History of Portugal (1834–1910)
Militant Republicans and their allies in the Carbonária were not willing to remain in the shadows of the constitutional monarchy. Between 4–5 October 1910, members of the Carbonária, republican youth, and elements of the army instigated a coup d'état against the already weak constitutional monarchy. The young king and his family, after a few miscues, escaped from the Palace in Mafra to exile in England. On the morning of 5 October 1910, the Republic was declared from the balcony of Lisbon City Hall, ending eight centuries of monarchy in Portugal.
Colonial Brazil
Due to the absence of the King and the economic independence of Brazil, Portugal entered a severe crisis that obliged João VI and the royal family to return to Portugal in 1821: a Liberal Revolution had broken out in Portugal in 1820, and the royal governors who ruled Portugal in the King's name had been replaced by a revolutionary Council of Regency formed to govern the European portion of the kingdom until the King's return. Indeed, the King's immediate return to Lisbon was one of the main demands of the Revolution. Under the revolutionary Council of Regency, a constituent assembly, known as the Portuguese Constitutional Courts ("Cortes Constitucionais Portuguesas"), was elected to abolish the absolute monarchy and replace it with a constitutional one. King João VI, then, yielding to pressure, returned to Europe. Brazilian representatives were elected to join the deliberations of the Constitutional "Cortes" of the kingdom.