Queen  Maria I  of portugal (1734-1816) was Queen of Portugal from 1777 until her death. Known as Maria the Pious in Portugal and Maria the Mad in Brazil, she was the first undisputed queen regnant of Portugal and the first monarch of Brazil.

The first woman to rule Portugal, Maria Francisca Isabel Josefa Antónia Gertrudes Rita Joana   (1734-1816) married her uncle in order to remain in line for the throne, saw her hometown destroyed by an earthquake-tsunami-fire mega disaster, calmed political unrest in Portugal by proving infinitely more competent, less corrupt, and not as prone to mass incarceration as her father and his advisors, outlived her husband and all but one of her children, and became the only European monarch to leave the content and rule her empire from a colony. Although, by the time the court fled to Brazil, she wasn’t technically in charge anymore as she’d been declared insane and unfit to rule fifteen years earlier.Similarly to her son, Prince Regent and then King João VI, Queen Maria was as engaging and tragic as any fictional character. Also like her son, she appears in the historical fiction I’m writing, and has become a favorite character in large part because I want to give her the ending I think she’s due.Maria was born in 1734 and became the heir presumptive when all her brothers were still born. Now Portugal had never had a Queen rule in her own right, and they had this totally just and reasonable law that said a princess could NOT marry a foreigner and remain in line for the throne. Because obviously a man would be strong enough to resist manipulation from his Spanish wife, but a woman would be a puppet to her mustache-twirling Spanish husband.Despite the family relationship and 17 year age difference, they were quite happily married. Although their son, future King João IV, might have preferred a little less inbreeding in exchange for a lot more chin.In 1755, when Maria was just shy of 21, Lisbon was left in smoldering ruins after being hit by so many disasters in day even Hollywood producers would call it over the top. A massive earthquake hit at 9:30 in the morning on All Saint’s Day, while the churches were packed for mass. Almost every church in the city collapsed. Thousands of survivors rushed to open squares around the port, only to be swept away by the tsunami triggered by the quake. Fires then broke out and raged for five days destroying whatever parts of the city were left.Estimates put the death toll between 30,000 and 60,000. Three quarters of Lisbon was destroyed. The royal family was away from the city that day, and likely escaped being crushed when the Ribeira Palace collapsed. The people of Lisbon were devastated, and the tragedy would stay with Maria her whole life.While the devastating effects of an earthquake on a devout city on a holy day caused much of Europe to start seeing earthquakes as randomly, occurring natural phenomenon and not heavenly ordained, the Portuguese, including Maria, doubled down on their religious devotion. Her Majesty was particularly devout, bordering on fanatical. She kissed the names of God, Mary, and all the saints and angels in any book she opened. She attended mass every morning and prayers every night. Maria filled her room with crucifixes and dolls of saints.As Queen she took a much more hands on approach to governing compared to her father who had taken the “everyone listen to my advisor because I’m going hunting” approach. She rolled back a lot of her father’s more extreme measures such as mass incarceration of political opponents. She’s remembered as a good ruler in Portugal and Brazil. By all accounts Maria was kind and affectionate with her family.But she showed signs of mental health problems as early as her teen years when records mention “bouts of melancholy and nervous agitation”. She’d been treated for episodes of delirium even before her husband died in 1786, but two years later when her eldest son, only daughter, a grandson, and her confessor of more than 30 years all died within three months, she descended inconsolable grief and never recovered.Her maternal grandfather and uncle had fallen into madness at the end of their lives, suffering from violent mood swings and hallucinations. It’s heartbreaking to imagine, but Maria probably knew her fate during her last years of lucidity. She began ranting that she was damned and that the devil was inside her. On the assumption she was already marked for hell, her conversation became rather “unchaste” and not at all queenly. Visitors who stayed near her apartments heard “the most agonising shriek that inflicted on me a sensation of horror such as I had never felt before.” She would swing from violently punching and slapping her servants to nearly catatonic..Maria is perhaps best remembered for her mental deterioration, which was first officially noted in 1786 when she was carried back to her apartments in a state of delirium. She deteriorated considerably after the deaths of her husband, eldest son and heir and her daughter. By 1792 she was deemed mentally insane. She received care from the physician who had attended on George III of the United Kingdom, who suffered from porphyria. Her surviving son John took over the reins of government, but he refused an official regency, which only happened in 1799. Maria’s sister Mariana also began to display signs of mental deterioration.In 1807 the family was forced to flee to Brazil after the Napoleonic Wars. Maria did not understand what was happening and continued to ask her son, ‘Where are you taking me?’ and ‘What am I doing here?’. In 1815 Brazil was elevated to a kingdom, and Maria was now Queen of the United Kingdom of Portugal, Brazil and the Algarves. It was also the year of Napoleon’s defeat.Maria continued to live in Brazil, but she was tormented throughout her last year. She was often violent and hysterical or the complete opposite. She would slap and punch servants and often screamed, ‘The devil has gotten into me!’ She began to suffer from dysentery, fever and oedema in her hands and feet. She was confined to her bed for the last two months of her life. She finally died on 20 March 1816 after having received last rites the day before. Some historians have suggested she suffered from porphyria, but contemporary research suggests severe bipolar disease. What is certain is that Maria’s death in Rio de Janeiro in 1816 finally brought the queen much deserved peace after more than two decades of torment.

