The Grand Princess

Dates: late 1700s [when?]-1834.

Mexico's constitution specifically allows for semi-Salic inheritance, because when the first Grand Prince [who?] died, all of his daughters were married morganatically - at least in principle, none of their husbands were eligible to rule in their own right. The daughter who succeeded him was his second, Teresa Maria. In Mexico, and in most of the New World as well, she is simply o Gran Princesa: "the Grand Princess."

This is her story.

A brief biography of Teresa Maria Sansinger

The rebel leader who was eventually recognized as the first Grand Prince of Mexico [who?] had several children. [who?] His third child, and second daughter, was baptised as Teresa Maria.

• Mexican Catholic piety became more reserved after the Liturgical War killed most of its more aggressive elements. This probably colored Teresa Maria's childhood. [how?]
• Teresa Maria was married to Oskar Sansinger while she was relatively young, and more importantly while the Mexican Revolt was still underway, before her father was recognized as the Grand Prince of Mexico - so probably in the early 1790s, which suggests that she was born no earlier than 1769.

This section is very stubby, of course; I honestly don't know enough about any of the parties involved to write more at present. What I do know is what's been said before, several times already: that her father dies without legitimate male heirs, and that - in no small part because her husband commands the loyalty of os baltos - she, rather than her elder sister, was acclaimed as heiress to the throne.

Teresa Maria as the Grand Princess

No matter what she was actually like, Teresa Maria was destined for nostalgia as the G.P.'s first sovereign leader; but a bunch of other factors lined up to make her a cultural icon, not just of Mexico but of the entire world at the time. For women, she was the most powerful of her sex since the Miramoline. For the Church, she was the first Christian ruler of Mexico. For the New World, she was the native daughter risen further than had ever been possible before.

Most importantly, for Mexico, she reigned over the first peacetime its young had ever known, and the first prosperity it had remembered in decades. She was all things to all people, and and pretty too; small wonder that Teresa Maria wasn't just adored but idolized.

• Peace?: H.R.M. Teresa's reign wasn't peaceful. It simply wasn't wracked with large-scale wars; Yusuf I (and his predecessors) were too burned out after the devastating losses they'd faced
• Teresa Maria organized (and contributed a fair bit to) the popular drive to finance the Cathedral of the Holy Martyrs in Medina Mexica, honoring the many Sodalites (and others, but mostly the Sodalites) who were killed during the Liturgical War. Given that the Moors had razed several of Mexico's larger churches in punitive campaigns (and basically prohibited the building of cathedral-sized cathedrals before that), the Cathedral of the Holy Martyrs was the greatest cathedral of the Moorish New World to that date.
• Significantly, it inverts some of the key features of classical Isidoran churches: not only is it not "sunken," it's actually built above the ground level. (In a few decades, there may or may not be complaints about how to make it handicap-accessible.)

I'm not certain how many children Teresa Maria had with Oskar, but I know for certain of at least two:

• One daughter [who?], who was married to Kaspar Sansinger in 1833; and
• A son, Carlos, who was born late enough to merit a regency under Oskar while he came of age to rule in his own right, but had to be marriageable by 1837.

In 1833, Teresa Maria actually visited Cabralia, on the occasion of her daughter's wedding. It was the last time she ever left Mexico; on the return voyage, she began her final months with cholera. She barely recovered, and died from related complications several months later.

O Gran Princesa's death was a serious blow to the national psyche; some of Medina Mexico's clocks were stopped at the moment, not to be started again for a year. (At least one clock, in the Principal Palace, has been left frozen at her moment of death to the present day.)

The Grand Princess's legacy

In her day she was the Merrie Monarch, Eva Perón, and Princess Di all rolled up into one. But Teresa Maria was also, in an important way, Ronald Reagan: a sainted, Teflon-coated leader whose patina of perfection interferes with acknowledging the much more mixed consequences of her reign.

• Internationally, Teresa Maria was responsible for uniting the House of Sansinger by marrying her daughter to Kaspar. The long-term consequences of linking Mexican and and Cabralian fortunes like that can't be overestimated [and at present can't be estimated at all, because I don't know enough yet. -Ed.]
• "Christianization" has always been an ongoing project of Mexico; under Teresa Maria, it became much more specifically Reclamation. While it would have challenged popular tastes, a more ecumenical Mexico would've evolved differently. At the very least, it might have delayed the Axamallan Revolt.
• On a broader note, Maria Teresa was loved in Mexico, much more than Axamalla (whose loyalties were to the Prince Consort.) In a sense the fact that they remained such a distinct couple reflected the tensions that eventually led Mexico to its cataclysmic split later on.