Prince Pedro Henrique of Orléans-Braganza

Prince Pedro Henrique of Orléans-Braganza (Portuguese: Pedro Henrique Afonso Felipe Maria Miguel Gabriel Rafael Gonzaga de Orléans e Bragança; 13 September 1909 – 5 July 1981), was a great-grandson of the last emperor of Brazil, Pedro II, and one of two claimants to the abolished throne.

Early life in Europe

He was born in 1909 in France at Boulogne-sur-Seine during the exile of the Brazilian imperial family, which had been deposed in 1889.^[1] His father, Prince Luís of Orléans-Braganza, was the second son of Isabel, Princess Imperial of Brazil, and Prince Gaston d'Orléans, comte d'Eu. His mother was Princess Maria Pia of Bourbon-Two Sicilies.^[2]

His paternal grandmother, Isabel, Princess Imperial of Brazil, was the heir to the defunct Brazilian throne. The year before Pedro Henrique's birth, she recognized his father, Luís, as the heir to the succession when Luís's elder brother, Pedro de Alcântara, Prince of Grão-Pará, signed a renunciation of his claim to the throne on behalf of himself and his descendants.^[3][4]

Pedro Henrique was educated in France at the Ecôle des Sciences Politiques in Paris.^[1] He was described by his grandmother as "a very intelligent child".^[5] After the deaths of his father in 1920 and his grandmother in 1921, he became the head of the imperial family.^[6] Pedro de Alcântara, Prince of Grão-Pará, died in 1940.^[7]

Marriage and children

Pedro Henrique married Princess Maria Elisabeth of Bavaria at Schloss Nymphenburg, Bavaria, on 19 August 1937.^[8] They had twelve children.^[6]

Life in Brazil

Pedro Henrique moved to Brazil in 1945.^[1] He managed a farmstead called Sitio Santa Maria in Vassouras, and was active in the monarchist movement.^[1] His cousin, Prince Pedro Gastão, the eldest son of Pedro de Alcântara, Prince of Grão-Pará, challenged Pedro Henrique's right to the succession in 1946,^[1] on the basis that his father's renunciation had no legal force.

On his death in 1981, Pedro Henrique's claim to the throne passed to his eldest son, Prince Luís Gastão.

Ancestry

Notes

References

• Barman, Roderick J. (2002). Princess Isabel of Brazil: gender and power in the nineteenth century. Wilmington, Delaware: Scholarly Resources. ISBN 0-8420-2846-3. 
• Montgomery-Massingberd, Hugh, ed (1977). Burke's Royal Families of the World, Volume 1: Europe & Latin America. London: Burke's Peerage. ISBN 0-85011-023-8.