Towards the end of her life, she cut an eccentric figure with bright white hair and waxy skin. But when María del Rosario Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart y Silva, the 18th Duchess of Alba, was in her prime, she was considered one of the greatest beauties of her age: Picasso wanted to paint her, Jackie Kennedy visited her Seville palace and she was friends with Grace Kelly.
Descended from James II of Scotland and his mistress Arabella Churchill, the duchess was one of the most senior aristocrats in Spain and thought to have been one of the most titled aristocrats in the world. Her titles gave her several privileges, such as riding a horse into Seville Cathedral and not having to kneel before the Pope.
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The Duchess of Alba was also Spain’s biggest private landowner with castles, palaces, country houses and land across the country. The most famous of these was the Liria Palace in Madrid, where she was born on 28 March 1926. An only child, her father was the 17th Duke of Alba, a Spanish politician and diplomat. Her mother, María del Rosario de Silva, became ill with tuberculosis and died when the she was eight.
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The duchess’s first marriage was to Luis Martínez de Irujo in 1947 in what newspapers dubbed ‘the most expensive wedding in the world’. From this marriage, she had six children, with her eldest son, Carlos Fitz-James Stuart, assuming the title of 19th Duke of Alba when she died. Later, in the 1950s, Picasso wanted to paint her because Goya had painted one of her ancestors. However, the duchess decided against it as she thought that being painted by the communist Picasso in the fascist political climate of Spain would have caused too much of a scandal. That didn’t stop her, however, from bringing Picasso paintings to a private showroom in Seville which led to her being labelled as 'left-wing'.
After her first husband died in 1972, she married former Jesuit priest Jesús Aguirre. When he died in 2001, she expressed a wish to marry Alfonso Díez Carabantes, a civil servant who was 24 years her junior, which worried her family. However, in 2008, the House of Alba released a statement which said that their relationship ‘was based on a long friendship and there are no plans to marry’. Despite this, the two married in 2011.
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When the duchess died in 2014, at the age of 88, she left behind a host of children and grandchildren. Her legacy will one day be continued by her dashing grandson, Fernando Fitz-James Stuart, the 17th Duke of Huéscar and the heir to the dukedom of Alba.
The photogenic Duke and Duchess of Huéscar were married on 6 October 2018 in the chapel of the Palacio de Liria, in Madrid; just before the royal wedding of Princess Eugenie and Jack Brooksbank. Sofia wore a gown designed by her own aunt, Teresa Palazuelo, complete with a fabulous detachable cape. The wedding was an extraordinarily glamorous occasion filled with Spain’s high society. The future Duke of Alba, who will inherit no less than 50 titles from his father, studied law at the University of London followed by a master’s degree at the University of Massachusetts. On his return to Spain, he completed an additional master’s degree in marketing management at the College International Studies (CIS), where he met his wife Sofia.
The couple are now proud parents to two daughters. Their eldest, Rosario, the future Duchess of Alba, was named in honour of her great-grandmother. Their second daughter, Sofia, was born on 10 January at the Hospital Nuestra Señora del Rosario in Madrid, according to local news outlets.
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