Manuel II of Portugal

Manuel was born in 1889 at the Palace of Belém, third son of Carlos I, never meant to rule - his elder brother stood ahead of him. He entered naval school in 1907. Then came 1908: regicide killed both the king and the heir, and Manuel, 18, became king overnight. He ruled as constitutional monarch through two years of chaos, deliberately stepping back from the direct political meddling he believed had gotten his father killed, though he threw himself into the Social Question and scrapped old rituals like hand-kissing. The ground gave way in 1910 - revolution toppled the monarchy, ending nearly 800 years of kings. Manuel fled to the UK, married Augusta Victoria of Hohenzollern in 1913, and spent his exile assembling a library of Portuguese books bought at auction. He died at Twickenham in 1932, 42 years old.