Maria Pia de Saxe-Coburgo e Bragança

Maria Pia of Saxe Coburg Braganza, aka Hilda Toledano

Maria Pia of Saxe Coburg Braganza (March 13 1907 - May 6 1995), also known as Hilda Toledano, the pseudonym she used to write books, claimed to be an illegitimate child of King Carlos I of Portugal. She also claimed that Carlos had recognized her as his daughter and given her the same rights and honours as other princes of Portugal. From 1957 she used the title "Duchess of Braganza" and made an active claim to be the rightful queen of Portugal.

Birth and baptism

Maria Pia was born in Portugal to Maria Amelia Laredo e Murca, the daughter of a wealthy Brazilian couple who had moved to Europe. Maria Amelia's parents are sometimes given the title "baron", but they did not actually hold any noble title; their wealth, however, may have allowed them to use such a title unquestioned.

Maria Amelia was not married at the time she gave birth to her daughter on March 13,1907. Maria Pia claimed that, shortly thereafter, she was taken by her mother and grandparents to Madrid, Spain. There, she said, she was baptised in the Church of Saint Fermin dos Navarros on April 15 1907 and that the baptism was registered at the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel and Saint Aloysius. She claimed that her baptismal registration recorded that her father was "D. Carlos de Sassonia-Coburgo y Savoya de la Casa de Braganza de Portugal". This clearly refers to King Carlos I of Portugal, who at the time was married to another woman, Queen Amelie.

The original baptismal registers of the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel and Saint Aloysius were destroyed during the Spanish Civil War. In 1939 the Vicar-General of the Diocese of Madrid-Alcalas issued a baptismal certificate to Maria Pia with information provided to him at that time by Don Antonio Goicoechea y Cusculluela, a member of the Spanish parliament and the Governor of the Bank of Portugal, who had reportedly been present at the baptism. Subsequently Maria Pia used this baptismal certificate as evidence for her claim to be the recognised daughter of King Carlos.

Maria Pia also claimed that in the archives of the Diocese of Madrid-Alcala there was a copy of a document signed by King Carlos March 14 1907 in which he recognised Maria Pia as his daughter and that "she may be called by my name and enjoy from now on the use of this name with the honours, prerogatives, rank, obligations and advantages of the princes of the House of Bragança of Portugal". Like the baptismal certificate, the original of this document did not survive.

Marriages and children

In 1925 at the age of eighteen Maria Pia married Francesco Javier Bilbao y Batista, a Cuban playboy twenty years her senior. He came from a rich family of cattle breeders. Since Bilbao was divorced, the marriage was a civil one only and took place in the Cuban embassy in Paris. They had one daughter, Fátima Francisca Xaviera Iris Bilbao y Saxonia Coburgo, in 1932, but she was reportedly developmentally disabled.

Maria Pia lived briefly with Bilbao in Cuba, before returning to Spain. Bilbao died November 15 1935. Francisca died unmarried in 1982.

To escape the Spanish Civil War, Maria Pia moved with her mother to Rome. In 1939 she married Giuseppe Manlio Blais, a colonel in the Italian carabinieri. At the time, members of the carabinieri were forbidden from marrying foreigners. The marriage was, therefore, celebrated clandestinely, and was not registered civilly until August 5, 1946. The union proved much happier and together they had a daughter, María Cristina Blais (some sources give her name as Cristina Amelia), born in 1946. Cristina married the Spanish sculptor Miguel Ortiz Berrocal (1933-2006) and together they lived in Verona and had two sons: Carlos Miguel Berrocal y Blais (born 1976) & Beltrão José Berrocal y Blais (born 1978).

Blais died in 1983. In 1985, Maria Pia married Antonio João da Costa Amado-Noivo (January 28, 1952 - December 29 1996). At the time of the wedding, Maria Pia was 78, Costa 33.

Literary career

Like many society ladies Maria Pia supplemented her income by writing. In the early 1930s she had a number of articles published in two Spanish newspapers Blanco y Negro and ABC.

In 1937, Maria Pia wrote her first book La hora de Alfonso XIII (The Hour of Alfonso XIII) published in Havana, Cuba, by Ucar, Garcia y Companía. This work, written in Spanish and published under the name "Hilda de Toledano", is a defence of King Alfonso XIII of Spain, who was living in exile at the time.

In 1954, Maria Pia wrote Un beso y ... nada más: confidencia consciente de una pecadora inconsciente (A Kiss and ... Nothing More: Conscious Confidences of an Unconscious Sinner) published in Madrid by Plenitud. This work was also written in Spanish and published under the name "Hilda de Toledano". It is a novel, but one which clearly draws heavily upon certain incidents in the life of the author.

