Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine

Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine, whose full name was “Victoria Alberta Elisabeth Mathilde Marie”, was the eldest child of Princess Alice of the U.K. and Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine. Victoria was born on Easter Sunday, April 5, 1863 at Windsor Castle. Her maternal grandmother, Queen Victoria (who was also her namesake), was present at her birth and held her when she was christened in a Lutheran ceremony. Her parents would eventually have six other children after Victoria, including: Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna of Russia, Princess Irene of Prussia, Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine, and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia.

Princess Alice with her husband,
Grand Duke Louis, & their two eldest children:
Victoria (left) and Elisabeth (right)
(1865)

Victoria spent the majority of her childhood at her father’s court in the New Palace in Darmstadt, where she shared a room with her closest sibling in age, Elisabeth, until she reached adulthood. As the daughter of a British princess and a German Grand Duke, Victoria received an excellent education and was known to have had a lifelong passion for literature. When the Austro-Prussian War erupted in June of 1866 and Prussia invaded Hesse, Louis and Alice sent their only children at the time – the three year-old Victoria and her one year-old sister Elisabeth – to their grandmother in England for their own safety. Once the war ended after just two months, the girls returned to their parents in Hesse. When Victoria was seven years old, she remained with her family in Hesse during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and helped her mother in the war effort by setting up military hospitals in the palace grounds and serving in the soup kitchens during the bitter winter. Victoria had an argumentative nature and was often cool and aloof. Overall, she was described as having a “direct, abrupt, and rather masculine manner”.

Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine
(1880's)

Victoria’s family was plagued by tragic events, the first of which occurred in 1872, when Victoria’s eighteen-month-old brother, Friedrich, was discovered to be afflicted with hemophilia, since his mother was a carrier (a trait she had unfortunately inherited from her own mother, Queen Victoria). This discovery caused much alarm to not just Queen Victoria’s family but also other European royal houses that Victoria’s descendants had married into, as it proved that the disease was hereditary. A year after Friedrich was diagnosed, he tumbled from a window onto stone steps and died hours later of a brain hemorrhage. He was just two years old. Since Friedrich survived the fall but died of the bleeding caused by it (which could not be stopped because of his disease), if he had not been a hemophiliac, he most likely would have lived. His death shook the foundation of Victoria’s family and hit their mother especially hard, as little Friedrich had been Princess Alice’s favorite son. Tragedy again befell the Hesse family in early November of 1878, when every family member (except Princess Alice and Elisabeth, who was moved away to avoid catching the disease) caught diphtheria. Alice cared for her family diligently for days in face of the dangerous possibility of falling ill herself, as diphtheria was contracted through physical contact. But her efforts to save her youngest daughter, four year-old Marie, failed when she died on November 18th. Despite Marie's death, Victoria (along with her siblings and father) were steadily recovering. All seemed well until Alice herself fell ill and died on December 14th at the age of thirty-five. The family deeply mourned the loss of their mother but Victoria, who was the eldest child at the age of fifteen, had to shake off her sorrow rather quickly to fill in the void her mother had left behind. She became a surrogate mother to her younger siblings and a confidant of her father, who she supported both politically and emotionally. Victoria herself would later write that her childhood came to an end with her mother's death and she had to take on all the responsibilities of the head family matriarch. 

Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine
with her husband, Louis of Battenberg
(1880's)

Victoria’s family often partook in the large family gatherings of Queen Victoria’s children and grandchildren, so Princess Victoria had met her relative and future husband, Prince Louis of Battenberg, various times during her early life. Prince Louis, the paternal first cousin once removed of Victoria, was the eldest son of Prince Alexander of Hesse and by Rhine and his morganatic wife, Countess Julia von Hauke, Princess of Battenberg. Because of his mother’s low status, Louis and his siblings could never inherit their father’s title or even use his ranking, so they used their mother’s instead. Louis was actually the older brother of Prince Henry of Battenberg, who had married Victoria’s aunt, Princess Beatrice. Prince Louis had been influenced by Victoria’s late mother and uncle, Prince Alfred, to join the Royal Navy as an officer and assume the British nationality. During the winter of 1882, in one of the aforementioned family reunions, Victoria and Louis ran into each other again but this time, they fell in love. By the summer, they were engaged.

Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine
on her wedding day
(1884)

Although Victoria’s father didn’t want her to marry Louis because he wasn’t wealthy and, more selfishly, he feared losing his daughter’s companionship, Victoria took no heed of her father’s desires and went through with the marriage. On April 30, 1884, the twenty-one Victoria married her thirty year-old cousin in the presence of her very pleased royal grandmother. The newlyweds settled down in England, where they would live for most of their lives, though they resided in Germany and Malta for brief periods. Surprisingly enough, on the eve of his daughter’s wedding, Grand Duke Louis secretly married his commoner mistress, Countess Alexandrina Hutten-Czapska, a divorcee of the Russian chargé d'affaires in Darmstadt. The morganatic union caused such outrage and shock throughout the royal families of Europe that Louis was eventually pressured into annulling the marriage within three months (the couple actually separated after less than a week).

During their thirty-seven years together, Victoria (now styled as “Princess Louis of Battenberg”) and Louis had four children, two daughters and two sons, all of whom survived infancy:

• Princess Alice of Battenberg (1885-1969) married: Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark – had issue
• Princess Louise of Battenberg (1889-1965) married: King Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden – no issue
• George Mountbatten, 2nd Marquess of Milford Haven (1892-1938) married: Countess Nadejda Mikhailovna de Torby – had issue
• Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma (1900-1979) married: Edwina Ashley – had issue

Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine
(1878)

Since the family mainly lived in England, they resided in either Chichester, Sussex or the town of Walton-on-Thames. When they lived in Germany, they stayed in the castle of Schloss Heiligenberg in Hesse. Prince Louis continued his career in the Royal Navy during his marriage and since he served with the Mediterranean Fleet, Victoria would spent some winters in Malta to be near him. The couple had a very happy marriage and were devoted to each other, as displayed when Victoria fell ill from typhoid in 1887 and Louis loyally nursed her back to health. Victoria had always been very intellectual like her maternal grandfather and mother before her and as a married woman, she spent a lot of time studying geology, archaeology, and socialist philosophy. She also indulged in painting. Known to have had a sharp mind, she adopted an “odd mix of egalitarian views intermingled with an abiding sense of her rank and privilege”. She even made good use of her intelligence by teaching her children herself and encouraging them to explore new ideas and inventions of the time. But despite Victoria’s tough persona, she also had a taste for adventure. When she was sixteen, her cousin, Kaiser Wilhelm II, taught her how to smoke. During her wedding, she was limping because she had previously tried to jump over a coal scuttle but ended up twisting her ankle. In 1906, she even flew in a Zeppelin airship and later took a rather dangerous flight in one of the first biplanes.

