#Spanish Aristocracy

[tiaramania]

TIARA ALERT: Victoria López-Quesada y Borbón-Dos Sicilias wore the Habsburg Diamond Button Tiara for her wedding to Enrique Moreno de la Cova at the Soto Mozanaque Estate in Algete, Spain on 31 August 2024.

[diemelusine]

Isabel María Parreño Arce y Valdés, marquesa de Llano (1773) by Anton Raphael Mengs. Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando.

[ldagence-royal]

Princess Leonor of Spain ❤ - Leonor de Todos los Santos de Borbón y Ortiz

[roehenstart]

Carlos María Fitz-James Stuart, 16th Duke of Alba (1849-1901).

He was the nephew of Empress Eugénie de Montijo.

[dreamconsumer]

Eugénie, Empress of the French. By Sir William Ross.

[europesroyalsweddings]

✵ October 5, 2011 ✵

Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart, Duchess of Alba & Alfonso Diez Carabantes

[artthatgivesmefeelings]

Luis de Madrazo (Spanish, 1825-1897) Cristina de Roncali y Gaviria, la pequeña marquesa de Roncali, 1858 Museo Lázaro Galdiano, Madrid

[whalehouse1]

“I can’t believe Queen Mary was so awful to the Protestants. She deserves her nickname Bloody Mary.”

“Well first off, she was a Spanish descended Catholic with power in the Middle Ages so that is a given, but let’s put some context behind it too. Her mother was ousted as monarch due to the king deciding to become Protestant to marry Anne Boleyn, whose family was awful to Mary and from what I saw, basically trated her like Cinderella without the family lightheartedness Disney gave it to make that part palatable. Then her grandparents were Isabella and Ferdinand of Spain. You know of Reconquista and Columbus fame (let’s be honest Ferdinand was a joke and Isabella was the actual ruler, but freaking Torquemada), so in terms of religious persecution and mass murder she was quite tame.

[pbielik]

Walburga Tiana Esperanza "Hope"

[tiaramania]

TIARA ALERT: Teresa Revuelta Guerrero wore the Countess of Gomera's Diamond Tiara for her wedding to Miguel Fierro Corsini at the Basilica of St. Michael in Madrid, Spain on 20 April 2024.

[sapphicbookclub]

Valiant Ladies by Melissa Grey

By day Eustaquia “Kiki” de Sonza and Ana Lezama de Urinza are proper young seventeeth century ladies. But when night falls, they trade in their silks and lace for swords and muskets, venturing out into the vibrant, bustling, crime-ridden streets of Potosí, in the Spanish Empire's Viceroyalty of Peru. They pass their time fighting, gambling, and falling desperately in love with one another.

Then, on the night Kiki's engagement to the Viceroy's son is announced, her older brother―heir to her family’s fortune―is murdered. The girls immediately embark on a whirlwind investigation that takes them from the lowliest brothels of Potosí to the highest echelons of the Spanish aristocracy.

Genres: historical, fantasy, romance

Order from Blackwell's here and get free worldwide shipping!

Listen to the book on audiobooks.com here!

[ldagence-royal]

Princess Leonor of Spain ❤

[roehenstart]

Ramón María Narváez, 1st Duke of Valencia. By Vicente López Portaña.

[kemetic-dreams]

Babaaláwo or Babalawo in West Africa (Babalao in Caribbean and South American Spanish and Babalaô in Brazilian Portuguese) literally means "father of secrets" in the Yoruba language. It is a spiritual title that denotes a high priest of the Ifáoracle. Ifá is a divination system that represents the teachings of the ÒrìṣàỌrunmila, the Òrìṣà of Wisdom, who in turn serves as the oracular representative of Olodumare.

Functions in society

The Babalawos are believed to ascertain the future of their clients through communication with Ifá. This is done through the interpretation of either the patterns of the divining chain known as Opele, or the sacred palm nuts called Ikin, on the traditionally wooden divination tray called Opon Ifá.

In addition to this, some of them also perform divination services on behalf of the kings and paramount chiefs of the Yoruba people. These figures, holders of chieftaincy titles like Araba and Oluwo Ifa in their own right, are members of the recognised aristocracies of the various Yoruba traditional states.

People can visit Babalawos for spiritual consultations, which is known as Dafa. The religious system as a whole has been recognized by UNESCO as a “Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity."

[europesroyalsweddings]

✵ October 6, 2018 ✵

Sofia Palazuelo and Fernando Fitz-James Stuart

[warwickroyals]

Sunderland's Royal Jewel Vault (18/∞) ♛

↬ Countess Wynn's Meander Tiara

The majority of the tiaras in the Sunderlandian collection were inherited through members of King Louis V's family, mainly previous queens Matilda Mary, Anne, and Katherine. This meander tiara however represents the current Wariwcks' French heritage, as it belonged to Queen Irene's mother, Marguerite Wynn. Countess Wynn was born in 1914 as Marguerite Delphine Lucie Chevrier. She was the eldest of four children born to industrialist  Phillipe Édouard Chervrier (1880 - 1950) and his El Salvadoran wife, Consuelo Romana Gomez (1892 - 1979). Margurite's family claims ancestry from both French and Spanish nobility, although the bulk of their impressive fortune was derived from Phillipe's ceramics factory in the south of France. Much of Margurite's early life was disrupted by the First World War, during which the Chevriers settled in Mexico City with Consuelo's sister. Following the war, Marguerite flourished in high Parisian society, becoming well-versed in the arts and fluent in several languages, including English and Spanish. Expected to marry into the French aristocracy, Marguerite made waves by instead marrying John Wynn (1911 - 1973), a career soldier from Sunderland whose great family had fallen on hard times following the deaths of John's three older brothers in the war. When the couple met in 1931, John was on a mindless trek across Europe, in search of a wealthy bride. Despite their differing backgrounds, Marguerite was smitten by John's optimism and good humour. The pair married a year later, with John even converting to Catholicism to appease Marguerite's parents. Their wedding was held at the Chapel of the Palace of Versailles, one of the last grand society affairs of interwar Paris. The tiara, which featured a Greek key design punctuated by a central emerald-cut yellow diamond, was among Marguarite's wedding gifts. The jewel is ambiguous in origin but is agreed to be an early twentieth-century creation, likely from Cartier. It became a useful tool in Margurite's arsenal as she erupted in Sunderland as one of the country's wealthiest society ladies. Pearlie, as she became known, was noted to be arrogant, intelligent, and ravishing. Pearlie is more "royal" than the rest of us combined. She drenches herself in jewels as if she were the ghost of the last Tsarina. — Queen Katherine, 1970

The Countess owned the tiara until 1968, when she gave it to her youngest daughter, Lady Irene, also as a wedding present. Irene's marriage to the future King Louis V was Pearlie's greatest life achievement and she became increasingly boastful. Maman Wynn, as she was called by the press and public, was known to meddle in royal affairs, especially the personal lives of her daughter and son-in-law. By the early 1980s, she was on bad terms with both. Irene was never seen wearing her mother's tiara, but she kept it in her own personal possession for almost thirty years. In 1997, Irene continued the tradition by gifting the tiara to her only daughter, Princess Jacqueline, ahead of her wedding to Lawrence Belmont. The wedding was coincidently the last public appearance of the old Countess Wynn. She died peacefully at Chester Palace the same winter. Since then, Jacqueline has worn the tiara regularly at state functions and in official portraits. It's among the princess's most cherished pieces.

The Countess Wynn wears the tiara in a portrait, circa October 1943, eight years before the birth of her youngest daughter, Queen Irene

HRH Princess Jacqueline wears the tiara while attending a gala dinner & dance in July 2026