Joseph I of Portugal

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The third child and second son of King John V, Joseph became his father's heir as an infant when his older brother, Pedro, Prince of Brazil, died.^[3] In 1729 he married Infanta Mariana Victoria, the eldest daughter of Philip V of Spain.^[4] Joseph and Mariana Victoria had four daughters: Maria, Mariana, Doroteia, and Benedita.

With the death of his father in 1750, Joseph became king of Portugal. His reign witnessed, among other things, a deadly earthquake in Lisbon in 1755 and a Spanish-French invasion of Portugal in 1762. The Lisbon earthquake allowed the Marquis of Pombal to consolidate power and also caused King Joseph to develop claustrophobia, refusing to live in a walled building ever again. Afterwards, Joseph moved his court into a series of tents. A new palace was built for him in Lisbon in the aftermath of the earthquake, but this was left uncompleted. Joseph died in 1777 and was succeeded by his eldest daughter, Queen Dona Maria I.

Early life

Joseph was the third child of King John V of Portugal and his wife Maria Anna of Austria. He had an older brother Pedro, Prince of Brazil, an older sister Barbara and three younger brothers. When his brother Pedro died in 1714 at the age of two, Joseph became heir apparent with the titles of Prince of Brazil and Duke of Braganza.

Marriage

On 19 January 1729, Joseph married Infanta

Joseph succeeded to the Portuguese throne in 1750, when he was 36 years old,

One of the most difficult situations faced by the king was the Franco-Spanish invasion of Portugal, in the end of the

… Effort of the Bourbon powers to set up the beginnings of a 'continental system' by sending a summons to Portugal to close her ports to British ships and exclude Englishmen from Brazil trade. But the Portuguese minister, the Marquis of Pombal, refused, and with the assistance of Count Lippe and the English General Burgoyne broke the offensive of the Spanish invading army.

Choiseul [French Foreign Minister] had placed on the Spanish alliance vanished. 'Had I known', he wrote, 'what I now know, I should have been very careful to cause to enter the war a power which by its feebleness can only ruin and destroy France'.^[10]

— In Competition for Empire, 1740–1763

In South America, the war ended in a draw; the Portuguese took territory from Spain (most of the Rio Negro Valley) and defeated a Spanish invasion of Mato Grosso, while Spain conquered Colónia do Sacramento and the vast territory of Rio Grande do Sul (1763). The Treaty of Paris (1763) restored the status quo ante bellum. The rich and huge territory of Rio Grande do Sul would be retaken from the Spanish army during the undeclared war of 1763-1777.^{[11][12][13][14]}

Marquis of Pombal

The powerful

Legacy and death

Joseph's reign is also noteworthy for the Lisbon earthquake, firestorm and tsunami of 1 November 1755, in which between 30,000 and 40,000 people died.^[15] The earthquake caused Joseph to develop a severe case of claustrophobia, and he was never again comfortable living within a walled building. Consequently, he moved the royal court to an extensive complex of tents in the hills of Ajuda.

The Project for the Royal Palace in Campo de Ourique was an ambitious palatial complex planned for the Campo de Ourique neighborhood of Lisbon, but later abandoned due to a lack of impetus from the Portuguese royal family and a prioritization of other reconstruction efforts. The capital was eventually rebuilt at great cost, and an equestrian statue of King Joseph still dominates the Praça do Comércio, Lisbon's main plaza.

With Joseph's death on 24 February 1777, the throne passed to his daughter, Queen Dona Maria I, and his brother and son-in-law, King Dom Peter III. Pombal's iron rule was sharply brought to an end, because Maria disliked him since she had been heavily influenced by the Portuguese old nobility that strongly opposed Pombal.

Issue

Joseph I fathered four daughters by his wife Mariana Victoria, and there were also four stillbirths. Of their four daughters, only the eldest had issue:^[16][17]

1. Maria Francisca Isabel Rita Gertrudes Joanna (17 December 1734 – 20 March 1816), married her uncle Infante Peter of Portugal, with issue. After her father's death, she became the first queen regnant of Portugal as Dona Maria I.
2. King Louis XV
   . However, Maria Ana's mother refused to consent to the marriage, and the infanta died unmarried.
3. Stillborn son (February 1739).
4. Philippe Égalité
   , but she refused to marry him and died unmarried.
5. Stillborn daughter (7 March 1742).
6. Stillborn daughter (15 October 1742).
7. Stillborn daughter (May 1744).
8. Joseph, Prince of Brazil
   , no issue.

Ancestors