Maria II of Braganza (Maria da Glória), Queen of Portugal

MARIA II OF BRAGANZA (Maria da Glória), Queen of Portugal. - B. in Rio de Janeiro on 4 April 1819, d. in Lisbon on 15 Nov. 1853.

M. of Braganza succeeded her grandfather John VI on the Portuguese throne, since her father, Dom Pedro, had renounced his rights to the Lusitanian crown in order to separate Brazil from Portugal and proclaim himself its emperor. The succession through the female line was not, however, accepted by her uncle Dom Miguel, who in 1828 dethroned his niece with the support of the absolutist powers. Dom Pedro then came to Europe to champion his daughter's cause against his brother, who, after a long struggle, was defeated in 1834. M. was then declared of age and married a son of the former viceroy of Italy, Eugène de Beauharnais. Left a widow after only two months, she entered into a new marriage with Prince Ferdinand of Coburg, by whom she had two sons, who subsequently reigned over Portugal, Peter V and Louis I.

The twenty years of her government were desolated by continuous civil strife, fomented by the "Miguelists" at the very time when neighboring Spain was being torn apart by the wars between the "Carlists" and the "Christinos," so that M. in Portugal and Maria Christina in Spain personified the liberal current against Dom Miguel and Dom Carlos, exponents of legitimism.

Her ecclesiastical policy was sectarian and persecutory for a long time, so much so that, after the nuncio had been removed by authority, the ecclesiastical forum was abolished, the newly elected bishops were deprived of their offices, all the religious Orders were banished, and the patriarchate of Lisbon was even suppressed. In 1853 M. modified the constitutional charter of the kingdom with an acto adicional, and the following year she died in childbirth at barely thirty-four.

Renzo U. Montini