Victoria's daughters (left to right): Princess Alice of Greece and Denmark
(1906), Louise, Queen Consort of Sweden (1907)

In 1903, Victoria’s eldest child, Princess Alice, married her distant relative, Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark, who she had met and fallen in love with at her great-uncle Edward VII’s coronation. Victoria and her husband were present at their daughter’s wedding, as well as many other members of British, Danish, and Greek royalty. Victoria kept in close contact with her relatives scattered around Europe and even visited her relations in Germany and Russia quite often. Up until 1914 when World War I broke out, Victoria reguarly traveled to Russia to visit her two sisters who had married into the Russian royal family, Elisabeth (the wife of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich) and Alix (the wife of Emperor Nicholas II). Victoria recognized the danger of Rasputin, a controversial family friend of Alix and Nicholas’s, and tried with no success to persuade her sister to stop mingling with the “Mad Monk”. When the Great War finally broke out, Prince Louis had no choice but to resign from the Navy because of his German background. During the span of the war, he and his wife lived at Kent House on the Isle of Wight, the previous household of Victoria’s aunt, Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll, which she had bestowed upon her niece. Victoria was furious at the British government for her husband’s resignation but hostility towards those of German origin remained so strong that Victoria’s cousin, George V, renounced the royal family’s German titles in 1917. Louis and Victoria did the same and swapped their surname of “Battenberg” for the more anglicized version – “Mountbatten”. While the war was still raging on, Victoria’s eldest son, George, married Countess Nadejda Mikhailovna de Torby, the daughter of Russian Grand Duke Michael Mikhailovich (a grandson of Tsar Nicholas I) and his morganatic wife, Sophie of Merenberg, Countess of Torby, in 1916. They had two children together, a daughter and a son. Four months after changing their names, George V re-ennobled Louis as the Marquess of Milford Haven. Victoria, now the Marchioness of Milford Haven, received horrible news at the end of the war when she learned that her two sisters in Russia, Elisabeth and Alix, had been murdered in the Russian Revolution along with Alix’s family. And, just as the Russian royal family was deposed, Victoria’s brother, Ernest Louis, also lost his title of Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine during the German Revolution of 1918-19.

The family of Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine & Prince Louis of Battenberg:
Princess Alice (seated left), Princess Louise (seated right), Prince George (in back), and Prince Louis (on floor)
(early 1900's)

Victoria was not very pleased with her husband’s new title of Marquis, as she saw it as a status that was bequeathed to bankers, lawyers, and brewers – certainly not royalty. But her husband was satisfied with his new ranking, for he did not want to have to support the lifestyle of a Duke. But Louis didn’t get to wear his title of Marquis for long. On September 11, 1921, Louis complained of feeling unwell and was persuaded by his wife to rest while she went to a nearby pharmacist’s to fill out a prescription. By the time she came back, she found her husband dead at the age of sixty-seven. The official cause of death was heart failure following a bout of influenza. After a funeral service at Westminster Abbey, Louis’s remains were buried at St. Mildred’s Church, Whippingham on the Isle of Wight with his brother, Prince Henry of Battenberg, and Henry’s wife, Princess Beatrice of the U.K., was also Victoria's aunt. George, as Louis's eldest son, succeeded his father as the 2nd Marquess of Milford Haven. After her husband's death, the widowed Victoria moved to an apartment in Kensington Palace, which had been given to her by George V. It was here where she would remain for the rest of her life.

Prince Louis Mountbatten and his wife, Edwina Ashley
(1920's)

In 1922, Victoria’s youngest child, Louis, married Edwina Ashley, the daughter of the 1^st Baron Mount Temple. The marriage was content yet frustrating at times and Louis himself would later admit: “Edwina and I spent all our married lives getting into other people's beds.” Despite their somewhat rocky relationship, Louis and Edwina had two daughters. A year after Louis married, Victoria’s last unmarried child, Louise, wed Crown Prince Gustaf Adolf of Sweden. Louise was Gustaf Adolf’s second wife; his first, Margaret of Connaught (a cousin of Victoria’s mother) had died in 1920 after having five children. Louise was unable to have any living children with her husband. Their only child, a daughter, was stillborn in 1925.

Prince George Mountbatten and his wife,
Countess Nadejda Mikhailovna de Torby
(1916)

In 1930, Alice had a nervous breakdown and became schizophrenic, resulting in her having to be forcibly placed in a sanatorium in Switzerland. She had five children with her husband, four daughters and one son. Her son, Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark (the future husband of Queen Elizabeth II) was just nine years old when his mother fell ill so Victoria stepped in to take care of her grandson for the next decade. In 1937, Victoria’s deposed brother, Ernest Louis, died after a long illness and just a month later, her newly widowed sister-in-law, nephew, granddaughter (Victoria’s nephew was married to her granddaughter, Princess Cecilie of Greece and Denmark), and two of her great-grandchildren all died in an airplane crash. Then, in 1938, Victoria’s eldest son, George died of bone marrow cancer at the age of forty-five and his death hit his mother especially hard. After World War II, her son, Louis, accepted the position of Viceroy of India, which she didn’t like because she knew that the job would be hard and dangerous.

Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine,
Dowager Marchioness of Milford Haven
(Philip de László)

Victoria had smoked ever since she was sixteen, so she fell ill with bronchitis in the summer of 1950. Since she was at her son Louis’s home at the time, she packed up and went back to her own apartment in Kensington Palace, saying that “it is better to die at home”. She died on September 24, 1950 at the age of eighty-seven and was buried alongside her husband at St. Mildred’s Church in Whippingham. As for the fates of her remaining children, Alice, who had been released from the sanatorium in 1932, broke off all ties with her family until the end of 1936. She moved to Athens alone in 1938 to help the poor but returned to Great Britain in 1947 to attend the wedding of her son, Philip, to the future Queen Elizabeth II. She died at Buckingham Palace on December 5, 1969 at the age of eighty-four. Victoria’s second daughter, Louise, became the Queen Consort of Sweden when her husband ascended to the throne as King Gustaf VI Adolf in 1950. She remained Queen for fifteen years until her death on March 7, 1965 at the age of seventy-five. Victoria’s youngest child and son, Louis, became the Viscount Mountbatten of Burma in 1946. His status was raised to Earl Mountbatten of Burma the following year. He was the last Viceroy of India and the first Governor-General of the independent Dominion of India. He was also First Sea Lord, as he served as a naval officer in the Royal Navy, and Chief of the Defense Staff. He was close to his grand nephew, Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, who he mentored for years. In 1979, the seventy-nine year old Louis, his grandson, and two others were assassinated by the IRA when they blew up his fishing boat with a bomb. 

