Leme

Leme is a very old family surname here in Madeira. It derives from António de Leme, who on this island founded a large and distinguished line of descendants.

At the capture of Asilah and Tangier, two Flemish noblemen, Martim de Leme and António de Leme, natives of the city of Bruges in the former Flanders, distinguished themselves by their bravery and heroism. Their father, Martim de Leme, had sent them to fight under the orders of the King of Portugal, accompanied by a number of men-at-arms armed and equipped at their own expense. The letters patent and coat of arms of 2 November 1471, granted by Afonso V to António de Leme, who was then a knight of the household of Prince Dom João, made honourable mention of this deed. They conferred and ratified the title of nobility he already held in his native land, and gave him as arms ‘on a field of gold five black blackbirds in saltire, without feet or beaks, and for crest one of the blackbirds within a saltire of gold’.

Among other children, António de Leme had Martim de Leme, who seems to have been born, like his father, in Flanders. After serving in Portugal and holding high court offices in his homeland, he came to Madeira around 1483, bringing to the Funchal Council letters of recommendation from Infante Ferdinand, master of the Order of Christ (Ordem de Cristo), to which the island then belonged. He was given lands by sesmaria (royal land grant to settlers on condition of cultivation) in the parish of Santo António (‘St Anthony’), which he left to his heirs. He died in Funchal and was buried in the Convent of São Francisco (St Francis of Assisi). Martim de Leme married Dona Maria Adão Ferreira, daughter of Adão Gonçalves Ferreira, the first man born on this island, who was himself the son of Gonçalo Aires Ferreira, companion of Zarco in the discovery of Madeira.

It was he, or a son of the same name, who built in this parish (freguesia) the dwelling house still called Quinta do Leme (‘Leme’s estate’) today, together with the adjoining chapel, whose construction Dr Álvaro Rodrigues de Azevedo dates to 1535. António de Leme married Dona Catarina de Barros, who founded an entail (morgado) from the disposable third (terça) of her estate, on lands she owned in the parish of Ponta do Sol (‘point of the sun’). They lived and died at the Quinta do Leme residence and were buried, as we see in an old book of lineages, ‘in the chancel of Santo António do Campo’, which is undoubtedly the parish church of that parish.

From this marriage was born Pedro de Leme, who founded the entail (morgado) of the Lemes on the quinta (country estate) of the same name, with the express obligation that the surname Leme be perpetuated in the successor and administrator (administrador do concelho, government-appointed head of the municipality) of this entailed estate (vínculo). For reasons entirely unknown to us, and which today it will perhaps be impossible to discover, Pedro de Leme and his eldest son Cristóvão de Leme were arrested and taken to Lisbon. Both died in prison there, in the same year and a short time apart, the latter in September 1556. We are faced here with a mysterious drama, and perhaps a bloody tragedy: father and son, cast into the depths of a prison for some heinous crime, may have been put to death there by an avenging hand, for fear that a commutation of the sentence or a pardon, as easily happened to noblemen, might yet restore them to freedom.

Dona Maria de Leme, daughter of Pedro de Leme, who married Pedro Gomes Galdo, at once took over the administration of the estate she had inherited from her parents, and died without issue. A long lawsuit followed, and the entailed estate (morgadio) of the Quinta do Leme passed to Francisco de Moraes and his wife Dona Maria da Câmara, daughter and son-in-law of Dona Leonor de Leme, sister of Dona Maria de Leme, the last administrator of the entailed estate. The next to succeed to the entailed estate was their daughter, Dona Felipa da Câmara, who married António da Silva Barreto, who died in 1633. From this union was born Manuel da Silva Câmara, who immediately succeeded to the entailed estate but died shortly afterwards, in 1634.

The heir and immediate successor in the administration of this entailed house (casa vinculada) was Inácio da Câmara Leme, lieutenant-general in Madeira, knight of the Order of Christ and moço fidalgo (junior nobleman of the Royal Household) of the Royal Household, who enjoyed considerable prestige and influence on this island. It was he who, around the middle of the 17th century, rebuilt the house and chapel of the Quinta do Leme. In 1647 he married Dona Isabel de Castelo Branco Bettencourt, and from this marriage was born, in 1649, the heir to the house, Francisco da Câmara Leme, who, like his father, was a knight of Christ and moço fidalgo of the Royal Household. He married Dona Francisca de Sá e Meneses, and from this marriage was born, on 25 July 1695, the eldest son and successor, Pedro Júlio da Câmara Leme, moço fidalgo and knight of the Royal Household like his father and grandfather. He married Dona Mariana de Meneses, daughter of Pedro de Bettencourt Henriques and Dona Mariana de Meneses.

His son and successor in the entailed estate was Francisco Aurélio da Câmara Leme, who in 1731 married Dona Antónia Maria Acciaioli de Vasconcelos Betencourt. He held the privileges of knight of Christ and moço fidalgo that he had inherited from his forebears. It was he who in 1748 entirely rebuilt the chapel of São Filipe (St Philip) at the Quinta do Leme, which the earthquake of that year had left in ruins, as can be seen in the article already cited.

Their son, Francisco António da Câmara Leme, then took possession and administration of the entailed estate. He married in turn Dona Anna Correia Accioli; Dona Maria Luísa Correia Accioli, sister of his first wife; and Dona Júlia da Cunha, an illegitimate daughter of the Count of Cunha, who died of cholera in Lisbon in 1832. Francisco António da Câmara Leme died without issue, and on his death the administration of this entailed estate passed to his nephew, João de Carvalhal Esmeraldo de Bettencourt de Sá Machado, 1st Count of Carvalhal. It was thus absorbed into the great house of Carvalhal, the richest and most important on this island.

On the title of Dom (noble honorific), which some members of this family used, the work Resenha das Familias Titulares e Grandes de Portugal, vol. 1, p. 384, states the following: ‘The Câmaras Lemes… of the island of Madeira never had the Dom. The last representative of this family began, after a certain time and arbitrarily, to place the Dom before his baptismal name; the arbitrary usage was continued by his descendants, and since it was mentioned without due verification in various royal grants that have been made to them, the Dom became legalised, His Majesty thus bestowing two favours at no cost to himself. This happens with other people too.’

This information does not contradict what an old Madeiran fidalgo (nobleman of the lesser nobility) told us to explain the use of the Dom by the last members of the Câmara Leme family. One of them, petitioning for some royal grant or other, placed a D before his name to stand for Diz (‘states’). When the favour requested was granted, however, the official who drew up the royal letter (carta régia) inadvertently took the abbreviation of diz for dom, writing: ‘we grant to Dom So-and-so’ etc. And from this, it is said, came the illegitimate use of the Dom with which the last descendants of the Câmaras Lemes paraded themselves.