History of Portugal (1808-

The history of the **kingdom of Portugal and the Algarves**, from the departing of the Bragança royal family to Rio and the declaration of Joaquim I to the , spans a complex historical period in which several important political and military events led to the end of the absolutist regime and to the installation of a constitutional monarchy in the country which in turn led to a series of unstable governments and political backwardness. In 1807, Napoleon ordered the invasion of Portugal and subsequently the royal family and its entire court migrated to Brazil, and eventually the French troops took over the country and Joachim Murat became king as Joaquim I Napoleão.

Joaquim was an extremely unpopular monarch and on an 1815 visit to Porto he was assassinated by Bragança loyalists. Almost causing a war between France and the UK in the process, eventually and quite difficultly King Carlos I succeeded to the throne under the rule of his conservative mother queen Carolina Bonaparte. Then, amidst the 1820 revolutions king Carlos succesfully took over as monarch and managed to safeguard the monarchy for some time.

## Reign of Joaquim I

Joachim Murat (Labastide-Murat, 1767-Porto, 1815) was a French Marshal and Admiral who had married into the Bonaparte Dynasty by wedding princess Caroline Bonaparte. This coped with his military prowess made him into one of Bonaparte’s most famous and important militar aides. He had been send to Spain in 1808 to represent his brother-in-law whilst in Paris his wife had been begging and throwing tantrums in front of her brother’s relations in order to secure herself a throne or at the very least the title of Queen Consort. They had already been made into Grand Dukes of Berg but had yet to step foot on their Grand Duchy.

Meanwhile General Jean-Andoche Junot and his troops had entered Spain on 18 October 1807 and crossed the peninsula to reach the Portuguese border. Junot encountered no resistance and reached Abrantes by 24 November, Santarém on 28 November, and the Portuguese capital at the end of the month, arriving a day after the Court had fled to Brazil. Before the Prince Regent departed, he left orders with the Regency Junta to greet the French in peace. Once he arrived, Junot promoted himself as a reformer come to liberate the oppressed people of Portugal, promising progress, the construction of roads and canals, efficient administration, clean finances, assistance and schools for the poor.Instead, he set about removing vestiges of the Portuguese monarchy, declared that the House of Braganza had ceased to reign in Portugal, suspended the Council of Regency, suppressed the Portuguese militia, billeted officers in the finest houses of the rich, and plundered the Portuguese treasury for continuing reparations to the French. Meanwhile, 50,000 Spanish and French troops roamed the countryside arresting, killing, plundering and raping the citizenry.

By 1808, as Junot was busy redesigning Portuguese society, Napoleon decided to pact with the British at Erfurt and both negotiated for a solution that would appease both parties (without taking into consideration the Portuguese’s interests at the time). They decided that Portugal would remain under French “protection” whilst her colonies were divided into two. North of the Equator, mainly the islands of Madeira, the Açores, Cape Verde, the praças in West Africa, Portuguese India and Macau were all left to the new Portugal whilst the Brazil, the praças in southern Africa and São Tomé were all left to the Bragança Dynasty, who shortly thereafter proclaimed the Empire of Brazil. A curious problem ensued as the treaty didn’t specify the situation for the Colony at Dili, in Timor, who was both South of the Equator and Dependent of Portuguese Goa. António de Mendonça Côrte-Real, then governor and loyal to the House of Bragança, as well as weary of the colonial intentions of the newly established French East Indies, decided to declare his alligeance to the Empire of Brazil, which shortly thereafter turned into the Dili Affair.

Junot then officially established a Regency Junta and was declared Stewart of the Kingdom, with Gomes Freire de Andrade and General minister. In the modernising spirit of the French Revolution, the regime implemented a programme of sweeping reforms to the organisation and structure of the ancient feudal kingdom. The practice of tax farming was ended. The collection of all taxes slowly brought under direct central control as the government brought out the contractors and compensated those who had lost their feudal tax-collecting privileges with bonds.

Continuing the anti-clerical sentiment of the Revolution, church property was confiscated en masse and auctioned off as *biens nationaux* (in compensation for the loss of feudal privileges, the nobles received a certificate which could be exchanged for such properties). However, not all church land was sold immediately, with some retained to support charitable and educational foundations. Most monastic orders were also suppressed and their funds transferred to the royal treasury.

