House of Braganza originated with Afonso, 1st Duke of Braganza, an illegitimate son of John I of the House of Aviz who, in turn, was the son of Peter I of the House of Burgundy, which was founded 300 years earlier in 1143 by Afonso Henriques, the first king of Portugal. Thus, the strong popular appeal of the monarchy, and a tradition of more than three hundred years (or seven hundred if Portuguese history is considered), enabled Prince Pedro to take on the role of a symbol of national unity. The monarchical regime maintained on Brazilian soil "was a force of continuity and tradition". A third element in the choice of monarchy was the necessity to comply with the powers of the era, all located in Europe. The possibility of European countries seeking to dominate the young nation, strengthened the desire to prevent the adoption of the republican form at all costs and to avoid any territorial dismemberment into small republics, weak and in constant rivalry with one another. Given that other Latin American countries and also Portugal were becoming easy prey to European (mainly British) greed, maintaining the monarchy with a monarch of European origin acted as a deterrent and allowed Brazil to ensure the predominance of its international interests. And in fact, "after the phase of the regency, turbulent but transitory by its very nature, the imperial order dominated from above, assuring internal peace and external prestige." For the reasons cited above, Brazil chose a representative constitutional monarchical system. The imperial regime was based on the idea that sovereignty resided in the Nation, not the State, symbolically represented by the emperor. While the Nation wished to experience freedom and prosperity, the State, in turn, wanted "permanence, duration and existence." In this form, the Constitution expressed in its text that both the Emperor and the General Assembly were representatives of the Brazilian nation. The monarch represented the constant, general interests of the nation as a whole, while the Assembly represented particular, ephemeral, momentary interests. However, the Emperor was not sovereign of the country; the sovereign was the Brazilian Nation, who delegated this role to the Emperor, as they did to the General Assembly. Parliamentary system A major difference between parliamentarism and presidentialism is that in the first, the Head of State and of the Government are distinct individuals, while in the second, both roles reside in a single individual.