María Josepha Sophia de Iturbide


María Josepha Sophia de Iturbide was the head of the Imperial House of Mexico from 1925 to 1949. A modest and very religious lady she played no political role whatsoever. She married twice and had two daughters.

Biography

Maria Josepha was born at Mikosdpuszta, Austria-Hungary, on 29 February 1872. She is the eldest child of Prince Salvador de Iturbide and Baroness Gizella Maria Terezia Mikos de Tarrõdhàza. Her father was a grandson of Emperor Agustín I of Mexico and an adopted son of Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico and his consort, Princess Charlotte of Belgium.
In 1881, the Itúrbide family left Hungary and moved to Venice. They settled in Venice, where Maria Josepha lived all her youth, distinguishing herself for her modesty and religiosity.
After her father's death in 1895, her mother married secondly Count Emil von Jenison-Walworth in 1900.
Maria Josepha was married to Baron Johann Tunkl von Aschbrunn und Hohenstadt in Beszterce on 12 March 1908. Following his death in 1915, she married Charles de Carriere on 14 April 1923 in Bistriţa.
Following the death of her childless uncle Prince Agustín de Itúrbide in 1925, Maria Josepha inherited the Iturbide and Habsburg claims to the throne of Mexico but she played no political role. Maria Josepha was a very traditional Lady, and a devout Roman Catholic, and stayed as far away from politics as she could.
Despite her very advanced age, she and her second husband, Charles de Carriere, were interned in 1948 by the Romanian Communist government as class enemies of the people. They died under suspicious circumstances shortly after their internment in Deva in November 1949. In accordance with her will and her daughters' wishes, the claim to the throne passed to her only grandson Count Maximiliano Gustav Albrecht Richard Agustin von Goetzen Iturbid.

Family

Maria Josepha had two daughters from her first marriage:
Her second marriage, to Charles de Carriere, was childless.

Ancestry