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Maria I also had two different titles: "Maria the Pious" and "Maria the Mad." She was the first queen in Portugal to rule in her own right (rather than as a regent for a minor or consort). Her reign began in 1777 and lasted for 39 years. Maria I was considered to be a good and competent ruler until becoming delirious in 1786. Her husband Peter III died that year, and her son passed away in 1791 .Deeply religious to the point of mania, Maria I was also devastated by the death of her confessor in 1791. She considered herself damned, in turns ranting, raging, screaming and wailing . Treatments included bloodletting and enemas "purgatives" that were commonly used to treat insanity.Peter III/Pedro III  was born  on 5 July 1717 in the Ribeira Palace in Lisbon, Portugal. of Portugal, Peter was baptized on 29 August and was given the name Pedro Clemente Francisco José António. His parents were King João V and his wife Maria Ana of Austria  in the Ribeira Palace. As the second son of the King, he was not prepared for monarchy and enjoyed a life spent in leisurely pursuits once his brother, Joseph I, came to the throne. Pedro married his niece Maria, Princess of Brazil, in 1760, at which time she was the heiress presumptive to the throne then held by his brother José I. According to custom, Pedro thus became king of Portugal in right of his wife. They had six children, of whom the eldest surviving son succeeded Maria as João VI on her death in 1816.Pedro made no attempt to participate in government affairs, spending his time hunting or in religious exercises.He also defended the high nobility of Portugal, and sponsored the petitions of those accused in Távora affair, whose rehabilitation was subject of new lawsuits, in which the heirs demanded the restitution of their confiscated properties.Peter III was moderately friendly toward the Jesuits, who had been banished from Portugal and its overseas empire in 1759, largely at the behest of the Marquis of Pombal. Peter III had taken some of his early education from the Jesuits, explaining this. His affection had little effect; Pope Clement XIV ordered the Jesuits suppressed across Europe in 1773. , Peter and Maria became king and queen of Portugal. Their marriage produced seven children, three of whom survived infancy.Whilst Maria was a just and well-liked ruler, despite Peter's strong support for the ruling class of Portugal, he had no interest whatsoever in the business of politics.He also defended the high nobility of Portugal, and sponsored the petitions of those accused in Távora affair, whose rehabilitation was subject of new lawsuits, in which the heirs demanded the restitution of their confiscated properties. He passed his days in outdoor pursuits or prayer and the couple's marriage was a happy and settled one. The death of her husband in 1786 shook Maria to the core and her already fragile mental health deteriorated further in the years that followed. She lived on for a further three decades, bereft at Peter's death and gradually consumed by insanity.Maria had suffered a string of tragedies over the previous three months. Her elder son, Jose, died of smallpox on September 11th. Her only daughter, Mariana (who had married into the Spanish royal family), died of the same disease on November 2nd, followed by Mariana's husband and newborn son. And on November 29th, Inacio de Sao Caetano--Maria's confessor for more than thirty years, the man on whom she placed her entire trust and confidence--died of a massive stroke in the palace of Queluz.Despite her grief, the