13 - Liberalism and Its Problems
from Part 3 - Aftermath
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 May 2018
Summary
Pedro wants to form his Govt. on the support of the middle and lower classes. This might do if they were virtuous and well educated as they are in England but here they are very little less corrupt than the noble […].
In the last days of his life, Pedro had been busy making arrangements for the future. He had always been a lively man, full of energy, according to Hodges ‘systematically an early riser’, and he was not going to stop now that ‘He was fully aware of his approaching death’. On 15 September 1834, Pedro made his will and dictated a letter to his future son- in- law, to whom he left his sword. On the following day, he was occupied with his ministers dealing with urgent matters of the state. On 17 September, Pedro received the last sacrament and, on the day after, informed the Cortes that he could no longer continue as regent. A few hours later, D. Maria was called to take the regency herself. Finally, on 19 September, Pedro received his friends and closest collaborators in his bedroom for a last farewell.
As Lord Holland observed, Pedro's death had snatched him ‘from the scene of his glory and triumph before it was entirely crowned and completed by the marriage of his daughter’. On 18 September, while sick with fever, Pedro had sent Ildefonso Bayard to Munich to negotiate the terms of his daughter's marriage. Bayard had successfully conducted the negotiations for Pedro's own marriage to Amelie de Leuchtenberg in 1829. Bearing Pedro's instructions and sword, Bayard left Lisbon for London to meet Sarmento before going on to Bavaria. In the evening of 16 November, Sarmento paid a visit to Kensington accompanied by Bayard who, according to Holland, ‘is returning with [the] “procuration” of the Duke of Leuchtenberg to enable the Duke of Terceira to marry the Young Queen of Portugal by proxy’. As Holland observed, some intriguing courtiers at Lisbon, namely Terceira and Vila Real, had tried to prevent the marriage:
They hinted that the Gentleman named by Pedro and the Queen was not of sufficient rank to undertake the mission to Munich, but the Queen's better judgement or advisers suspected an intrigue and, on the same ground of adhering religiously to Pedro's injunction, dispatch Mr Bayard, who is to bring back the procuration and then to be followed by the Duke.
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- Holland House and Portugal, 1793–1840English Whiggery and the Constitutional Cause in Iberia, pp. 187 - 202Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2018