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The Forty Conspirators (Portuguese: Os Quarenta Conjurados [1] ), were a Portuguese nationalist group during the Iberian Union. The Conspirators were composed of forty men of the Portuguese nobility, and many clergy and soldiers. Their goal was to depose the House of Habsburg king, Philip III (and IV of Spain).
The plot was planned by Antão Vaz de Almada, Miguel de Almeida and João Pinto Ribeiro. On 1 December 1640, they, together with several associates, known as the Forty Conspirators, took advantage of the fact that the Castilian troops were occupied on the other side of the peninsula and killed Secretary of State Miguel de Vasconcelos, imprisoning the king's cousin, the Duchess of Mantua, who had governed Portugal in his name. The moment was well chosen, as Philip's troops were at the time fighting the Thirty Years' War in addition to the revolt in Catalonia. [2]
The support of the people became apparent almost immediately and soon John, 8th Duke of Braganza, was acclaimed King of Portugal throughout the country as John IV. By December 2, 1640, John had already sent a letter to the Municipal Chamber of Évora as sovereign of the country.
Menezes, sometimes Meneses, was originally a Portuguese toponymic surname which originated in Montes Torozos, a region in Tierra de Campos, northeast of Valladolid and southeast of Palencia. The ancestor of the Meneses lineage was Tello Pérez de Meneses. The family wealth and power grew remarkably in the 13th and 14th centuries, through several marriages with the Castilian and Portuguese royal families.
Álvaro Vaz de Almada, 1st Count of Avranches was an illustrious Portuguese knight and nobleman, with a long and illustrious career abroad in England. He was invested by the English king, Henry VI as the 1st Count of Avranches and made a Knight of the Garter.
Hugo José Jorge O'Neill was the head of the Clanaboy O'Neill dynasty, whose family has been in Portugal since the 18th century.
Carlos O'Neill, was the titular head of a branch of the Clanaboy O'Neill dynasty, whose family has been based in Portugal since the 18th century.
The Camões family were descendants of the 14th-century Portuguese nobleman Vasco Pires de Camões.
João Pedro Mouzinho de Albuquerque was a Portuguese nobleman.
Dom Duarte de Menezes, was a 16th-century Portuguese nobleman and colonial officer, governor of Tangier from 1508 to 1521 and 1536 to 1539, and governor of Portuguese India from 1522 to 1524.
The Prior of Crato, was the traditional title given to the head of the Order of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem (Hospitaller) in Portugal. It is a reference to the domains of the order around Crato, Portugal.
Hermano José Braamcamp de Almeida Castelo-Branco, 5th Lord, 2nd Baron, 1st Viscount and 1st Count of Sobral, 5th Lord of the Majorat of Sobral, 3rd Lord of the Majorat of Luz, ComC, Chief of the Name and Arms of da Cruz Sobral, was a Portuguese nobleman and politician.
Fernando de Castro was a 15th-century Portuguese nobleman, diplomat and military figure. Fernando de Castro was the 1st Lord of Paúl de Boquilobo. He was a member of the royal council of John I of Portugal, and governor of the household of Prince Henry the Navigator.
Lopo de Brito was the second Captain of Portuguese Ceylon. Brito succeeded João da Silveira and was appointed in 1518 under Manuel I of Portugal, he was Captain until 1522. He was succeeded by Fernão Gomes de Lemos.
The Captaincy-General of the Azores (1766—1832) was a politico-administrative structure of governance imposed in the Azores on 2 August 1766, with its seat in Angra. It remained the de facto system of governance for 65 years, until it was abolished on 4 June 1832 by D. Peter IV, but by 1828 its de jure status had made it nonoperational, owing to the revolutionary movements that lead to the Liberal Wars. The creation of the Captaincy-General was part of the Pombaline reforms to the Portuguese administration, during the reign of Joseph I, under the initiatives of Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, 1st Marquis of Pombal, then prime minister. A Captaincy-General operated from the Palace of the Captains-General, under the direction of the titular Captain-General, who operated as the Governor of the Azores, with additional jurisdiction on every island of the Azorean archipelago. The Captaincy-General was succeeded by the Province of the Azores, an ephemeral administrative structure that was collapse in the immediate years.
José António de Melo da Silva César e Meneses, the 8th Count of São Lourenço, 2nd Count of Sabugosa, alcaide-mor of Elvas, ensign-chief of Portugal, gentleman of Royal Household, holder of the Grand-Cross in the Order of Christ and Commander in the Order of the Tower and Sword, was a high noble and general in the Portuguese Army, who between 1804 and 1806 was the 4th Captain General of the Azores.
Count of Avintes is a Portuguese title of nobility created by Letters Patent of King Afonso VI of Portugal on 17 February 1664 for D. Luis de Almeida, 5th Lord of Avintes. The title was conferred in perpetuity upon the 4th Count by King José I of Portugal in the same document by which he was elevated to the Marquessate of Lavradio, later confirmed by Letters Patent dated 29 August 1766.
Dom Martinho de Ataíde, 2nd Count of Atouguia, was a 15th-century Portuguese nobleman and diplomat. In 1455, he was granted the lordship of the Canary Islands, by donation from King Henry IV of Castile, which he later sold to the Count of Viana.
Count of Torres Vedras is a Portuguese title of nobility created by King Felipe III of Portugal, possibly in 1626, for D. João Soares de Alarcão, 9th Alcaide-mor of Torres Vedras and Governor General of the then Portuguese enclave of Ceuta.
Ataíde is the name of a noble family from the Kingdom of Portugal, many of whose members played important roles in the course of the Portuguese overseas expansion and in the internal and foreign policies of Portugal and its empire.