Category Archives: Portugal

In the middle of the Atlantic lies a small green island, known as Terceira, as the ‘third’ island to be discovered in the Azores archipelago by Portuguese navigators in the mid-15th century. At over a thousand miles off the coast of the mainland, Terceira would not normally be thought of as a likely seat forContinue reading “The Duke of Terceira and the House that Manuel built”

Once upon a time there was a Spanish outpost built in the far northern reaches of New Spain, in the Rio Grande Valley of the province of Santa Fe de Nuevo Mexico. Its founders named it after the Viceroy based in far-off Mexico City, the 10th Duke of Alburquerque. Some years later, the increasingly AnglophoneContinue reading “Dukes of Alburquerque: Royal Favourites and Colonial Governors”

Lancaster is a very English place name, and the name used by dynastic historians for one side of the epic struggle for the English throne known as the Wars of the Roses. Curiously, as ‘Lencastre’ it is also a surname used by one of the few Portuguese noble families to hold ducal rank. Aveiro wasContinue reading “The House of Lancaster in Portugal: Dukes of Aveiro and Abrantes“

Dukes can be dangerous. Most European monarchies have suffered at one point or another from over-powerful uncles with ducal titles: Bedford and Gloucester for Henry VI of England, Burgundy and Anjou for Charles VI of France, or those more distantly related to the king, usually known as the princes of the blood. In some cases,Continue reading “Dukes of Cadaval”