ALFONSO VI, king of PORTUGAL. — Born in 1643, he succeeded his father Giovanni IV, king of Braganza, who in 1640 had detached the kingdom from Spain. He therefore had to continue the war with Filippo IV; but with the victory of Almeixal (1663) and that of Villaviciosa (1665), he secured Portugal’s independence forever. His marriage to Maria Francesca Isabella of Savoy (1666) was not happy, because the queen, seeing herself abandoned by her husband, allied herself with her brother-in-law Don Pietro, and together they succeeded in having A. deposed by the « cortes » and relegated to exile on the pretext of mental derangement. He was then taken to Cintra, where he died in 1683.
BIBL.: P. Viegas, Principios del reino de Portugal, Lisbon 1671; F. de Almeida, Historia da Igreja em Portugal, 2 vols., Coimbra 1922–26. Giuseppe M. Pou y Marti