Prince Pedro Gastão of Orléans-Braganza

Prince Pedro Gastão of Orléans-Braganza (born Pierre-d'Alcantara Gaston Jean Marie Philippe Laurent Hubert d'Orléans et Bragance ; in Portuguese, Pedro de Alcântara Gastão João Maria Filipe Lourenço Humberto Miguel Gabriel Rafael Gonzaga de Orléans e Bragança e Dobrzensky de Dobrzenicz) (19 February 1913 – 27 December 2007) was one of two claimants to the Brazilian throne and head of the Petrópolis branch of the Brazilian Imperial House.

Biography

Prince Pedro Gastão was the son of Pedro de Alcântara, Prince of Grão-Pará and his wife Countess Elisabeth Dobrzensky of Dobrzenicz. He was born in Eu, France. His father was expected to eventually inherit the imperial throne of Brazil, as his mother was the elder child and heir presumptive of Emperor Pedro II. The monarchy was, however, overthrown in 1889 and the former imperial family went to France in exile. Until Dom Pedro de Alcântara's renunciation at the time of his marriage to a woman who was not of royal birth, he was to succeed his mother as imperial pretender, leading the Brazilian restoration movement from abroad.

Pedro Gastão spent his youth in Europe, largely at his family's Parisian home in the Boulogne sur Seine suburb: "I have very good memories of my grandparents...In exile in France I was always brought up thinking of Brazil not France or Portugal."

A few years before his death Pedro Gastão's father Prince Pedro de Alcântara told a Brazilian newspaper:

"My resignation was not valid for many reasons: besides, it was not a hereditary resignation."

Following the death of his father, and supported by Infante Alfonso, Duke of Calabria and Infante Juan, Count of Barcelona he declared himself head of the Imperial Family of Brazil. His position was supported by Francisco Morato, law professor at the University of São Paulo, who concluded the resignation of Pedro Gastão's father was not a valid legal or monarchical act. Professor Paulo Napoleão Nogueira da Silva in the 1990s published a report saying that the resignation of his father was invalid under all possible aspects of Brazilian Law.

He represented a rival claim to that of his cousin's son, Prince Luiz of Orléans-Braganza, to be the heir of the deposed Emperor Pedro II of Brazil, despite the renunciation signed by his father in 1908 when he married, without dynastic approval, a Bohemian noblewoman.

Pedro Gastão died aged 94 on 27 December 2007.

Marriage and children

He married Princess Maria de la Esperanza of Bourbon-Two Sicilies (1914–2005), a daughter of Prince Carlos of the Two Sicilies and Princess Louise of Orléans, on 18 December 1944 in Seville, Spain, and had six children:

• Prince Pedro Carlos of Orléans-Braganza (31 October 1945), married Rony Kuhn de Souza (20 March 1938–14 January 1979) 2 September 1975, with issue. He remarried Patricia Branscombe 16 July 1981, with issue:
  • Prince Pedro Tiago de Orléans e Bragança 12 January 1979
  • Prince Felipe de Orléans e Bragança 31 December 1982
• Princess Maria da Gloria of Orléans-Braganza (13 December 1946), married Alexander, Crown Prince of Serbia and Yugoslavia 1 July 1972, divorced 1985, with issue. She remarried Ignacio de Medina y Fernández de Córdoba, 19th Duke of Segorbe on 24 October 1985, with issue:
  • Peter, Hereditary Prince of Yugoslavia (born 1980)
  • Prince Philip of Yugoslavia (born 1982), married Danica Marinković (born 1986) 7 October 2017, with issue: prince Stefan of Yugoslavia (born 2018)
  • Prince Alexander of Yugoslavia (born 1982)
  • Sol de Medina y Orléans-Bragança, Countess of Ampurias (born 1986)
  • Luna de Medina y Orléans-Bragança, Countess of Ricla (born 1988)
• Prince Alfonso of Orléans-Braganza (25 April 1948), married Maria Parejo Gurruchaga (born 1954) 3 January 1973, divorced with issue. He remarried Silvia-Amália Hungria de Silva Machado 19 November 2002.
  • Princess Maria de Orléans-Bragança (born 1974)
  • Princess Julia de Orléans-Bragança (born 1977)
• Prince Manuel of Orléans-Braganza (17 June 1949), married Margarita Haffner (10 December 1945) 12 December 1977, divorced 1995, with issue:
  • Princess Luiza de Orléans-Bragança (born 1978)
  • Prince Manuel de Orléans-Bragança (born 1981)
• Princess Cristina of Orléans-Braganza (16 October 1950), married 16 May 1980 Prince Jan Pavel Sapieha-Rozanski (26 August 1935), 16 May 1980, sometime Belgian ambassador to Brazil divorced 1988, with issue:
  • Princess Ana Teresa Sapieha-Rozanski (born 1981)
  • Princess Paola Sapieha-Rozanski (born 1983), married 2012 Prince Constantin Swiatopolk-Czetwertyński (born 1978).
• Prince Francisco of Orléans-Braganza (9 December 1956), married Christina Schmidt-Pecanha (14 January 1953) 28 January 1978, divorced, with issue. He remarried Rita de Cássia Pires 1980, with issue:
  • Prince Francisco de Orléans-Bragança (born 1979)
  • Princess Maria Isabel de Orléans-Bragança (born 1982)
  • Prince Gabriel de Orléans-Bragança (born 1989)
  • Princess Manuela de Orléans-Bragança (born 1997)

Ancestors