December 17, 1734: Birth of Maria I, Queen of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves

Tags

Emperor Napoleon of France, House of Braganza, King Pedro III, Mental Illness, Porphyria, Queen Maria I of Portugal, United Kingdom of Portugal Brazil and the Algarves

Maria I (December 17, 1734 – March 20, 1816) was Queen of Portugal from February 24, 1777 until her death in 1816. Known as Maria the Pious in Portugal and Maria the Mad in Brazil, she was the first undisputed Queen Regnant of Portugal and the first monarch of Brazil.

Maria was the eldest daughter of King José I of Portugal and Infanta Mariana Victoria of Spain, the eldest daughter of King Felipe V of Spain and Queen Elisabeth Farnese.

King João V appointed his granddaughter Maria as the Princess of Beira on the day of her birth.

Maria I, Queen of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves

Maria’s grandfather João V died on July 3, 1750. Her father, Prince José, then succeeded to the throne as King José I. As José’s eldest child, Maria became his heir presumptive and was given the traditional titles of Princess of Brazil and Duchess of Braganza.

On June 6, 1760 Maria married her uncle Pedro of Portugal. Maria and Pedro had six children: José, João Francisco, João (later King João VI), Mariana Vitória, Maria Clementina, and Maria Isabel. Only José, João, and Mariana Vitória survived to adulthood. Maria also delivered a stillborn boy in 1762.

King José died on February 24, 1777. His daughter, Maria, then became the first undisputed queen regnant of Portugal. With Maria’s accession, her husband became nominal king as Pedro III, but the actual regal authority was vested solely in Maria, as she was the lineal heir of the crown. Also, as Pedro’s kingship was jure uxoris only, his reign would cease in the event of Maria’s death, and the crown would pass to Maria’s descendants.

Upon ascending the throne, Maria dismissed her father’s powerful chief minister, Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, 1st Marquis of Pombal, who had broken the power of the reactionary aristocracy via the Távora affair, partially because of his Enlightenment, anti-Jesuit policies. Noteworthy events of this period include Portugal’s membership in the League of Armed Neutrality (July 1782) and the 1781 cession of Delagoa Bay from Austria to Portugal. However, the queen suffered from religious mania and melancholia and this would take a toll on her health.

Maria I, Queen of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves and King Pedro III

The early part of Maria’s reign witnessed growth in Portugal’s economy. Maria had a number of national buildings constructed and renovated, leading to the completion of the Palace of Queluz and the inauguration of the Palace of Ajuda and other new monuments. The death of her husband in 1786, followed by the deaths in 1788 of her eldest son José and her confessor Inácio de São Caetano, caused the queen to develop clinical depression. Her second son, João, then served as prince regent.

In February 1792, Maria was deemed mentally insane and was treated by Francis Willis, the same physician who attended the British king George III. Willis wanted to take her to England, but the plan was refused by the Portuguese court. Potentially as a result of Willis’ more advisory role in Maria’s care, rather than the hands-on care of King George III, Willis deemed the queen incurable. Maria’s second son, João, now Prince of Brazil, took over the government in her name, even though he only took the title of Prince Regent in 1799. When the Real Barraca de Ajuda burnt down in 1794, the court was forced to move to Queluz, where the ill queen would lie in her apartments all day. Another potential cause of her mental illness was her incestuous ancestry, this is substantiated by two of her sisters who had similar conditions.

With Napoleon’s European conquests, Maria and her court moved to the Portuguese colony of Brazil in 1807. After Brazil was elevated to a kingdom in 1815, Maria became Queen of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves.

In 1816, she died at the Carmo Convent in Rio de Janeiro at the age of 81. After her death, the prince regent was acclaimed as King João VI. Maria’s body was returned to Lisbon to be interred in a mausoleum in the Estrela Basilica (Portuguese: Basilica da Estrela), which she had helped found.

Maria is a greatly admired figure in both Brazil and Portugal due to the tremendous changes and events that took place during her reign. In Portugal, she is celebrated as a strong female figure. Her legacy shines at Portugal’s Queluz Palace, a baroque-roccoco masterpiece that she helped conceive. A large statue of her stands in front of the palace, and a pousada near the palace is named in her honour. A large marble statue of the queen was erected at the Portuguese National Library in Lisbon by the students of Joaquim Machado de Castro.

