LOUIS I OF BRAGANZA, King of Portugal. - B. in Lisbon on 31 Oct. 1838, d. at Cascais on 19 Oct. 1889. Second son of Queen Maria II and of the consort sovereign Ferdinand of Coburg, he succeeded his brother Peter V in 1861. The following year he married Maria Pia of Savoy, daughter of Victor Emmanuel II, by whom he had an heir named Charles, who succeeded him as Charles I in 1889.

His reign, stormy because of the rivalries of the Portuguese parties, was characterized by important reforms, among them the abolition of primogeniture, the promulgation of the Civil Code, the suppression of the death penalty, and the abolition of slavery in the colonies. Having been put forward as a candidate for the succession of Isabella II to the throne of Spain, he refused. Sincerely religious, he called the bishop of Vizeu to the presidency of the government, and he was succeeded by the duke of Loulé and by Marshal the duke of Saldanha; but the statesman preferred by the King was Fontes Pereira de Melo, who held the ministry from 1871 to '78, linking his name to the aforementioned reforms.

In 1862, by the treaty of Tien-Tsin, he obtained the peninsula of Macao from China. An excellent writer, he translated into Portuguese a great part of Shakespeare's plays.

Bibliography3 works

BIBL.: Diccionario bibliographico portoguez, XIII, pp. 329-330; J. P. Oliveira Martins, Portugal contemporaneo, Lisbon 1919; A. Ballesteros, Historia de España, VIII, Barcelona 1936, pp. 264-65.

Renzo U. Montini

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Louis I of Braganza, King of Portugal

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