The death of João VI and the fight over his crown, 1826

On the morning of 4 March 1826, King João VI of Portugal was taken ill after breakfast. He was 58, overweight and inactive, and he lived at the Bemposta, a palace in Lisbon also known as the Paço da Rainha, where he had kept his court as prince regent in 1803 and to which he had returned on coming home from Brazil.2 sources2 sources

From 6 March the Gazeta de Lisboa, the official newspaper, printed bulletins from the palace, 27 of them by the end. The first said he was improving. On 7 March a supplement to the Gazeta carried a decree, dated at the Bemposta the day before, that handed the government to his daughter, the Infanta Isabel Maria, and a council, for as long as the illness lasted.2 sources2 sources

Isabel Maria is said to have urged a reconciliation with her mother. The king, talking with the Patriarch of Lisbon and the papal envoy, agreed to send for Queen Carlota Joaquina, who lived apart from him at the palace of Queluz. She answered that she was too unwell to travel. When the British ambassador, Sir William A'Court, called with his court's condolences a few days after the death, he found the widow and her daughters showing “health, vivacity and no trace whatever of tiredness”.1 source1 source

The bulletins went on speaking of hope, then reported a turn for the worse on 9 March. João VI died on 10 March. The historian Fátima Bonifácio calls the illness a disease of the liver; a 2007 medical review of the sources found that he died with convulsions and gastrointestinal symptoms. Doubts began almost at once: about the decree, about the day he had really died, and about what had killed him.4 sources4 sources

João was never meant to reign. Born in Lisbon on 13 May 1767, a younger son of Pedro III and the future Queen Maria I, he became heir in 1788, when his elder brother José died of smallpox. In February 1792, after his mother's mental collapse, he began to govern in her name, and in 1799 he took the title of prince regent. He became king only at her death in 1816.2 sources2 sources

By then he was in Brazil. On 29 November 1807, with a French army marching on Lisbon, the royal family sailed for Brazil. Rio de Janeiro became the seat of the monarchy, and in 1815 Brazil was raised to a kingdom. That flight has its own article on Lisboeta.2 sources2 sources

In 1820 a liberal revolution broke out in Porto. Its leaders called Cortes, an elected assembly, to write a constitution, and wanted the king home. On 22 April 1821 João made his elder son Pedro regent of Brazil. He sailed four days later, landed in Lisbon on 4 July and at once swore to the bases of the new constitution.4 sources4 sources

Fourteen months later Brazil was gone. Pedro refused the Cortes' order to come back, declared Brazil independent on 7 September 1822 and was acclaimed its emperor in October. In Lisbon the Constitution of 1822, sworn by the king on 1 October, placed sovereignty in the nation and most power in a single elected chamber. Queen Carlota Joaquina refused to swear it and backed its enemies.3 sources3 sources

Their leader was her younger son, Miguel. On 27 May 1823 he rode out to Vila Franca de Xira, on the Tagus north-east of Lisbon, with regiments that had declared against the constitution. After some delay the king went out too, took charge of the rising, dissolved the Cortes and abolished the constitution. The episode is known as the Vilafrancada.2 sources2 sources

Miguel tried again on 30 April 1824, arresting the king's closest advisers and holding his father in the Bemposta. Foreign diplomats got João out to a British warship in the Tagus, the Windsor Castle, and in May Miguel was stripped of his commands and sent abroad. He settled in Vienna. That coup, the Abrilada, has its own article.2 sources2 sources

The last great business of the reign was Brazil, and Britain offered to broker a settlement. George Canning, the British foreign secretary, sent the diplomat Sir Charles Stuart first to Lisbon, to agree the terms with the Portuguese government, and then to Rio, to sign a treaty there as Portugal's plenipotentiary.1 source1 source