Emperor Paul I of Russia. Conclusion

Tags

Assassination, Emperor Alexander I of Russia, Emperor Napoleon of France, Emperor Paul I of Russia, Empress Catherine II of Russia, France, Great Britain, Nikolay Zubov, St. Michael's Castle

Emperor Paul’s early foreign policy can largely be seen as reactions against his mother’s foreign policy. In foreign policy, this meant that he opposed the many expansionary wars she fought and instead preferred to pursue a more peaceful, diplomatic path. Immediately upon taking the throne, he recalled all troops outside Russian borders, including the struggling expedition Catherine II had sent to conquer Iran through the Caucasus and the 60,000 men she had promised to Britain and Austria to help them defeat the French.

Paul hated the French before their revolution, and afterwards, with their republican and anti-religious views, he detested them even more. In addition to this, he knew French expansion hurt Russian interests, but he recalled his mother’s troops primarily because he firmly opposed wars of expansion. He also believed that Russia needed substantial governmental and military reforms to avoid an economic collapse and a revolution, before Russia could wage war on foreign soil.

The most original aspect of Paul I’s foreign policy was his rapprochement with France. Several scholars have argued that this change in position, radical though it seemed, made sense, as Bonaparte became First Consul and made France a more conservative state, consistent with Paul’s view of the world.

Paul also decided to send a Cossack army to take British India, as Britain itself was almost impervious to direct attack, being an island nation with a formidable navy, but the British had left India largely unguarded and would have great difficulty staving off a force that came over land to attack it.

The British themselves considered this enough of a problem that they signed three treaties with Persia, in 1801, 1809 and 1812, to guard against an army attacking India through Central Asia. Paul sought to attack the British where they were weakest: through their commerce and their colonies. Throughout his reign, his policies focused reestablishing peace and the balance of power in Europe, while supporting autocracy and old monarchies, without seeking to expand Russia’s borders.

Paul’s premonitions of assassination were well founded. His attempts to force the nobility to adopt a code of chivalry alienated many of his trusted advisors. The Emperor also discovered outrageous machinations and corruption in the Russian treasury.

As he had revoked Catherine’s decree allowing corporal punishment of the free classes, and directed reforms that resulted in greater rights for the peasantry and provided for better treatment for serfs on agricultural estates, many of his policies greatly annoyed the noble class and induced his enemies to work out a plan of action.

A conspiracy was organized, some months before it was executed, by Counts Peter Ludwig von der Pahlen, Nikita Petrovich Panin, and Admiral de Ribas, with the alleged support of the British ambassador in Saint Petersburg, Charles Whitworth.

The death of de Ribas in December 1800 delayed the assassination; but, on the night of March 23, 1801, a band of dismissed officers murdered Paul at the newly completed palace of Saint Michael’s Castle. The assassins included General Bennigsen, a Hanoverian in the Russian service, and General Yashvil, a Georgian.

They charged into Paul’s bedroom, flushed with drink after dining together, and found the emperor hiding behind some drapes in the corner. The conspirators pulled him out, forced him to the table, and tried to compel him to sign his abdication. Paul offered some resistance, and Nikolay Zubov struck him with a sword, after which the assassins strangled and trampled him to death.

Paul’s successor on the Russian throne, his 23-year-old son Alexander, was actually in the palace at the time of the killing; he had “given his consent to the overthrow of Paul, but had not supposed that this would be carried out by means of assassination”. General Nikolay Zubov announced his accession to the heir, accompanied by the admonition, “Time to grow up! Go and rule!” Alexander I did not punish the assassins, and the court physician, James Wylie, declared apoplexy the official cause of death.

Legacy

There is some evidence that Paul I was venerated as a saint among the Russian Orthodox populace, even though he was never officially canonized by any of the Orthodox Churches.

September 27, 1788: Death of Augusta of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. Duchess of Württemberg. Part II.

