Infante Infante (, ; f. ''infanta''), also anglicised as "infant" or translated as "prince", is the title and rank given in the Iberian kingdoms of Spain (including the predecessor kingdoms of Aragon, Castile, Navarre, and León) and Portugal to the ...

Afonso of Portugal, Duke of Porto (; 31 July 1865 in

Palace of Ajuda A palace is a large residence, often serving as a royal residence or the home for a head of state or another high-ranking dignitary, such as a bishop or archbishop. The word is derived from the Latin name palātium, for Palatine Hill in Rome whi ...

, Lisbon – 21 February 1920 in

Naples Naples ( ; ; ) is the Regions of Italy, regional capital of Campania and the third-largest city of Italy, after Rome and Milan, with a population of 908,082 within the city's administrative limits as of 2025, while its Metropolitan City of N ...

, Italy) was a Portuguese

of the

House of Braganza The Most Serene House of Braganza (), also known as the Brigantine dynasty (''dinastia Brigantina''), is a dynasty of emperors, kings, princes, and dukes of Portuguese people, Portuguese origin which reigned in Europe and the Americas. The hous ...

,"While remaining

patrilineal Patrilineality, also known as the male line, the spear side or agnatic kinship, is a common kinship system in which an individual's family membership derives from and is recorded through their father's lineage. It generally involves the inheritanc ...

dynasts of the duchy of

Saxe-Coburg and Gotha Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (), or Saxe-Coburg-Gotha ( ), was an Ernestine duchy in Thuringia ruled by a branch of the House of Wettin, consisting of territories in the present-day states of Thuringia and Bavaria in Germany. It lasted from 1826 to ...

according to pp. 88, 116 of the 1944 ''

Almanach de Gotha The ''Almanach de Gotha'' () is a directory of Europe's royalty and higher nobility, also including the major governmental, military and diplomatic corps, as well as statistical data by country. First published in 1763 by C. W. Ettinger in ...

'', Title 1, Chapter 1, Article 5 of th
1838 Portuguese constitution
declared, with respect to

Ferdinand II of Portugal ''Dom (title), Dom'' Ferdinand II (; 29 October 1816 – 15 December 1885), also known as Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and as "the King-artist" (), was King of Portugal from 16 September 1837 to 15 November 1853 as the husband and co-ruler ...

's issue by his first wife, that 'the Most Serene House of Braganza is the reigning house of Portugal and continues through the Person of the Lady Queen Maria II'. Thus their mutual descendants constitute the Coburg line of the House of Braganza" the son of

King King is a royal title given to a male monarch. A king is an Absolute monarchy, absolute monarch if he holds unrestricted Government, governmental power or exercises full sovereignty over a nation. Conversely, he is a Constitutional monarchy, ...

Luis I of

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...

and his wife, Maria Pia of Savoy. From 1908 to the abolition of the Portuguese monarchy in 1910 he was the Prince Royal of Portugal as heir presumptive to his nephew, King Manuel II.

Early life

Dom Afonso had a military career. In fact, he was a general of some considerable competence in the Portuguese Army, where, previously, he had been the inspector-general of artillery. His exemplary military background allowed him to be chosen to command military forces at Goa, at the end of the nineteenth century, when he was, concurrently, Viceroy of India. His performance in India motivated his nomination to be Constable of Portugal. In the early months of 1890, his engagement to Archduchess Marie Valerie of Austria was publicised, but later she refused to marry him, under the influence of her aunt by marriage, Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria, of the Miguelist branch of the Braganza Dynasty. When threats on the life of his brother, Carlos, became known to him, he adopted the habit of arming himself with a revolver, night and day, making himself ready to defend his family whenever it might be necessary. He urged his nephew, the Prince Royal, Luís Filipe, to carry a weapon as well. Dom Afonso was a lady's man, known for his kindness, simplicity, and ''bon-vivant'' lifestyle. For instance, he liked to act as a fireman with the Ajuda Fire Corps near the

, which he patronized as honorary commander-in-chief. He lived at the Palace of Ajuda with the

queen mother A queen mother is a former queen, often a queen dowager, who is the mother of the monarch, reigning monarch. The term has been used in English since the early 1560s. It arises in hereditary monarchy, hereditary monarchies in Europe and is also ...

