Part IIId: To Redress the Balance of the Old, Post IX – The Returns of the King
From A Family Matter: Portugal and Brazil in the 19th Century
By Luisa da Silva. London: Oxford University Press, 1957.
When João VI arrived in Lisbon in May 1821, he found a nation transformed from that which he had left. The departure of the Royal Court had left Portugal in the hands of a budding officer corps that rose to meet the demands of the Peninsular War. These men came less from the nobility—many of whom had been among the 15,000 that the Portuguese navy had evacuated to Rio de Janeiro—and more from the merchant class. It was this class that most resented João’s attempt to enlighten Portuguese imperial policy by granting Brazil equal status. The King’s attempt to transform the Portuguese monarchy into the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves threatened mercantile interests by offering Brazil free trade with the outside world. The necessity to support the King in Brazil proved a continual irritant in this regard, particularly when João requisitioned troops to take the Banda Oriental in 1814. Additionally, many came to resent the stewardship of the British Lord Beresford, who acted as the King’s deputy in Lisbon, feeling him a tool of foreign influence. Hence, Portugal in 1821 was a polity convinced of the need to assert itself as a nation. Events in Spain fanned the flames calling for political change. For a time, this movement concerned itself with liberal sentiments of constitutionalism, but imperial instincts soon asserted themselves. In September 1821, the Cortes at Lisbon attempted to officially abolish the “Kingdom of Brazil” and thus return that country to its status as Vice-Kingdom. [1]
In an astonishing turn of events, King João refused his assent to the order. The king had not only grown quite fond of Brazil but genuinely believed that a co-equal union of the two nations would best serve both. Thus, when the delegates attempted to send troops to Brazil, João countermanded the orders and sent most naval squadrons known to be sympathetic to the Cortes on maneuvers near Madeira, in a move reminiscent of João’s response to Lord Beresford visit to the court in Rio de Janeiro the year before.
The king was assisted—to varying degrees depending upon one’s source of preference—by the skillful machinations of Queen Carlota and Infante Miguel. Neither had any particular love for Brazil, to be sure. However, the events of the Quasi-Revolution in Spain had a pronounced effect [2]: the death of Infanta Maria Francisca in particular provoked a near paranoid state in Carlota. She became convinced of the need to buttress the royal authority lest something similar befall herself. As absolutism was under assault in Iberia, so the absolutists in the royal court led by the Queen leapt at any chance to defend the prerogatives the King.
Despite this aid, the King could stymie the Cortes for only so long. Indeed, his continued intransigence only inflamed the resentment of Brazilian free trade and other liberties. Lately many historians have seen in this reaction a further motive on the part of Carlota and Miguel: their theory holds that the Queen and her son sought to support the King not to defend his privilege, but to undermine his prestige amongst the merchant classes and to lay the groundwork for future events…
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From In the Land of the Blind: the Monarchs of the New World
By W. Debbs, Green Bay: Progress Press, 1910.
When Prince Peter [3] found the government of the kingdom of Brazil—indeed, of the heart of the Braganza dominions—thrust upon him, he responded with unexpected vigor. Under the advice of his able first minister, the Count d’Arcos [3], he curtailed public expenditure and fostered industry by lowering oppressive tariffs on salt. He abandoned censorship, abolished dungeons, and forbade the flogging of prisoners. He subsidized the creation of schools, observatories, and commissioned histories of the Portuguese Empire. [4]
Nevertheless, he relied on the authority of his own person and of the force of arms. In April 1821, he ordered the Portuguese troops in Brazil on patrol, toward the northern towns which were suspected of sedition; he replaced them with men of his own choosing. [5] As the power struggle between the various factions of imperialists and monarchists raged at home in Portugal over the coming months, Peter found himself able to concentrate on building the apparatus of subjugation and control…
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From Liberators, Protectors, and Pacifiers: South American Revolutions
by Prof. C. Hull, Vanderbilt University. 1938.
