“No one can rule after he dies. Although there is a tendency to do so in many wills,” reflects José Miguel Carrillo de Albornoz y Muñoz de San Pedro, Viscount of Torre Hidalgo, in an interview with EL PAÍS. According to the writer and aristocrat, when dictating a last will and testament, it is best to clarify everything clearly and clearly during your lifetime, “so that unpleasant situations do not arise later.” “And even more so when there is a lot at stake,” adds the Nobleman and author of Duchesses, a Poker for Ladies in the 20th Century (The Sphere of Books), the story of four women who lived in the 1950s and inherited the houses. Dukes and the oldest and most important fortunes in Spain: Luisa Isabel Álvarez de Toledo y Maura, Duchess of Medina Sidonia; Victoria Eugenia Fernández de Córdoba and Fernández de Henestrosa, Duchess of Medinaceli; Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart y de Silva, Duchess of Alba; and Ángela María Téllez-Girón y Duque de Estrada, Duchess of Osuna.
For more than 50 years, these four aristocrats managed their vast fortunes with an iron fist and ensured that their empires survived the civil war, the Franco regime, the transition and the advent of democracy. The four founded foundations to protect their palaces and priceless works of art and died just a few years after each other. They all left this world believing that they had left their inheritance “bound and well bound.” Isabel Medina Sidonia died in 2008; Victoria Eugenia Medinaceli died in 2013; Cayetana Alba, in 2014; and Ángela Osuna in 2015. Even today, their descendants still fight over the inheritance.
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The Guzmán Palace in Sanlúcar de Barrameda, residence of the Dukes of Medina Sidonia since 1517, has an area of almost 15,000 square meters. The 21st Duchess of Medina Sidonia died at the estate on March 7, 2008. Since then, her three children, Leoncio, Pilar and Gabriel González de Gregorio and Álvarez de Toledo, have been fighting for the inheritance of the so-called “Red Duchess”. .” In 1990, the matriarch founded the Casa Medina Sidonia Foundation to prevent the disintegration of her assets. The palace and its complex, including the archives, were declared an indivisible, non-relocatable and non-alienable cultural asset. In his final years, he also transferred personal property, thereby damaging his children’s rightful inheritance. Before he died, he married in articulo mortis his secretary Liliane Dahlmann, whom he appointed life president of the foundation.
The legitimate part of the inheritance claimed by the children of the Duchess of Medina Sidonia is a fortune. The total assets amount to around 60 million euros and the documents contained in the archives of the ducal house amount to almost 30 million euros. After years of legal proceedings, the justice system has ruled in favor of the three brothers, proving that they were disinherited by their mother and that they must be compensated for this. Pilar González de Gregorio has just put the sentence into effect. “I already own 11.1% of the foundation,” the aristocrat explains to EL PAÍS. “But the foundation is in a precarious legal situation. The founding statutes are no longer valid because, after the judgment, my brothers and I now own a percentage of the entire assets,” he emphasizes.
One of the libraries of the Casa Medina Sidonia palace in Sanlúcar de Barrameda.PACO PUENTES (EL PAIS)
González de Gregorio wants the Andalusian government and the rest of the public sponsors of the family foundation to take action on this matter and buy his share and that of his brothers, or in the worst case scenario if all parties fail to reach an agreement. Agreement, expropriation of the ducal archives (after payment of compensation). “The public administration should take responsibility for this very important archive, which houses almost 7,000 files, including documents from many expeditions to America and the Almadraba books, the only climate record dating from the mid-13th to the 17th century. Century exists.” Nowadays there is a lot of talk about Doñana National Park, but few remember that the House of Medina Sidonia was the owner of the protected area from the time of Guzmán el Bueno until 1900. All the documentation about Doñana is in this archive, right now in a very precarious situation,” he emphasizes.
There is also no peace in the Casa de Pilatos, the Medina family palace in the historic center of Seville. Since the death of Victoria Eugenia Fernández de Córdoba, 18th Duchess of Medinaceli, in 2013, her descendants have also been in turmoil. The aristocrat left palaces, castles, mansions, hospitals and royal gardens to the Casa Ducal de Medinaceli foundation, which she founded in 1978. Like the Duchess of Medina Sidonia, she also transferred assets that were part of her rightful inheritance and appointed her sole living son, Ignacio Medina, Duke of Segorbe, as manager of everything.
