The initial turmoil of coups d'état perpetrated by the victorious generals of the Civil War was followed by an unstable parliamentary system of governmental "rotation" marked by the growth of the Portuguese Republican Party.

This was caused mainly by the inefficiency of the Portuguese monarchy as well as their lack of interest in governing the country and acceptance of the 1890 British Ultimatum, which forced the abandonment of the colonialist Pink Map attempt to unite the colonies of Angola and Mozambique.

[1] The post-Civil War period was characterized by a precarious executive office, a lack of ideological definition, the marginalization of popular movements, indiscipline and the intervention of military chiefs in politics.

[2] The death of the Regent, formerly King Pedro, after successfully installing his daughter as Queen, thrust the inexperienced Maria da Glória into a role that, at the age of 15 years, she was unprepared to handle.

Among his many proposals, successive governments adopted his policies of disengaging the economy from social conditions, limiting taxes to 5%, ending tithes, abolishing seigniorial fees, reducing export taxes to 1%, terminating the regulation of inter-community commerce and government intervention in municipal affairs, as well as separating the judiciary and administrative offices, liberating general commerce and prohibiting some monopolies (such as the sale of soap and of Porto wines).

In general, his initiatives were legislated by the post-War regimes to eliminate the privileges of the elite classes, establish social equality, encourage liberalization of the economy and improve government performance.

Later referred to as Mata-Frades (Killer of Brothers), Aguiar's government took control of the convents, churches, manor homes and holdings of various institutes that had been sustained by donations of the religious faithful and placed them for sale.

[17] This lasted only six years, then in 1842, Costa Cabral's regime instituted another program of centralization, which was quickly challenged by the legislative acts of Almeida Garrett, Anselmo Braamcamp, Martins Ferrão, and Dias Ferreira.

Ultimately, on 9 September 1836 a revolution in Lisbon by the politicized population and the National Guard to drive the Cartistas (Chartists) from power forced Queen Maria II to reinstate the 1822 Constitution.

[3] The Queen fled to Belem to escape Septembrist control and initiated her own counter revolution, the Belenzada to restore the Charter with the support of Belgium and Britain,[24] in exchange for territorial concessions in Africa.

[3][27] Queen Maria II ordered the reinstatement of the 1826 Charter, but little progress was made in reconciling the moderate and radical left, nor in recognition of the constituent power of the nation.

[3] When a military insurrection broke out at Torres Novas in 1844, Count Bomfim, leader of the revolutionary party, took command of the insurgents and seized the fortress of Almeida.

Cabral's moves once again decentralized government, placing the costs of health care, public finances and other sectors onto the tributary network, reinvoking the medieval system and subordinating local governmental authority.

[29] They succeeded in forcing Cabral's removal and exile, but the queen assembled a larger, more loyal cadre of Cabralist politicians around her new government, headed by the Duke of Saldanha.

[3][29] Meanwhile, the peasant uprising was co-opted by an undisciplined band of political and military elements backed by the small merchant class, pitting the Septembrists against the Cartistas in a civil war known as the Patuleia, similar to what occurred in the French 1848 Revolution and the Second Republic.

His movement was a self-styled Regeneração (Regeneration) of the political order in reaction to a corrupt system; the queen, worried that Saldanha would attract new adherents and thus plunge the nation once again into a civil war, decided to bring him into the fold, and installed him in government.

[33] While the Constitutional Charter did not change, the processes of government were modified: elections were made by direct suffrage, while Parliament could appoint commissions of inquiry into governmental acts.

These two parties, Regenerador and Histórico, were centrist (i.e., center-right and center-left respectively) "liberal" organizations led by politicians dedicated to the monarchy and interested in economic reconstruction and solving the deepening financial crisis.

Yet the years following 1868 were marked by continuous political disorder, although alliances were possible, and the preference for material progress and extensive public works damaged the State's finances: it was an illusory Regenerationist peace.

After leaving the train in Barreiro and traveling by boat to Lisbon, they were met in the city center by members of the court, Franco government (including the Prime Minister) and some royalist citizens.

Returning to the royal palace, their landau passed through the Terreiro do Paço, where two republican activists, Alfredo Luís da Costa and Manuel Buíça, fired on the open carriage in which they were traveling.

Five bullets were fired from a rifle carried by Buíça (a former army sergeant), hidden under his long overcoat: three of these struck and killed the king, while another fatally wounded the heir to the throne Luís Filipe.

Manuel II would reign for only a short time, as republican forces continued to attack the monarchy and its institutions, even though the young king was considered a popular monarch.

His unexpected accession to the throne (18 years of age), was marked by the brutal murder of his father and brother, yet his reign was pragmatic and respected the principles of the constitutional monarchy.

Despite threats from the ultra-militant members of the Republican Party and the Carbonária, King Manuel courageously took responsibility for upholding the institutions of the State and the rule of law.