The First Mexican Empire gets its European Prince

So after the Mexican war of Independence,Mexico tried to implement the Plan of Iguala, which would have created a commonwealth with the King of Spain as the Emperor of Mexico and if he refused the throne would be offered to other members of the House of Bourbon. King Ferdinand VII rejected the plan and Spain refused to allow any European prince to ascend the Mexican throne, and the throne eventually went to a leading Mexican general. So lets say a European Prince accepted the throne. Who would have been most likely to accept the Throne? A Spanish or Neapoltian Bourbon? A Habsburg? or even a Wittelsbach? How long would the Mexican Empire last? Would Mexico still have an Emperor today?
 
There is always D. Carlota Joaquina de Borbón, Queen of Portugal. IOTL she tried to plot herself to the throne of the Viceroyalty of La Plata, but Dom João VI dismantled her scheme. I could see her attempting something in Mexico after her husband's death, which can happen earlier if Carlota gathers enough courage to have him poisoned.
 
The throne was intended to be given to a member of the House of Bourbon, preferably from the Spanish throne. However, there was this clause that, in the case of not finding a suitable member of the Bourbons to claim the throne, the Congress would appoint a royal themselves. So, this will go on a three-fold route:

  • If a suitable emperor goes up from the Spanish ruling house, this would have needed a more amicable independence, which, by all circumstances, was unattainable.
  • So, here we go with someone from another royal house. Hapsburgs... possible. And so it is for any Catholic prince, as I doubt the Congress would allow a Protestant prince to come to the throne, no matter how progressive it would be.
  • If not, Iturbide. However, this time he'll have a more tacit support by the Congress, he would know that he's walking on thin ice here, and he would have to deal with it.

And the U.S. will try to prop up a Republican regime as soon as the whole thing starts. But if Mexico gets strong enough and wises up to their meddling attempts, this ATL equivalent of the Mexican-American war will not go as well as it went OTL.
 
what about branching outside the catholic royalty...perhaps a hanovarian?...the brtiish empire was risisng and it could work economically for both mexico and britain to be quasi allied....especially with dealing with the usa
 
what about branching outside the catholic royalty...perhaps a hanovarian?...the brtiish empire was risisng and it could work economically for both mexico and britain to be quasi allied....especially with dealing with the usa

Would a British Prince convert to Catholicism though? I doubt very seriously that Catholic Mexico would accept a protestant Emperor just to be closer to Britain. LoL just thought of something......... Leopold I EMPEROR OF MEXICO !!!!!!! No seriously he was related to the British Royal family by marriage and in OTL he was king of a catholic country sooo maybeeee...?
 
But Leopold I never converted to Catholicism. I remember reading that on his deathbed, when his daughter-in-law, Henriette, tried to get him to take Catholic last rites he refused (in German, too). Whereas conversion would be a key point if he were to take the throne of a formerly Spanish, Catholic country.

I think you would do well to find a Spanish infante or a Neapolitan prince. There were enough lying around.
1) Ferdinand VII of Spain
2) Don Carlos, (Carlos V)
3) Don Francisco de Paula
4) Don Sebastian of Spain & Portugal (nephew of the King of Portugal, cousin to the King of Spain)
5) Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies
6) Carlo Ferdinando of Naples, Prince of Capua
7) Leopoldo, Prince of Salerno*
8) Louis II of Etruria (Carlo II of Parma)

*The rest of the Neapolitan princes are too young - i.e. would require a regency. Though that might not be a truly terrible idea, since the Spanish infantes were extremely reactionary, Don Carlos was said to be "more Catholic than the Pope, more royalist than the king", and a regency might allow them to be indoctrinated with Mexican - rather than Spanish - sympathies and lean more to the constitutional monarchy than the absolute.

There are random Catholic princes who might be persuaded to take the throne - Saxony, Bavaria, Savoy-Carignano (unlikely), de Beauharnais (would be interesting since he was proposed as a candidate for the Belgian throne but lost to Leopold, and his sister was the Empress of Brazil and his brother the king of Portugal).
But many of the princes asked might refuse on various grounds, leading to someone saying (much like after Queen Isabel II was deposed) "to find a Catholic prince in Europe is like finding an atheist in Heaven"

Also, no Hanoverians are going to convert to Catholicism for a crown that might fall off their heads as easily as it fell on, especially when there's a possibility of inheriting Britain, and when the Act of Settlement (1701?) prohibits the conversion and marriage to Catholics. Bear in mind, Victoria was a child of three, most of her cousins not much older. The Duke of Cumberland was reactionary and unpopular, Cambridge was serving as viceroy in Hanover. Though maybe the Duke of Sussex - he was already married (though in contravention of the royal marriages act) with two children (who were regarded as little better than illegitimate).
 
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