[2] Her father died in 1574 when she was 2 and, at the age of 12, her mother obligated her to move to Lisbon to live with her older sister and brother-in-law, both of whom she did not get along with.

[3] After her arrival at Mazagan she enlisted in the local infantry and acquired skills in weapons handling and achieved command of troops against an invasion of Moors.

After disguising her body and avoiding any advancements from female suitors, Beatriz de Meneses, daughter of Diogo de Mendonca, one of the main nobles who lived in Mazagan, fell in love with "the handsome Antonio Rodrigues", so strongly that Beatriz fell ill and her father, the Chief knight, asked the major captain to force the marriage.

Antonia feared being discovered, since it was not customary to refuse good marriages, she confessed that for about 5 years she had been hiding her body in order to have a life that is forbidden to women.

After Philip's death in 1621, she retired from service and lived an anonymous civil life in Portugal and was no longer heard of and died around the year 1641.