In 1957, Maria Pia wrote Mémoires d'une infante vivante (Memoirs of a Living Infanta) published in Paris by Del Duca. This work, written in French and published under the name "Maria Pia de Saxe-Cobourg Bragance", is an autobiography. It marks the first attempt of Maria Pia to receive widespread public recognition for her claim that she was the illegitimate daughter of King Carlos I of Portugal. In the book, however, Maria Pia makes no claim to any dynastic rights. The book closes with the sentence, "I claim no sceptre but my pen, no crown but that bequeathed by my father and mother: my dignity." Instead, Maria Pia suggests that the rightful heir to the Portuguese throne should be Princess Isabelle d’Orléans, eldest child of Henri, comte de Paris.

Active claim to the Portuguese throne

For at least several decades Maria Pia had claimed to be the illegitimate daughter of King Carlos I, and even to be entitled to the style "Her Royal Highness" and the title "Infanta". It was not, however, until 1957 that she claimed to be the rightful queen of Portugal in succession to Manuel II, the son of Carlos I (and the purported half-brother of Maria Pia) who had died childless in 1932.

On July 15 1957 a group of ten Portuguese monarchists published a petition asking Maria Pia to claim the throne. In 1958 she went to Portugal where she was received by the President Francisco Craveiro Lopes; the Prime Minister, António de Oliveira Salazar, however, refused to meet her. In the presidential elections that year Maria Pia supported the failed candidacy of Humberto Delgado. She continued to support Delgado after he went into exile in Brazil.

From this point forward Maria Pia used the title "Duchess of Braganza". She attracted the support of a small minority of monarchists who were actively opposed to Salazar. The majority of monarchists supported Duarte Nuno, who also used the title Duke of Braganza and was widely recognised as such both in Portugal and throughout Europe by other royal houses. Duarte Nuno had encouraged monarchists to support Salazar in the hope that Salazar might eventually restore the monarchy in Portugal just as Francisco Franco did in Spain in 1975.

Duarto Nuno belonged to the branch of the Portuguese royal family descended from King Miguel, whose usurpation of the throne from his niece Queen Maria II and autocratic rule led to the exile and exclusion of his heirs from the succession under the terms of the Portuguese constitution of 1838. The Miguelists believed in an autocratic monarchy, as opposed to the constitutional monarchy of Maria II and her sons Pedro and Luís along with her grandson Carlos, and his son King Manuel II. Maria Pia played on the old rivalry between the Miguelists and the constitutionalists, presenting herself as the "constitutional" (i.e. liberal) candidate.

Maria Pia was very active in her claim to the Portuguese throne. Articles about her appeared in Italian and Portuguese newspapers. In February 1965 she went to Portugal to visit the tomb of King Carlos. As she was leaving Portugal and returning to Spain, she was arrested and held in custody overnight. She was released without charge at the request of the Italian embassy.

Maria Pia mixed frequently with the jet set idle rich. For many years she maintained an ongoing friendship with the exiled King Alfonso XIII of Spain and his son Infante Jaime, Duke of Segovia. Much correspondence exists between Maria and members of European royal families recording her efforts to gain legitimacy within royal circles.

Legal case about the baptismal certificate

In October 1966 Duarte Nuno petitioned an ecclesiastical court of the Diocese of Madrid-Alcala to remove the name of King Carlos from the baptismal certificate of Maria Pia. Duarte Nuno claimed that there was no evidence that King Carlos was the father of Maria Pia. It is unusual for a baptismal registration to record the father of an illegitimate child. The Roman Ritual instructs the officiating priest only to record the father’s name if the father himself requests it or if he is known to be the father from some public authentic document (Titulus XII, caput II). Clearly King Carlos was not present at Maria Pia's baptism, but Maria Pia claimed that the copy of the document purportedly signed by Carlos granting her the rights of the princes of Portugal was sufficient justification in ecclesiastical law for Carlos to be named her father on her baptismal certificate.

In February 1972 the case between Duarte Nuno and Maria Pia moved up to the Sacred Roman Rota, the normal appeal court for the Roman Catholic Church. On December 6 1972 the court found against Duarte Nuno on the grounds that he did not have legal standing in the case, being only the second cousin twice removed of King Carlos. The court did not address the primary question of whether there was sufficient evidence for Carlos being Maria Pia’s father and thus named as such on the baptismal certificate. It did, however, question the necessity of changing a certificate which was over seventy years old.

