Infanta Maria Francisca of Portugal

Biography

Maria was born in Queluz, Portugal. On 22 September 1816 in Madrid, she married her uncle Infante Carlos Maria Isidro of Spain, "Count of Molina". The couple had three children:

• Infante Carlos, Count of Montemolin (1818–1861)
• Juan, Count of Montizón (1822–1887)
• Infante Fernando (1824–1861)

In 1833, Maria Francisca, her husband and children were exiled from Spain because they refused to recognize Isabella II as heiress to the Spanish throne. They went first to Portugal and then to Alverstoke, Hampshire, UK. While in Hampshire, Maria became ill and died on 4 September 1834.

A crowd of several thousand were known to have visited the village to pay their respects as her body lay at the rectory of St Mary's Gosport, where her funeral was held and a marble stone honours her memory. Although initially interred in St Mary's Catholic Church Gosport, Maria Francisca's remains were later transferred to Trieste Cathedral in Italy, for burial at the Royal Pantheon of the Braganza Dynasty.

Four years after her death, Carlos remarried, to Maria Francisca's own sister Maria Teresa, Princess of Beira.

Ancestry