The only Portuguese monarch to be assassinated, King Carlos I, was shot through the neck by Republican activists on 1st February, 1908, as his open carriage rode through Lisbon. His elder son Luis Filipe was also killed, leaving 18 year-old Manuel to become the last King of Portugal.

The murder followed Portugal’s former colony Brazil deposing its emperor; a politically disastrous agreement with the British over African expansion; and the appointment of the dictatorial João Franco as Portuguese Prime Minister.

In this episode, Arion, Rebecca and Olly pore over the gossip about Carlos’s lavish lifestyle and Parisian mistress; explain how the event was foreshadowed by the famous ‘Elevator Coup’; and reveal how Carlos’s sea-faring knowledge made for an ill-advised epithet… 

Further Reading:

• ‘Historical Dictionary of Portugal - By Douglas L. Wheeler & Walter C. Opello’ (Scarecrow Press, 2010): https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Historical_Dictionary_of_Portugal/e-3kxBySncsC?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=king+carlos+i+february+1908&pg=PA71&printsec=frontcover

• ‘The Portuguese: A Portrait of a People - By Barry Hatton (Signal Books, 2016): https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/The_Portuguese/kL6_BAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=king+carlos+portugal+assassination&pg=PT118&printsec=frontcover

• ‘O Regicídio’ (Dir. Fernando Vendrell, 2008): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gYphMUSvG4

#Portugal #Royals #Crime

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The Retrospectors are Olly Mann, Rebecca Messina & Arion McNicoll, with Matt Hill.

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