Special Guest Blogger: Queen Maria I of Portugal

So You Think You Had a Bad Century? They said to write what i know, and what I know, rather a lot of, is being dead.
I was born the daughter of King Joseph I. A solid start. A bit of an earthquake in ‘55 did a number on Lisbon, but we rebuilt. We’re Portuguese, we’re made of sturdier stuff. Life was a whirlwind of gowns, politics, and the general business of being a royal. Then came the marriage. To my uncle.
Now, before you all get your historical knickers in a twist, let me tell you it was a different time. Keeping it in the family was less of a scandal and more of a logistical convenience and anyway, bonking people you could go halfsies with on a Grandma’s Day present was cheaper. They said it would simplify things and wedding your mother’s brother is about as simple as explaining quantum physics to a cat.
My husband, Pedro, was a dear man, bless his heart, but the family dinners were a logistical nightmare of awkwardness. Still, we muddled through. We had children. Lots of them. A whole little brood of potential heirs and spares. And for a while, things were… well. Pious.
That’s my first nickname, you see, The Pious. I built a massive, beautiful church in Lisbon, the Basílica da Estrela. A bit of a bargain with the Big Man Upstairs, if I’m being honest. I’d promised him a whacking great basilica if he’d grant me a son. He did. My little Joseph. And then, a few decades later, He rather rudely decided to take him back.
This is where things started to go, as the British say, a bit pear-shaped.
First, my dear Pedro, Uncle-Husband, popped his clogs. Fine. One is expected to bury one’s husband. Sad, but part of the job description. Then, my eldest son, my brilliant Joseph, the heir to the throne, the one I’d built the basilica for, died of smallpox. Right. That’s a blow. A real, solid, knock-you-for-six kind of blow.
The universe was playing a rather cruel hand of whist, and my hand was full of twos and threes. My nerves, which had never exactly been a fortress of iron to begin with, simply dissolved.
If they’d had therapy and a steady supply of gin and tonics in the 1790s, I’d have been first in line. Instead, I got convulsions, a permanent state of aggrieved mourning, and a new nickname. Maria the Mad.
My brand went from ‘The Pious’ to ‘The Mad’ quicker than you can say ‘French artillery’ because  just when I was getting comfortably settled into my melancholy, along came Napoleon. That short, grumpy fellow with a hat fetish decided my country looked rather fetching and that he’d quite like it. The Portuguese court had a collective, royal panic attack. The decision was made that we had to get out. Pack your bags, grab the crown jewels, and don’t forget the state papers.
We fled to Brazil.
Let me tell you, it was not the glamorous exile they portray in the paintings. Think of the most stressful family holiday you’ve ever taken. Now add ten thousand courtiers, the entire royal treasury, the threat of imminent invasion, and a journey across the Atlantic in ships that were, to be frank, a bit leaky. We essentially relocated the entire government to a colony that was, at the time, mostly jungle and mosquitoes.
We turned Rio de Janeiro into the capital of the Portuguese Empire. The heat was oppressive, the humidity ruined my hair, and my son, John had to deal with everything as I was mostly confined to my quarters, a shadow queen muttering about the past and praying furiously. I wasn't mad, you see. I was just profoundly, unendingly, and justifiably done with it all.
I’m the queen who lost her mind and fled to the tropics. But I’m also the queen who ensured the Portuguese monarchy survived when it could have been completely snuffed out.
In the end, I died in Rio, far from the basilica I’d built and the son I’d lost. Not in a blaze of glory. Not in some dramatic, poetic fashion. I simply… stopped. Fizzled out like a damp firework in the Brazilian heat after a long, loud, and extraordinarily chaotic show.
A wife who married her uncle, a mother who buried her child, a queen who lost her country. I survived an earthquake, a French invasion, and the internal collapse of my own sanity. I fled an empire with my court in tow and managed to do it all while wearing a truly corseted dress and a heavy crown.
I’d call that a win, wouldn’t you?