The Kingdom of Portugal existed from 1139 until 1910. The kingdom operated under male-preference primogeniture, which did allow for the succession of women if they had no brothers.
The claimants of the Portuguese throne in the traditional line have all been men. The Queens mentioned are, therefore, consorts and not reigning Queens. Any claimed titles since the end of the kingdom are titular.
King Manuel II of Portugal was the last King of Portugal, and he left Portugal in 1910 following a republican coup d’état. He lived in exile in the United Kingdom, and he married Augusta Victoria of Hohenzollern in 1913. They did not have any children together, which meant that upon King Manuel’s death in 1932, the claim passed to Duarte Nuno, Duke of Braganza, a descendant of King Miguel I, who had usurped the throne from his niece, Queen Maria II, and was subsequently deposed. There were descendants of Queen Maria II alive in 1932, but none possessed Portuguese nationality. The 1826 Charter stated that no foreigner could succeed to the throne of Portugal. Duarte Nuno had also not been born in Portugal, but this had been due to the exile of Miguelists.
Nevertheless, opinions remain divided on who the true claimant is.
The majority seems to now support the claims of Duarte Nuno, Duke of Braganza. He had married Princess Maria Francisca of Orléans-Braganza in 1942, and they had three sons together.
Upon his death in 1972, he was succeeded in his claims by his eldest son, Duarte Pio, Duke of Braganza. He married Isabel Inês de Castro Curvelo de Herédia in 1995, and they had two sons and a daughter. This means that Isabel is the current titular Queen of Portugal.
His eldest son, Afonso, Prince of Beira, born in 1996, is set to inherit the claim to the Portuguese throne.
The descendants of Queen Maria II
If the line of Queen Maria II of Portugal was to be followed, regardless of whether or not the claimant had Portuguese nationality, the line of her eldest daughter, Infanta Maria Ana, would be followed. In 1932, the claimant was Georg, Crown Prince of Saxony. He became a priest after the abolishment of the monarchy in Saxony in 1918 and remained unmarried. His younger brother, Friedrich Christian, would have inherited his brother’s claim in 1943. He had married Princess Elisabeth Helene of Thurn and Taxis in 1923, and they had five children together.
Friedrich Christian died in 1968, and his claim passed to his eldest son, Maria Emanuel. He had married Princess Anastasia of Anhalt in 1962, but they had no children together. As they had no children, he adopted his nephew Alexander, the son of his second sister, Maria Anna Josepha (the eldest, Maria Josepha had no children). However, if we follow the lifetimes of each person, Maria Emanuel would be briefly succeeded by his brother, Albert. Albert would die 3 months after his brother on 6 October 2012. He had married Elmira Henke in 1980, but they did not have any children together.
The Portuguese claim would then pass to their eldest sister, Maria Josepha, who remained unmarried and had no children. She would have been the only Queen regnant in this claim, which is widely unsupported. She died in 2018, the claim would pass to her nephew Alexander (as his mother had died in 2012), who had also been adopted as Maria Emanuel’s son. Alexander had married Princess Gisela of Bavaria in 1987, and they had four children together.
Their eldest son, Georg, is set to continue this weak Portuguese claim.
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