Infanta Maria Francisca of Portugal

Infanta Maria Francisca of Portugal (or of Bragança; Portuguese pronunciation: [mɐˈɾiɐ fɾɐ̃ˈsiʃkɐ]; English: Mary Frances; full name: Maria Francisca de Assis da Maternidade Xavier de Paula de Alcântara Antónia Joaquina Gonzaga Carlota Mónica Senhorinha Soter e Caia of Braganza; Queluz, April 22, 1800 – Gosport, September 4, 1834) was a Portuguese infanta (princess) daughter of King John VI of Portugal and his spouse Carlota Joaquina of Spain.

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Biography

On 22 September 1816 in Madrid, she married her uncle Infante Carlos Maria Isidro of Spain. The couple had three children:

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, England, where she died one year later. A crowd of several thousand were known to have visited the village to pay their respects as her body lay at the rectory awaiting 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.

Although initially interred in Gosport Catholic Church, Maria Francisca's remains were later transferred to Trieste Cathedral in Italy, next to those of her husband and children.

Gallery

Ancestry

See also