Michael I (Portugal)

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King Michael I of Portugal, copper engraving by Franz Xaver Stöber after Johann Ender

Michael I of Portugal (born Miguel Maria do Patrocínio João Carlos Francisco de Assis Xavier de Paula Pedro de Alcântara António Rafael Gabriel Joaquim José Gonzaga Evaristo de Bragança e Bourbon; * October 26, 1802 in Lisbon ; †  November 14, 1866 in the hunting lodge Karlshöhe bei Esselbach ) was King of Portugal from the House of Braganza and ruled from 1828 to 1834.

Life

youth

Michael was the third son of John VI. of Portugal and his wife Charlotte Joachime . In 1807 he fled as a toddler with his parents and the rest of the royal family from the Napoleonic troops to Rio de Janeiro and stayed in Brazil for the next 14 years .

In 1821 he returned to Portugal with his parents, while his older brother, Crown Prince Peter IV , remained as regent in Brazil. He proclaimed Brazilian independence there on September 7, 1822 and made himself Emperor Peter I (Dom Pedro I) of Brazil.

The main question of Portuguese domestic politics at the time was whether Portugal should continue to be governed as an absolutist or a constitutional monarchy . For the first time in its history , the country had a constitution since the Liberal Revolution (1821) . The reactionary and conservative forces in Portuguese society, on the other hand, wanted to reintroduce absolutism, which is why they were called absolutists ( absolutistas ). During this time, Prince Michael came completely under the influence of his mother, the Queen, who was a fanatical supporter of the absolutists. Immediately after their return to Portugal, Queen Joachime and Michael refused to take the oath required by parliament on the constitution of 1821. Only King John took the oath.

In 1824 Johann VI. appointed his son Michael commander in chief of the Portuguese army. Together with his mother, Michael led the Vilafrancada on May 27, 1823 , an "absolutist uprising" which, since the king was unwilling to break his oath on the constitution, was also directed against his own father. Johann VI. was held as a prisoner by his wife and son in one of his palaces, the queen tried to persuade him to abdicate in favor of Michael. The uprising failed. Johann VI. was able to escape on an English warship, the hope of the Queen and Michaels in a French army, which had just eliminated liberalism and restored absolutism in neighboring Spain , was dashed after English threats of war against France prevented its army from marching on to Portugal. After the king's authority was restored with British help, he forced Michael into exile . He went to Vienna and got there in a circle around the reactionary politician Prince Metternich , which strengthened his absolutist views.

government

Michael of Portugal

His father died in 1826, and Peter I of Brazil also ascended the Portuguese throne as Peter IV of Portugal. In the same year he gave the country a new constitution, the so-called Constitutional Charter of 1826 . Since Peter was not ready to return from Brazil, but also realized that he could not rule Portugal permanently from abroad, he resigned as King of Portugal after only two months in favor of his underage daughter Maria II .

She was supposed to marry her uncle Michael as soon as she was of marriageable age. He was supposed to swear allegiance to the constitutional charter, rule Portugal as regent for his underage niece and bride, and after the marriage ascend the throne with her. That is Peter's plan. Michael also agreed to this: a proxy wedding was celebrated in Vienna , he swore the oath on the constitution, returned to Portugal in 1826 and took over the reign there from his sister Elisabeth Maria .

After a short time, however, he broke his oath and abolished the charter, called a traditional meeting of the estates, dethroned his bride and niece Maria and was proclaimed king in 1828. The legalistic justification for this coup was that Peter IV, when he was proclaimed Emperor of Brazil in 1822, had become a foreign monarch and therefore lost all claims to the Portuguese throne for himself and his descendants. Michael I was the last Portuguese king to rule in an absolutist way.

There was some resistance from the Liberals (especially in Porto ) to Michael's coup , which the king was able to bring down. He ruled the country with great severity and forced his liberal opponents into exile.

But Peter was not prepared to accept his brother's breach of trust without a fight. In addition, he had to contend with increasing domestic political difficulties in Brazil. There was also strong criticism of the emperor's interference in the Portuguese entanglements. Peter I therefore abdicated as emperor in Brazil in 1831 in favor of his son Peter II in order to be able to devote himself entirely to the Portuguese problems. He assumed the title of Duke of Braganza and Regent of Portugal (for his daughter Maria II) and traveled to Europe to fight Michael there.

Towards the beginning of the Miguelistenkrieg , which was now beginning , it looked as if Michael had all the trumps in his hand. With the exception of the Azores , which were ruled by a Regency Council loyal to Peter under the later Duke of Terceira , he had succeeded in bringing all of Portugal under his control. Most of the liberal opposition against him was in exile (especially in Brazil, London , Paris and Brussels ) and was also at odds with one another.

