MARIA II of Braganza (Maria da Glória), queen of Portugal. — B. in Rio de Janeiro on 4 Apr. 1819, d. in Lisbon on 15 Nov. 1853.
MARIA II of Braganza succeeded to the Portuguese throne upon the death of her grandfather John VI, her father, Don Pedro, having renounced his rights to the Lusitanian crown in order to separate Brazil from Portugal and proclaim himself emperor. Succession through the female line was however not accepted by her uncle Don Miguel, who in 1828 deposed the young queen with the support of the absolutist powers. Don 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 the son of the former viceroy of Italy, Eugène de Beauharnais. Widowed after only two months, she contracted a second marriage with Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, by whom she had two sons who subsequently reigned over Portugal, Peter V and Louis I.
The twenty years of her reign were marred by continual civil strife fomented by the “mugilists,” at the very time when neighbouring Spain was torn by the wars between the “carlists” and the “cristinos,” so that M. in Portugal and Maria Christina in Spain embodied the liberal cause against Don Miguel and Don Carlos, exponents of legitimism.
For a long time her ecclesiastical policy was sectarian and persecutory, to the extent that the nuncio was forcibly removed, the ecclesiastical forum was abolished, newly elected bishops were harassed, all religious orders were banished, and even the patriarchate of Lisbon was suppressed. In 1852 M. modified the kingdom’s constitutional charter by an additional act, and the following year she died in childbirth at the age of thirty-four.