Miguel I of Portugal - Exile

Exile

In December 1834 the Portuguese Cortes banished Miguel and all his descendants from Portugal upon pain of immediate death. The Constitution of 1838 (article 98) categorically excluded the collateral Miguelist line from the throne (although with the return to the Constitutional Charter in 1842, this ceased to have force). The 1834 law remained in effect until repealed in May 1950. During his exile, he was known as Duke of Braganza, as well as Marquis of Vila Viçosa, Count of Arraiolos, Count of Barcelos, Count of Neiva and Count of Ourém.

On 15 January 1837 the Spanish Cortes, then in midst of the First Carlist War (1833–39), excluded Miguel from the Spanish succession, on the grounds that he was in rebellion along with his maternal uncle Carlos, the first Carlist pretender of Spain. Miguel's eldest sister Teresa, Princess of Beira, and his nephews (three sons of late Infanta Maria Francisca of Portugal, and Sebastian, son of Teresa, Princess of Beira) were also excluded.

Miguel lived the rest of his life in exile and, removed from Portuguese politics, his character altered radically; in his later years he was a portly heavily-bearded patriarch and lacked the cowboy persona of his early life. He refused to accede to the terms of the Concession of Evoramonte and thereby forfeited his generous pension from the Portuguese government. He lived for a time as a destitute refugee in Rome, in apartments provided by Pope Gregory XVI, who also gave him a small monthly allowance. In 1851, after spending several years in England, he moved to the Grand Duchy of Baden in southern Germany and married Princess Adelaide of Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rosenberg. They settled in the former Cistercian monastery of Bronnbach, and raised seven children. His widow succeeded in securing advantageous marriages for all their daughters. Like Queen Victoria, Miguel would become known as the "grandfather of Europe", but this was only after his death.

Miguel died while hunting at Bronnbach, Grand Duchy of Baden on 14 November 1866. He was buried in his wife's family's vault in the Franciscan monastery of Engelberg at Grossheubach, Bavaria. In 1967 his body and that of his wife (then resting in Ryde on the Isle of Wight in England) were transferred to the Braganza pantheon in the old Monastery of São Vicente de Fora in Lisbon.