Caroline Augusta of Bavaria, Empress of Austria

Princess Caroline Augusta of Bavaria was the fourth child and youngest daughter of King Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria and his first wife, Princess Augusta Wilhelmine of Hesse-Darmstadt. She was born on February 8, 1792 in the city of Mannheim, located in the Electoral Palatinate. At the time of her birth, the Kingdom of Bavaria did not yet exist so her father was simply the Duke of Zweibrücken. Seven years after her birth, he would become the Elector of Bavaria and then, in 1806, he was crowned as the King of Bavaria, which had been raised in status from an electorate to a kingdom. When Caroline Augusta was just four years old, her mother, who had suffered all her life from lung problems, died from tuberculosis. She left behind four surviving children out of the five she had with her husband, including: the future Ludwig I of Bavaria and Princess Augusta of Bavaria, Duchess of Leuchtenberg.

In 1797, a year after her mother’s death, Caroline Augusta’s father remarried to Caroline of Baden, the daughter of the Hereditary Prince of Baden. Because she was so young at the time of her father’s second marriage, Caroline Augusta warmed to her new stepmother right away. Caroline of Baden had eight children with Caroline Augusta’s father, five of whom survived to adulthood. Caroline Augusta’s half-siblings were: Elisabeth Ludovika, Queen of Prussia, Amalie Auguste, Queen of Saxony, Sophie, Archduchess of Austria, Maria Anna, Queen of Saxony, and Ludovika, Duchess in Bavaria (she was also the mother of the five famous Duchesses in Bavaria).

Crown Prince William of Württemberg
(future King William I of Württemberg)

Caroline was not as beautiful as the rest of her sisters because when she was two years old, she contracted smallpox, which left her face scarred. In 1806, her father had allied with Napoleon once the French Emperor made Maximilian Joseph a king. He also elevated another German Elector, Frederick Wilhelm Karl, Elector of Württemberg to the status of King. Just as Maximillian Joseph had to marry his eldest daughter, Augusta, to Napoleon’s stepson, Eugène de Beauharnais, to cement their alliance (luckily for both parties in the match, Augusta and Eugène fell deeply in love), King Frederick I had to marry his daughter, Catharina, to Napoleon’s youngest brother, Jérôme Bonaparte, the newly created King of Westphalia. King Frederick wanted to avoid having Napoleon marry off his son and heir, Crown Prince William, to suit his own needs, so the King of Württemberg decided to marry William to Caroline Augusta in a purely political match. Caroline Augusta was sixteen when she married the twenty-six year old William, whose feelings about the arrangement were displayed when he told his bride on their wedding day: “We are victims to politics”. (on a side note, through both his parents, William was descended from George I of Great Britain). The couple was married in Lutheran and Catholic ceremonies in Munich on June 8, 1808, upon which Caroline Augusta became the Crown Princess of Württemberg.

Caroline Augusta of Bavaria
(1816)

The marriage was a disaster from the start. William showed no interest in his young wife and saw their union for exactly what it was – a marriage of convenience. They lived in separate wings of the Royal Palace in Stuttgart and William went out of his way to avoid her as much as possible. They never even consummated their marriage. Because Caroline Augusta was ignored by her husband, she was quite lonely during her time in Württemberg and spent most of her days writing to her favorite sibling, her older brother Ludwig, and indulging in her hobbies of painting, reading, and walking. She also took the opportunity to learn Italian and English during her endless amounts of free time. Fortunately for the unhappy couple, once Napoleon was overthrown in 1814, there was no longer any need for them to be married. Since they never had sexual relations with each other, the Catholic Church annulled their marriage on January 12, 1816, which allowed Caroline Augusta to remarry again, if she so pleased, in the Church. Caroline Augusta happily separated from her cold husband after eight miserable years together and went off to live with an aunt in Neuburg an der Bonau in Bavaria. She got the better part of the deal, as her husband gave her a rather large financial settlement after their annulment.

While Caroline Augusta was living quietly with her aunt back home, her brother, Crown Prince Ludwig took the matter of his sister’s personal life into his own hands. Without talking to his father about marrying Caroline Augusta off a second time, he proposed his sister as a possible bride for the widowed Ferdinand II, Grand Duke of Tuscany. But when Ferdinand’s older brother, Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor, caught wind of the news, he decided that he wanted to marry the Bavarian princess for himself. Through Francis was much older than Caroline Augusta, he was an extremely powerful man with a slew of titles. In 1792, he had become not just the Holy Roman Emperor and the King of Germany but also the King of Hungary and Croatia, the King of Bohemia, and the King of Lombardy-Venetia. Then, in 1804, he became the first Emperor of Austria as Francis I.

Francis I, Emperor of Austria
(Johann Baptist Lampi the Younger, 1800-35)

Francis was the eldest son of Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor (a brother of Marie Antoinette) and Infanta Maria Luisa of Spain, the daughter of King Charles III of Spain (she was the paternal aunt of María Isabella of Spain, Queen of theTwo Sicilies). Before he married Caroline Augusta, Francis had already been married three times before. His first marriage was to Elisabeth of Württemberg, the paternal aunt of Caroline Augusta’s first husband. Their marriage lasted for a brief two years because Elisabeth died in childbirth in 1790. The daughter that she died bringing into the world also passed after just a year of life. Francis remarried in 1792 to his double first cousin, Maria Theresa of Naples and Sicily, the daughter of King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies. They had twelve children together but only seven survived childhood. Their surviving children included: Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma, the second wife of Napoleon I, Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria, Empress Maria Leopoldina of Brazil and Queen of Portugal, and Archuke Franz Karl, who married Caroline Augusta’s half-sister, Sophie of Bavaria, and became the father of Franz Joseph I of Austria and Maximilian I of Mexico. Just like Francis’s first wife, Maria Theresa died in childbirth in 1807 along with her infant daughter. Francis married for a third time a year later to his first cousin, Maria Ludovika of Austria-Este, the daughter of the Archduke of Austria-Este. They had no children and Maria Ludovika died of tuberculosis in 1816.

