King Carlos I of Portugal

Shot with his eldest son on 1 February 1908 in Lisbon by republican militants; the double regicide precipitated the fall of the monarchy two years later.

Overview

Carlos I had accepted the rotativist parliamentary decay of the monarchy and, after the 1906 crisis, allowed the dictator Joao Franco to rule by decree, enraging republicans and positivists in a country bankrupted by royal extravagance and colonial setbacks. As the royal family rode through the Praca do Comercio in an open carriage, two riflemen, Manuel Buica and Alfredo Costa, fired at close range, killing the king and the heir Luis Felipe and wounding the younger son Manuel, who became Manuel II. Both assassins died at the scene. The assassinations, the only regicides of the era with the heir killed, discredited the crown beyond repair; the revolution of 5 October 1910 ended the monarchy after a reign of two troubled years.