The central courtyard of the Casa de Pilatos, the palace of the Medina family in the historic center of Seville. Educational images (educational images/universal image)
“If you create a foundation for the Dukes of Medinaceli, you cannot appoint someone who is not the Duke of Medinaceli to run it. This is pure logic,” says Carrillo de Albornoz, Viscount of Torre Hidalgo. Now five of the aristocrat’s grandchildren and great-grandchildren are on trial before the Duke of Segorbe. They demand the distribution of the legitimate share. The plaintiffs include Victoria de Hohenlohe, the current Duchess of Medinaceli, and her cousins Rafael and Luis Medina. Segorbe, who had always assured that the foundation had acted correctly, excluded them from the board of the family business, but a court in Seville ruled in favor of the rebellious nobles and partially upheld their claim. In 2021, a judge ordered that the foundation must contribute assets worth 20 million euros to the estate. An appeal was lodged against the verdict.
Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart, the most famous duchess of this checkers poker, created a foundation in 1975 to protect her family’s legacy, which includes the Liria, Las Dueñas and Monterrey palaces and the Alba de Tormes Castle. In 2011, still alive and about to marry her third husband, Alfonso Díez, the 18th Duchess of Alba divided her personal assets among her six children, including rural properties, farms, farmhouses and houses in prime areas from Marbella. , San Sebastian and Ibiza.
“I was the architect of the living donation that my mother made on the advice of former President Felipe González,” explain Cayetano Martínez de Irujo and Fitz-James Stuart, Duke of Arjona and Count of Salvatierra, in a telephone conversation with EL PAÍS . “His big dream was to get married and enjoy the last years of his life in peace. In return, I convinced them to distribute the rightful inheritance. Neither brother protested. Everyone accepted. Thanks to this operation, we are the only noble family to have brought our entire heritage into the 21st century. If it had not happened, we would still be fighting today, nine years later,” admits the Duke, who received the Arbaizenea Palace in San Sebastián and the Las Arroyuelas farmhouse in Seville as part of this distribution.
The son of the Duchess of Medina Sidonia, Leoncio, Count of Niebla, accompanied by his family during the funeral of his mother in the town of Sanlúcar de Barrameda (Cádiz) in Cádiz. Jaro Munoz (EFE)
“To this day, many important business people ask me how we managed to peacefully distribute one of the country’s largest inheritances. They even invite me to give lectures at business schools and universities,” says the aristocrat. The succession was exemplary, even if Martínez de Irujo regrets that not all of his mother’s last wishes were respected. “She wanted us brothers to continue to be involved in the operation of the Casa de Alba Foundation. After his death in 2014, my older brother (Carlos Fitz-James Stuart, current Duke of Alba) took all of us with him, except Alfonso (Martínez de Irujo, Duke of Híjar). Now Carlos says that House Alba consists of him and his children. He forgets his brothers,” he says.
Cayetano Martínez de Irujo believes that opening the family palaces to the public is another decision that contradicts his mother’s wishes. “It was the last thing she wanted. She must be creeped out in heaven seeing her houses turned into museums. And I don’t even want to tell you what I would think about selling Fra Angelico…” he says. In 2016, just two years after Cayetana de Alba’s death, Carlos Fitz-James sold “The Virgin of Granada,” considered Fra Angelico’s best work and one of the few works by this artist still in private hands worldwide condition. The Prado Museum acquired the 15th-century Florentine altarpiece for 18 million euros, a price well below its market value (40 million euros). “For my mother it was the best work of the Alba house. And my brother sold it,” concludes Martínez de Irujo. The Duke of Alba’s entourage considers the sale to the Madrid Art Gallery to be the best option for this value, since it is a non-exportable piece that cannot be sold abroad.
Another jewel of the Albas, a 200-hectare orange farm in the Sevillian municipality of Aznalcázar, just outside Doñana, is being investigated for illegal extraction of groundwater from the nature reserve. The complaint of an environmental crime has sparked a new exchange of accusations between the brothers.
Not even the Ducal House of Osuna, the most discreet and least known of these four families, would be saved from succession disputes. As this newspaper has learned, the four daughters of Ángela María Téllez-Girón, XVI, who died in 2015, also had. Duchess of Osuna, some disagreements over the division of family assets. “But inheritance problems don’t just affect ducal houses. “This happens in all families,” emphasizes Pilar González de Gregorio. “The special thing about our families is that they have a lot of assets and little cash,” he concludes. “Inheritances are always complicated,” agrees the Viscount of Torre Hidalgo. “When someone dies, other problems come to light: old grudges, long-held feelings… And then money becomes an excuse. I remember some very rich people fighting over a chair many years ago. Then I realized they didn’t care about the chair at all.”