Queen went through the birthday formalities with her usual grace. She engaged Robert Walpole in conversation and they spoke of the mental health of George III who was suffering his first attack of dementia, a symptom of porphyria which the doctors mistook for madness. The illness had first appeared six weeks earlier and George was in the care of Dr Francis Willis (1718-1807), who specialized in treatment of the insane. During her conversation with Walpole, Maria 'expressed concern for His Majesty' and asked him to pass on 'her sincere wishes for a speedy re-establishment of his health'.This was a poignant request, for Maria herself was on the cusp of insanity. Her maternal grandfather, Philip V of Spain (1683-1746), and her uncle, Ferdinand VI (1713-59), both suffered from mental illness and both were completely mad by the end of their lives. There are many parallels between their symptoms and Maria's illness which began to appear at about this time.Suffering his first bout of madness in 1717, Philip believed that fire was consuming him from within, divine punishment for his personal failings. He would swing from extreme lethargy to outbursts of violent frenzy. He screamed for hours at a time, he sang aloud and bit himself. He refused to have his beard shaved or his hair and toenails cut. He believed himself unable to walk because his feet were of different sizes.Ferdinand inherited his father's illness. He lived in fear of sudden death, convinced that his body was being destroyed internally and that he would die if he lay down. He refused to be washed, shaved or dressed. He refused food, taking liquid refreshment only. He banged his head against the wall and attacked his servants. In a manic phase, he would spend ten days or more without sleep. At other times, he would collapse into lethargy, becoming completely inert.This was the illness that lay in wait for Maria, whose conscience had-for more than thirty years--been troubled by the tyranny of her father's first minister, the Marquis of Pombal (Sebastiao de Carvalho e Melo). Pombal was a man of the Enlightenment with strongly antichurch opinions. At the same time, he was a despot, executing members of the aristocracy and filling the dungeons with people arrested and imprisoned without trial.Contemporary accounts credit Dr Francis Willis (1718–1807) with facilitating the recovery of King George III from his major episode of acute mania in 1788–9. Subsequently Willis was summoned to Lisbon to advise on the mental health problems of Queen Maria I. This article reports the nature of the illnesses of Maria and her two similarly affected sisters, and uses the program OPCRIT to propose diagnoses of major depressive disorders. The high prevalence of consanguinity and insanity among the Portuguese monarchy and their antecedents probably contributed to their mental health problems.

On December 1, 1807, the Napoleonic forces invaded the capital of Portugal, Lisbon. Soon after they fought an indecisive battle at Talaverra for which Wellesley received the tittle of 1st Duke of Wellington. While the French retreated to Madrid they managed to deliver a heavy defeat on Wellington’s Spanish allies at the Battle of Ocana. When 1810 began the British were not strong enough to go on the offensive, so they began construct massive defenses north of Lisbon at Torres Vedras. These fortifications proved too strong for the French to take, and the lack of supplies in the area made a siege prohibitive. The French however did lay siege to Cadiz, the temporary free Spanish capital, which had been reinforced by British troops.