Had the Roman Rota found in favour of Duarte Nuno, his supporters could have said that the court had determined that Carlos was not Maria Pia’s father. Since the court found against Duarte Nuno, the supporters of Maria Pia were able to say that the court had affirmed the validity of her baptismal certificate and therefore the validity of her claimed parentage – neither of which in fact actually occurred. The court found only that Duarte Nuno did not have the legal standing to bring such a case: "Patres Auditores de Turno ... decreverunt negative, seu non constare de legitimatione actoris ad causam".

Legal case about property in Portugal

In 1982 Maria Pia filed a claim for the restitution of the private real property of the Royal House of Portugal. It was rejected by the Supreme Tribunal of Justice at Lisbon on 14 April 1983. The Court found that Maria Pia had not established the identity of her father, despite the presentation of the same baptismal certificate presented to the court at the Vatican.

Transfer of rights to Rosario Poidimani

In 1985 Maria Pia decided to name as her heir Rosario Poidimani, a member of a minor family of Sicilian nobility - in spite of the fact that she had a living daughter and two grandsons.

On December 2 1985 Maria Pia signed a document purporting to amend the Portuguese Constitution of 1838, and recognising Poidimani as her eventual heir. On February 19 1986 she signed a second document affirming that there was a blood relationship between her and Poidimani – but not stating exactly what this relationship was.

On April 3 1987 Maria Pia signed a document abdicating her claim to the Portuguese throne and transferring her rights to Poidimani. Several weeks after the document was signed, Maria Pia and Poidimani held a ceremony in Portugal confirming the abdication. In the abdication document she stated that the reason for her action in favour of Poidimani was that she has been "totally deprived of the support of my descent".

Since 1987 Poidimani has styled himself "H.R.H. Dom Rosario of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha-Bragança, 22nd Duke of Bragança", and has been active in promoting his claims. He maintains an office in Vicenza, Italy where he lives, but also reportedly visits Portugal regularly. He claims to be a male-line descendant of the Holy Roman Emperor Louis the Blind.

Death

Maria Pia died in Verona in 1995. She was buried with her second husband General Blais in the Cimitero Monumentale of Verona.

Analysis

Maria Pia made three important claims:

that she was the daughter of King Carlos I;
that Carlos I gave her succession rights to the Portuguese throne;
that she could alter the succession in favour of Rosario Poidimani.

There are no original documents which might support the first and second claims. Maria Pia's baptismal certificate from 1907 was destroyed and there is only a copy of the document in which Carlos I supposedly granted succession rights to Maria Pia.

There is no record of any relationship between Maria Pia's mother Maria Amelia Laredo e Murca and King Carlos I. On the other hand, King Alfonso XIII of Spain and his son Infante Jaime, Duke of Segovia seem to have had an ongoing friendship with Maria Pia; her supporters have interpreted this relationship as an affirmation on the part of Alfonso and Jaime that they recognised Maria Pia as Carlos' illegitimate daughter.

Carlos I was the constitutional king of Portugal. He did not claim autocratic power, but instead ruled according to the Constitution of 1838 which stated that the succession to the throne passed only to legitimate descendants. The Constitution could only be amended by the Cortes. Even if Carlos had signed a document granting succession rights to Maria Pia, it would have had no legal value at all.

Just as Carlos could not unilaterally change the Constitution and grant Maria Pia succession rights, neither could Maria Pia (even if she were rightful queen of Portugal) unilaterally change the Constitution and grant succession rights to Rosario Poidimani.

Maria Pia was successful in garnering support for her claims in part because of a long tradition of factionalism within the Portuguese monarchist movement. For over a century the supporters of the Miguelist line who favored the descendants of King Miguel I had fought with the supporters of the Saxe-Coburg-Braganza line who favored the descendants of Queen Maria II. Maria Pia represented herself as the heir of the constitutional monarchy of the descendants of Maria II, as opposed to the autocratic monarchy associated with Miguel I and his descendants. The support which the Miguelist heir Duarte Nuno gave to Salazar in the 1950s enabled Maria Pia even more to represent herself as the liberal and democratic claimant to the Portuguese throne.

External links

Maria Pia: The Pretender. An English-language summary of the book by Jean Pailler.
Royal House of Portugal: Constitutional Line. The website of Rosario Poidimani (mirrored at [1]).
A Brief Response to Statements Made by the Supporters of the late Maria Pia de Saxe-Coburg-Bragança .... A critique by Guy Stair Sainty, a well-known writer on royal genealogy and heraldry.