Ferdinand II of Portugal
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Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (October 29, 1816 - December 15, 1885) was consort king of Portugal and Algarves following his marriage to Queen Maria II in 1836.
He was the son of Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, Prince of Kohary and his wife, Princess Maria Antonia Koháry, heiress of Čabrad and Sitno, both in the today Slovakia, a Catholic noblewoman who inherited her family's position as Magnate of Hungary. (Because of the inheritance of Kohary, this branch of the previously fully Protestant Coburg family became Catholics, and good marriage material to Catholic royalties). He was also a first cousin of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Prince Albert, the Prince Consort and also a nephew of king Leopold I of Belgium. Prince Ferdinand grew up in several places: the family's lands in what today is Slovakia, and in Austrian court as well as in Germany.
According to the Portuguese laws, the husband of a Queen could only be titled King after the birth of any child from that marriage (that was the reason the Queen's first husband, Auguste of Leuchtenberg, did not have that title). After the birth of the future Peter V of Portugal, he was proclaimed Ferdinand II of Portugal.
Although it was Maria to whom the ruling power belonged, they were a good team and together resolved many problems in Maria's reign. The King-Consort had a very important part in Portuguese political history, acting frequently as regent during his wife's pregnancies.
When Ferdinand's father died in 1851, he received the titular position as Prince of Kohary, but because already in Portugal, he left the Kohary possessions Čabrad and Sitno (both in the today Slovakia) to be administered by his mother and next brother. In 1865, upon the death of his mother, king Ferdinand became Prince of Kohary, of Čabrad and Sitno, but he left the princely holdings under the care of his brother August, who also was entrusted with the Kohary family's positions (seat and vote) as magnates of Hungary and princely members of the Austrian upper house.
Eventually, Maria died in the birth of their eleventh child and Ferdinand had to assume regency of Portugal (1853-1855) because his son King Peter V was only 13 years old.
In 1869 he rejected an offer to the Spanish trone.
Late in his life Ferdinand married the opera singer Elisa Hensler, Countess of Edla, and they had one daughter, Alice. Elisa inherited most of his personal belongings after his death in 1885.
He was an intelligent and artistically-minded man with modern and liberal ideas. He was adept at etching, pottery and painting aquarelles. He was the president of the Royal Academy of Sciences and the Arts, lord-protector of the university of Coimbra and Grand-Master of the Rosicrucians.
In 1838 he built near Sintra the Pena National Palace, a wild phantasy in an eclectic style, full of symbolism that could be compared with the castle Neuschwanstein of king Ludwig II of Bavaria. He spent his last years in this castle with his second wife, receiving the greatest artists of his time.
[edit] Ferdinand's marriages and descendants
Ferdinand married to Maria, Queen-regnant of Portugal, daughter of Peter I of Brazil (IV of Portugal). Later in his life, after the death of Maria, he married Elisa Hensler.
| Name | Birth | Death | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| By Maria II of Portugal (April 4, 1819-November 15, 1853; married on April 9, 1836) | |||
| Peter V | September 16, 1837 | November 11, 1861 | Who succeeded his mother as Peter V, the 31st (or according to some historians 32nd) King of Portugal. |
| Luís I | October 31, 1838 | October 19, 1889 | Who succeeded his brother Peter as the 32nd (or according to some historians 33rd) King of Portugal. |
| Infanta Maria | October 4, 1840 | October 4, 1840 | |
| Infante João | October 4, 1840 | December 27, 1861 | |
| Infanta Maria Ana | August 21, 1843 | February 5, 1884 | Married King George of Saxony and was mother of King Frederick August III of Saxony. |
| Infanta Antónia | February 17, 1845 | December 27, 1913 | Married Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern-Singmaringen and was the mother of King Ferdinand I of Romania. |
| Infante Fernando | July 23, 1846 | November 6, 1861 | Died of cholera in 1861. |
| Infante Augusto | November 4, 1847 | September 26, 1889 | Duke of Coimbra. |
| Infante Leopoldo | May 7, 1849 | May 7, 1849 | |
| Infanta Maria da Glória | February 3, 1851 | February 3, 1851 | |
| Infante Eugénio | November 15, 1853 | November 15, 1853 | |
| Elisa Hensler (1836 - 1929; married in 1869) | |||
| Alice Hensler | 1855 | 1941 | |
See also: List of Portuguese monarchs