The coat of arms of the Portuguese kings from John II to Manuel II.

Fall

Slowly, however, the tide turned. The hard hand with which King Michael ruled the country made him increasingly hated by the population. The political weather situation in Europe also changed, and as a result Michael I found himself increasingly isolated in foreign policy. In England the Duke of Wellington's Conservative government had been overthrown in 1830 and replaced by the government of Earl Gray , a Whig . In France , the July Revolution of 1830 brought the “citizen king” Ludwig Philipp to power, who supported Peter. Therefore, after his abdication in Brazil, he first went to Paris. Michael I finally made himself an enemy of the Spanish King Ferdinand VII by openly supporting his brother Karl (Don Carlos), who at that time was waging a civil war against his brother ( 1st Carlist War ). These three powers therefore allied together with Peter in the so-called "Quadruple Alliance" against King Michael.

Peter now went to the Azores and from there to Portugal with an invading army. With the help of the loyal liberal military leaders, the Dukes of Terceira and Saldanha , he managed relatively quickly to get the two most important cities of the country, Lisbon and Porto, under control and so put Michael on the defensive. After the Battle of Évoramonte , King Michael finally had to abdicate in 1834 and go into exile again. Maria II was reinstated as queen.

Peter initially announced an amnesty, which provided that Michael should keep the title of royal infante of Portugal and receive an appropriate apanage in exile , but this arrangement led to a revolt against Peter. The Cortes revoked the ruling that had promised Michael an apanage. As soon as he found out about it, he in turn revoked his abdication from his exile in Italy and made it clear that he continued to consider himself a legitimate king.

Michael of Portugal died without ever having relinquished his claims to the Portuguese throne.

In the House of Braganza the enmity between the descendants of Maria II, from whom the Portuguese line of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha developed, and the descendants of Michael persisted. Only when the last Portuguese king, Manuel II , appointed a grandson of Michael as his successor in exile and for lack of his own descendants, did the dispute in the House of Braganza end.

Michael de Bragança was buried on November 17, 1866 in the princely crypt in Engelberg Monastery near Großheubach in Lower Franconia . On April 5, 1967, his body was transferred to Portugal, where he was buried in the Pantheon in Lisbon , the burial church of the Portuguese kings ( São Vicente de Fora monastery ). His wife's body was also flown to Lisbon at this time. She died in 1909 as a Benedictine on the English island of Wight and was buried next to her husband.

Marriage and offspring

Michael with his wife Adelheid

Michael married Princess Adelheid von Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rosenberg (April 3, 1831 - December 16, 1909) on September 24, 1851 at Schloss Kleinheubach , already in exile . They had seven children:

He was also the father of the illegitimate daughter Maria da Assunta (* March 12, 1831, † July 1897).

  • Michael I. with his wife and children Maria das Neves and Michael Maria Carlos

  • Michael Maria Carlos (Miguel II of Braganza) and his sister Marie Therese, c. 1875

  • Maria das Neves, c. 1877

  • Marie Therese

  • Maria Josepha, c. 1874

  • Adelgunde, c. 1876

  • Maria Anna, c. 1894

  • Maria Antonia, c. 1885

See also: Portugal time table .

literature

  • Leonhard Scherg : The burial place of Miguel I of Portugal and his wife Adelheid in Lisbon (= Bronnbacher Miszellen. 6). In: Wertheim Yearbook. 2010/11 (2012), pp. 308-310.
  • Helmut Castritius , Winfried Wackerfuß : A king on the edge of the Odenwald. Dom Miguel I of Portugal in exile in the Main region. In: The Odenwald . Journal of the Breuberg-Bund 62/1, 2015, pp. 3–20.
  • Torsten Riotte : The monarch in exile. Another story of statehood and legitimism in the 19th century , Göttingen 2018, pp. 364–367.

Web links

Commons : Michael (Portugal)  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
predecessor Office Successor
Mary II King of Portugal
1828–1834 		Mary II
personal data
SURNAME Michael
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Miguel Maria do Patrocínio João Carlos Francisco de Assis Xavier de Paula Pedro de Alcântara António Rafael Gabriel Joaquim José Gonzaga Evaristo de Bragança e Bourbon
BRIEF DESCRIPTION King of Portugal from the House of Braganza (1828–1834)
DATE OF BIRTH October 26, 1802
PLACE OF BIRTH Lisbon
DATE OF DEATH November 14, 1866
Place of death Karlshöhe hunting lodge near Esselbach , Bavaria