Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, 1st Marquis of Pombal
Expulsion of the Jesuits and consolidation of power

Following the earthquake, Joseph I gave his Prime Minister even more authority. As his power grew, his enemies increased in number, and bitter disputes with the high nobility became frequent. On September 3, 1758, Joseph I was wounded in an attempted assassination when he was returning from a visit to his mistress, the young married Marchioness Teresa de Távora. On December 9, 1758, Pombal formed a special investigatory tribunal (its members were himself and the other secretaries of state). Approximately sixty individuals were convicted by the tribunal on January 12, 1759.

Several nobles, including members of the Távora family and the Duke of Aveiro - who was generally regarded as the head of the conspiracy - were sentenced to death, while other nobles were sentenced to indefinite imprisonment. Death sentences were executed by breaking wheel, burning alive, strangling, and beheading. The brutality of the executions stirred controversy in Europe at the time.

In December 1760, the Marquis, who himself was a " familiar do Santo Oficio" (a lay officer of the Inquisition), denounced Father Gabriel Malagrida, a Jesuit, to the Inquisition on charges of heresy. He was sentenced to death. On 21 September 1761, Malagrida was strangled at the garrote in Rossio Square, then burned on a bonfire and the ashes were thrown into the Tagus river.

After the execution of the Távoras, the persecution of the nobility never stopped. When Pombal left power, around eight hundred political prisoners were released, but in the meantime around two thousand and four hundred had died in prison.

After Pombal had been removed from power by Maria I, an inquiry in the Tavora trial endorsed the guilty verdict of the Duke of Aveiro but exonerated the Tavora family.

There were long-standing tensions between the Portuguese crown and the Jesuits, so that the Távora affair could be considered a pretext for the climax to the conflict that resulted in the Jesuits ’ expulsion from Portugal and its empire in 1759. Jesuit assets were confiscated by the crown. According to historians James Lockhart and Stuart Schwartz, the Jesuits' "independence, power, wealth, control of education, and ties to Rome made the Jesuits obvious targets for Pombal's brand of extreme regalism." Pombal showed no mercy, prosecuting every person involved, even women and children. This was the final stroke that broke the power of the aristocracy and ensured the Prime Minister's victory against his enemies. In reward for his swift resolve, Joseph I made his loyal minister Count of Oeiras in 1759. Following the Távora affair, the new Count of Oeiras knew no opposition. Having become the Marquis of Pombal in 1770, he effectively ruled Portugal until Joseph I's death in 1777.

In 1771, botanist Domenico Vandelli published Pombalia, a genus of flowering plants from America, belonging to the family Violaceae and named in honour of the Marquis of Pombal.
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