Caroline Augusta of Bavaria, Empress of Austria

Francis had grown up in a large, happy family and had been groomed for his future role as Holy Roman Emperor all his life. He went through a strict education regime under his uncle, Emperor Joseph II, who said that his nephew was “stunted in growth…backward in bodily dexterity and deportment...neither more nor less than a spoiled mother’s child” and cared only for his own well-being. Despite whatever personal flaws he might have had, there was no doubt that Francis was arguably the most influential man in Europe. So, it was no surprise when Caroline Augusta’s brother eagerly agreed to the Emperor’s wish to marry his sister. So, on October 29, 1816, just six months after his third wife’s death, the forty-eight year old Francis married the twenty-four year old Caroline Augusta, who was literally half his age, by proxy. The couple officially wed on November 10, 1816 at the Augustinerkirche near the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, upon which Caroline Augusta became the Empress of Austria, the Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, and the Queen of Lombardy-Venetia (Francis had abdicated as Holy Roman Empeor and King of Germany in 1806 because he dissolved the Empire that year when the Napoleonic Wars erupted).

The British ambassador to Austria described the new Empress as follows: “The Empress is only twenty four years of age, although her appearance denotes her at least past thirty. Every one gives her the highest character for her amiable temper, and manners, and innumerable good qualities; but her Imperial Majesty’s appearance is certainly not prepossessing, after her predecessor, whose peculiar grace and affability were so very striking.” Another English diplomat added to the picture by saying Caroline Augusta was “ugly, clever and amiable, and as the Emperor expresses it: ‘She can stand a push, the other was nothing but air.’”

The Family of Francis I (left to right): Caroline Augusta of Bavaria, Francis I of Austria, Napoleon II of France,
Sophie of Bavaria, Marie Louise of Austria, the Duchess of Parma, Ferdinand I of Austria,
and Archduke Franz Karl of Austria
(Leopold Fertbauer, 1826)

Caroline Augusta had a very modest married life with her second husband because Francis was rather strict with his money. Though they had a cordial relationship during their twenty years together, they never had children. Caroline Augusta was well-loved by the Austrian people and devoted much of her time to improving the country by focusing on charitable activities, especially sponsoring the construction of child-care institutions, hospitals, and homes for workers. Although she had no children of her own, she was a stepmother to Francis’s seven surviving children. Her eldest stepchild, Marie Louise (the second wife of Napoleon), was actually two months older than her. Caroline Augusta became very close to Marie Louise’s son and her step-grandson, Napoleon II, who lived with his mother at the Viennese court. She was like a second mother to him and adored him immensely. She even took a strong interest in his education and often sat in during his lessons and exams. During her time as Empress, Caroline Augusta also stayed in touch with her Bavarian family. She had always been close to her relatives, especially her half-sister, the Archduchess Sophie, who married Caroline Augusta’s stepson, Archduke Franz Karl. She was also on good terms with her half-niece, Empress Elisabeth of Austria, who was also Sophie’s niece and her daughter-in-law.

Caroline Augusta of Bavaria, Empress Dowager of Austria
(Franz Schrotzberg, 1864)

On March 2, 1835, the sixty-seven year old Francis died of a sudden fever. He was succeeded as Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary and Croatia, Bohemia, and Lombardy-Venetia by his eldest son, Ferdinand I and V. However, Ferdinand abdicated in 1848 and was succeeded by his nephew, Franz Joseph I (the son of Archduke Franz Karl and Sophie of Bavaria). After her husband’s death, the forty-three year old Caroline Augusta, now the Empress Dowager, moved to Salzburg to make way for the new royal family. A contemporary described the newly widowed Empress Dowager just a month after the loss of her husband: “She was pale and haggard. She spoke to me in touching terms of our adored Emperor… She told me that she almost died the night he was carried to his room in the chapel where he was to be exposed. She talked much about the Emperor’s last moments. … The courage she displayed gives strength.”

Although Caroline Augusta did live away from Vienna after her husband’s death, she stayed close to the imperial household for the rest of her life. On February 9, 1873, Caroline Augusta died in Vienna just one day after her eighty-first birthday. She was buried in the Imperial Crypt in Vienna beside her husband and his first three wives.  

Teresa Cristina of the Two Sicilies, Empress of Brazil

Princess Teresa Cristina of the Two Sicilies was born on March 14, 1822 in Naples. She was born with a rather lengthy name – “Teresa Cristina Maria Giuseppa Gaspare Baltassare Melchiore Gennara Francesca de Padova Donata Bonosa Andrea d'Avelino Rita Luitgarda Geltruda Venancia Taddea Spiridione Rocca Matilde” – and was the tenth child and the sixth daughter of Francis I, King of the Two Sicilies, and his second wife, Infanta María Isabella of Spain. Teresa had eleven full siblings, a half-sister, Princess Maria Carolina, Duchess of Berry, from her father’s first marriage, and a handful of illegitimate siblings from her father’s various affairs. Two of her full siblings were Ferdinand II, King of the Two Sicilies and Maria Christina, Queen of Spain. Teresa’s parents were double first cousins and at the time of her birth, her father was not yet the king but simply the Duke of Calabria and heir to the throne. Francis was the eldest surviving son of Ferdinand I, King of the Two Sicilies, and Archduchess Maria Carolina of Austria, the sister of Marie Antoinette. María Isabella was the youngest daughter of Charles IV, King of Spain and Maria Luisa of Parma, a granddaughter of Louis XV of France. Teresa Cristina’s mother was also a younger sister of Infanta Carlota Joaquina, who was the paternal grandmother of Teresa Cristina’s future husband. Teresa Cristina’s father succeeded to the throne of the Two Sicilies in January of 1825 when she was just two years old. He was on the throne for a brief five years before his death and Teresa Cristina’s older brother, Ferdinand II, became king. Teresa Cristina had a lonely childhood after her father’s death since her mother ignored her after she remarried a young military officer. Historians say that the young princess grew up “in an environment of religious superstition, intolerance, and conservatism.” Teresa Cristina didn’t take after either her callous father or her impetuous mother; instead, she was gentle, meek, and uncomplaining. But she was more strong-willed than people recognized and, according to one historian, she “was not a submissive woman but instead a person who respected the roles imposed by the ethics and values of her own times”.

