EX-KING MANOEL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21225, 4 July 1932, Page 9

EX-KING MANOEL.

DEATH OCCURS IN ENGLAND.

FORMER PORTUGUESE MONARCH. >'Received July 3, 5.5 p-in.j LONDON, July 2. Ex-King Manoel of Portugal died suddenly to-day at Twickenham as the result. of a throat malady. The ex-Queen was present. Manoel 11., the dethroned King of Portugal, "who was 42 years of age, was a member 'of the house of Braganza-Saxe-Coburg and Gotha which bad reigned in Portugal since 1537. His great grandfather, Ferdinand, Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. in 1336 married Maria H. da Gloria, of the house of Braganza, Queen of Portugal, and in 1837 became King as Ferdinand 11. He died in 1385, and was succeeded by bis son Luis, who was followed by Carlos 1., who in 1855 married Amelie, Princess of Bourbon. Thev had two sons, Don Luis and Don Manoel.

The growing dissatisfaction of ihe Portuguese nation with the dynasty took a violent form. While Manoel was still a youth his father and his elder brother, -when driving through Lisbon, on February 1, 1903, were assassinated, and Manoel himself was slightly wounded by one of the shots. He was not yet 19 •when he ascended the throne, fcnd less than three, years later, on October 16, 1910. he was compelled by a revolutionary rising to Jite to England. The exiled monarch at first lived with his mother at Woodnorton. Later the Queen-Mother took up her abode at the Chateau de BeiJevue, near Versailles, while ilanc.pl made his home at Fulwell Park, Twickenham. In September. 1913, he married Augusta Victoria of Hohenzollem Sigmaringen. Manoel supported the Portuguese Royalist risings of 1911 and 1912, and in the latter year met the Pretender to ibe Portuguese throne, Dom Miguel, at Dover, in order to concert a common plan of action. On ibe outbreak of the world war. however, he appealed to all classes of Lis subjects to lay aside political feelings and unite against the common enemy. So far. all attempts to restore the Braganza dynasty to the throne of Portugal have failed," although the republican regime there has been a somewhat stormy one. In the autumn of 1925 it was r*ported that Manoel had decided to resign his claim to the throne, and it was proposed to send a Royalist deputation to him to beg him to reconsider his decision, but- on behalf of the ex-monarch it was denied that he contemplated abandoning his rights.