Pedro the Great
| Pedro V | |
|---|---|
 | |
| King of Portugal | |
| Reign | 15 November 1853 - 24 September 1933 |
| Acclamation | 16 September 1855 |
| Predecessor | Maria II |
| Successor | Pedro VI |
| Regent | Ferdinand II (1853 - 1855) |
| Born | 16 September 1837 Necessidades Palace, Lisbon, Portugal |
| Died | 24 September 1933 (aged 96) Necessidades Palace, Lisbon, Portugal |
| Spouses | Stephanie of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen (m. 1858; died 1859) Duchess Mathilde Ludovika in Bavaria (m. 1862; died 1925) |
| Issue | |
| House | Braganza |
| Father | Ferdinand II |
| Mother | Maria II |
Peter V (Portuguese: Pedro V; 16 September 1837 - 24 September 1933), better known as Peter the Great (Portuguese: Pedro O Grande) was King of Portugal from 1853 to 1933. At eighty years long, Pedro's reign is the longest of any monarch in history and is generally credited as being a period of revival and long-lasting prosperity following the loss of Portugal's most valuable colony, Brazil in 1822. A conscientious and hard-working monarch, Pedro quickly came to be a widely-beloved figure into the early years of his reign, during which he spearheaded efforts in radically reforming the Portuguese state, which saw drastic improvements in terms of infrastructure, public health, economy, and the military, with the Portuguese Navy becoming one of the most formidable naval forces by the turn of the 20th century.
Born as the eldest son of Queen Maria II and her husband, the German-born King Ferdinand II, Pedro ascended to the throne at the relatively young age of sixteen in 1853, with his father initially serving as regent for the next two years until the young king finally came of age. In 1857, now fit to reign in his own right, Pedro went on to spearhead a series of radical reforms that are often modern and liberal in nature, intending to transform as well as further develop Portugal into a more advanced country. Among these reforms was the expansion of infrastructure across the country, ranging from telegraphs and railways, while public health, in particular, also drastically improved under Pedro's reign. In addition, the economy also experienced a rapid rate of industrialization, while the country's naval forces, the Portuguese Navy was subjected to a series of reforms that sought to make it one of the most formidable navies of Europe despite its comparably small size.
Entering into the 20th century, Pedro's reign also saw Portugal's involvement in the First World War against the Central Powers, against whom Portugal, together with its allies, emerged victorious, resulting in Portugal, through hard-fought negotiations, acquiring the colonies of Kamerun and German East Africa, and the German protectorate of Togoland. Meanwhile, in Pedro's last few years as monarch, Portugal, along with other nations, fell into a period of economic downturn caused by the Great Depression in 1929, during which Pedro, by now a well-respected elderly statesman, gained further popularity for his personal efforts in assisting the afflicted Portuguese public. In 1933, Pedro eventually passed away at the age of ninety-six, with his funeral, despite the King's personal wishes for a generally slimmed-down and modest ceremony, being an event of great splendor and significance, with both the Portuguese public and the international community mourning the passing of "a dedicated, selfless, and visionary king".
Throughout his lifetime, Pedro was married twice, with his first marriage being to Princess Stephanie of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen in 1858, whose early death just a year later put short to a happy but otherwise childless marriage. Following this, Pedro then remarried to Duchess Mathilde Ludovika in Bavaria, with whom he has four children, including his eldest child and successor, Pedro VI, whom later officially bestowed the epithet of "the Great" onto his late father on the latter's 100th posthumous birthday.
Early Life
Born on 16 September 1833, Pedro was the eldest child of Queen Maria II, the then-reigning monarch of Portugal, and her German-born husband, King Ferdinand II, a member of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha-Koháry, through which he became the first cousin of Tsar Ferdinand I of the Kingdom of Bulgaria. Born in the midst of great turmoil in Portugal, which had then fallen into a civil war, known as the Liberal Wars, Pedro, through the influence of and upbringing by his liberal-minded father, gradually emerged to become a young and similarly-liberal minded royal himself, with his grandfather, Emperor Pedro I of Brazil, being a source of inspiration for the future heir to the Portuguese throne.
Reign
In 1853, Pedro's mother, Queen Maria II, owing to a series of difficult childbirths, passed away at the age of thirty-four, thereby leaving the sixteen-year-old Pedro on the Portuguese throne, resulting in him being placed under a temporary regency led by his father, King Ferdinand II, whom subsequently served as regent on his son's behalf for the next two years until the latter finally came of age, at which point he was deemed fit to reign in his own right.
Early on, having been much aware of the country's ruinous state as a result of the Liberal Wars, Pedro quickly sought to revitalize as well as drastically improve the Portuguese state, with the hopes of ensuring that it would not fall behind the other European powers emerging from the conclusion of the Napoleonic Wars. To that end, huge investment was directed towards infrastructure, with roads, railways, and telegraphs quickly becoming commonplace across the country. In addition, following a near-fatal encounter with cholera himself, Pedro also sought to greatly improve the state of the Portuguese healthcare system, which he envisioned to be the most modern and most advanced of its kind in Europe. The disease, which fatally took the lives of two of his brothers, Fernando and João, consequently became a source of both great grief and passion for Pedro, whom later reportedly vowed, "Even if I were to no longer rule as absolute as the great Louis XIV, I will nonetheless do anything possible to ensure that the great loss of my two brothers will never happen in my life ever again".