The embellished portrait sent to
Pedro II of Teresa Cristina
(José Correia de Lima, 1843)

In the early 1840’s, it came to Ferdinand II’s attention that his first cousin once removed, Pedro II, Emperor of Brazil, was looking for a wife. He extended his sister’s hand in marriage and sent Pedro a portrait of Teresa Cristina, which significantly exaggerated her features. Pedro agreed to the match and a proxy marriage was held on May 30, 1843 in Naples with Teresa Cristina’s brother, Prince Leopold, standing in Pedro’s place. Pedro II was the youngest child and eldest surviving son of Pedro I, Emperor of Brazil and his first wife, Maria Leopoldina of Austria, the daughter of Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor. Through his mother, he was the great-grandson of Ferdinand I and through his father he was the great-grandson of Charles IV of Spain. Thus, he was grandnephew of Teresa Cristina as well as her first cousin once removed. His mother died a year after his birth but two and a half years later, his father remarried Amélie of Leuchtenberg. Pedro grew so close to his stepmother that he eventually came to see her as his real mother. Eventually, the political standing of Pedro’s father fell so far that he unexpectedly decided to abdicate the Brazilian throne in April of 1831 in favor of his five-year-old son. His father and stepmother then left Brazil for the native land of Pedro’s father, Portugal, so little Pedro had a lonesome and bleak childhood, just like Teresa Cristina. From an early age, he spent all of his adolescence studying and carrying out his royal duties and had few friends or free time to engage in personal hobbies. While he developed a powerful sense of duty for his position and his people, he hated the crown, which he saw as a terrible burden.

Pedro II, Emperor of Brazil
(François-René Moreau, 1850)

On September 2, 1843, Princess Teresa Cristina arrived in Rio de Janeiro after a long voyage by sea. Pedro II hastened to the ship when it docked to meet his betrothed, who fell in love with her fiancée the moment she saw him. Pedro, on the other hand, was rather disappointed with his bride because she was nothing like the embellished painting he had been sent. While the brunette, brown-eyed princess was neither beautiful nor ugly, she was small, a little plump, and had a noticeable limp because of her bowed legs. Pedro was so distraught and dismayed with her appearance that he left the ship almost as soon as he climbed on board. Teresa Cristina was crushed at his cold reaction and broke down, sobbing, “The Emperor did not like me!” But despite Pedro’s displeasure with his bride, he could not call off the engagement because a proxy marriage had already taken place. So, on September 4, 1843, the twenty-one year old Teresa Cristina married her seventeen year-old cousin and became the Empress of Brazil. Because Pedro never loved his wife in a romantic sense, their marriage remained strained from start to finish. Teresa Cristina tried her best to the be the perfect wife and empress consort, despite her husband’s indifference, but when she accomplished her most important responsibility as an empress – that of having children – her husband began to warm to her. Eventually, the couple learned that they shared similar interests, which improved their distant relations, and their love for their children brought them closer together. Though Pedro never returned his wife’s love for him, he did grow to respect and care for her over time and saw her as a close friend and companion. The couple had four children, two daughters and two sons, but only their daughters survived past infancy:

• Alfonso, Prince Imperial of Brazil (1845-1847) died at the age of two from epilepsy
• Isabel, Princess Imperial of Brazil (1846-1921) married: Gaston d'Orléans, Count of Eu – had issue
• Princess Leopoldina of Brazil (1847-1871) married: Prince Ludwig August of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Duke of Saxony – had issue
• Pedro, Prince Imperial of Brazil (1848-1850) died at the age of one from a fever

Teresa Cristina, Empress of Brazil
(1846)

Although Teresa Cristina conformed to the restricted position she held as Empress, some of her personal writings display that she did have a strong will hidden under her compliant persona. Her only close friends (because of her title) were her ladies in-waiting, who saw her as a down-to-earth, generous, and caring mother. Her modest personality was even reflected in her fashion sense, for she dressed quite humbly for an empress and rarely wore jewelry. She stayed out of politics completely since she had no interest or desire to take part in government, and spent most of her time reading, writing, and doing needlework. Teresa Cristina was said to have a lovely singing voice and she was quite fond of music, especially operas and balls. Her principal role as her husband’s consort was to attend religious and charity events as well as public or ceremonial functions. She also had a keen interest in archaeology and accumulated her own collection of artifacts that she would often exchange with her brother back in Italy, Ferdinand II, who had a collection of his own. She supported archaeological studies, the arts, and music as well as efforts to better public health and education in Brazil.

Pedro II, Emperor of Brazil and his wife, Empress Teresa Cristina
(François-René Moreaux, 1850)

Since Pedro II never loved his wife romantically, he indulged in various affairs with other women while Teresa Cristina remained the ever dutiful, supportive consort. She turned a blind eye to his mistresses and in return, he treated her with the respect she deserved and never threatened her position. Although her husband’s infidelities were concealed from the public, Teresa Cristina was almost always aware of who her husband was sleeping with. However, she had no choice but to keep quiet about the matter, as she had no power or control over her husband. In 1856, Teresa Cristina found it even harder than usual to stay silent in regards to her husband’s affairs when he appointed the beautiful and cultured Luísa de Barros, Countess of Barral as his daughters’ countess. Luísa de Barros was everything Teresa Cristina was not – she was refined, charismatic, animated, and self-assured. So, it was no surprise when Pedro quickly fell head over heels for her. Teresa Cristina was extremely hurt over the blatant intimacy her husband shared with the Countess, which he displayed in her own presence, especially since she lived under Teresa Cristina’s own roof. Despite the mask the Empress wore to hide her shame and unhappiness over the arrangement, it was no secret that Teresa Cristina despised the Countess.

The Emperor and Empress with their daughters,
Isabel (in white) and Leopoldina
(in the back), and their husbands
(1864-71)

Teresa Cristina lost three of her four children during her lifetime. Both her sons, Alfonso and Pedro, died in infancy – Alfonso from epilepsy, which he inherited from his father, and Pedro from a severe fever. The deaths of their sons had a huge impact on both Teresa Cristina and her husband. Pedro was “deeply affected, emotionally, and intellectually” by the tragic passing of his heirs and it appears as though after the young Pedro’s death in early 1850, his father was so brokenhearted over the demise of his last son that he stopped having sexual relations with his wife. Pedro believed that since both of his sons (who he saw as living symbols of his future, along with Brazil’s) were dead, the imperial system would die as well. He didn’t believe his eldest daughter, Isabel, could succeed him due to her gender and didn’t prepare her in any way for the throne. He came to see the burden of the Crown as being permanently tied to his own lifespan. He believed that when he died, the Brazilian monarchy would die as well.

