Portugal Broke Free of Spain in a Single Morning
On this day · 1 December 1640
On a December dawn in Lisbon, forty conspirators stormed the royal palace and ended sixty years of Spanish rule.
On 1 December 1640, a small band of Portuguese nobles known as the Forty Conspirators stormed the royal palace in Lisbon, killing the hated secretary of state and seizing the Spanish viceroy. Within hours they had ended sixty years of rule by the Spanish Habsburgs, a union that began in 1580 when Philip II of Spain claimed the Portuguese crown.
The rebels acclaimed the Duke of Braganza as King João IV, founding a royal house that would reign until 1910. Their coup is remembered as the Restoration of Independence (Restauração da Independência), still a national holiday in Portugal.
Independence was declared in a morning, but defended for a generation.
Winning back the throne proved far easier than keeping it. The seizure triggered the Portuguese Restoration War, a grinding conflict that dragged on for nearly three decades. Spain only formally recognised Portugal’s sovereignty in 1668, with the Treaty of Lisbon.
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