, Maria Pia of Savoy, after King Luis's death (his brother King Carlos and, later, his nephew King Manuel, both lived at the Palace of Necessidades during their reigns). Dom Afonso was also a lover of automobile races, and he was responsible for the first motor races in Portugal, where he was one of the first drivers. After the proclamation of the Portuguese First Republic in 1910, Afonso went into exile abroad, first at

Gibraltar Gibraltar ( , ) is a British Overseas Territories, British Overseas Territory and British overseas cities, city located at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, on the Bay of Gibraltar, near the exit of the Mediterranean Sea into the A ...

with his nephew, the deposed king, Manuel II, and afterwards to Italy with his mother, Queen Maria Pia. He lived with her at

Turin Turin ( , ; ; , then ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The city is main ...

, and, after her death, he moved to Rome, and, finally, to

Marriage

Suffering, like his mother, the dowager Queen Maria Pia of Savoy, from debilitating mental and emotional health after the Regicide of 1908, Afonso de Bragança married civilly in Rome on 26 September 1917, a twice-divorced and once-widowed, American heiress Nevada Stoody Hayes. This was a politically significant event, at least to those Portuguese royalists who clung to the hope of a restoration of the

: as significant funding for any power grab was urgently needed. As of 1917, the Portuguese

pretender A pretender is someone who claims to be the rightful ruler of a country although not recognized as such by the current government. The term may often be used to either refer to a descendant of a deposed monarchy or a claim that is not legitimat ...

, Manuel II, was living in England with his wife of four years, Princess Augusta Victoria of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, but they had no children. The royalists were apprehensive about the prospects for a legitimate Braganza heir, and their anxiety redoubled at the news of Afonso's marriage to a commoner, especially one of such a dubious reputation. In Portugal, a

morganatic marriage Morganatic marriage, sometimes called a left-handed marriage, is a marriage between people of unequal social rank, which in the context of royalty or other inherited title prevents the principal's position or privileges being passed to the spou ...

for an

infant In common terminology, a baby is the very young offspring of adult human beings, while infant (from the Latin word ''infans'', meaning 'baby' or 'child') is a formal or specialised synonym. The terms may also be used to refer to juveniles of ...

and infanta was not forbidden, and only the heir of the Portuguese crown, inducted as such, could need the royal consent. So, any legitimate child of Afonso and Nevada could become the lawful heir to the Portuguese throne. Nearly as disturbing was the prospect that both Manuel and Afonso would fail to produce an heir, the claimant to the throne of Portugal could be a descendant of Miguel I, the absolutist king who, in 1834, lost the Portuguese War of the Two Brothers and be barred from the line of succession. Dom Afonso was the fourth husband of Nevada Stoody Hayes. The latter being a commoner and a divorcee, they were unable to marry religiously in Italy, where the validity of their previous civil marriage in September in Rome, yet registered, has been publicly recused by King

Victor Emmanuel III Victor Emmanuel III (; 11 November 1869 – 28 December 1947) was King of Italy from 29 July 1900 until his abdication on 9 May 1946. A member of the House of Savoy, he also reigned as Emperor of Ethiopia from 1936 to 1941 and King of the Albani ...

, and in front of some resistance of Pope Benedict XV. She convinced Afonso to marry her once again in a civil ceremony, performed by a consular officer of the Portuguese Republic: They were thus married for a second time by Dr. Félix de Carvalho, Consul of the Portuguese Legation in Madrid, on 23 November 1917, at the Hotel Ritz Madrid, in the presence of Dr. A. Ferreira d'Almeida Carvalho, first secretary, Dr. Vasco Francisco Caetano de Quevedo Pessanha, second secretary, Major Carlos Maria Pereira dos Santos, military attaché, Francisco Mantero y Velarde, Spanish subject and "capitalist", and Humberto L. Lallement, Portuguese citizen and merchant in Madrid. The same day, a religious wedding ceremony was performed by a priest in a church of Madrid. Some believe that the Portuguese consul in Madrid was as cooperative as he was because the Republican government in power at Lisbon was delighted to see one of the last of the Braganzas do such an unpopular thing. Dom Afonso had previously tried to get Manuel II's approval for his marriage, but received no response due to the influence of the rest of the royal family, vehemently opposed to it. After his marriage, he was rejected by his other Italian royal family relatives and his reported allowance of $10,000 per year from King

was cut off. He then began to live in obscurity until his final days. He fell seriously ill and finally died alone, in

, on 21 February 1920. Only one Portuguese servant remained with him until the end. Even though the marriage of an

who is specifically heir to the throne (although awaiting the birth of an heir from his wife Queen Augusta Victoria, King Manuel II never officially inducted his uncle Dom Afonso as Prince Royal of Portugal, and with the title of

Prince of Beira Prince of Beira (, feminine: ''Princesa da Beira'') is a title traditionally granted to the heir apparent to the King of Portugal, throne of Portugal. The title's original use that it be granted on the eldest daughter of the reigning monarch of P ...

