Sunday, October 9, 2011

You go, Girl! The 85 year old Duchess of Alba married Alfonso Diez, making him her 3rd duke consort

Getting her way through dogged persistence, Spain's Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart, the multititled Duchess of Alba, and 61 year old bachelor civil servant Alfonso Diez tied the knot at home, in her historic Palacio de las Duenas in Seville, Spain.


Enneagram 4, Cayetana attributes her need for freedom to be herself to a solitary childhood at the Liria Palace in Madrid and later the war years in London as daughter of the Spanish Ambassador. The late and only product of a marriage between two heirs to many Spanish titles, Cayetana was kept away from her tuberculosis mother and after her death, was the companion for her father, the aged Duke. With nannies and staff at the Court of St James, Cayetana made the acquaintance of the young Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret. In her autobiographies, Cayetana alludes to the constraints of duty and the suppression of her authentic self.

Once her father passed away in 1953, Cayetana assumed the headship of the house and could do whatever she wanted including socializing with bullfighters, flamenco dancers, Jacqueline Kennedy, and whomever struck her fancy. Widowed of her first Duke consort, aristocrat Luis Martinez de Irujo, of the Dukes of Sotomayor, she married an illegitimate ex-priest, sunbathed topless, wore ankle braceletes, and was a colourful figure.

Proof that she is not a 7 like Colin Tenannt, Cayetana made sure that the patrimony of the Dukes of Alba was managed well.  Above all, Enneagram 4 Caytena prides herself on Carlos, her eldest son and heir, 61 year old Duque de Huescar, who does his job very well, leaving his other 5 brothers and sister to pursue their own lives. The Duchess gave each titles with grandeza and the freedom to be themselves. In fact, you can say she was pretty hands-off. Cayetana is no hypocrite in this!

She wanted the same courtesy and made a public statement in some degree of frustration that not one of her married children avoided divorce and it was sheer cheek that they would find themselves experts in matrimony. Finally in the summer of 2011, Cayetana answered her children's concerns about Alfonso as a duke gigolo by opening up her will.  All the children were assured things were going to be tidy when their mother passed and gradually all withdrew their opposition to their new stepfather.