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 during a journey that would take him back to Brazil to celebrate the first centenary of independence. While the rest of the Imperial Family remain living in France, in the early 1930s, Prince Pedro acquired the Grão Pará Palace, a former palace of his family, and moved to Petrópolis, back in Brazil. At the time, his eldest daughter Princess Isabelle of Orléans-Braganza married Henri, count of Paris, heir to the French throne. Prince Pedro died in 1940 in his palace, being the only Prince of Brazil to die back in his fatherland. Her another daughter Princess Maria Francisca of Orléans-Braganza,