Remembering Spain's Duchess of Alba: the colourful aristocrat who wed at 85 and left behind an incomparable legacy

In the case of the late Duchess of Alba of Spain, her colourful traits ensured she was always top of the guestlist for the most exclusive parties in the world and never far from the headlines during her 88 years.

Five years on from her death, her legacy endures in the form of her arguably better-behaved six children - Carlos Fitz-James Stuart, Alfonso Martínez de Irujo y Fitz-James Stuart, Jacobo Fitz-James Stuart y Martínez de Irujo, Fernando Martínez de Irujo y Fitz-James Stuart and Eugenia Martínez de Irujo. And also in the form of her third husband Alfonso Díez Carabantes.

Alfonso was a low-ranking civil servant working for the Spanish ministry of employment when they first met in 2008. She was 85 and he was 61. At time of their 2011 wedding, global interest was reignited in the duchess and her eccentric exploits over the years, in particular when it came to her choice of husbands.

And pictures of her energetic flamenco dancing outside the chapel at the Palacio de las Duenas in her salmon wedding dress did little to dissuade the renewed interest in her.

Born Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart in 1926 in Madrid’s Liria Palace, she was exposed to a life of extraordinary privilege from the very beginning of her life. She was the first woman with title of Alba all her own and carried herself with the unwavering confidence that such a name affords - and 40 other additional titles.

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, she was the most decorated aristocrat during her lifetime - as a duchess seven times over, a countess 22 times and a marquesa 24 times.

The House of Alba spans more than five centuries and a historic foothold in the world meant that she could demand precedence over the Spanish royal family (both Queen Sofia and King Juan Carlos attended her funeral), although she rarely indulged in them.

What she did indulge in was the type of headline-making behaviour so rarely seen among royal-adjacent celebrities today and particularly that of a woman approaching her 90s by the time of her third wedding.

It was her nuptials with Alfonso which put her back on the international map - later prompting Vanity Fair to place her in their Best Dressed Hall of Fame - as he was not only so much younger, but not of noble blood.

She had six children with her first husband and had already lived a life of leisure when it came to her controversial third marriage. When she wed her first husband Don Pedro Luis Martínez de Irujo y Artacoz, a naval officer and the son of a duke, in 1947 at Seville Cathedral; it was a ceremony estimated at costing €2m.

At the time, it was deemed the “most expensive wedding in the world”, including a gown modelled after Napoleon III’s bride Empress Eugénie, the last Empress of France.

Six years after Don Pedro’s death, she married Jesús Aguirre y Ortiz de Zarate, a former Jesuit priest. It was, as expected, the root of a scandal in 1972, although her wealth and likability ensured the controversy was brief. They had a famously happy marriage for 23 years before his death in 2001, which made her third engagement to Alfonso all the more shocking.

Her son Cayetano reportedly urged to reconsider due to “historic responsibility”, but she always insisted their love was genuine and he wasn’t blinded by her wealth.

“I don’t know why my children are causing problems,” she said on radio station La Cope in 2010.

“We aren’t hurting anyone. Alfonso doesn’t want anything, he’s renounced everything. He doesn’t want anything but me.”

In 2008, she said their relationship began as friends and in a separate interview, told Vanity Fair that “every great love story should end in marriage.”

Their wedding was eventually attended by four of her children as she had by that stage, given up most of her fortune for love.

At the time of her death, she was Spain’s richest woman with an estimated wealth of €3bn, which was divided between her children after Alfonso renounced any stake in her personal fortune.

The House of Alba is now at the hands of her children and her grandson’s wife Sofía Palazuelo became the 19th woman to hold the duchess-dom after her 2018 wedding.

And so, the legacy lives on - minus the headlines.