) would not comply with the specific conditions – i.e. contracted without royal consent, or with royal ban –, and exclude the surviving spouse from inheriting any of the titles or privileges that are the prerogatives of a member of the Portuguese royal family, this do not exclude the widow from inheriting property. In his will, Dom Afonso left his entire estate to his surviving wife Princess Nevada lso called ''Maria das Neves''of Braganza, Duchess of Porto, aka '' Dona'' Nevada de Bragança. After the death of Manuel II, in July 1932, Dom Afonso's widow demanded that the Portuguese government recognize her rights to a substantial part of the

's patrimony. Her husband had named her his sole legal heir in his last will. As the marriage, and the will, was legally disputed in Lisbon, Nevada was briefly arrested shortly after she arrived at Lisbon to claim her inheritance. Eventually, however, she proved a substantial portion of her claim, and she was officially granted the right to remove many objects of art and expensive goods from the Portuguese royal palaces. The Duchess of Porto traveled from Naples to Portugal with the mortal remains of her late husband, and she arranged for its installation in the Braganza pantheon, located in the Monastery of São Vicente de Fora in Lisbon.

Honors

He received the following awards:Marquis of Ruvigny, ''The Titled Nobility of Europe'' (Harrison and Sons, London, 1914) p. 120 * Grand Cross of the Sash of the Two Orders (

) * Grand Cross of the Order of the Immaculate Conception of Vila Viçosa (Portugal) * Grand Cross of the Order of St. Stephen, ''1888'' (

Austria-Hungary Austria-Hungary, also referred to as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the Habsburg Monarchy, was a multi-national constitutional monarchy in Central Europe#Before World War I, Central Europe between 1867 and 1918. A military ...

) * Grand Cross of the

Saxe-Ernestine House Order The Saxe-Ernestine House Order ()Hausorden
Herzogliche Haus Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha was a ...

, ''1885'' (

Ernestine duchies The Ernestine duchies (), also known as the Saxon duchies (, although the Albertine appanage duchies of Weissenfels, Merseburg and Zeitz were also "Saxon duchies" and adjacent to several Ernestine ones), were a group of small states whose numb ...

) * Knight of the Annunciation, ''15 June 1893'' (

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

) * Knight of the Black Eagle (

Prussia Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a Germans, German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussia (region), Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, ...

) * Knight of the Rue Crown (

Saxony Saxony, officially the Free State of Saxony, is a landlocked state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, and Bavaria, as well as the countries of Poland and the Czech Republic. Its capital is Dresden, and ...

) * Knight of the Order of the Royal House of Chakri, ''23 October 1897'' ( Siam) * Knight of the Golden Fleece, ''11 December 1883'' (

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) * Grand Cross of the

Order of Charles III The Royal and Distinguished Spanish Order of Charles III, originally Royal and Much Distinguished Order of Charles III (, originally ; Abbreviation, Abbr.: OC3) is a knighthood and one of the three preeminent Order of merit, orders of merit bes ...

, ''11 December 1886'' (Spain) * Knight of the Seraphim, ''24 December 1883'' ( Sweden-Norway) * Honorary Grand Cross of the

Royal Victorian Order The Royal Victorian Order () is a dynastic order of knighthood established in 1896 by Queen Victoria. It recognises distinguished personal service to the monarch, members of the royal family, or to any viceroy or senior representative of the m ...

, ''7 April 1903'' (

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

)Shaw, Wm. A. (1906) ''The Knights of England'', I, London
p. 426
/ref>

Ancestry

References

, - , - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Afonso Of Porto, Duke 1865 births 1920 deaths Portuguese infantes House of Braganza-Saxe-Coburg and Gotha Knights of the Golden Fleece of Spain Dukes of Porto Princes Royal of Portugal Burials at the Monastery of São Vicente de Fora Grand Crosses of the Order of Saint Stephen of Hungary 2 2 Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the Immaculate Conception of Vila Viçosa Honorary Knights Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order Nobility from Lisbon Constables of Portugal 19th-century Portuguese people Sons of kings Heirs presumptive

Early life

Marriage

Honors

Ancestry

See also

References