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Duke of Braganza

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The Dukedom of Bragança or Braganza is one of the most important titles of the Portuguese Royal Family. Since the accession to the throne of the Dynasty of Bragança, in 1640, the heir of the Portuguese Crown is the Duke of Bragança, a tradition that lasted even after the foundation of the Republic in October 5 1910.

History

The Duchy of Bragança was created in 1442 by king Afonso V of Portugal for his uncle Afonso, Count of Barcelos (natural son of John I of Portugal). Along with Coimbra and Viseu (in 1414), it is one of the first duchies of Portugal.

The Braganças soon became the most powerful house of the kingdom, due to the enrichment policies of Afonso, the first duke. He always sought royal favour with his father (King João I) and his younger brother (King Duarte). When his six-year-old nephew became King Afonso V of Portugal, he was the king's most cherished councillor. This would provoke a short civil war against his brother Pedro, Duke of Coimbra that ended in his death in the Battle of Alfarrobeira in 1449.

The growing power of the Braganças was suppressed in the next generation. King João II was very strict on where royal power should be and not to keen on allowing the development of a country inside his own. He executed the third duke, Fernando II, for treason, based on letters written to the king of Castile. Later the king annexed the Bragança lands and riches to the crown and exiled the four-year-old heir, Jaime, in Castile.

João II's successor, King Manuel I of Portugal was uncle of Jaime and, in 1500, he recalled his nephew to Portugal, returning to him the titles and (part of) the lands of Bragança. The house was once again at the peak. Jaime of Bragança ordered the construction of a monumental Palace at Vila Viçosa, which would become one of the royal palaces in the 17th century.

The sixth duke, João, married Princess Catarina of Portugal and sired the courageous seventh duke Teodósio, who fought actively in the Battle of Alcacer Quibir (1578) when only ten-years-old.

Meanwhile, the Portuguese kingdom was in crisis. King Sebastian I of Portugal disappeared from the face of the Earth in Africa in 1578. He was childless and the crown was transferred to his great-uncle Cardinal Henry I of Portugal, an old man without sons himself. On Henry I's death in 1580, King Philip II of Spain became Philip I of Portugal and the country lost its independence.

In 1640, the wise policies of Philip II in respect of Portugal were over. The country was overtaxed and the Spanish king no longer had the trust of Portuguese nobility. He was especially loathed by the powerful Portuguese guild of merchants. Portugal was on the verge of rebellion and a new Portuguese king had to be found. The choice fell upon the eighth duke, João II of Bragança. The duke was a modest man without particular ambitions to the crown. Legend says that his wife, Leonor of Guzman, daughter of the duke of Medina-Sidónia, forced him to accept the offer saying, I'd rather be Queen for a day that duchess for a lifetime. He accepted the leadership of the rebellion and became João IV of Portugal on December 1 1640.

After the accession of the Braganças to the throne, the duchy was the traditional title of the heir of the crown, as Prince of Wales is in the United Kingdom.

In February 1 1908, king Carlos I of Portugal was murdered with his oldest son and heir, Luis Filipe of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, 21st duke of Bragança. He was succeeded by Manuel II of Portugal but for a short time: in October 5 1910, a Republic was instituted and the king was exiled to England. After this, the duchy of Bragança passed to Miguel II, son of the exiled king Miguel I of Portugal, who was living in the Austrian Empire. His branch of the Bragança family became heir to the crown in 1932 when Manuel II died without children. The Braganças were authorized to return to the country in 1950 and have lived there ever since.

Presently, the duke of Bragança and Portuguese heir is Duarte Pio of Bragança (born 1945). Unlike European countries like Greece, which continues to forbid the presence of the heirs of former royal houses in their lands, republican Portugal and its claimants to the throne have long been reconciled, with the current duke highly regarded throughout Portugal, a fact shown when among the guests at his wedding was the Portuguese President of the Republic and the country's prime minister. The Duke of Bragança is sometimes described as the living representative of the country's history, with the birth of his children, the next generation of Portugeses ex-royals, becoming a focus of national celebration.

Dukes of Bragança

Note: dates are birth and death; the intermediate date represents accession as duke

Another claimant to the position of head of the House of Braganza is the Italian born Rosario Poidimani, calling himself "Dom Rosario of Braganza" but not her son or grandson. Poidimani is purportedly a relative of one Hilda Toledano, who claimed in the 1930s to be an illegitimate child of king Carlos I by a Maria Amelia Laredo e Murca. However, there is no evidence of this paternity, and the nature of her relationship to Poidimani is even more dubious. Poidimani defends his claim based on the Monarchic Constitution promulgated in 1838 and revoked in 1910 by the Republic. Article 98 of the constitution states: The Collateral line of the ex-infant Dom Miguel and all his descendants are perpetually excluded from the succession. However, Portuguese rules for succession, exclude children born as a result of adultery as the case of Hilda Toledano, and Manuel II of Portugal, the last king of the country, recognized Duarte Pio's father as his successor. A lot of historians assert this Pact of Paris of 1922, with which King Manuel's lieutenant would have abdicated the title of Duke of Bragança in favour of Duarte Nuno but whose existence has not been visibly proved, has not legal and constitutional validity because the abdication in favour of the miguelist line should have been made after the abrogation, by a King's sovereign act, of article 98 of the Monarchic Constitution, which has never happened. Such a discussion is however academic, as Portugal has for nearly a century been a republic and shows no evidence of changing that fact.

External link


fr:Liste des ducs de Bragance pt:Duque de Bragança

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