Later Life
In 1869 he rejected an offer to assume the throne of Spain.
Late in his life Fernando II married the opera singer Elisa Hensler, Countess of Edla.
Fernando II 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 architectural fantasy 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.
Read more about this topic: Fernando II Of Portugal
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