yhe capital of Portugal, all in commemoration of the centennial anniversary of the 1755 Lisbon earthquake. Over the next two decades, Lisbon became a major metropolitan hub and international trading center, thus gradually regaining its relevance over the former capital city of Porto.
After an almost sixty-eight year-long reign, King Louis I of Portugal died of natural causes in his bedroom in the Palace of Ajuda in Lisbon on the night of March 16, 1876. He was 76 years of age. On March 27, 1876, his funeral was held in Lisbon, and the funeral was one of the largest that had been held in the city up to that point.
Louis II (January 14, 1823-May 24, 1879)
King Louis II of Portugal, born in Lisbon as Charles Louis, Prince of Algarve, was the second King of the Portuguese Confederation. Of mostly Italian and Spanish ancestry, he spent all of his formative years within his birth-nation of Portugal. In his adolescence, he gained an interest in the military. As a result, with his father's personal blessing, Charles Louis entered the infantry of the Portuguese Army at the age of seventeen in 1840. He then attended the Military School of Porto from 1841 to 1843 and continued to serve in the army until 1844. After his military service ended, under the demands of his family and government, he began to look for a potential consort.
At first, while living in Marseilles, he began courting Duchess Louise Marie Thérèse of Artois, the daughter of Charles Ferdinand, Duke of Berry and a granddaughter of Charles Philippe, the French Bourbon claimant to the French throne. However, the relationship fell through, as the Bonapartes and Franco-Spanish government put pressure on the Portuguese Royal House of Bourbon-Parma to not have their heir marry a granddaughter of the Bourbon claimant to the French throne, as the House of Bourbon was a rival dynasty to the House of Bonaparte. As a result, the young Charles Louis sought to marry someone else. While vacationing in French Corsica and Sardinia throughout the summer of 1845, Charles Louis, while visiting Sassari, became acquainted with Dona Maria Brazgna, the current claimant to the Portuguese throne of the deposed House of Braganza since the death of her father Dom Pedro in 1842. Almost instantly, Charles Louis and Maria got along with one another and then quickly, the two fell in love with each other. With the blessing of both King Louis I and Emperor Napoleon II, Charles Louis and Maria announced their engagement while the two were still living in Sassari. On March 21, 1846, the two were married in a Roman Catholic Ceremony in the city of Faro in the Algarve region, the region that Charles Louis had within his royal title. As a result, the House of Bourbon-Parma and the House of Braganza, the latter having been the former ruling dynasty of Portugal, were officially united in marriage. On July 9, 1848, the couple gave birth to
Prince Louis, their first son and the heir to the throne.
After the death of King Louis I of Portugal on March 16, 1876, Charles Louis, Prince of Algarve became King Louis II of Portugal, with him taking the royal name of Louis in honor of his beloved father. The coronation took place on April 12, 1876. Nevertheless, the reign of King Louis II only lasted for a few years. On May 24, 1879, King Louis II died suddenly of tuberculosis in a private villa outside of Braga at the age of 56. As a result, his eldest son, Louis, Prince of Algarve, not even 31 years of age, succeeded him as King of Portugal and thus became King Louis III of Portugal.
Louis III (9 July 1848-September 1, 1906)
King Louis III of Portugal was born in Lisbon as Prince Louis of Bourbon-Parma. He was the first-born son of Charles Louis, Prince of Algarve and Dona Maria of Braganza, the future King Louis II of Portugal and Queen Maria of Portugal. He had three other siblings; an elder sister, Margherita, Duchess of Braga (January 1, 1847-November 6, 1886), and two younger siblings, Alice, Duchess of Lisbon (December 27, 1849-August 18, 1930) and Prince Henry, Count of Évora (February 12, 1851-September 24, 1912). King Louis III of Portugal was the first monarch of the Portuguese Confederation to be descended from the old Portuguese ruling dynasty of the House of Braganza, the royal family of his mother. On April 5, 1875, he married Princess Maria Pia, Duchess of Potenza (August 2, 1849-September 29, 1895), a member of the deposed dynasty of the Bourbons of the Two Sicilies.
After the death of his father on May 24, 1879, Louis, Prince of Algarve became King Louis III of Portugal, and his consort would became Queen Maria Pia of Portugal. The coronation was held a few weeks later on June 2, 1879. One of the most important events of his reign was the Race for Africa and the role of the Portuguese Empire in the colonization of Africa. During the Race for Africa, the main goal of Portugal was to expand the borders of the Portuguese colonies in southern Africa from
the east coast to the west coast of Africa, from Portuguese West Africa or "Angola" to Portuguese East Africa or "Moçambique", and to then build "a railroad from Luanda to Maputo", the respective capitals of both colonies. In 1880, a series of colonial treaties were signed between Portugal and with the Nordreich and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, the latter of which was also an ally of the Franco-Spanish Empire. These treaties established the borders between the Portuguese and Nordic colonies and the Portuguese and Sicilian colonies in Sub-Saharan Africa. In 1883, after gaining enough resources to build a transcontinental railway, the Portuguese colonial governments, with the help of the colonial army and army engineers, as well as with the help of the government in Lisbon, began construction on the Luanda Railway. Over the years, things went well for the most part, with most tribes falling into line quickly. The one major exception was the Yeke Kingdom under their ruler and monarch Msiri. However, after this kingdom collapsed in 1889 at the hands of the Nordic colonial armies, the Portuguese continued to expand into small areas of Katangaland, reaching from coast to coast by Christmas of 1889. With the different tribes out of the way and pacified, construction of the railway was finally completed in 1890. While Portugal had been an afterthought in Europe for the last two generations, their colonies were still fairly successful for a nation of such small stature in European and international politics.
