Reign
On 26 January 1835 Maria married, at the age of fifteen, Auguste, Duke of Leuchtenberg, son of Eugène de Beauharnais, and grandson of Empress Josephine. However, he died only two months later on 28 March 1835.
On 1 January 1836, she married the cultured and able Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. He received the title of King consort in 1837, in accordance with Portuguese custom, upon the birth of their first child Peter, an heir to the throne.
In 1842, Pope Gregory XVI presented Maria with a Golden Rose.
Maria's reign saw a revolutionary insurrection on 16 May 1846, but this was crushed by royalist troops on 22 February 1847, and Portugal otherwise avoided the European upheavals of 1848. Maria's reign was also notable for a public health act aimed at curbing the spread of cholera throughout the country. She also pursued policies aimed at raising the levels of education throughout the country.
After constant pregnancies and births, doctors warned Maria of the dangers of giving birth nearly every year. However, she ignored the risks that had killed her mother, who had died of complications following a miscarriage after many births; "If I die, I die at my post", Maria said. In 1853 she died in Lisbon, while giving birth to her eleventh child, Prince Eugene, who also died.
Maria II is remembered as a good mother and a kind person, who always acted according to her convictions in the attempt to help her country. She was later given the surname "The Good Mother."
Read more about this topic: Maria II Of Portugal
Famous quotes containing the word reign:
“See how peaceful it is here. The sea is everything. An immense reservoir of nature where I roam at will.... Think of it. On the surface there is hunger and fear. Men still exercise unjust laws. They fight, tear one another to pieces. A mere few feet beneath the waves their reign ceases, their evil drowns. Here on the ocean floor is the only independence. Here I am free.”
—Earl Felton, and Richard Fleischer. Captain Nemo (James Mason)
“I am monarch of all I survey;
My right there is none to dispute;
From the center all round to the sea
I am lord of the fowl and the brute.
O Solitude! where are the charms
That sages have seen in thy face?
Better dwell in the midst of alarms,
Than reign in this horrible place.”
—William Cowper (1731–1800)
“Nature seemed to have adorned herself for our departure with a profusion of fringes and curls, mingled with the bright tints of flowers, reflected in the water. But we missed the white water-lily, which is the queen of river flowers, its reign being over for this season.... Many of this species inhabit our Concord water.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)