General Pablo Morillo y Morillo, Count of Cartagena and Marquess of La Puerta, appointed by Ferdinand VII as Captain General of Venezuela, and known after 1819 as “the Bane of Bolivar” for his victory at the Battle of Trunja, was a most unlikely liberator. Indeed, he did not so much liberate the provinces then known as Venezuela, New Granada, and Ecuador as begin a process that for the people living in those lands redefined the very nature liberty…
…From the onset of the Quasi-Revolution, Morillo was a vocal supporter of the Constitutional regime. [6] The application—and sometimes creative enforcement—of the Constitution of 1812 was key to Morillo’s success in pacifying the Venezuela. Morillo personally supervised the printing and distribution of more than 1,200 copies of the Constitution to be distributed to almost every community worthy of note within the province. Thousands of elections were held thereafter: elections to the constitutional ayuntamientos, to provincial deputations, and two elections to the Cortes (one in Autumn for delegates to the 1821-22 session, one in December for those to the 1822-23 session). [7] These were the viceroyalty’s first experience of anything like the kind of government that the revolutionaries themselves had for so long proclaimed to endorse. Whereas in New Spain the elections betokened the fear of true revolutionary anarchy and thus the movement of Augustin de Iturbide, in New Granada the same elections inaugurated a return to the rule of law. While Fernando Paez’s remaining forces sheltered in the highlands, thousands of common citizens gathered in the squares of Cartagena to hear the results of elections…
Despite his success in implementing the Constitution and of overseeing the only peaceful elections in the New World to return delegates to the Cortes at Madrid, Morillio remained a more controversial figure than later propaganda has made him seem. He was feared by many of the remaining elite, who expected the provincial deputations to be nothing more than Morillo’s newest means to announce retribution against their previous collusion with Bolivar. Morillo himself was not entirely satisfied with remaining on the sidelines in the New World while his country battled against itself and the likelihood of war with the great Enemy—France—rose. Removing Morillo from the province thus suited everyone interests. And so, it was that in January 1821, with quite a display of fanfare the electors of the province declared that one of Venezuela’s deputies to the Cortes would be none other than General Morillo himself. The general made a grand speech about how his election represented the future of the Spanish Nation as it was the culmination of “the union of the Spaniards of both hemispheres” as proclaimed by the Constitution itself. As his last act as Captain General, he appointed his deputy, General Jose Maria Barreiro, the victor of Boyacá himself, as his acting replacement. [8]
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From A Family Matter: Portugal and Brazil in the 19th Century
By Luisa da Silva. London: Oxford University Press, 1957.
The outrage of the Cortes against João’s efforts on behalf of Brazil produced a most unlikely partnership. Who made the first suggestion is not entirely clear to history. What is known is that after a dinner party jointly hosted by Infante Miguel and Queen Carlota at the Vila Franca de Xira, [9] the Queen’s correspondence on the subject of the royal authority showed a complete reversal of her previous defensive attitude. She complained of her husband’s odd behavior: he would spend hours sitting in front of the harpsichord, she said, and if any of the servants interrupted him, he would order them flogged for disturbing the “most miraculous concert.” [10] It seemed he was convinced the harpsichord played itself, inspired directly by the Holy Ghost. Rumors began to fly in Lisbon society: was the King mad? Or as the question very quickly became under Carlota’s expertly managed quill: just how mad had the King become? Such rumors were helped along by unusually frequent articles in the prominent Lisbon and Oporto periodicals concerning the recent death of George III (in January 1820).
Even the most conservative of the officer corps—the heart of absolutism in Portugal—began to doubt the wisdom of obeying such a sovereign. The appointment of Infante Miguel as Commander-in-Chief of the Army helped to assuage these concerns [11]. This appointment illustrates the fullness of Carlota’s deviousness: to her allies in the Cortes, this was a measure to check the King’s madness; to her husband, this was a way to prevent the Cortes from usurping the Family’s role in the Kingdom. This seeming transformation—from the paranoia of any diminution of royal prestige to leading a plot to undermine the King’s very sanity (or the public’s perception of it)—followed quite naturally in the train of Carlota’s calculations: João was not strong enough to maintain the necessary force of will, political or personal, necessary to safeguard the Kingdom, its welfare, and its queen’s best interests.
