Adeline, Countess of Cardigan and Lancastre - Second Marriage

Second Marriage

Having been acquainted with Benjamin Disraeli for many year, the dowager Countess Cardigan wrote to him in early 1873 to suggest marriage. He broke off their correspondence, and only a few months later she was remarried on August 28, 1873 to a Portuguese nobleman, Don António Manuel de Saldanha e Lancastre, who was created conde and visconde de Lancastre by Luís I of Portugal on September 11, 1873. Against usual custom, she merged her former title as an English dowager countess with her new title as wife of a Portuguese conde, and styled herself the Countess of Cardigan and Lancastre. The couple initially lived together in Portugal and Paris, but lived apart after Adeline returned to Deene Park, the Cardigan ancestral home, in 1879 until the Conde's death in 1898, spending her way through the Cardigan family's fortune with her extravagances. Her title as Countess of Lancastre caused embarrassment to Queen Victoria, who liked to travel incognito in Europe as "Countess of Lancaster."