The Lisbon Regicide or Regicide of 1908 (Portuguese: Regicídio de 1908) was the assassination of King Carlos I of Portugal and the Algarves and his heir-apparent, Luís Filipe, Prince Royal of Portugal, by assassins sympathetic to Republican interests and aided by elements within the Portuguese Carbonária, disenchanted politicians and anti-monarchists. The events occurred on 1 February 1908 at the Praça do Comércio along the banks of the Tagus River in Lisbon, commonly referred to by its antiquated name Terreiro do Paço.

Some idealistic students, politicians and dissidents were inspired by the founding of the French Third Republic in 1870 and hoped that a similar regime could be installed in Portugal. The intellectual style was heavily middle-class and urban, and hardly concealed its cultural mimicry of the French Republic. Most of the Republican leadership were from the same generation; many were the best-educated in the country and were heavily influenced by the French positivist Comte and the socialist Proudhon. The ideology after 1891 was peppered with concepts such as municipal autonomy, political and economic democracy, universal male suffrage, direct elections for legislative assemblies, a national militia instead of a professional army, the secularization of education and separation of church and state (all copied from French revolutionaries).

After the period of monarchist revanchism in France had waned and the daily Sud Express rail service between Lisbon and Paris was established in 1887, the leftist French Jacobin influence grew stronger in Portugal

In the second year of the reign of King Carlos I, the Conservative government of Prime Minister Lord Salisbury delivered what is known as the 1890 British Ultimatum: a rejection of the territorial claims defined by the Pink Map of Portuguese Africa. This breach of the Treaty of Windsor forced the King to abandon Portugal's claim to a large area between Angola and Mozambique (encompassing present-day Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Malawi). This humiliation for Portugal led to public outrage and was seized by nascent republicans and ideological Jacobins as an opportunity to attack the monarchy.

Since its formation, the Republican Party of Portugal had wished for a regime change. These republicans banded together after 1897, ostensibly to protest the 1890 ultimatum; their appeals were based upon fears in Portugal of the extent of British influence overseas, a possible invasion by Spain or anger at policies issuing by ruling parties that were widely perceived as being failures

Teachers, journalists, small businessmen, clerks and artisans were drawn to the Republicans, who appealed to nationalism, universal suffrage, separation of church and state and (most notably) the abolition of the monarchy and the privileges of the nobility.

When King Carlos decided to become politically active, it had become difficult to form a non-coalition cabinet which could win a majority in Parliament. In May 1906 he appointed João Franco premier with a plan to combat the issues of the day, but the opposition was confrontational and progressively less manageable.

Franco tried to govern in a coalition with José Luciano de Castro but this too became unmanageable. Franco asked the king to dissolve the parliament to implement a series of political changes which included censoring the press, jailing opposition members. oão Franco would govern by parliamentary dictatorship until order could be restored.

However, this measure further increased political tension; the two major monarchist parties were infuriated. In reaction to King Carlos' action (which favored Franco's faction), they joined forces with the Partido Republicano Português to resist Franco and his cohorts.

Agitation and conflict continued in Lisbon, instigated in many cases by republican youth and their supporters; there were many arrests and the discovery of stockpiles of arms and bombs. These developments created an increasingly volatile situation. Franco then prohibited all public meetings, imposed stricter controls on press freedom and began to take judicial action against “all cases of offenses against the state”. The king became further embroiled in events when he replaced the elected municipal councils by nominated committees and gave himself the power to nominate an unlimited number of life peers to the upper house.

The republicans held him responsible for many of the problems in the country.

reparations for the King's assassination were made in advance, according to evidence obtained at the home of assassin Manuel Buíça on 28 January. At the end of 1907, during a conference at Café Brébant on Boulevard Poissonière in Paris, a group of Portuguese politicians and French revolutionaries had already planned the liquidation of the head of government. On the morning of 1 February in the Quinta do Ché (in the parish of Santa Maria dos Olivais) and the days preceding it, the conspirators confirmed their decision to proceed with the attempt.

The King, Queen and Prince Royal had been on a month-long retreat at the Vila Viçosa in the Alentejo, where they routinely spent time hunting during the winter. The previous political events had forced King Carlos to cut his retreat short and to return to Lisbon, the royal family catching the train from Vila Viçosa on the morning of 1 February.

There were only a few people in the Terreiro do Paço as the carriage rounded the eastern part of the square and the first shot rang out. As reported later, a bearded man had walked out into the road after the carriage had passed; he removed a Winchester carbine rifle hidden under his overcoat, knelt on one knee and fired at the King from a distance of about 8 metres . The shot struck the king's neck, killing him instantly; another gunman in the square opened fire at the carriage while onlookers ran in panic. The assassins then turned their attention to the Prince Royal, Luís Filipe, the prince was struck by a large-caliber shot which exited from the top of his skull.

The assassination of King Carlos and the Prince Royal was the effective end of a constitutional monarchy in Portugal (later confirmed by the 5 October 1910 revolution). The regime functioned for another 33 months with growing agitation and demands for reform (although considerably less than in the future First Republic). It cannot be denied that the weak and permissive attitude in the Government of Acclamation was an incentive for the Republican Party to attempt another coup.

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