Maria II of Portugal
Maria II ruled Portugal from 1834 to 1853, having spent her childhood as the disputed heir to a throne two continents away. Born in Rio de Janeiro in 1819, she was the eldest daughter of Pedro, heir to the Portuguese crown, who in 1822 declared Brazilian independence and became its emperor. When her grandfather João VI died in 1826, Pedro inherited Portugal but could not hold both. He abdicated the Portuguese throne in her favour — she was seven — granting a constitutional charter and arranging that she should marry her uncle Miguel, who would govern as regent. Miguel took power in 1828 and then seized the crown outright as an absolutist, abolishing the charter. Maria was sent to Europe and spent years in exile in England and France while her father raised money and men. The Liberal Wars followed. Pedro abdicated in Brazil in 1831, landed at Porto in 1832, and held the city through a siege of over a year before the liberal cause won in 1834. Maria was declared of age at fifteen, and her father died months later. Her reign was one of constant instability: two constitutions in contention, military revolts, the Setembrista and Cabralista factions, and a civil war in 1846-47 ended by British and Spanish intervention. She married Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in 1836 after her first husband died within months of the wedding. She bore eleven children in fifteen years, against medical advice after the first difficult births. She said she would rather die giving birth than stop having children, and died in childbirth in November 1853, aged thirty-four.
- Lived: 1819 CE – 1853 CE
- Nationality: Portuguese
- Roles: queen, head_of_state
