House of Braganza great difficulty under the reign of King João II. By the tenure of the third duke, Fernando II, the House of Braganza was undoubtedly one of the greatest noble houses of Portugal and Iberia as a whole. Fernando II continued the House's legacy of acquisition and gained the title of Duke of Guimarães. To the Duke and the House's downfall, however, King João II's reign concerned itself with the royal consolidation of power and the diminishment of the nobility. In his mission to centralize power, the King executed many nobleman of the great houses of Portugal, alongside confiscating their properties
House of Orléans-Braganza Duchess of Braganza married Duarte Nuno, Duke of Braganza, heir to the Portuguese throne in 1942. In 1937 the son of Luís Prince Pedro Henrique marries Princess Maria Elisabeth of Bavaria, granddaughter of Ludwig III, the last King of Bavaria in Germany. They fled the country to avoid the Nazi and went to live in a palace in France where they start to have children. The couple moved to Brazil in 1945 soon after the end of the war giving a definite end to the exile. In 1908 Pedro de Alcântara, Prince of Grão-Pará wanted to marry Countess Elisabeth Dobržensky