Princess Leopoldina of Brazil,
Duchess of Saxony

In December of 1864, Teresa Cristina’s youngest daughter, the seventeen year old Princess Leopoldina married Prince Ludwig August of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Duke of Saxony. He was just two years Leopoldina’s senior and was the second son of Prince August of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (a first cousin of Queen Victoria) and Princess Clémentine of Orléans (the daughter of Louis Philippe I, King of the French and Maria Amalia of the Two Sicilies). The couple, who were first cousins once removed, had four sons. A few months after the birth of her youngest son, Leopoldina died from typhoid fever in February of 1871 at the age of twenty-three. Teresa Cristina and Pedro II were shattered by their daughter’s death and decided to travel to Europe soon after her passing to boost their spirits and visit their now motherless grandsons. Though the royal couple travelled occasionally, Teresa Cristina liked Brazil much more than her native land of Italy, as her old home brought back grim memories of her sad childhood. Her family had been overthrown in 1861 and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies was absorbed into what would become the Kingdom of Italy. After Teresa Cristina’s marriage, she never really saw any of her family members from Italy again, even though she went to Europe a few times after her marriage.

Teresa Cristina, Empress of Brazil
(1870)

But everything in Teresa Cristina’s life fell apart on November 15, 1889 when the Brazilian army deposed her husband and forced the royal family to leave the country. Pedro II had been a steady ruler and had brought his kingdom back from the brink of collapse but the coup d’état that overthrew him had essentially no support outside a small group of military leaders who wanted the country to be a republic headed by a dictator. Pedro, as mentioned before, had never liked his being the emperor and had believed the future of the monarchy was doomed for years. Despite tremendous popular support, he made no attempt whatsoever to fight against his deposition or try to reclaim his throne. Teresa Cristina, on the other hand, was completely devastated when she was forced to leave her beloved adopted home after her husband lost his crown. According to one historian, “the events of November 15, 1889, broke her emotionally and physically”. The former Empress, now sixty-six years old and suffering from cardiac asthma and arthritis, would spent the rest of her days constantly traveling throughout Europe with her husband because they were never able to On December 7th, Teresa Cristina and her small family arrived in Lisbon, Portugal after a troublesome voyage and from there they journeyed to Porto. But just weeks later on Christmas Eve, the former monarchs received word from the Portuguese government that they were banished forever from the country. At the time, Pedro himself wrote in his journal, “The news broke D. [Dona] Teresa Cristina’s will to live”. Just four days later on December 28, 1889, she complained about a pain in her sides and in the afternoon, her respiratory system failed, leading to cardiac arrest. Teresa Cristina, the deposed Empress of Brazil and a former Princess of the Two Sicilies died at 2:00 in the afternoon at the age of sixty-seven. Her last words were “…I do not die of illness, I die of sorrow and regret…Brazil, beautiful land…to there I can not return”. She was buried in the Royal Pantheon of the House of Braganza in Lisbon, by her husband’s request.

Teresa Cristina, Empress of Brazil
(1888)

The people of Brazil genuinely mourned the former Empress’s passing. Today, she is known as the “Mother of the Brazilians” for her kind nature, faultless behavior, and her efforts to promote Brazilian culture. Though most people of the present-day view Teresa Cristina as a quiet, meek, and plain woman in both appearance and intelligence who hid in the shadow of her powerful husband, she was actually a strong-willed, kindhearted, and virtuous woman who impacted Brazil behind the scenes in a great way. As one historian has said: “she promoted culture in various ways, bringing from Italy artists, intellectuals, scientists, botanists, musicians, thus contributing to the progress and enrichment of the nation's cultural life.”

After his wife’s death, Pedro settled down in Paris to live out his last years alone and depressed. He lived in simple hotels, spending his days dreaming about going back to Brazil, not as an emperor but as a regular man. After catching an infection, Pedro rapidly succumbed to pneumonia on December 5, 1891 at the age of sixty-six, almost two years after his wife’s death. He was given a grand state funeral in Paris, which various members of European royalty attended, and was buried alongside his wife in the Royal Pantheon of the House of Braganza. In 1939, their shared dream of going back to Brazil was realized when their remains were moved to the Cathedral of Petrópolis near Rio de Janeiro.

Isabel, Princess Imperial of Brazil
(1865)

Teresa Cristina and Pedro’s last surviving child, Princess Isabel (who was described as having blonde hair, blue eyes, seemingly nonexistent eyebrows, and a short, plump stature), had married Gaston d'Orléans, Count of Eu, the first son of Prince Louis, Duke of Nemours and Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Through his father, Gaston was a grandson of Louis Philippe I, King of the French, and through his mother he was the first cousin once removed of Queen Victoria. Gaston was also the first cousin of his sister-in-law’s, Princess Leopoldina, husband – Prince Ludwig August of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. When the couple, who were second cousins, wed in October of 1864, Isabel was eighteen and Gaston was twenty-two. They had four children, three sons and one daughter, but their daughter was stillborn. Isabel, who became the heiress presumptive to her father’s throne after her brothers’ deaths, served as the regent of Brazil three times when her father and mother were away. In her last regency, she passed a law that emancipated all slaves in Brazil. After her father was deposed, she spent the last thirty years of her life in exile in France with her husband and sons. When her father died in late 1891, she became the Head of the Imperial House of Brazil. Princess Isabel died on November 14, 1921 at the age of seventy-five and was buried beside her parents in Brazil. 

Amélie of Leuchtenberg, Empress of Brazil

 

Princess Amélie Augusta Eugénia Napoleona de Beauharnais was the fourth child and third daughter of Eugène de Beauharnais, the stepson/adopted child of Napoleon I, and Princess Augusta of Bavaria. Amélie was born on July 31, 1812 in Milan, Italy, where her father served as the Viceroy of Italy. She was the paternal granddaughter of Joséphine de Beauharnais, the first wife and Empress of the French of Napoleon, through her father and the maternal granddaughter of King Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria through her mother. Amélie’s siblings included: Joséphine, Queen of Sweden and Norway and Auguste, 2nd Duke of Leuchtenberg and the Prince Consort of Maria II of Portugal (Amélie’s future stepdaughter). She was also a first cousin of Napoleon III, Emperor of the French.