João’s knowledge of the extent of the plot and of Carlota’s rumor-mongering is unknown. In truth, the stress of his constant struggles with the Cortes told on him and he was indeed spending more time in his private apartments. He nevertheless spent more time closeted with the British ambassador [12] than he did starring at his harpsichords...
...The spark that ultimately transformed what might otherwise have been an amusing exercise in political comedy and domestic one-ups-(wo)manship into a full-fledged coup d’état came from across the Atlantic: Pedro had begun to create a wholly Brazilian army, as means both to thwart anti-monarchic influences and the threat presented by the troops loyal to Cortes at Lisbon. Nevertheless, the Luso-Brazilian force that these new recruits replaced, most especially the Legion at Rio, resented the Infante’s new units. They most particularly resented being forced to march about the non-existent roads between Rio de Janeiro and São Paolo or being sent on expeditions as far north as Recife. Hence, in October of 1821, they refused the Prince’s orders and sent to Lisbon to complain of the state of affairs. When Pedro discovered their “revolution” (his terminology), he ordered them to disarm; when they refused, he ordered the newly formed “Guards of the Southern Cross” to arrest them. The Legion refused to go peaceably and small battle erupted outside São Paolo; being surrounded in what was fast becoming a more or less hostile country, the Legion was soon defeated. Indeed, those that did not formally surrender to Pedro’s men and so end up in a Rio prison cell died in the jungle.
When the Cortes heard of these events, they exploded with protest: the murder of innocent Portuguese soldiers at the hands of hired thugs—the Cortes did not recognize the Guards as a legally constituted force—countenanced by the person of the Crown Prince of Realm! The army itself was in an uproar, carefully managed by its new Commander-in-Chief. The Cortes presented the King with a final unequivocal demand: force Infante Pedro to return to Lisbon, assent to the reduction of Brazil’s status and privileges, and recall the navy to embark new troops bound for Rio de Janeiro. If the King continued to refuse, the Cortes might consider implementing a Regency and perhaps strip Pedro of his status as João’s heir. How the Cortes could construe their powers to amount to such a sweeping demand, particularly as to unilaterally disinheriting the Crown Prince, was uncertain; Carlota’s influence is usually cited as explanation enough, but João’s earlier intransigence had begun the process of undermining the explicit framework of the all-to-new constitutional order.
With events clearly outside his control and with the loyalty of the army (to anyone other than Miguel) increasingly in question, João sought refuge with his longtime British allies. The ambassador himself spirited the King from the royal palace to a British warship waiting in Lisbon harbor. Ensconced in the captain’s cabin of HMS Windsor Castle, João summoned Miguel, intending to dismiss him as commander-in-chief of the Army as a prelude to sending him into exile and imprisoning Queen Carlota. When Miguel received the summons, however, the charged atmosphere of Lisbon—indeed, of the entire Iberian Peninsula, given the tumult aroused by the events in Spain—enabled him to use it to entirely different ends. He convoked an emergency session of the Cortes and used the letter as proof of his father’s misconduct: João was colluding with a foreign power against the interests of Kingdom. Despite the fact that the power in question had spent millions of pounds, several years, and thousands of the lives of its own citizens to defend Portugal in the previous decades, Miguel whipped the city into a fervor. The platoons of soldiers marching through the streets certainly helped instill a sense of immediacy to the events. [13]
After a fortnight in which boats with secret messages plied to and fro in the harbor (that is, while João tried to muster support among the more Liberal delegates and Carlota horse-traded her way into a settlement which suited her ends), the Cortes finally issued its proclamation: the King was declared unfit; Carlota and Miguel were both declared co-regents. Their first act was to assent to the revocation of Brazil’s status. Their second was to order the batteries around Lisbon harbor to fire upon the Windsor Castle if João did not return to shore “to seek the care of the best physicians and surgeons in Europe.”