Lisbon wanted a form that saved face. On 13 May 1825 João signed letters patent raising Brazil to an empire, taking the imperial title himself and passing its sovereignty to Pedro. The Brazilians would not treat their independence as a gift from the king, and once Stuart reached Rio on 17 July he let the letters patent be set aside: the treaty mentioned them only in its preamble, and Brazil accepted them on condition that they were not published.2 sources2 sources

The treaty Stuart signed on 29 August 1825 recognised the empire, allowed João to take the title of emperor for his lifetime, and said nothing about who would inherit Portugal.2 sources2 sources

Money took the hardest bargaining. In May, Lisbon had fixed its demand at £3 million. On 19 August Stuart asked Brazil to take over the loan Portugal had raised in London in 1823, whose charges he put at about £1.3 million, and to pay £1.5 million on top. Brazil offered £1 million. Under pressure from Stuart and the Austrian envoy, Pedro rose to £2 million, to be met by taking over the London loan and paying the rest within a year.1 source1 source

In Lisbon the treaty was received with dismay. Merchants complained that Portuguese goods would get no preference in Brazil, paying the same 15 per cent duty as British ones, and courtiers objected to the article giving the king his imperial title. The text reached Lisbon on 9 November and the king ratified it on 15 November. His foreign minister explained that a refusal might look like disregard for Britain, Portugal's oldest ally, which had mediated.1 source1 source

The treaty's silence on the succession left the largest question open. Pedro, heir to Portugal, was now the sovereign of a foreign country, and during the talks he told Stuart more than once that he would refuse the Portuguese throne. In October 1825 Canning told the Portuguese ambassador in London, the Marquis of Palmela, what the king should do. As Palmela reported it, in translation, João should “provide, in agreement with his son, for all future contingencies” and “designate the Regency” that would govern the kingdom. In March 1826, Stuart reported from Rio, Pedro still had not made up his mind.1 source1 source

The decree of 6 March gave the government to Isabel Maria, the king's fourth daughter, together with the cardinal patriarch-elect, the Duke of Cadaval, the Marquis of Valada, the Count of Arcos and the six secretaries of state. They were to decide by majority vote, with the infanta's vote breaking a tie. Its last clause looked beyond the illness.2 sources2 sources

The decree named no heir. The historian Fátima Bonifácio argues that nobody could doubt the king meant Pedro, his eldest son, whom he had called “heir and successor of these kingdoms” in the law ratifying the treaty with Brazil. Its effect was to keep the government out of the hands of Carlota Joaquina and Miguel.3 sources3 sources

As its own text required, the decree was authenticated with the king's rubrica, a short form of his signature. Suspicion fastened on it at once. Rumours ran that the death had been announced late to give time to publish the decree, and some contemporaries held that the king had been dead since 5 March. The official medical bulletins of his illness are missing from the archives, although those of the kings before and after him survive.3 sources3 sources

The funeral followed rules laid down in 1749, which required a king's body to be embalmed and the organs removed. Three surgeons did the work at the Bemposta on 11 March. At one in the morning of the 12th the heart and viscera, sealed in a large Asian jar inside a box covered in black silk, were driven to the monastery of São Vicente de Fora in a coach escorted by eight attendants with torches and a squadron of cavalry.1 source1 source

The body lay in state at the Bemposta, where the court, senior officers and servants of the royal household filed past to kiss its hand. The Gazeta de Lisboa put this on Tuesday 14 March; the historian Sandra Coelho gives the 13th. At eight in the evening of 15 March the funeral procession left the palace, crossed the city by the Campo de Santana and the Portas de Santo Antão, and reached São Vicente at midnight. The coffin was laid in the pantheon of the House of Bragança.2 sources2 sources

The jar was buried under the floor of a side chapel at São Vicente, the chapel of the Meninos de Palhavã, named after the acknowledged illegitimate sons of King João V who lay there. The viscera of João V, José I and Pedro III had gone to the same place. A slab marked the spot: Cor et viscera imperatoris ac regis Ioannis Sexti, anno 1826, “heart and viscera of the Emperor and King João VI, 1826”.1 source1 source