In 1868, owing to his strong liberal credentials, coupled with his immense popularity in Portugal, at one point, Pedro was said to have been strongly considered as the new Spanish monarch following the overthrow of the unpopular Queen Isabella II, whom had been deposed from the Spanish throne in the Glorious Revolution, with prominent Spanish politicians largely looking towards the popular and charismatic Pedro as a "model king" for the troubled Spain. In the end, the Italian prince, Amadeo of the House of Savoy was chosen as the new King of Spain, although his tenure only lasted for three years before Amadeo himself abdicated, with the throne then passing to Isabella II's son, Alfonso XII, to whom he later reportedly wrote, "Your immediate predecessor had left the throne and called the nation's people ungovernable, while your own mother was forced out of the very country that she once ruled. Frankly, I can only wish you luck in your endeavor as the new monarch of such a troubled and disunited nation".
Having been greatly inspired by the Industrial Revolution taking place in the United Kingdom, Pedro, in his bid to establish Portugal as a leading power once again, personally sponsored efforts towards industrialization in the country, to which his dedication became so great and passionate that a popular quote was later attributed to him that reads, "For every single day in Portugal, there will be ten new factories each time, all of them ready to serve the Portuguese state". In line with this, aware of Portugal's longstanding maritime history, Pedro also placed great importance on sea-based commercial activities, with major coastal cities, including the capital, Lisbon seeing their trading ports being much improved and further upgraded to meet the rising number of ships and traders in the years to come. Through such an endeavor, Pedro personally sought to establish Lisbon, along with the other major coastal cities of Portugal, including Porto and Almada, as rivals, or even further yet, as equals to the Dutch city of Rotterdam, which had long been a center for ships and traders to unload their goods.
Marriages
1st Marriage
On 18 May 1858, Pedro married Princess Stephanie of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, daughter of Karl Anton, Prince of Hohenzollern, the last Prince of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen. Despite being a generally happy union, the marriage itself did not last long, with Stephanie later succumbing to diphtheria just a year into their marriage, thereby effectively rendering the marriage childless by the end of it.
The sudden nature of his wife's death, coupled with his own near-fatal encounter with a separate disease known as cholera, was said to have greatly shocked the young Pedro, whom throughout the next few months, initially resisted a remarriage out of both personal respect for his late wife and his own personal fear of going through another short marriage with a disastrous end, although this eventually changed with his second marriage to Duchess Mathilde Ludovika in Bavaria.
2nd Marriage
In the months following his wife's passing, Pedro, still emotionally shaken from the incident, initially refused to remarry and therefore potentially secure a viable heir to the throne, with his surviving younger brother, Luís then being seen as the most likely candidate to succeed him should a fatal disease consume him in the near future. Ultimately, having finally bowed to pressure from his closest confidants to remarry, Pedro subsequently embarked on a continent-wide tour throughout Europe with the goal of finding a suitable bride for himself. At first, perhaps in a nod to the longstanding alliance between Portugal and the United Kingdom, Pedro initially sought the hand of one of the eligible daughters of Queen Victoria, but soon decided against it as a result of the British monarch's strong insistence on having her daughters close to her, a requirement that Pedro, as the reigning monarch of a distant country, could not meet.
Following this setback, Pedro then ventured to the Habsburg court in Vienna where, despite finding himself no prospective bride from the Habsburg dynasty, he was nonetheless attracted by the well-acclaimed beauty of the Empress Elisabeth, whom was said to have then suggested to Pedro a hand in marriage with one of her eligible sisters instead, a suggestion that Pedro quickly took to heart. In the end, with a renewed sense of determination to settle down as a husband once more, Pedro quickly worked to charm a nineteen-year-old Duchess Mathilde Ludovika, whom after a few months or so, eventually accepted a marriage proposal by Pedro, which, in turn, led to a fairly modest wedding ceremony in Munich attended by a large number of European royals and nobles.
In contrast to his first marriage, Pedro's second marriage to Duchess Mathilde Ludovika, whom he quickly came to love, proved to be more long-lasting, with the union itself lasting for at least six decades-long until Duchess Mathilde's passing at eighty-one in 1925, with Pedro himself only surviving his wife by roughly eight years prior to his own subsequent passing. In the meantime, the couple's marriage produced four children, including their eldest child whom later succeeded to the throne as Pedro VI. Uniquely enough, his other three children, namely his youngest son, Ferdinand, as well as his two daughters, Stephanie and Matilde are all named after those he considered close to him, with his youngest son being named after his father, King Ferdinand II, while his two daughters are instead named after his first and second wives respectively.