On December 1, 1807, the Napoleonic forces invaded the capital of Portugal, Lisbon. Days before the invasion, on November 29, 1807, The Braganza royal family along with Queen Maria I of Portugal and the court of nearly 15,000 people of Lisbon departed for the Portuguese colony of Brazil.Napoleon was insisting that Portugal (a neutral country) must close its ports to British shipping. When it failed to comply,  a French invasion force marched into Portugal, the first hostility of what would soon become the Peninsula the invading army was given orders to march on Lisbon and seize the royal family. General Androche Junot, the former French ambassador to Portugal, was dispatched to seize Lisbon and the Braganzas.  Meanwhile, Portuguese ministers arranged for British aid to transfer the royal family to Brazil, and therefore save the kingdom.  Dom João did not wish to end up like the lesser royal families of areas of Italy and Germany, who had lost their thrones for their opposition to Napoleon. The transfer of the Portuguese court to Brazil was unprecedented as no monarch had ever visited the Americas, let alone established their capital there.  The Braganzas’ arrival in Brazil marked a new era in Portuguese, Brazilian, and indeed Latin American history as a whole. The court’s transfer was also difficult. The Braganzas arranged to bring nearly everything but Queluz palace with them to Brazil.  Remarkably many of their possessions, as well as over 10000 people, successfully boarded the ships and departed Lisbon before the arrival of the French.  The entire royal family managed to escape before Junot’s arrival and thus were spared the humiliation of defeat at the hands of Napoleon.  The successful escape infuriated Napoleon, who was not used to monarchs defying his commands.  He later remarked that João was “the only one who ever tricked me.Just hours after the royal family’s departure on 29 November 1807, the French army arrived in Lisbon.  Junot took control of the government and announced the end of Braganza rule in Portugal.  Unfortunately for the Frenchman, most Portuguese were opposed to his government and were pleased when British troops arrived to drive the French from Portugal.  Unfortunately for the Portuguese, their country became the scene of a ferocious conflict between Britain and France.  In the end, Britain held off several French invasions of Portugal.  The British and the Portuguese parliament effectively ruled in place of Dom João until the royal family’s return in 1821, but their Portuguese subjects would no longer welcome them.On November 27th, 1807, the Queen and her family fled to Brazil, embarking on leaky vessels for a three- month voyage through stormy seas. And by this time, Maria I of Portugal (1734-1816). The successive contributions of the Willis family from Thomas Willis (1621–75) to his grand-nephew, Francis Willis (1792–1859), are reviewed; the popular image is somewhat inaccurate and does not highlight their part in the development of psychiatry.The last coin, which was struck in 1789, depicts Maria with a finely made headdress decorated with pearls, and, as on the previous coin, the legible text around the edge retranscribes the sovereign’s titles: “Maria I, by the grace of God, Queen of Portugal and the Algarves”. The letter “R” appears alongside the date the coin was struck, evidence that the coin was made by the Rio de Janeiro Mint. This last coin bears witness to the third phase of her reign when the queen fell victim to dementia. The successive deaths of so many people from her entourage deeply affected her already fragile disposition, and the troubles caused by the French Revolution, during which her cousin Marie-Antoinette was sent to the guillotine, only served to make her mental state worse. Suffering from insomnia, panic attacks and hallucinations, she was no longer capable of ruling, and it was her son, João, who took over the role of the country’s Regent from 1792. This is why she was better known as “Maria the Mad” in Brazil, whereas the Portuguese put more stress on her extreme devoutness by giving her the nickname “Maria the Pious”.But the monarch’s worries did not stop there. From the beginning of the 19th century, Portugal found itself in a delicate position, torn between taking sides with France or Great Britain, the two powers vying for dominance of the European political scene. The choice was extremely difficult: on the one hand, Napoleon was racking up military victories to such a point that many people found it preferable to become his ally rather than an enemy, while on the other hand, Great Britain had long since been a major trading partner and breaking off commercial ties would no doubt trigger a serious economic crisis. In 1806, Napoleon set up a continental blockade in a bid to isolate Great Britain, and any nation trading with it would be declared France’s enemy, with the dire consequence of seeing its territory invaded by the French armies. And that’s precisely what happened in 1807; Maréchal Junot of France was on the point of invading Lisbon. So, the royal family was forced to flee the country and Brazil was the obvious choice as country of exile. The Royal Court set off on 29 September 1807 and, on 7 March 1808, berthed in Rio de Janeiro, which then de facto became the new capital of the Portuguese Kingdom.Brazil was to draw many advantages from the arrival of the Court. Magnificent buildings were constructed for the royal family, in return for which some traders obtained highly lucrative contracts. Furthermore, Prince Regent João adopted measures designed to open up Brazil’s commercial activities. Before that, any goods coming from or destined for Brazil had in fact systematically transited through Portugal. From then on, because Portugal was occupied by Napoleon’s troops (who were to be driven out in 1811), this exclusive relationship was broken and Brazilian ports were opened up to commercial allies. Other decisions followed in rapid succession: the transfer of the Kingdom’s highest jurisdictions and the Royal Library, the establishment of the Royal Printing Works (which enabled a press corps to develop) and numerous academies (medecine, science, the arts, etc.). Around the year 1810, João also encouraged colonisation by setting up small Catholic colonies of farmers with a view to extending civilisation on Brazilian soil. And this would not be without consequence for the Indians living on these lands, many of whom were massacred in droves.