JOHN V. (1689-1750) of Portugal was born at Lisbon on October 22, 1689, and succeeded his father Pedro II. on December 1706, being proclaimed on January 1, 1707. One of his first acts was to intimate his adherence to the Grand Alliance, which his father had joined in 1703, and his resolution to take his full share in the war then in progress. Accordingly his general Das Minas, along with Lord Galway, advanced into Castile, but sustained the defeat of Almauza (14th April). In October 1708 he married Maria Anna, daughter of Leopold I., thus strengthening the alliance with Austria ; the series of campaigns which ensued were equally unsuccessful with the first, but ultimately terminated in a favourable peace with Fiance in 1713 and with Spain in 1715. The rest of his long reign presents no striking features, except that it was characterized by perfect subservience on his part to the clergy, the kingdom being administered by ecclesiastical persons and for ecclesiastical objects to an extent that gave him the best of rights to the title " Most Faithful King," bestowed upon him and his successors by a bull of pope Benedict XIV. in 1748. John V. died on July 31, 1750, and was succeeded by his son Joseph.