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- The second son of Queen Maria II and her consort, Ferdinand II, Louis succeeded on the early death of his more brilliant elder brother, Peter V. He married Maria Pia, daughter of the King of Italy, in 1862. The reign began inauspiciously amidst financial difficulties.
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Mar 22, 2024 · Louis was the king of Portugal whose reign (1861–89), in contrast to the first half of the century, saw the smooth operation of the constitutional system, the completion of the railway network, the adoption of economic and political reforms, and the modernization of many aspects of Portuguese life.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
- Overview
- Manuel I and Portuguese Power
By Dr. Bryan Givens
For almost two hundred years, the Avis dynasty ruled Portugal and helped drive its transition from a small agricultural kingdom on the periphery of Christendom to a pioneer in global exploration, colonization, and trade. The story of the dynasty began in 1383 when the last king of the Burgundian line, Fernando I, died, prompting a succession crisis.
On December 3, 1383, Fernando’s half-brother,
, rose up against the pro-Castilian regency government ruling Portugal after Fernando’s death. The coup was successful, and on April 6, 1385, João was proclaimed King João I. However, the struggle with Castile remained unfinished. The decisive moment came later that summer when João defeated a numerically superior army led by the King of Castile (Juan I). The Battle of Aljubarrota secured Portuguese independence for the next two centuries.
Support for the triumphant João became virtually universal in Portugal, and he moved quickly to secure his new kingdom. In 1386, he signed the
with King Richard II of England and further strengthened Anglo-Portuguese ties by marrying Philippa, Richard’s cousin. Commerce and cultural exchange flourished between the two maritime nations, and Philippa and João had five children who lived into adulthood. The most famous was Prince Henry, known later as the “Henry the Navigator.”
Portuguese expansion reached its peak during the reign of Manuel I, who was known even in his own lifetime as "The Fortunate," between 1495 and 1521. The crucial moment came in 1498 when Vasco da Gama’s expedition reached Calicut on the Indian coast and returned to Portugal the next year after a voyage of 24,000 miles. The surviving ships brought back modest amounts of the precious spices of the east—pepper, cinnamon, and cloves—but the merchants of Europe immediately saw the implications of a successful sea voyage to India. With direct access to India by sea, Portugal could import spices more cheaply than the traditional spice merchants of Italy, who had to obtain them after long overland routes through many Muslim intermediaries.
With royal support, Portuguese explorers and traders sponsored expedition after expedition and were quickly able to break the spice monopoly of Venice and other Italian powers, reaping vast profits for themselves and the crown in the early years of the sixteenth century. The conquest in quick succession of three key ports in the Indian Ocean trade network—Ormuz (1509), Goa (1510), and Malacca (1511)—ensured that Lisbon supplanted all of the Italian states as the hub of the spice trade in Europe. The arrival of Portuguese merchants further east in Macau (1513) and Nagasaki (1543) began the flow of Chinese and Japanese luxuries such as porcelain and silk into Lisbon and only enhanced its role as the most dynamic trading hub in Western Europe.
The accidental discovery of Brazil by an east-bound fleet in 1500 led to commercial interest and settlement there due to the abundance of brazilwood, a source of red dye used in the production of luxury textiles like velvet. Exports of brazilwood remained a staple well into the seventeenth century, though they suffered a relative decline in importance as the plantation sugar industry began to boom there from the mid-sixteenth century. Sadly, the growth of sugar there further drove the growth of the
.
A flood of wealth flowed into the royal coffers, which Manuel used to build monuments in a grand style. Architecture built under Manuel has proven notoriously hard to define since it was a flamboyant composite style that has been called
. The most notable buildings of early modern Portugal—the new Riverside Palace (O Paço de Ribeira) in Lisbon, destroyed by the Earthquake of 1755; the Jieronymite Monastery (O Mosteiro dos Jerónimos) and the Tower in the suburb of Belém; and elements of the Royal Cloister in the Battle Monastery in Batalha—were all commissioned by Manuel and paid for mostly by import duties on the spice trade. At the time, and for long after, many Portuguese viewed the reign of Manuel as Portugal’s Golden Age.
House of Bourbon-Braganza. The Most Serene House of Braganza ( Portuguese: Sereníssima Casa de Bragança ), also known as the Brigantine dynasty ( dinastia Brigantina ), is a dynasty of emperors, kings, princes, and dukes of Portuguese origin which reigned in Europe and the Americas .
- 1442; 581 years ago
- Afonso I, Duke of Braganza
This king became known in Portugal by the nickname The Pious. Upon leaving Portugal in 1619, he fell seriously ill in Covarrubias , and never recovered, dying within a year. For 53 days he was bedridden, covered in sores and abscesses.
- 13 September 1598 – 31 March 1621
- Anna of Austria
The Lisbon Regicide or Regicide of 1908 (Portuguese: Regicídio de 1908) was the assassination of King Carlos I of Portugal and the Algarves and his heir-apparent, Luís Filipe, Prince Royal of Portugal, by assassins sympathetic to Republican interests and aided by elements within the Portuguese Carbonária, disenchanted politicians and anti ...
- 1 February 1908
Mar 22, 2024 · Louis III (born c. 830—died Jan. 20, 882, Frankfurt) was the king of part of the East Frankish realm who, by acquiring western Lotharingia (Lorraine) from the West Franks, helped to establish German influence in that area.
May 23, 2018 · Philip IV. Philip IV (1605-1665) was king of Spain from 1621 to 1665. During his reign Spain was engaged in foreign wars and torn by internal revolt. Born on April 8, 1605, Philip IV succeeded his father, Philip III, in 1621. He was more intelligent than his father but like him allowed his government to be run by minister-favorites.
