Death of Maria I Queen of Portugal

Maria Francisca Isabel Josefa Antónia Gertrudes Rita Joana, was Queen of Portugal from 1777 until her death in 1816.
Maria married her uncle in order to remain in line for the throne.

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.

Born at the Ribeira Palace in Lisbon in 1734, Maria was the eldest daughter of King Dom José I of Portugal and Queen Mariana Victoria.

Maria became the heir presumptive when all her brothers were still born.

Portugal had never had a Queen rule in her own right. Portugal had a law that said a princess could not marry a foreigner, and remain in line for the throne.

So what did Maria do?
She marries her uncle…..

Maria married her uncle Pedro on 6th June 1760.
At the time of their marriage, Maria was 25 and Pedro was 42.

Despite the family relationship and 17 year age difference, they were quite happily married.

The couple went on to have six children – although their son, the future King João IV, might have preferred a little less inbreeding, in exchange for a lot more chin!

In 1755, when Maria was just shy of 21, Lisbon was left in smoldering ruins after being hit by a massive earthquake.

The quake hit at 9:30 in the morning on All Saint’s Day, while the churches were packed for mass.
Almost every church in the city collapsed.

Thousands of survivors rushed to open squares around the port, only to be swept away by the tsunami triggered by the quake.
Fires then broke out and raged for five days destroying whatever parts of the city were left.

Estimates put the death toll between 30,000 and 60,000, with three quarters of Lisbon destroyed.

The royal family was away from the city that day, and likely escaped being crushed when the Ribeira Palace collapsed.
The people of Lisbon were devastated, and the tragedy would stay with Maria her whole life.

The devastating effects of an earthquake on a devout city on a holy day, caused Maria to double down on her religious devotion.

Maria became particularly devout, bordering on fanatical.
She kissed the names of God, Mary, and all the saints and angels in any book she opened.

She attended mass every morning and prayers every night.
Maria filled her room with crucifixes and dolls of saints.

The death of King José in 1777 placed Maria, then 42 years old, on the throne.
As Queen, Maria took a much more hands on approach to governing.
She rolled back a lot of her father’s more extreme measures.

Maria is remembered as a good ruler in Portugal and Brazil.
By all accounts Maria was kind and affectionate with her family.

However, Maria showed signs of mental health problems as early as her teen years.

Records mention Maria suffering bouts of melancholy and nervous agitation.

On 25th May 1786, Maria’s husband Pedro died.
Maria was devastated, and forbade any court entertainments.

State festivities began to resemble religious ceremonies, as the queen’s mental state became increasingly worse.

Maria had been treated for episodes of delirium even before her husband death.

Two years later when her eldest son, only daughter, and a grandson all died within three months, Maria descended into an inconsolable grief, and never recovered.

On 29th November 1807, Napoleon was approaching.
At the urging of the British government, the royal family decided to flee to the Portuguese Viceroyalty of Brazil.

During Maria’s move from the royal palace to the docks, she was heard screaming throughout the trip.

The queen’s dementia was so great that she feared that she was going to be tortured, kidnapped or robbed during the journey, by her servants.

When Napoleon was finally defeated in 1815, Maria and her family remained in Brazil.

Maria lived in Brazil for a total of eight years, always in a state of incapacitation.

During her last years, Maria began ranting that she was damned and that the devil was inside her.
On the assumption she was already marked for hell, her rants became rather unchaste and not at all queenly.

Visitors who stayed near her apartments heard the most agonising shrieks coming from the queen.

Maria would swing from violently punching and slapping her servants, to nearly catatonic.

By 1792, Maria was deemed insane, and control of the government was given to her only surviving son, João.

There’s no consensus on what afflicted Maria during her last two decades.
Some historians have suggested she suffered from porphyria, but contemporary research suggests severe bipolar disease.

What is certain is that Maria’s death at the age of 81, in Rio de Janeiro on 20th March 1816 – finally brought the queen some much deserved peace, after more than two decades of torment.

Maria’s body was returned to Lisbon, to be interred in a mausoleum in the Estrela Basilica.