The Story of the Nations: PortugalStephens, H. Morse (Henry Morse)
History
The Story of the Nations: Portugal
Stephens, H. Morse (Henry Morse)
Portugal -- History
At the time of Pedro’s death, his next brother and heir, Dom Luis, was
travelling on the continent, and his father, Ferdinand II., who long
survived Queen Maria da Gloria, and morganatically married Elise
Hensler, a dancer, assumed the regency until his return, soon after
which King Luis married Maria Pia, younger daughter of Victor Emmanuel,
king of Italy. The new monarch followed his brother’s policy, and
allowed his ministers to fight out their battles in the chambers without
any interference from himself. During his reign, the old combatants of
the stormy reign of Maria da Gloria, Palmella, Terceira, Sá de Bandeira,
Thomar, and Saldanha, all died off, and with them their peculiar method
of enforcing their political views. Their successors in the leadership
of political parties, the Duke of Loulé and the Marquis of Avila,
Antonio Manoel Fontes Pereira de Mello and Antonio José Braamcamp, were
men of greater administrative ability, who did not go to war when they
were defeated in Parliament, and they therefore do not contribute any
striking pages to the national history, though they have done much for
the prosperity of the country. The last “pronunciamento,” or rather
attempt at a “pronunciamento,” of the last survivor of Maria da Gloria’s
turbulent statesmen, the Duke of Saldanha, in 1870, only proved how
entirely the time for such movements had passed away. He conceived the
idea that the Duke of Loulé was too great a favourite at court, and so
he one day came to the palace and after recalling to the king’s mind a
few historical examples, such as the fatal intimacy of Charles X. of
France with the Due de Polignac, he threatened an appeal to arms unless
the Duke of Loulé was at once dismissed. King Luis, perceiving that the
old man was in earnest and not wishing to have the peace of the country
disturbed, humoured his fancy, and after keeping Saldanha himself in
office for four months, despatched him as ambassador to London, where
the old warrior died in 1876. With this trifling exception, the reign of
King Luis was prosperous and peaceful, and the news of his death on
October 9, 1889, was received with general regret.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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