However, with respect to negative opinions on the monarchs of the Bragança dynasty (with the exception of D. Pedro V and D. Luis), and the Luso-British alliance from the seventeenth century, the author approached the negative criticism that, in this respect, Republican authors such as Teófilo Braga, Consiglieri Pedroso and José de Arriaga would develop. In this sense it could be said that, along with the historical novels by Camilo Castelo Branco and História de Portugal by Oliveira Martins, Pinheiro Chagas helped forge a negative image of the ruling dynasty in constitutional Portugal and thus, unwittingly, its decline in 1910.

On the other hand, there is an uplifting rhetoric of great achievements in the historical works of Chagas. Examples of this are his considerations on the death of D. João I. And yet, as with his master Herculano, Chagas was aware that patriotism, though a "noble passion", should not contaminate history (História de Portugal popular e ilustrada, ‘Popular and Illustrated History of Portugal’ vol. I, pp. 52-53). In a text published even before the controversy of 1880 with the future author of The Maias, Eça de Queiroz, he distanced himself from the declamatory excesses of patriotism (of which Queiroz accused him) as follows: "...I am the first to feel the ridiculousness of hollow declamations that we recall at every moment, repeating vague generalities for the thousandth time, the heroics of our past. But it is also fair to say that no other people has more reason to protest against the wicked forgetfulness that was voted for by the foreigner" (“Descobrimentos dos Portugueses na África”, Conferências... p.95). Was Chagas able to avoid these intrusions of love of country in his writing on history? Certainly not. It is understood that in the context of a nationalist historicism in the past one can see an anticipation of his time and future progress which yearned for Portugal, and that he adopted the causalist theory in vogue at the time to the decadence of the nation from the sixteenth century, based mainly on Herculano and Rebelo da Silva. Additionally, unlike Antero de Quental in his famous Causas da decadência dos povos peninsulares (Causes of Decadence of Penninsular Peoples, 1871), he considered the weakening of the medieval "warrior spirit" in the East as a factor in the decline.

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