An archaeological team had been digging at São Vicente since 1961 under Fernando Rodrigues Ferreira. On 22, 23 and 24 December 1997 it lifted the four slabs around the epitaph. About 18 centimetres down, under a layer of lime and sand, lay the remains of a small wooden box, about 63 centimetres high, 50 long and 34 wide, on its side. Inside was a pale blue Asian jar. Its lid, sealed with putty, had given way and some of the contents had spilled, but enough remained to sample.1 source1 source

The team read the burial as a sign of haste: the pit had been too shallow for the box to stand upright. Samples went to pathologists and to atomic physicists. Their paper in the journal X-Ray Spectrometry in 2002 reported “very high concentrations of arsenic and lead”, on average a few hundred times normal values for human soft tissue, and judged the results “consistent with acute arsenic poisoning”.2 sources2 sources

The team went further. A lethal dose taken on the morning of 4 March, it argued, would have killed the king by the next morning, not six days later. It also compared the mark on the decree of 6 March with signatures from different periods of his life and found them inconsistent. Together those claims would mean a death hidden for five days and a forged decree. Coelho, revisiting the study in 2022, wrote that its findings supported poisoning “with a high degree of certainty” (in translation).1 source1 source

In public, at first, nobody disputed the succession. The regency proclaimed Pedro king of Portugal as Pedro IV and issued its acts in his name. Miguel wrote from Vienna to accept his brother's authority, and again to his sister the regent on 6 April. A deputation led by the Duke of Lafões sailed to pay homage in Rio, and the courts of Europe, Spain and Rome among them, recognised the new king.2 sources2 sources

Pedro heard of his father's death on 24 April, from merchant ships that crossed ahead of the deputation. He knew he could not wear both crowns: Brazil, jealous of its new independence, would not accept it. On 29 April he granted the Portuguese a Constitutional Charter, the subject of its own article, and on 2 May he abdicated the Portuguese crown in favour of his daughter Maria da Glória, born in Rio in April 1819, on two conditions: that the Charter be sworn, Miguel included, and that Miguel marry her.4 sources4 sources

The decrees reached Lisbon with Stuart on 7 July. Absolutists who had hoped Pedro would abdicate in Miguel's favour reacted with fury. The regency, then staying at the spa of Caldas, held back the Charter, began printing it on 15 July and was slow to fix a day for the oath, until General Saldanha, commanding in Porto, sent a column of troops to make clear that no more delay would be tolerated. It was sworn on 31 July.2 sources2 sources

Regiments rose for Miguel at Bragança and in the Alentejo. In Vienna, Miguel swore the Charter on 4 October and was betrothed to his niece on 29 October.2 sources2 sources

The arrangement lasted less than two years. In July 1827 Pedro named Miguel to govern Portugal for his daughter. Miguel landed in February 1828, took over from Isabel Maria and was acclaimed absolute king that year, revoking the Charter. Pedro gave up the throne of Brazil in 1831 to fight for Maria, and the civil war between the brothers, from 1832 to 1834, ended with the Convention of Evoramonte on 26 May 1834.3 sources3 sources

The question João VI's decree left open, who the “legitimate heir” was, was settled by war. The Liberal Wars set constitutional monarchy against absolutism, and the Charter Pedro granted in Rio in April 1826 outlived them. Revoked by Miguel in 1828 and restored in 1834, it was set aside again from 1836 to 1842, then stayed in force, amended several times, until the Republic of October 1910: longer than any other Portuguese constitution.3 sources3 sources

The cause of his death is still argued over. The 1997 excavation turned a rumour of 1826 into a laboratory result, but no document names a poisoner, and medicinal arsenic and natural disease remain possible explanations.3 sources3 sources

His reputation has changed too. Republican historians in Portugal drew João VI as weak, indecisive and a figure of fun. In Brazil, which he had helped to modernise, his image was always kinder, and recent Portuguese historians have set him back in the difficult times he ruled in.1 source1 source