Seriya, we have at this forum a good number of people with a deep knowledge about the Hasbourgs and his wives. I just can provide you a brief information about Maria Teresa, but I´m sure that you will obtain so much than my little contribution to your thread on this nice woman
Maria Teresa of Bragança, infanta of Portugal, was born on August 1855 in Kleinheubach, Bavaria. Her father was the king Miguel I of Portugal, who has been forced to abdicate at Evoramonte after three years of civil war gained by his elder brother, king Pedro IV. Miguel was sent into exile in 1834 and, in 1851, when he was already forty-eight, he married a twenty years old princess, Adelheid of Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rosenberg, by whom he had a son and six daughters.
Queen Adelheid was a woman of character, who managed very well her situation and succeeded in securing advantegeus marriages for her six daughters. The first daughter, Maria das Neves, married the spanish prince Alfonso Jaime, Duke of San Jaime, carlist pretender to the throne; the second daughter was our Maria Teresa; the third daughter, Maria Josefa, married duke Karl Theodor in Bavaria; the fourth daughter, Aldegundes, married Enrico of Parma; the fifth daughter, Maria Ana, married the grand duke of Luxemburg Guillaume IV and the sixth daughter, Maria Antonia, became the second wife of Robert of Parma.
Maria Teresa was a pretty girl aged eighteen when she was married to Karl Ludwig, forty years old and two times widow. He had lost a first wife, Margaretha of Saxony, and a second wife, Maria Annunziata of of Naples. By Maria Annunziata he had three sons and a daughter. When Maria Teresa married Karl Ludwig, the eldest son of her husband, archduke Franz Ferdinand, was ten years old; Otto Franz Josef was eight years old; Ferdinand Karl Ludwig was six years old and little Margaretha Sophia was just three years old.
Maria Teresa has not a happy marriage but she was a lovely step-mother to the four children, and they became very fond of her. Franz Ferdinand was devoted of his step-mother. The children also loved their step-sisters, the two daughters of Maria Teresa, Annunziata and Elisabeth. You´re right when you says that Maria Teresa was very supportive to her step-son Franz Ferdinand when he announced he was madly in love with Sophia Chotek. When the morganatical wedding took place, Maria Teresa, with her daughters Annunziata and Elisabeth, was there.