 

Amélie had a happy childhood with her siblings and parents, who cared deeply for all of their children and made every effort to raise them into respectable, intelligent adults. Amélie’s parents had married for political reasons but they had fallen in love at first sight and their passion for one another never waned during their eighteen years of marriage. When Napoleon, Amélie’s paternal grandfather, was overthrown in 1814, Eugène lost his position of Viceroy of Italy and left the country with his wife and family for Bavaria, Augusta’s homeland. They were welcomed with open arms by Augusta’s father, who gave his daughter and son-in-law the title of Duke and Duchess of Leuchtenberg and the principality of Eichstätt. Since Amélie was just two years old when her family fled Italy, she didn’t remember her early life in her birthplace of Milan. But she did have very fond memories of her happy childhood in Munich, where her family lived in Bavaria.

Amélie of Leuchtenberg
(Franz Xaver Winterhalter)

By December of 1826, Emperor Pedro I of Brazil (also King Pedro IV of Portugal), was searching for a second wife. His first wife, Maria Leopoldina of Austria, had just died at the age of twenty-nine after suffering a miscarriage. Though she had given Pedro seven children, four of which survived infancy and childhood, Pedro wanted another consort beside him. Pedro was the eldest surviving son of John VI, King of Portugal and Infanta Carlota Joaquina of Spain (the sister of Infanta María Isabella, Queen of the Two Sicilies). By the time Pedro was born, his father had already been ruling Portugal for his mentally unstable mother, Queen Maria I, for six years as regent. Pedro and his siblings lived with their insane grandmother during their childhood and rarely saw their parents, who had a very unhappy marriage and didn’t care much for their offspring. Even though his parents were estranged from their children, Pedro loved his father but hated his mother for the disrespect she had caused her spouse, as she allegedly had various affairs with other men during her marriage. Pedro was so disgusted with his mother’s scandalous behavior that he openly called her a “bitch” and never felt anything but contempt for her. On March 20, 1816, Pedro’s grandmother, Queen Maria I died and his father became the King of Portugal and Brazil.

Pedro I, Emperor of Brazil
(1834)

Pedro was a bright and extremely energetic man whose cold and neglectful childhood played a huge role in shaping his personality. He was impulsive, controlling, irritable, and had a short attention span. He was also an irredeemable womanizer and many ladies fell for his status and appearance. Pedro was a handsome young man (his first wife fell in love with him as soon as she saw him) and was described as having piercing dark eyes, brown hair, rosy cheeks, and a fair complexion. He was “a little above average in height” and, according to one historian, “owed much to his bearing, proud and erect even at an awkward age, and his grooming, which was impeccable. Habitually neat and clean, he had taken to the Brazilian custom of bathing often”. Pedro was proclaimed the first Emperor of Brazil on his twenty-fourth birthday, October 12, 1822, which was also the inauguration day of the empire itself. Brazil had previously been a colony of Portugal but in September of 1822, Pedro had led Brazil in a fight for independence against his own father. A month later, Pedro was victorious and his successful war resulted in him being proclaimed Emperor. Upon his father’s death on March 10, 1826, he succeeded to the throne of Portugal, becoming not just an emperor but a king as well.

Amélie of Leuchtenberg
(1829)

But his stunning physicality and influential power came with a price – that of his lust for women. He was never faithful to his first wife and treated her horribly during their marriage. He was constantly rude to her and purposely didn’t give her enough money to get by on. He also forbade her from leaving the palace and forced her to endure the humiliation of having his favorite mistress, a Brazilian noblewoman named Domitila de Castro, as her lady-in-waiting. It was only after his poor wife’s death that he realized just how cruelly he had treated her. He mourned her so immensely that he broke off his relationship with Domitila and sent her away in 1828. He wanted to marry again to become a better person and, more importantly, a better husband. However, he did have four conditions that his future wife had to meet: beauty, virtue, culture, and a noble family background. Pedro had a rather hard time finding a willing lady to marry him; he had a notoriously bad reputation as a womanizer and was looked down upon for the shameful way he had treated his devoted first wife. After eight princesses turned down Pedro’s request of marriage, the Emperor decided to change his conditions to just two qualities: “good and virtuous”. Eventually, Amélie was pointed out to Pedro and she caught his attention once he learned more about her. She was described as a tall and very beautiful woman with blue eyes and brownish-golden hair. She was well educated and kindhearted with “a physical air that like that the painter Correggio gave us in his paintings of the Queen of Sheba”. Her only fault was that her father was the stepson of Napoleon, who was viewed with shame by the European world because of his deposition and fall from power.

Amélie's mother (her father had died in 1824) agreed to the match and a marriage contract between the Emperor and the Princess of Leuchtenberg was ratified on June 30, 1829. A proxy ceremony was held on August 2nd in Munich. It was a modest and small event with the Emperor being represented by the Marquês de Barbacena. Amélie's mother knew that her daughter would face some challenges in her upcoming marriage and prepared her for her future role as a sovereign with great diligence and car. She found various teachers to educate Amélie on matters centered around Brazil’s culture and people, as well as her husband’s character, the routines of the Brazilian court, and the Portuguese language. On October 15, 1829, Amélie arrived in Rio de Janeiro where she met the ecstatic Emperor and his ten year-old daughter, Maria II of Portugal (Pedro had renounced his rights to the Portuguese throne in favor of his daughter in May of 1826 after just two months as king). Pedro was supposedly so overjoyed when he saw Amélie that he fell to his knees with passion when she disembarked her ship and stepped onto the dock.

The Wedding of Pedro I, Emperor of Brazil and Amélie of Leuchtenberg
(Jean-Baptiste Debret, 1829)

Two days after her arrival, the seventeen year-old Amélie married the thirty-one year old Emperor Pedro I on October 17th, officially becoming the Empress of Brazil. The Brazilian people were stunned by their new Empress’s beauty, which was accentuated by her regal, French-fashioned attire of a long, white gown and a robe embroidered in silver. Amélie had a warm relationship with her surviving stepchildren, the eldest of whom was just seven years her junior. Her four stepchildren were: Maria II, Queen of Portugal, Princess Januária of Brazil, Princess Francisca of Brazil, and Pedro II, Emperor of Brazil. Pedro also stayed true to his promise of becoming a better man, as he remained entirely faithful to his new wife during the length of their marriage. Pedro adored his young consort for her loveliness, humility, and kindness and she cared for him as well. Overall, the couple had a happy marriage together.

