As it was clear several years into their marriage that Maximilian and Carlota could have no children together, they offered to adopt Iturbide, which was agreed to with enthusiasm by his father and reluctance by his mother.

[3] With the overthrow of the second Mexican Empire in 1867, Iturbide's biological parents took him first to England and then back to the United States, where they settled in Washington, DC.

When he came of age, Iturbide, who had graduated from Georgetown University, renounced his claim to the throne and title and returned to Mexico.

But in 1890, after publishing articles critical of President Porfirio Díaz, he was arrested on charges of sedition and sentenced to fourteen months of imprisonment.

[8] He was buried at the Church of St John the Evangelist, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania — alongside his paternal grandmother, Empress Ana María of Mexico.