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
Duarte Pio, Duke of Braganza Duarte Pio, Duke of Braganza "Dom" Duarte Pio, Duke of Braganza (Duarte Pio João Miguel Gabriel Rafael; born 15 May 1945) is a claimant to the defunct Portuguese throne, as the head of the House of Braganza. The Miguelist Braganzas, to whom Duarte Pio belongs as great-grandson of King Miguel I, is a cadet branch of the House of Braganza. With the extinction of male-line dynasts descended from Queen Maria II in 1932, King Miguel's descendants became the only male-line Braganzas left and the closest male-line heirs to the Portuguese throne (the Brazilian branch having gone extinct in 1921). Duarte