João for all of the images of the hapless, indolent monarch which have come down through popular depictions was not entirely without spine at this moment. Had he been the more inclined to leisure than to the interests of his realms (whatever his powers to advance them), he might well have relented. He chose differently, however: the Windsor Castle set sail and within an hour of the deadline was making its way toward Madeira and the bulk of the Portuguese navy, whose commanders were for the most part loyal to the King, having been appointed when Carlota’s energies were devoted to ensuring the efficacy of her husband’s power. Once there, João transferred into the flagship, assuming nominally personal command over the fleet. He issued his own proclamation, which he entrusted to the Windsor Castle to return to Lisbon: as sole monarch and hereditary ruler of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves, João appointed his “beloved wife” and “ever industrious son” as Co-Regents of Portugal, with discretion to exercise authority on his behalf over that kingdom, its laws, and all its inhabitants, that authority to be “separate and parallel” to that of himself and his son over Brazil and “the other and sundry” parts of the Empire. The simple magnanimity of his closing words in this document should stand in quiet contrast with the ever-groping Machiavellian designs of his recalcitrant wife and son: “As it is for the good of all and the general well-being of the nation, I hereby consent to your appointment; you may say to the people that I will remain their loyal defender.”
While João thus legalized the position Miguel and Carlota had cajoled for themselves, he also forestalled any direct conflict for a period of time by introducing enough legal vagueries into the air that tempers could cool and passions diffuse. And of course it was significantly harder for Miguel and Carlota to launch any expedition against him since they lacked any sizeable naval force to project power across the Atlantic. More important still, João retained the recognition of the British Empire as the rightful sovereign while Miguel and Carlota had begun their reign by the threat of violence against a British man-‘o-war. With the pride of centuries of Portuguese seamanship, João set sail for Rio de Janeiro, in his words “the once and future seat of the Portuguese empire.” He would arrive to tumultuous celebrations in January 1822. [14]
And so, the opening act of the conflict that would become known as the War of the Two Brothers, or more colorfully as the Braganza Family Discord (in contrast with the Bourbon Family Compact), was completed, even though it would be more than a decade until that war was over, or even truly fought.
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From HIST 208: History of Modern Mexico, 1600-2000
Lectures by Prof. Ian McCormick, University of Texas at Houston
With the government in Madrid first refusing and later too preoccupied to treat with them, Iturbide’s provisional Governing Junta suffered a profound lack of legitimacy. While the provinces of the Viceroyalty of New Granada enjoyed the blessings of the Constitution of 1812, New Spain continued to founder under political schism and discord. Mexico City was rife with intrigue, through 1821: the Spanish garrison was the nexus for a good portion of this, as they were thoroughly dissatisfied that they had fomented a rebellion only to miss a true revolution in their homeland. There was a growing consensus that a more permanent solution was necessary to any independence: the problems of the New World necessitated a return to the traditions of the Old. The need for a King was paramount. While there have long been rumors that Iturbide attempted to advance his own name as a Bonapartian candidate for a Mexican throne, the consensus among his aristocratic backers centered on the desirability of links to the established royal houses of Europe. No doubt the confusion Iturbide’s efforts had so far led to did little to enhance such notions. Quietly, letters began to circulate to the royal houses of Europe—a common enough occurrence in the those years as the Greeks were themselves searching for a monarch of their own at the same time. Madrid began to take notice, however…
…Growing banditry stunted commerce and suspicion of plans by the Spanish to re-conquer the viceroyalty abounded through 1821. It should be noted—even though the details of those events are those of another course—that these years were the context for the original land grants to Moses and Stephen Austin, names with which I’m sure you’re all familiar…
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Notes:
[1] They did so OTL. João was not forceful enough to prevent them. My sources do not say that he tried to stop, but I can’t imagine he would have passed up the chance to do so had he possessed the means to effectively thwart them. I may however be playing fast and loose with the nature of the new Portuguese constitution; I presume that centuries of monarchic rule and deference to regal authority would play a role in doing the same for the delegates in question.
[2] Fly, my little butterflies, fly!
[3] This source is anglicizing the names. And somewhat butchering them.
[4] This is all pretty much OTL. The difference is that TTL Pedro does a bit less, João having taken less of the treasury with him to Lisbon. Recall as well that the situation in Brazil does not seem quite so dire, the National Convention not having lingered in quite the way it did OTL.
