On February 1, 1908, King Carlos I and the Crown Prince were assassinated in Terreiro do Paço. The tragedy that should have shaken Portugal was met with indifference. The people did not wear mourning clothes, there was no revolt. This coldness revealed something irreversible: a country that no longer recognized its kings.
There are photographs from January 1908 showing the Portuguese Royal Family in Vila Viçosa. King Carlos and his children smile among cork oaks, Queen Amélia poses with guests; everyone seems happy under the Alentejo winter sun. These are images published in illustrated magazines of the time—the kind of photograph that aristocrats liked to collect as proof of pleasant days.
I wonder if, when looking at those images weeks later, anyone will have seen any signs there. Details that no one noticed. A shadow, a wandering glance, anything.
Probably not. Because tragedy rarely announces itself.
Those were the last happy days of the Portuguese monarchy. Death awaited them in Lisbon, at Terreiro do Paço, on a sunny February afternoon.
How a kingdom is lost.
King Carlos I inherited a throne at a delicate moment. He ascended the throne in October 1889. Three months later, in January 1890, the British ultimatum arrived.
Portugal nurtured a project to link Angola to Mozambique through the intermediate territories—the so-called "Pink Map," presented at the Berlin Conference. This project directly intersected with the British ambition to connect the Cape to Cairo. The United Kingdom demanded the immediate withdrawal of Serpa Pinto's military forces from these territories. The Portuguese government yielded. There was no real alternative—the kingdom was economically bankrupt, avoiding war with its oldest ally seemed sensible.
But the concession created what Jorge Couto called an "irreversible erosion in the prestige of monarchical institutions." In the eyes of public opinion, the king—young, newly arrived on the throne—appeared "totally incapable of defending the interests of the country" (Couto 2008 p. 11).
To begin a reign with a national humiliation is a bad omen. King Carlos never recovered from that initial mark.
On January 31, 1891, there was an attempted republican revolt in Porto. It was thwarted. But the signal had been given: republican ideals were gaining strength among workers and in urban areas.
What followed was a succession of crises. Portugal declared bankruptcy in 1892. It declared it again in 1902. Industrial disturbances, socialist antagonism, fierce criticism of the monarchy from the press. King Carlos—a cultured, intelligent man—was seen by many as a king given to extravagances, distant from the real problems of the people. The miserable lives of so many Portuguese contrasted sharply with the monarch's lifestyle, who "participated in numerous social activities in which he mingled only with the elites" (Couto 2008 p. 12).
There is a cruel irony here: King Carlos's father, King Luís I, was nicknamed "the Popular" precisely because he had created an empathetic connection with the people. His son couldn't. Or didn't know how. Or didn't have the time.
The mistake that cost a crown.
In response to the crises, King Carlos appointed João Franco as prime minister and accepted the dissolution of parliament. Franco promised a policy of "new life"—moralization, order, progress.
The seriousness of the situation was evident. The royal family decided to return to Lisbon the following day.
Let's consider what this means: a king signing deportation decrees while on vacation in Vila Viçosa, and then returning to the capital where tempers are flaring. It's not exactly recklessness. It's the political calculation of someone who thinks they have the situation under control.
What followed was censorship of the press, persecution of dissidents, and increasing police repression. Franco sought to impose order in a country that no longer believed in order.
On January 28, 1908, several armed republicans gathered near the Library Elevator. They were denounced, arrested, and accused of conspiracy. Two days later, in Vila Viçosa, the Minister of Justice visited King Carlos and persuaded him to sign a decree: the prisoners would be deported.
A smooth ride to disaster.
On February 1st, the Royal Family travelled through the Alentejo region by train. The journey was uneventful, marred only by a minor derailment near Casa Branca which delayed their arrival.
They crossed the Tagus River on the steamship D. Luís. At the river station, they were met by Prince Manuel, relatives, friends, and João Franco. They boarded the carriages. The procession began to parade through Terreiro do Paço.
The afternoon was calm. Winter sun, warm, the Tagus River so clean it looked like crystal. The procession moved parallel to the river, turned left, and passed in front of the Ministries.
Just before Arsenal Street, the idyllic scene crumbled.
Everything is lost in seconds.
Manuel dos Reis da Silva Buiça emerged from the square with a rifle. He fired at the carriage.
Almost immediately, from the other side, Alfredo Luís da Costa fired a revolver.
King Carlos fell dead. Crown Prince Luís Filipe was mortally wounded. Queen Amélia struggled, standing in the carriage, trying to save her husband and children.
The royal escort was taken by surprise. The coachman reacted, driving the carriage down Arsenal Street, seeking refuge in the Navy Arsenal.
