Tea at Trianon: The Last Aztec Princess

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, April 19, 2026

The Last Aztec Princess

From The Collector:

When the Spanish arrived in Tenochtitlan, the Aztec were ruled by Motecuhzoma Xocoyotzin, better and less accurately known as Moctezuma II, the powerful huey tlatoani who had expanded the empire to its greatest extent. Chroniclers marveled at his many wives, lesser wives and concubines, as well as his numerous children, with one claiming he had at least 100. History recorded just a few, however, including two sons who died during the conquest and one legitimate daughter, often called the last Aztec princess: Isabel.

Little is known for certain about Isabel’s life before the arrival of the Spanish colonizers. Her birth year, which of Moctezuma’s many wives was her mother, or even the correct translation of her Nahuatl name, are unknown. Some contemporary records and documents kept by the Spanish give her birth year as 1510, which would have made her just 9 years old at the time the conquest began in 1519, and when she first married. Others describe her as a maiden, suggesting she was not a child but a girl of marriageable age, while still others indicate she was born before Moctezuma became huey tlatoani, which occurred in 1503, making her a young adult when Hernán Cortés and his contingent of conquistadors arrived.

Contemporary accounts are equally unclear about her lineage, with some suggesting she was the daughter of Moctezuma’s first wife and others indicating she was born of one of his secondary wives. Marriages were often undertaken to cement alliances with neighboring groups, while marrying within family groups to preserve the noble or semi-divine bloodline was also common, ultimately making either wife an equally likely candidate for a child considered his heir. The ruler also had many concubines, though records do seem to agree that Isabel was not the result of any of those unions; some half-siblings who would later come to challenge her status as Moctezuma’s heir were. (Read more.)