Lisbon Regicide
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The Lisbon Regicide occurred on 1 February 1908 in the Terreiro do Paço, a public square in the Portuguese capital, Lisbon. It involved the murder of Carlos I of Portugal and his heir apparent, Prince Luis, by assassins with republican sympathies.
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[edit] Causes
There were a number of reasons for the regicide committed that February afternoon:
[edit] French Jacobin influences
Inspired by the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870, Portuguese idealist politicians became interested in having a similar régime in Portugal. The writings of Léon Gambetta (and others) were read and admired, especially by students at the University of Coimbra. After the period of monarchist revanchism in France had waned, and the daily Sud Express rail service between Lisbon and Paris was established in 1887, the leftist French Jacobin influence grew stronger in Portugal, especially because it counteracted the national humiliation caused by the British ultimatum of 1890.
[edit] The British ultimatum
The British ultimatum, which was a bitter blow to Portuguese pride, was made in the second year of the reign of King Carlos I. It resulted in huge losses of territory in Portuguese Africa: to be specific, the areas of the so-called pink map that lay between Angola and Mozambique, namely, modern-day Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Malawi. This led to a public outrage, which was seized by the republicans and Jacobins as an opportunity to attack the monarchy.
The problem arose, not because of the king's actions, but as a consequence of the Portuguese government's expansionist policy. Henrique de Barros Gomes, who held the portfolio as Minister of the Navy and Overseas in the government of José Luciano de Castro, connived with
Germany, to create "a new Brazil in Africa", but these colonial dreams collapsed when Portugal was obliged to accede to the British ultimatum. Carlos I immediately tried to head off the threat to Portugual’s international interests, and he was moderately successful by exercising his considerable diplomatic skills, abetted by family ties to both British and German royalty.
[edit] Republican politics
By 1907 there was a strong, and growing, republican presence in the cities of Lisbon and Porto, where the Portuguese Republican Party had already won local elections and intended to promote a republican government on the national level. Because the republicans were implicitly anti-royalist, King Carlos dissolved the parliament and authorised João Franco, already Prime Minister of Portugal since 1906, to govern by parliamentary dictatorship until order might be restored. This was the Portuguese method of governing during periods of crisis, and it was first used in 1833, when the major parties could not agree on establishing a government.
Carlos I and the prime minister intended to consolidate the power of João Franco's new party, the Liberal Regenerador party, in order to enable him to govern alone, with no republican coalition partners in parliament. However, this measure increased political tension. The two major monarchist parties, Partido Regenerador and Partido Progressista, were accustomed to sharing power, in an informal rotation. In reaction to Carlos's action favoring Franco's faction, they joined forces with the Partido Republicano Português, to resist Franco and his cohorts.
[edit] The interim result
In January 1908, many of the nation's prominent politicians committed to the revolutionary intentions of the Republican Party, were arrested, including several members of the ostensibly-monarchist Progressive Party. They were tried and sentenced to servitude in the colonies. General elections were set for the month of April, and the victory of the new party of João Franco was assured when the other parties could not agree on power-sharing.
[edit] The regicide
On 1 February 1908, the royal family were returning to Lisbon from the palace at Vila Viçosa in the Alentejo region of central Portugal. After crossing the Tagus River by steamboat, they rode in an open carriage for the final part of their journey to the Palace of Necessidades. As the royal coach crossed the Terreiro do Paço, the republicans, Alfredo Costa and Manuel Buiça, fired at the family. Carlos I died at once, and Prince Royal Luís Filipe was fatally wounded. He died some twenty minutes later. Queen Amelia alone escaped injury. She inspired universal admiration by defending her younger son, Prince Manuel, using her bouquet of flowers to strike at the assassin's arm while crying aloud, "infames, infames" (evil, wicked, nasty). Her efforts protected the younger prince to the extent that he was only shot in the arm. Both Costa and Buiça were immediately killed by royal bodyguards.
Several days later, Prince Manuel was acclaimed king of Portugal, the last of the House of Braganza-Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Meanwhile, news of the Lisbon regicide was received with nearly-universal horror by the Portuguese people and the world at large. After a fashion, the assassinations precipitated the Republican Revolution of 1910 that brought an end to the Portuguese monarchy and launched the Portuguese First Republic. It also hastened the plans of the Portuguese heir, Manuel II, for marriage to Princess Patricia of Connaught, granddaughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, a marriage that had been discussed by King Carlos I and King Edward VII of the United Kingdom. (The marriage never did take place; both married others, he in 1913, to a Swabian princess, she in 1919, to a commoner, the younger son of an earl.)
The regicide extinguished the King of Portugal’s influence in European political matters, which had been significant in maintaining the Portuguese colonies in the face of opposition by the governments of Britain and Germany. Furthermore, it ended the influence the king had with the Portuguese army, as Manuel II, an artistic and literary type with no affinity for the military, had no interest in such matters. Just two years later, the revolution, which led to the proclamation of the Portuguese First Republic, met with no opposition by Portugal's general staff.
[edit] The assassins
Alfredo Costa and Manuel Buiça were killed during the attack on the royal family. After 1910, under the continuing parliamentary dictatorship, the republican government of Afonso Costa discontinued the judicial investigation of the assassinations and ended the case with neither condemnation nor conclusion. Buiça and Costa were the objects of continual publicity, and many went to visit their tombs in the Alto de São João Cemetery during the reign of Manuel II and the Portuguese First Republic which followed. The Portuguese Republican Party took care of their funerals and the cost of their tombs.
[edit] The centenary
The assassinations remain controversial in Portugal. In 2008, the socialist government of the Portuguese Third Republic refused to commemorate the centenary of the Lisbon regicide, forbidding any official participation by military personnel or government officials. The head of the House of Braganza, Duarte Pio, Duke of Braganza, led the ceremonies commemorating the slain royals.
During the centenary year, many artistic, cultural, and historic events took place in honor of King Carlos I and the royal family, and several books were published.
[edit] References
- HENRIQUES, Mendo Castro; MEDEIROS, Maria João; REGALADO, Jaime, ROSA, João Mendes; BANDEIRA, Luiz Alberto Moniz. "Dossier Regicídio, O Processo Desaparecido", Tribuna ed., Lisboa, 2008.
- RAMOS, Rui. D. Carlos I Temas e Debates ed., Reis de Portugal col., Lisboa, 2008.
- PROENÇA, Maria Cândida. "D. Manuel II", Temas e Debates ed., Reis de Portugal col., Lisboa, 2008.
- KING OF PORTUGAL, D. Manuel II, "Diário" (Manuel II's Diary), 21 May 1908.
[edit] External links
- http://www.regicidio.org/ (in Portuguese)
- http://videos.sapo.pt/OuULMSr6j4VlPN5gzTlK (the Lisbon Regicide in a Portuguese film video)
- http://www.ocomboio.net/pages/port-sudexpress-extra1.html (history of the Sud-Express rail line, by Vasco Callixto, in Portuguese).