Too late. The deaths were declared at the scene.
There's something unsettling about the speed. Seconds. Gunshots. A dead king, a dying prince, a desperate queen. And then what?
The silence of a country.
The news spread quickly. It reached embassies, world capitals. The world reacted with shock. Expressions of grief followed one after another, funerals were organized almost everywhere.
Portugal was suddenly the focus of everyone's attention. Reporters were dispatched to Lisbon.
And they found something strange.
The director of the Spanish newspaper ABC He wrote: "The Portuguese people seem to have received the death of their monarch with complete indifference. And it also seems that this indifference extends to everyone..."«
The correspondent of Le Matin He shared the astonishment: "What struck me, however, was that the decree ordering a two-month period of general mourning seems to be observed only by high society or by people holding official positions."«
Consider this: a king is assassinated in broad daylight, in the heart of the capital, and the population… does not react. There is no widespread mourning. There is no revolt. There is indifference.
Guerra Junqueiro, in a letter to the newspaper North, He went even further. Anguished by the prince's death, he lamented "with dry eyes" the monarch's death: "They didn't kill the king: he committed suicide. The king was a malevolent, disturbing monster, conscious of four million creatures. If I could kill him secretly, from afar, from my bed, with my thoughts, I wouldn't kill him. For the sake of truth, I have the courage to accuse. Perhaps I would even have the courage to die, I don't know. Kill, I would never kill." (Junqueiro 1908).
It's an extraordinary phrase. It condemns the king, but rejects violence. It admits it wouldn't kill him, but celebrates the one who did. It sums up the moral ambiguity of an era.
The king's "inaccessibility" had prevented him from creating an empathetic connection with the people. But the biggest mistake was keeping João Franco in power for too long. It cost him his life. Two years later, it would cost his son the throne.
The king is dead, long live the king.
Prince Manuel was slightly wounded in the assassination attempt. He was immediately proclaimed King of Portugal.
In the diary he began writing soon after the tragedy, D. Manuel reveals all his sadness and resentment. He felt betrayed by João Franco, who had written to him assuring him that everything was calm: "João Franco then wrote me a letter that I most regret having torn up, because in that letter he told me that everything was calm and that there was nothing to fear! What blindness!"«
What blindness, indeed.
The new king's first act was to dissolve João Franco's government. Franco "fled" to Paris, justifying his failure with his "inability to predict the future." An attempt at reconciliation began: annulment of the deportation decree, pacification, and a quest for normalcy.
But that afternoon of February 1st had opened a wound that was too deep.
The one who died that afternoon.
A country's indifference to the death of its king is not a mere statistical detail. It is a symptom of something irreversible.
Two years later, on October 5, 1910, the Republic would be proclaimed. D. Manuel II, nicknamed "the Patriot"—an irony of fate—would leave for exile in London, where he would die in 1932.
The monarchical chapter of Portugal had closed that sunny afternoon in Terreiro do Paço. Not with pomp, not with glory, not even with popular revolt. With gunshots, silence, and the strange coldness of a country that no longer recognized its kings.
I remember the photographs of Vila Viçosa. Those smiles among the cork oaks, that January light, that feeling of aristocratic security that shines through in the images.
All of that died in one afternoon. In seconds.
What puzzles me isn't so much the violence—history is full of assassinated kings. It's the indifference. An entire country witnessing the end of centuries of monarchy and… feeling nothing.
Perhaps this is the true tragedy of February 1, 1908.
References
Alves, F. das N., & Monico, R. (2016). The Portuguese regicide in the pages of the Rio Grande press.. Collection of Documents.
Couto, J. (2008). 1908: From Regicide to the Rise of Republicanism – Bibliographical Exhibition. In M. Rêgo (Ed.), From Regicide to the Rise of Republicanism. National Library of Portugal – Ministry of Culture.
D. Manuel II. (1908). Diary of King Manuel II: Absolutely intimate notes. National Archives of Torre do Tombo.
Junqueiro, G. (February 15, 1908). Letter from Guerra Junqueiro. Cambra Newspaper, p. 2.
Noronha, E. de. (1908). The tragedy of Lisbon. Evenings: Illustrated Monthly Magazine, 32, 127–151.
The regicide. (1908). Le Petit Journal. Mário Soares Foundation / Mário Soares Foundation Collection / António Pedro Vicente.
Tragic week. (1908a). Portuguese Illustration (2nd Series), 105, 242–256.
Their Majesties in Vila Viçosa. (1908b). Portuguese Illustration (2nd Series), 102, 156–160.
SN (1908c, February 5). Correspondence. Le Matin.
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