João de Sande Magalhães Mexia Ayres de Campos, 2nd Count of Ameal, ComC, CvNSC (Coimbra, 11 May 1877 – Ota, Alenquer, 22 December 1952) was a Portuguese politician and career diplomat, having served in this capacity in the Hague, and also as Secretary to Portugal's Minister of Foreign Affairs, Venceslau de Lima. He was as a key participant in the failed republican Municipal Library Elevator Coup of 1908, which targeted the Constitutional monarchy of King Charles I and what were perceived as the dictatorial powers of his then prime minister João Franco. Early life and marriage João Ayres de Campos was born in Coimbra, the eldest son of João Maria Correia Ayres de Campos and his wife Maria Amélia de Sande Mexia Vieira da Mota, niece and sole heir of Carlos Pinto Vieira da Mota, 1st Count of Juncal. He was granted the courtesy title Viscount of Ameal (Portuguese: Visconde do Ameal) by Carlos I of Portugal in 1901, at the age of 23, upon his father's accession to the peerage as Count of Ameal. These titles were confirmed by king Manuel II in exile in 1920. He would succeed in the comital title at his father's death in 1920. On 21 November 1901 he married Maria Benedita Falcão Barbosa de Azevedo e Bourbon, issued from a prominent Bragan family and sister of the 2nd Count of Azevedo. Revolutionary politics and attempted coup In 1905, João Ayres de Campos was part of the Dissidência Progressista, an influential left-wing breakaway from the Partido Progressista in the last years of Portugal's Liberal Monarchy, led by José Maria de Alpoim. The party was staunchly opposed to the conservative Partido Regenerador, to which his father had belonged throughout his political career, and Alpuim's wing had close ties with Afonso Costa's republican movement. With several members of this group and in cooperation with Costa's Republican Party, João (then styled Viscount of Ameal) was involved in the failed Municipal Library Elevator Coup, one month before the Lisbon Regicide. The coup derives its name from the large public elevator designed by and owned by Ameal near Lisbon City Hall which served as the conspirators' headquarters, and where many would be arrested on the afternoon of 28 January 1908. Its organisers were opposed to the administrative dictatorship of Prime Minister João Franco, and to King Carlos I's perceived protection of Franco's Liberal Regeneration Party. Unlike co-conspirators Afonso Costa,