The Marchioness of Chaves beyond rebellion

Abstract

This article analyses the figure of the Marchioness of Chaves, Francisca Xavier da Silva Teles (1795-1845). She featured in both the Portuguese and the nternational press and was referred to by various authors during her lifetime. A dark legend has since been built up around her due to her leading role, considered exceptional, in the absolutist military uprisings against the 1826 Constitutional Charter in the north of Portugal. However, her biographical journey reaches far beyond those actions. We correspondingly analyse her attempts to assert herself politically, economically, socially, and symbolically, in the service of the different households to which she belonged: her father's, her first husband's and, finally, her maternal grandfather's, which she inherited. Adopting a gender history perspective, we reflect on the maintenance of traditional strategies for preserving and adding to these aristocratic houses at such an exceptional time as the transition from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy in Portugal, thus contributing to the still incipient knowledge on this social group in this period.