Anthony Bailey, HM Hon Consul-General of the Kingdom of Tonga in Portugal, travelled to Vila Vi\u00e7osa on the occasion of the Feast of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, celebrated annually on 8 December, commemorating the proclamation in 1646 of the Immaculate Conception as Patroness of Portugal by King Dom Jo\u00e3o IV following the Restoration of Portuguese independence.<\/p>\n
On that historic occasion, the King placed the royal crown at the feet of the image of the Virgin Mary in thanksgiving for the restoration of sovereignty, declaring that no Portuguese monarch would ever again wear the crown. The devotion remains central to Portuguese national identity, and 8 December is observed as a public holiday.<\/p>\n
Vila Vi\u00e7osa, the spiritual seat of the Royal House of Braganza, hosted the principal celebrations. The programme included a formal luncheon at the Ducal Palace of Vila Vi\u00e7osa, attended by members of the Portuguese Royal Family. Now administered by the Funda\u00e7\u00e3o da Casa de Bragan\u00e7a, the palace offered a powerful reminder of the historical role of the Braganza dynasty.<\/p>\n
Mr Bailey joined the solemn procession through the streets of Vila Vi\u00e7osa, followed by the celebration of Holy Mass, attended by the entire Portuguese Royal Family. During the visit, he met with the Mayor of Vila Vi\u00e7osa, In\u00e1cio Esperan\u00e7a, who spoke of the municipality\u2019s commitment to preserving the town\u2019s heritage.<\/p>\n
Mr Bailey noted that he has been a member for over twenty-five years of the Order of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception of Vila Vi\u00e7osa, the principal dynastic order of the House of Braganza, and highlighted the Order\u2019s ongoing charitable and philanthropic work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Anthony Bailey, HM Hon Consul-General of the Kingdom of Tonga in Portugal, travelled to Vila Vi\u00e7osa on the occasion of the Feast of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception, celebrated annually on 8 December, commemorating the proclamation in 1646 of the Immaculate Conception as Patroness of Portugal by King Dom Jo\u00e3o IV following the Restoration […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10996,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":{"image_01":10997,"image_02":"","image_03":"","image_04":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tonga-gov.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tonga-gov.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tonga-gov.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tonga-gov.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tonga-gov.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9638"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tonga-gov.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9638\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tonga-gov.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tonga-gov.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tonga-gov.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tonga-gov.pt\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}