Tags

amenorrhea, Augusta of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, Duchess of Württemberg, Duke of Württemberg, Elector of Württemberg, Emperor Napoleon of France, Empress Catherine II of Russia, Frederick of Württemberg, Holy Roman Empire, King of Württemberg

A new life in Estonia and death

While the divorce conditions were being ironed out between Augusta, Friedrich, the Empress Catherine, Duke Charles Wilhelm Ferdinand of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, during which time the Empress was on a long journey to the south, Augusta was sent to one of the Imperial estates, Lohde castle, in Lohde (now Koluvere) in Kullamaa Parish to the south-west of Tallinn, Estonia., for her own safety.

Because Friedrich insisted on having custody of all three children, Augusta refused to sign the divorce papers. Fearing retribution should she return to Brunswick, Augusta accepted Catherine’s suggestion to settle in Estonia. Augusta’s companions were a gentleman, Major-general Wilhelm von Pohlmann 1727 – 1796), and three ladies – Madame Wilde (replaced by Madame Bistram in 1788) and Pohlmann’s two daughters.

The sixty-year-old Pohlmann, who had retired to his estate near Lohde six years before, had enjoyed an illustrious career at the Russian Court; he was a close and trusted friend of the Empress, who had appointed him to the board of the prestigious Free Economic Society of Russia.

From Lodhe, Augusta kept up a regular correspondence with the Empress, who never ceased to care for her, and with her mother, to whom she expressed her satisfaction with the peaceful country life. The Empress sold Augusta’s house in St Petersburg on her behalf, advised her to invest the money wisely and allowed her to live off the income from the Lohde estate.

For a few years already, Augusta had been suffering from amenorrhea, for which her doctor had been treating her with potentially dangerous herbal potions, designed to stimulate menstruation. On the morning of September 27, 1788 (new style), at the age of 23, Augusta suddenly experienced violent vaginal bleeding, which continued for six-and-a-half hours, by which time she died.

Her doctor had been summoned but due to the long distance, he arrived too late. The Princess’s parents received a letter of condolences from the Empress, as well as Pohlmann’s report of her death and her doctor’s report. Many years later, her eldest son had the matter investigated and her body was exhumed. Although rumours were spread about her death from miscarriage they were disproven through the exhumation. It was found that she had neither been buried alive nor with the bones of a baby. Augusta’s story was fictionalized by Thackeray in The Luck of Barry Lyndon.

Augusta was buried under the floor of Kullamaa church. On her tombstone is the text: “Hic jacet in pace Augusta Carolina Friderica Luisa Ducis Brunsuicencis-Guelferbytani Filia Friderici Guilielmi Caroli Ducis Vurtembergensis et Supremi Praefecti Viburgiensis Uxor Nat. d. III. Dec. MDCCLXIV Denat. d. XIV. Sept. MDCCLXXXVIII” The date is false – it should have been XVI September. Over the years, her coffin decayed, causing her bones to get lost in the bottom of the deep crypt. Her tombstone is still in the church, albeit in a different position, surrounded by an iron rail.

The castle and lands of Koluvere were afterwards granted to Count Frederik Vilhelm Buxhoevden.

Friedrich of Württemberg’s father, Friedrich II Eugen, Duke of Württemberg, helped his son make contact with the British royal family – Friedrich’s first wife Augusta, had been a niece of George III of the United Kingdom. On May 18, 1797, Friedrich married George III’s eldest daughter Charlotte, Princess Royal, at the Chapel Royal in St James’s Palace.

Friedrich succeeded his father as the reigning Duke of Württemberg on December 22, 1797. The new Duke Friedrich III had two sons and two daughters by his first marriage to the late Princess Augusta – The marriage between Duke Friedrich III and the Princess Royal produced one child: a stillborn daughter on April 27, 1798.

In 1803, Napoleon raised the Duchy of Württemberg to the Electorate of Württemberg, the highest form of a princedom in the Holy Roman Empire. Duke Friedrich III assumed the title Elector of Württemberg on February 25, 1803. In exchange for providing France with a large auxiliary force, Napoleon recognized Elector Friedrich as King of Württemberg on December 26, 1805. Then on January 1, 1806, Friedrich officially assumed the title of King of Württemberg. Later that year, the last Holy Roman Emperor, Franz II, abolished de facto the empire on August 6, 1806.