Mexican Nobility - Modern Period

Modern Period

During the Porfiriato, members of the Mexican aristocracy were very active in politics. Prince Agustín de Iturbide y Green, Maximilian's adopted son, was prompted by reactionaries into making public pronouncements against Díaz, who promptly exiled him after he served a brief sentence given him by a martial court. Don Agustín died in exile in the U.S., where he was a Spanish professor at Georgetown University. Members of the Rincón Gallardo, Fagoaga, and Pimentel families (marqués de Guadalupe, marqués del Apartado and conde de Heras Soto) were active in Mexico City government, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Senate, the armed forces, and the Academia de la Lengua or the Sociedad de Geografía e Historia. Many journeyed and lived abroad, often doing so in Paris, London, and Madrid. Most men studied at the Jesuit-run British public school, Stonyhurst College.

Around 1902, Don Ricardo Ortega y Pérez Gallardo, Mexico’s unofficial King of Arms, commenced work on a project to prepare an encyclopedic repertoire of Mexico's aristocracy. The resulting Historia genealógica de las familias más antiguas de México (Genealogical History of the Oldest Families of Mexico), an Almanach de Gotha of sorts, listed the histories of a select group of families residing in Mexico who held Habsburg, Bourbon, Mexican, and Pontifical titles and patents of nobility, entailments, and knighthoods; it also listed notables who had accepted honors from foreign sovereigns and republics.

After the revolution, the nobility migrated to Mexico City in large numbers; many entered the professional and educated classes. A number found employment in the diplomatic service, arts and letters, public relations, and transnational corporations. A number of European nobles, bankrupted by the wars, resettled and intermarried in Mexico from the 1940s on, including the King of Romania. Art history and antiquities attracted many, such as the Marqués de San Francisco, don Manuel Romero de Terreros, among others. Monarchists organized masses for the repose of Maximilian well into the 20th century at the Church of La Profesa, and were kept under surveillance by the Ministry of the Interior. During Charles de Gaulle's state visit to Mexico, many turned out for the receptions. Many of them greeted the arrival of the Royal Family in 1977—the first such visit in Mexico's history—and purportedly feuded over the order of precedence at receptions. Pontifical orders of knighthood, as well as Independent orders, such as Malta, have chapters in Mexico. The most numerous is the Orden del Santo Sepulcro de Jerusalén with nearly 200 members organized into three chapters (Chihuahua, Guadalajara, and Mexico City).

Wealthy Mexican families have attempted to obtain titles of nobility from Spain since the 1980s, when relations were re-established, but ran afoul of the law. The appeal of and fascination with the nobility in Mexico, without a doubt, has not subsided. Countless soap operas, novels, films, museum exhibits, and websites are devoted to the topic.