Amélie of Leuchtenberg, Empress of Brazil
(Jaime Young Gante)

Amélie put almost all of her focus on her new family, especially her stepchildren. She ensured that Pedro’s young children had a stable and happy family environment like the one she had growing up, as well as good educations. She was especially close to the youngest of Pedro’s children, four year-old Pedro de Alcântara (the future Pedro II of Brazil), who started to call her “mommy” after some time. The two remained close until their deaths and today, almost six decades of their letters to each other survive. Pedro II had so much respect for his young stepmother that when he had daughters of his own, he sought her help in arranging their marriages. She resided with Pedro and her stepchildren in the imperial palace, the Paço de São Cristóvão and immediately made some changes. She believed that the standard of protocol at court was rather incompetent, so she made French the official court language and shaped court ceremony after a more European model. Amélie changed the court’s meals, attire, decorations, and manners. She also became famous for her elegant fashion sense during her period as the Empress Consort.

At first, her marriage to Pedro boosted his popularity with the people, which was a great relief for the monarchy, as Brazil was going through a tough time politically. However, Pedro’s popularity didn’t last for long and despite Amélie’s efforts to rouse up popular support for her husband, the country fell apart both politically and economically. Brazil’s chaotic state ultimately pushed Pedro to abdicate the throne on April 7, 1831 in favor of his five year-old son. So, after less than two years as the Empress of Brazil, Amélie’s tenure as a monarch had come to an end. Once she and her husband had given up their crowns, they were simply known as the Duke and Duchess of Braganza. When they left Brazil to create a new life in Europe, Amélie was three months pregnant. They arrived in Cherbourg, France on June 10, 1831 but just ten days later, Pedro left for London to search for political support (which he never found) while Amélie remained behind in Paris with her stepdaughter, Maria II of Portugal, and her husband’s illegitimate daughter, Isabel Maria, the Duchess of Goiás, who Amélie actually adopted as her own daughter. She even arranged her marriage to Ernst von Treuberg, the Count of Treuberg, who she had four children with.

Amélie of Leuchtenberg and her daughter,
Princess Maria Amélia
(Friedrich Dürck, 1840)

On November 30, 1831, Amélie gave birth to her only child at the age of nineteen, a daughter named Princess Maria Amélia of Brazil. Pedro, who was away at the time of his daughter’s birth, was overjoyed once he heard the news. He was in Lisbon fighting a brutal war against his own brother, Miguel I of Portugal, for the crown in the name of his daughter, Maria II. Miguel, who had been both the regent and the betrothed of his young niece, claimed the title of king for himself and usurped the throne in July of 1828, less than two years after Maria had took the crown. The conflict resulted in a victory for Pedro, so Amélie, Maria II, and the infant Princess Maria Amélia reunited with him in Portugal’s capital on September 22, 1833 after the war had reached its conclusion. With Maria II back on the throne and Miguel exiled from the country, Pedro and Amélie settled down at the Palace of Queluz with their family. But unfortunately, Pedro’s adventurous lifestyle over the years had taken a toll on his health and he soon fell ill with tuberculosis. He died on September 24, 1834 at the age of thirty-five, a year after seeing his youngest daughter for the first time. In his will, he provided for both his legitimate and his illegitimate children, proving that he loved each and every one of his offspring equally no matter how they were labeled.

Amélie, now a widow and a young mother at the age of twenty-two, never remarried. After her husband’s death, she moved to the Palácio das Janelas Verdes and spent most of her time focusing on supporting charities and raising her daughter. Maria Amélia proved to be a very intellectual and gifted girl like her mother, especially when it came to music. Sometimes, Amélie would go back to Bavaria with her daughter to visit her family. Although they continued to live primarily in Portugal, they were not considered to be part of the Portuguese royal family. Even the Brazilian government would not acknowledge Maria Amélia as a Brazilian princess and refused to let her enter the country. This was because the different political factions in the new kingdom harbored a fear that if the Empress Dowager and her daughter returned to Brazil, they would try to gain influence and power. But since Pedro II continued to maintain good relations with his stepmother, he recognized both her and his half-sister as members of the Brazilian royal family once he reached his majority in 1841.

Princess Maria Amélia of Brazil
(Friedrich Dürck, 1849)

By 1850, Amélie began to consider various offers for her daughter’s hand. Maria Amélia, though still young at the time, was a great prospect not just for her status as a Brazilian princess and the sister of the Emperor but also for her beauty and intelligence, which she inherited from her mother. In early 1852, Maria Amélia met her first cousin once removed in Portugal, the Austrian Archduke Maximilian, as he was serving in the Austrian navy at the time. Maximilian (the future Maximilian I of Mexico) was the younger brother of the Austrian emperor Francis Joseph I (the husband of Elisabeth of Austria, Amélie’s first cousin) and the son of Francis Charles, Archduke of Austria and Princess Sophie of Bavaria. Maximilian was a handsome and clever young man who excelled during his time in the navy. When he met the twenty year-old Maria Amélia, a golden-haired (though her hair darkened with age), blue-eyed beauty, he was instantly charmed by her kindness and virtue. She quickly fell for him as well and they were soon engaged. However, shortly after their betrothal was announced, Maria Amélia began to display signs of tuberculosis, the same disease that had taken her father’s life. In an effort to cure her only child, the anxious Amélie took her to the city of Funchal on Madeira Island in late August “in search of healthier airs”. But the disease proved to be too much for Maria Amélia and on February 4, 1853, the twenty-one year old Brazilian princess died.

The loss of her only child deeply affected the Empress Dowager. She visited her daughter’s grave in the Convent of Saint Anthony in Rio de Janeiro every year on the anniversary of her death for next twenty years of her life. Amélie moved back to Lisbon after her daughter’s passing, where she remained until her death on January 26, 1873 at the age of sixty. Her older sister, Queen Joséphine of Sweden and Norway, was the primary heir in her will (she received, among other things, the famous Braganza tiara) but Amélie also left behind her properties in Bavaria to Maximilian, the one-time betrothed of her daughter, “whom [she] would have been happy to have as a son-in-law, if God had saved her beloved daughter Maria Amélia”. Today, she is buried in the Monument to the Independence of Brazil in São Paulo along with her husband and his first wife.