A big development came during the early years of the nineteenth century. The Napoleonic wars had caused all kinds of disruptions and complications, and naturally Portugal, which was in the thick of the struggle, could not escape them. The Prince Regent, Dom João VI, began to find Lisbon too hot to hold him, and he transferred the Court to Rio de Janeiro in 1808. The Brazilians received him well, but his reign there was not happy. When affairs in the home country became more quiet the monarch’s counsellors in Lisbon urged his return, and with that request he complied, his son, Dom Pedro, remaining at Rio as Prince Regent. Signs were abundantly evident that the spirit of nationhood had established itself very firmly in the hearts of the Brazilian people, and that they were not prepared to brook interference from the Court in Lisbon, which was constantly acting in a high-handed and arbitrary manner. Many national leaders of eminence arose, and it was not long before a declaration of independence was made, and Portugal did little or nothing to prevent the severance. But Dom Pedro, who, whatever his faults may have been, had a national resilience of mind, determined to stop with the reformers, and his reward came when he was promoted to the headship of the State under the imposing title of Emperor. A digression may be made here touching the strain of insanity which characterised this particular Royal line. One action of Dom João’s is almost as incredible as it is gruesome. He ordered that his mother, who had started her career by marrying her uncle and ended it in an asylum in Brazil, should not be buried for six years. If the body had been embalmed that would have been nothing unusual, but the Portuguese law prescribes such treatment only for males of the Royal house. When João found himself back in Lisbon he gave orders for his mother’s body to be brought from Brazil and buried with state ceremony; the Queen, be it noted, had been six years dead!