Portugal was effectively a French protectorate with Spanish military pressence. The loss of the colonies accentuated the economic, institutional and social crises in mainland Portugal, which was administered by French commercial and military interests under Junto’s rule in the absence of the monarch. The influence of liberal ideals was strengthened by the aftermath of the war, the continuing impact of the American and French revolutions, discontent under absolutist government, and the general indifference shown by the Portuguese regency for the plight of its people.

Amidst all this chaos, Joachim was declared monarch as Joaquim I Napoleão Murat. He was officially received into Lisbon by Junot, who was shortly thereafter made Duke of Abrantes. He immediately took over the Kingdom as an Enlightened Absolute Monarch, although the Portuguese People didn’t receive him kindly. Queen consort Caroline renovated the royal residences in Lisbon, had new gardens planned, encouraged the growing interest in furniture of Classical design, patronized the silk- and cotton industry and French artists and founded a school for girls. The Portuguese saw the new dynasty as French oppressors who tried to take over the Portuguese, went after the Holy Church and tried to sell them out to Paris. Nontheless, French soldiers put out the uprisings by the lower classes in Lisbon. Joachim tried to persevere and soon enough he formed a new Court with at its centre Juliana de Almeida e Oyenhausen, who was taken by the king as his mistress. The former’s husband, Aires José Maria de Saldanha Albuquerque Coutinho Matos e Noronha was another minister under the King’s rule.

Then, on October 1815, Joachim went out for a stroll on a small family escapade to Vila Viçosa when he was shot at by a local farmer, who was blaming the muratese-French military pressence in the region for his misery. Once the news reached Lisbon, Queen Carolina declared herself as regent for her son who was proclaimed king Carlos I of Portugal. Freire de Andrade recognized the king. Although the vast majority of the Portuguese lower classes didn’t really like nor recognize the new King as truly legitimate but the new landowner owed their lands to the Murat dynasty (most of the Higher strata had left for Brasil either in 1807 or afterwards and thus only the afrancesados remained).

Nontheless, the queen regent soon proved to be unpopular. She was self-centered and

ven though the Portuguese had participated in the defeat of the French, the country found itself virtually a colony of Brazil or British protectorate. The officers of the Portuguese Army resented British control of the Portuguese armed forces. In addition the 1808 Decree of the Opening of Ports to Friendly Nations [pt], practically brought an end to the so-called "colonial pact" (*See, Mercantilism*), and the *Treaties of 1810 [pt]*, which guaranteed favored status to British products entering Portugal, decimated the commerce of cities like Porto and Lisbon and set off a deep economic crisis which affected its bourgeoisie. The city of Porto, with a strong, dynamic bourgeoisie and with liberal tradition, was the place where the Liberal Revolution began.

After Napoleon's definite defeat in 1815, a clandestine Supreme Regenerative Council of Portugal and the Algarve was formed in Lisbon by army officers and freemasons, headed by General Gomes Freire de Andrade—Grand Master of the Grande Oriente Lusitano and former general under Napoleon until his defeat in 1814—with the objective to end British control of the country and to promote "the salvation and independence" of the *pátria*. In its brief existence the movement attempted to introduce liberalism in Portugal, although it ultimately failed to do so. In 1817 three masons, João de Sá Pereira Soares, Morais Sarmento and José Andrade Corvo, denounced the movement to the authorities, who arrested many suspects, including Freire de Andrade, who was charged with conspiracy against John VI, represented in continental Portugal by a regency, then overseen by the British military authority headed by William Carr Beresford.

In October 1817, the Regency found the twelve of the accused guilty of treason against the nation and sentenced them to death by hanging. Beresford intended to suspend the sentence until it was confirmed by John VI, but the Regency, judging that such a move was a slight to its authority, ordered their immediate execution, which took place on 18 October at Campo do Santana (today, Campo dos Mártires da Pátria [pt], "Field of the Martyrs of the Fatherland"). Freire de Andrade was executed on the same day at the São Julião da Barra Fort. The executions sparked protests against Beresford and the Regency and intensified anti-British feeling in the country.

A couple of years after the executions, Beresford left for Brazil to ask the King for more resources and powers to suppress the lingering presence of what he called "Jacobinism," which were granted to him. In his absence, the Revolution of Porto broke out in 1820, and upon his arrival from Brazil, he was forbidden to disembark in Lisbon.