Pedro II was King of Portugal for more than two decades, in the last part of the 17th Century and the first few years of the 18th Century.

He was born on April 26, 1648, at Riberia Palace in Lisbon. His father was the reigning monarch, John IV, and his mother was Luisa de Guzmán. He had two older brothers, Teodósio and Afonso. The former died in 1653, and the latter became king in 1656, when John IV died.

Afonso had had a difficult childhood, starting with a severe illness at age 3 that the left side of his body paralyzed. The illness left him with diminished mental capacity. He was 13 when he became king, and so his mother served as regent. In 1662, Afonso took the reins in his own right. Also at that time, Afonso's sister, Catherine, married England's Charles II, further cementing the alliance between England and Portugal.

Pedro grew up in a time of war. Spain had seized control of Portugal in 1580, and three Spanish kings named Philip had presided over the Iberian Union for 60 years. In 1640, John joined a number of other nobles in a rebellion, along with members of the clergy and the military, and proclaimed John king. Spain responded by making war, and the two countries fought a number of battles, raids, and skirmishes for more than two decades. The latter stage of the war between Portugal and Spain featured a handful of strong victories by Portuguese forces, at Elvas in 1659 and Ameixial in 1663 and Montes Claros in 1665. Spain finally relented on all claims to Portugal, agreeing to the Treaty of Lisbon on Feb. 13, 1668.

Not long afterward, Pedro forced his brother, Afonso, to abdicate. Afonso was still nominally king, but Pedro had the king imprisoned for the rest of his life, for the first several years on the Azores island of Terceira and then back in Portugal, in Sintra.

Afonso had married Marie Françoise of Nemours. That marriage lasted just a year, as she gained an annulment and married the king's brother, Pedro. They had a daughter, Isabel, born in 1669. Marie Françoise died in 1683.

Pedro married again, in 1687. His second wife was Marie Sophie of Neuburg. They had seven children, six of whom survived into adulthood: John (1689), Francisco (1691), António (1695), Teresa Maria (1696), Manuel (1697), and Francisca Josefa (1699). Marie Sophie died in 1699.

Pedro gained the appellation "the Pacific" because peace with Spain was achieved during his reign. He also presided over a consolidation of Portuguese control over its overseas colonies and a strengthening of the existing alliance with England. Despite that alliance, Pedro supported France and Spain in the War of the Spanish Succession, which began in 1701. A subsequent treaty with England led to an alliance with Austria as well, against Spain. Portugal was well invested in that alliance, even contributing troops for an invasion of Spain. An Allied force led by Portugal's Marquis of Minas took Madrid in 1706. (The war, however, dragged on.)

King Pedro II died on Dec. 9, 1706, at the Palhavãa Palace, in Lisbon. Succeeding him as king was his oldest son, who became John V.