Overview
Infanta Ana de Jesus Maria of Braganza (Mafra, 23 October 1806 – Rome, 22 June 1857) was a Portuguese infanta and youngest daughter of King John VI and his wife, Carlota Joaquina of Spain.
Life
On 5 December 1827, she married Dom Nuno José Severo de Mendonça Rolim de Moura Barreto, then Marquis of Loulé and Count of Vale de Reis, future Duke of Loulé. Subsequently, he served several times as Prime Minister of Portugal. The wedding was celebrated in a private ceremony in the chapel of the Royal Ajuda Palace and was a scandal at the time. Although Loulé was a nobleman and remote descendant of Portugal's royal dynasty, Dona Ana de Jesus was the first infanta of Portugal since the Middle Ages to marry a man who was not of royal rank.
The reasons for the marriage were probably not political, considering the couple's first child was born on 27 December 1827, twenty-two days after the ceremony. The marriage had not been approved by D. Ana's father, King John VI, prior to his death (strictly, Portuguese law at the time only stated that the marriage of the heir presumptive required the sovereign's consent, a position D. Ana never held). Nor were either of her brothers present in the country at the time of the wedding (both claimed the kingship from abroad).
From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).