* Pedro II should have reached his Majority at the age of 18, in December 1843. However, in the midst of a political crisis in May 1840, the Liberal party decided for its own purposes to anticipate his coming of age, which then took place in December of that year, on his fifteenth birthday. Convenient myth—later denied by the Emperor himself—had it that the supporters of this move had asked the Emperor when he wanted to rule, and that he replied “Quero já” (“I want to now”).