[5] OTL about this time, João sent Pedro a private letter, urging him to take the lead in the movement for Brazilian independence: “If Brazil should decide on separation, let it be under your leadership, since you are bound to respect me, rather than under one of these adventurers.” This was somewhat caused by Bolivar’s success in New Granada and Venezuela, but was, in my opinion, just as much a function of local circumstances: there was a growing movement in Brazil that supported a more formal push for independence. Indeed, Pedro’s first minister, the Conde do Arcos, was a known sympathizer with the Masonic lodges, which formed the nexus of the budding independence movement. Hence, OTL João urged Pedro to take advantage of the situation to effectively become the movement’s figurehead and so ensure the Braganza dynasty could hold Brazil (and so João seems to have hoped, potentially perpetuate a United Kingdom of Portugal and Brazil, etc, as a dynastic compact). TTL João still communicates privately with his son; however, given João’s movements in Lisbon to stymie the Cortes, I think the King would also have let Pedro know of the utility of ensuring the loyalty of the troops in Rio. OTL these troops would seize control of the city in June and force Pedro to purge his government of its pro-independence supporters like the Conde do Arcos. This incident would slightly tarnish Pedro’s prestige, but also lead to his cultivation of support throughout the country and thus feel confident in January 1822 to refuse to comply with the order of the Cortes at Lisbon to return to Europe.
[6] Despite his relative ruthlessness in the campaigns against Bolivar, Morrilo was a Liberal OTL: after being defeated by Bolivar, he returned to Spain as Captain General of New Castile and helped to defeat the counter-revolutionary coup against the government instigated in 1822.
[7] Much the same occurred OTL in New Spain and other areas that saw the return of the Constitution in 1820. In OTL however this never occurred in Bolivar’s Gran Colombia. Indeed, by many metrics, the Constitution of 1812 had a more widespread franchise than that used by Bolivar’s relatively elitist constitution.
[8] While the Constitution of 1812 had a wide franchise, it used a system of indirect elections to determine deputies. Thus, IMO, it was particularly open to manipulation, particularly by a concerted action of a determined few. More on the system of the Constitution of 1812 will come in time; probably I’ll need one post focused on explaining it, particularly given the changes that coming events will soon introduce.
[9] OTL the Vila Franca de Xira was the site that provided the locus for Miguel’s attempt to form an army to overthrow his father, one of two such attempts he made in the 1820s.
[10] João was not without eccentricity. Known as the “Monk-King,” he was devoted to church music and would listen to it for hours. Carlota’s allegations and insinuations thus ring quite true.
[11] Miguel held this post OTL as well.
[12] On the second occasion that Miguel rebelled against his father’s rule, the British ambassador was instrumental in warning João against the plot.
[13] João did just this successfully in 1823 OTL. Why does Miguel’s attempt succeed TTL were OTL it did not? Many reasons: 1) simple butterflies given the frequency of his plotting OTL and how close they came to succeeding (indeed, his first attempt was more or less fruitful in that João temporarily adopted a more absolutist tone to his rule, even though Miguel found himself the object of that enhanced authority), 2) a differing air in Lisbon, 3) a much more effective alliance with his mother and the Liberal interests in the Cortes and 4) he is not openly advocating for absolutism. Indeed, many in the Cortes TTL believe that the Regency, would better serve the interests of a Constitutional regime as the Co-Regent’s powers will be theoretically more formally limited both by law and by lack of the King’s weight of prestige and tradition, and with each one’s exertions checked by the other.
[14] All of this means that Pedro’s movements to steer Brazil towards independence from Portugal are mute, since Joao’s return to Rio and the “separate and parallel” regencies of Brazil and Portugal mean that there’s very little to declare independence from. Also, note that in OTL, January 1822 marked Pedro’s open support for Brazilian independence when he pledged to stay in the country in defiance of the Lisbon Cortes’ orders: “As it is for the good of all and the general well-being of the nation, I hereby consent; you may say to the people that I will remain.” The last phrase—I will remain, or Fico—became a rallying cry, until it was surmounted by the Cry of Ypiranga.
, with perhaps a more whole-earthed industrialization in a Central Europe fashion and a more stable political system (at an earlier stage). A transition to a Constitutional Monarchy could happen in mid XIX Century, skipping OTL's initial instability.