The reign of King Louis III of Portugal also saw other important events. On July 16, 1887, the Queen Mother Maria died in Lisbon at the age of 68. As a result, the state of Portugal was sent into a state of mourning for several weeks. Throughout the 1880s and 1890s, King Louis III, a well-renowned lover of the arts and history, personally sponsored numerous artistic exhibitions, music concerts, archeological exhibitions and museums throughout metropolitan Portugal. On March 4, 1894, the 500th anniversary of the birth of Prince Henry the Navigator, one of the central figures of Portuguese history and of the age of exploration, was celebrated throughout the major Portuguese cities. On September 29, 1895, Queen Maira Pia of Portugal died suddenly of tuberculosis at the age of 46. As a result, the state of Portugal was sent into a state of mourning over the death of their beloved queen. Her funeral, held on October 12, 1895, was attended by much of the citizenry of Lisbon, and for weeks afterwards both men and women in Portugal wore black armbands while all national flags were set at half-mast. On January 30, 1901, Portugal regained official control over their Chinese colony of Macau. On January 30, 1857, the Portuguese colonial government in Macau, having been strapped for cash for several years, allowed the Qing Empire to
militarily occupy the colony and to take over some of the policing of the colony for a temporary period of forty-four years, a period of time which expired on that same date in 1901. During this time,
Portugal continued to have administrative control over the colony while the Chinese both occupied the colony and ran some of the policing of the colony. During this time, Portugal was also able to reap profits from the colony of Macau, much to the annoyance of the Chinese officials.
King Louis III, much beloved by his people for almost three decades, died while on vacation in the city of Lagos on the morning of September 1, 1906. He was fifty-eight years of age. His body was sent by train back to Lisbon, where a lavish funeral was held on September 8, 1910. This left his twenty year-old son, Louis, Prince of Algarve, to became King Louis IV of Portugal.
Louis IV (June 3, 1886-????)
King Louis IV of Portugal was born in Lisbon as Louis, Prince of Madeira, and he was the second-born son of King Louis III of Portugal and Queen Maria Pia of Portugal. While Prince Louis was originally second-in-line to the Portuguese throne, all of this changed after his older brother John, Prince of Algarve (May 12, 1878-August 29, 1904) died suddenly and tragically in an auto-carriage accident outside of Castelo Branco in 1904. As a result, Louis then became Louis, Prince of Algarve and the heir to the Portuguese throne. In 1905, in a Roman Catholic ceremony in Lisbon, Prince Louis married Princess Hedivg Louisa of Hohenzollern, a member of the Swabian branch of the House of Hohenzollern and a distant relative of the Nordic Kaiser. In 1909, the couple had their first child, Carlos, Prince of Algarve.
After the death of father in 1906, King Louis IV became King of Portugal at the relatively young age of twenty years-old. However, this did not stop the young king from becoming an able administrator and a much-loved ruler amongst his people and subjects. His coronation ceremony was held on September 12, 1906, and it was the first coronation ceremony in Portuguese history to be filmed on camera. It was also the second coronation ceremony in European history to be filmed on camera, the first having been the coronation ceremony of Nordic Kaiser Sigismund I on November 24, 1900.
Without a doubt, the most important event during of the reign of Louis IV was the Great War. Soon after the outbreak of war on October 1, 1911, Portugal joined the war along with their ally of the Empire of Europa and on October 4, 1911, declared war on the Central Powers and officially joined the war on the side of the Europa and her other allies in the Entente Alliance. However, as the war dragged on for almost two years, Portugal continued to lose ground and territory in their African colonies to the colonial armies of the Nordreich, Netherlands and Carolinas, all of which were far-superior to the colonial armies of Portugal in regards to manpower, equipment, size, training and tactics. As a result, with the way the war was going, King Louis IV and the Portuguese government had no choice but to seek out an honorable peace with the Central Powers. On July 1, 1913, Portugal signed the Treaty of Nampula with the Central Powers. As a result, Portugal had surrendered all of its colonies in Africa, except for the colonies of Portuguese Guinea or Portuguese Senegal in West Africa and Cape Verde off the coast of West Africa, to the Nordreich. Portugal was also forced to surrender their Chinese colony of Macau to the Netherlands. The majority of the white Portuguese settlers in the disbanded colony of Portuguese Africa, mostly concentrated in the centuries-old colonies of Angola and Moçambique, decided to stay in the colonies and accept Nordic citizenship in exchange for having equal rights with the German, Polish and Finnish colonist of the rest of Nordic Africa, although some decided to move back to the mother country of Portugal. This "Portuguese Betrayal" shook Caesar Napoleon IV to his very core, as Portugal had been a loyal ally to the Bonaparte's for 105 years since 1808. As a result, Portugal was no longer a Europan puppet state and was essentially free of Europan influence. Some historians have speculated that as a result of his marriage to a distant relative of the Nordic royal family and Nordic Kaiser, King Louis IV was somewhat
sympathetic to the Nordreich and Central Powers and secretly desired to see an end to Europan hegemony over Western Europe, perhaps in an effort to annex some land from Imperial Spain. However, there is very little evidence to suggest any of these far-fetched theories.
On August 8, 1913, King Louis IV of Portugal gave a speech to a massive crowd in the center of Lisbon, this having been the first royal speech and royal address in Portugal to be
broadcast live over talkieboxes. In this speech, Louis IV began to speak in a somber tone about the loss of much of the once great, expansive and powerful Portuguese Empire to the nations of the Central Powers. However, as the speech went on, the King began to speech in a more happy and optimistic tone, proclaiming to the people of Lisbon and the people of Portugal that although Portugal had lost the Great War, out of this loss the nation and kingdom was to enter into a new era of hope and prosperity. After the speech was finished, the crowd burst into a massive cheer. As a result, for so much of the Portuguese people, the future of Portugal was seen as uncertain but at the same time both hopeful and optimistic.