“No one can reign after dying. Although there is a tendency towards this in many wills,” reflects José Miguel Carrillo de Albornoz y Muñoz de San Pedro, Viscount of Torre Hidalgo, in conversation with EL PAÍS. According to the writer and aristocrat, the best thing when dictating last wills is to leave everything clear and well resolved during life “so that unpleasant situations do not occur later.” “And even more so when there is a lot at stake,” adds the nobleman, author of Duchesses, a checkers poker in the 20th century (The sphere of books), the story of four women who in the fifties of the last century inherited the ducal houses 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 y 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 enormous assets with an iron fist in a silk glove, ensuring that their empires survived the Civil War, Francoism, the Transition and the arrival of democracy. The four created foundations to protect their palaces and works of art of incalculable value and died within a few years of each other. They all left this world believing that they left their legacy “tied and well tied.” Isabel Medina Sidonia died in 2008; Victoria Eugenia Medinaceli died in 2013; Cayetana Alba, in 2014; and Ángela Osuna, in 2015. Today, their descendants continue to fight over inheritances.
The Guzmán palace, in Sanlúcar de Barrameda, residence of the dukes of Medina Sidonia since 1517, has almost 15,000 square meters. The 21st Duchess of Medina Sidonia died at the property on March 7, 2008. Since then, her three children, Leoncio, Pilar and Gabriel González de Gregorio y Álvarez de Toledo, have battled for the legacy of the so-called “red duchess.” . In 1990, the matriarch created the Casa Medina Sidonia Foundation to prevent her heritage from being disintegrated. The palace and its complex, including archives, were declared Assets of Cultural Interest, indivisible, non-relocatable and impossible to alienate. In the last years of her life, she also transferred personal property, damaging the legitimate inheritance of her children. Before she died, she got married in articulo mortis with his secretary, Liliane Dahlmann, whom he named 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 assets as a whole are valued at around 60 million euros and the documents contained in the archive of the ducal house are valued at almost 30 million. After years of trials, justice has ruled in favor of the three brothers, proving that they were disinherited by their mother and that they must be compensated for it. Pilar González de Gregorio has just made the execution of the sentence effective. “I already own 11.6% 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 now, after the ruling, my brothers and I have a percentage of ownership of all the assets,” she points out.
González de Gregorio wants the Andalusian Government and the rest of the public patrons of the family foundation to take action on the matter, buying his share and that of his brothers or, in the worst case, if all the parties do not reach an agreement. agreement, expropriating the ducal archive (after payment of compensation). “The public administration should take charge of this very important archive, which keeps almost 7,000 files, including documents from many expeditions to America and the almadraba books, the only climate record that exists from the mid-13th century to the 17th century. Now there is a lot of talk about Doñana National Park, but few remember that the house of Medina Sidonia was the owner of the preserve from the time of Guzmán el Bueno until the year 1900. All the documentation about Doñana is in that archive, right now in a situation very precarious,” he points out.
In Casa de Pilatos, the Medina family palace in the historic center of Seville, peace does not reign either. Since the death of Victoria Eugenia Fernández de Córdoba, 18th Duchess of Medinaceli, in 2013, her descendants are also on the warpath. The aristocrat left palaces, castles, manors, hospitals and regal gardens to the Casa Ducal de Medinaceli Foundation, created by her in 1978. Like the Duchess of Medina Sidonia, she also transferred assets that were part of her legitimate inheritance and appointed her only living son, Ignacio Medina, Duke of Segorbe, as manager of everything.
“If you create a foundation for the Dukes of Medinaceli, what you cannot do is appoint someone who is not the Duke of Medinaceli to run it. That is pure logic,” says Carrillo de Albornoz, Viscount of Torre Hidalgo. Now, five grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the aristocrat are on trial with the Duke of Segorbe. They demand the distribution of the legitimate share. Among the plaintiffs are Victoria de Hohenlohe, current Duchess of Medinaceli, and her cousins Rafael and Luis Medina. Segorbe, who has always assured that the foundation has acted correctly, has expelled them from the board of the family entity, but a court in Seville has ruled in favor of the rebellious nobles, partially upholding their claim. In 2021, a judge ordered the foundation to contribute assets worth 20 million euros to the estate. The sentence has been appealed.
Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart, the best-known duchess of this checkers poker, created a foundation in 1975 to protect her family’s heritage, which includes the palaces of Liria, Las Dueñas and Monterrey, and the castle of Alba de Tormes. In 2011, still alive and shortly before her wedding to her third husband, Alfonso Díez, the 18th Duchess of Alba divided her personal assets among her six children, which included rural properties, agricultural holdings, farmhouses and houses in the best areas of Marbella. , San Sebastian and Ibiza.
“I was the architect of the living donation that my mother made, following the advice of former president Felipe González,” explains Cayetano Martínez de Irujo and Fitz-James Stuart, Duke of Arjona and Count of Salvatierra, in a telephone conversation with EL PAÍS. “His great dream was to get married and quietly enjoy the last years of her life. For that, I convinced her to distribute her legitimate inheritance. None of the brothers protested. Everyone accepted. Thanks to that operation, we are the only aristocratic family that has brought its entire heritage into the 21st century. If it had not been done, today, nine years later, we would still be fighting,” acknowledges the duke, who in that distribution received the Arbaizenea palace, in San Sebastián, and the Las Arroyuelas farmhouse, in Seville.
“Even today, many important businessmen ask me how we managed to peacefully distribute one of the largest inheritances in the country. They even invite me to give talks at business schools and universities,” says the aristocrat. The succession was exemplary, although Martínez de Irujo regrets that not all of his mother’s last wishes were respected. “She wanted all of us brothers to continue being involved in the operation of the Casa de Alba Foundation. After her death, in 2014, my older brother (Carlos Fitz-James Stuart, current Duke of Alba) took us all out, except Alfonso (Martínez de Irujo, Duke of Híjar). Now, Carlos says that the House of Alba is made up of him and his children. “He forgets about his brothers,” he points out.
Cayetano Martínez de Irujo considers that the opening of the family palaces to the public is another decision that does not comply with his mother’s wishes. “It was the last thing she wanted. She must be creepy in heaven seeing her houses turned into museums. And I don’t even want to tell you what she would think about the sale of Fra Angelico…” she says. In 2016, just two years after Cayetana de Alba’s death, Carlos Fitz-James sold The Virgin of Granada, considered the best work of Fra Angelico and one of the few by this artist that remained in private hands in the world. 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 House of Alba. And my brother went and sold it for a sale,” concludes Martínez de Irujo. The environment of the Duke of Alba considers that the sale to the Madrid art gallery for that value was the best option, since it is an unexportable piece that cannot be sold abroad.
Another of the Albas’ jewels, a 200-hectare orange farm located in the Sevillian municipality of Aznalcázar, at the gates of Doñana, is being investigated for illegally capturing groundwater from the preserve. The complaint for a crime against the environment has unleashed a new exchange of accusations between the brothers.
Not even the ducal house of Osuna, the most discreet and least publicized of these four families, would be saved from succession disputes. As this newspaper has learned, the four daughters of Ángela María Téllez-Girón, XVI Duchess of Osuna, who died in 2015, would also have some disagreements over the division of the family assets. “But inheritance problems are not exclusive to ducal houses. These things happen in all families,” points out Pilar González de Gregorio. “The particular 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 issues come to light: old grudges, long-held feelings… And then money becomes an excuse. I remember many years ago some very rich people who fought over a chair. Then I understood that they didn’t care at all about the chair.”
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