#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.

[roehenstart]

Empress Eugenie by Claude Marie Dubufe.

[ldagence-royal]

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

[dreamconsumer]

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

[europesroyalsweddings]

✵ October 6, 2018 ✵

Sofia Palazuelo and Fernando Fitz-James Stuart

[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"

[lilia-calderus-pet-goat]

Headcanons for a³'s coven of chaos, part 6, Lilia's history edition:

(previous part of headcanons, here.)

Lilia wasn't born into sicilian aristocracy. She was born in the carpathian mountains. Her parents were romani, victims of persecution, and so she was orphaned & taken in by her maestra.

As a little girl, Lilia was insanely self-conscious, shy and withdrawn.

She used to have a pet goat. Hence my username. Now, she's upset that it's become some sort of satanic-associated stereotype that witches talk to goats.

When she started showing signs of her forgetfulness, her visions, her flashes—people will have treated her as 'defective' and 'faulty.' One of those kids that just 'isn't very bright.'

She hated the texture of those darn dresses. Her Maestra eventually noticed her discomfort and passed down the shirt and coat we see her wear on the road—since the costume designer said they were indeed passed down to her.

Her maestra taught her how to sew, knit—and a great deal of sicilian, Italian and greek recipes. Her maestra enjoyed cooking, and she enjoyed drinking tea.

Her maestra also taught her a little pan flute. It was many years kater that she studied the zills by herself. She had a lot of free time as a hermit, okay?

She'd get easily distracted, she wouldn't pay attention when others spoke. She'd struggle with eye-contact. Her voice would trail off. Once in a while, she'd get really excited about something and go on a long rant, until breathless—which would be met with judgement. She'd space out and others would laugh at her.

But despite the fact she was considered strange, even by her sister witches—her covenmates did love her. Like you live siblings even as you tease them—and she was one of the youngest, if not the youngest.

The maestra was undoubtedly a strict, no-nonsense woman. But she was also the first, perhaps the only person, who sat down to understand Lilia's unique condition. Whenever she'd catch her 'visiting,' which was often, she would focus on guiding & keeping her calm.

She was desperate to toughen Lilia up, seeing how afraid and insecure she was. The maestra worried for her and didn't want her to end uo helpless. So, she taught her everything she knows—like a mother—even if everyone else thought she was wasting time, since Lilia struggled a lot initially. (“tea-leaves, i was bad at tea-leaves...”)

Lilia's Maestra had known about the fever that will wipe out their coven since before little Lilia hot the vision—since on their first lesson, 450 year old Lilia time-slipping from the Witch's Road told her. Despite this, the maestra didn't tell Lilia, because having seen how dark and sad her future is, she wanted her to feel safe and happy for a little while longer.

The first time Lilia met Jen (and afterwards, the rest of them) was exactly then. As adult Lilia was talking to her maestra, little Lilia was in the tunnels, experiencing her life out of sequence as she always had. She simply couldn't remember the flashes of her future coven or make sense of anything.

Lilia tried to warn everyone of the fever despite the fact it was set in stone, because of her own denial. None of her covenmates believed her—'Looney Lilia is at it again'—but her maestra, who already knew it would happen, simply repeated that death comes for us all.

Lilia would see Rio all the time in her full-skull form when she was young, in flashes. Rio's been following her! She thinks they're besties! Lilia is scared shitless!

Lilia's first girlfriend was one of the Doñas de fuera. In the historical folklore of Sicily, Doñas de fuera (Spanish for "Ladies from the Outside"; Sicily was under Spanish rule at the time) were supernatural female beings comparable to the fairies of English folklore. In the 16th to mid-17th centuries, the doñas de fuera also played a role in the witch trials in Sicily. In historical Sicilian folklore, the doñas de fuera} would make contact with humans, mostly women deemed to have “sweet blood”, whom they took to Benevento ("the Blockula of Sicily"), by mounting them on magical, flying goats.

Compared to surrounding countries, the witch trials in Sicily were relatively mild: in most cases, the accused were either freed, sentenced to exile, or jailed, rather than sentenced to death.

In Lilia's case, after the death of her coven, when she was left alone, she was eventually put to trial and exiled from Sicily.

She traveled from medieval village to medieval village across Europe, chased with pitchforks each time. She thought every tragedy was her fault.

She was in Strasbourg, France, to witness the Dancing Plague. She tried to warn everyone, but they called her crazy.

Another old friend of Lilia's, while in France, was Carabosse, based on whom the wicked fairy/Maleficent was created. Lilia watched once more as she turned into a racist caricature after her death. MANY years later, she went and watched Tchaikovsky sleeping beauty ballet—and then proceeded to go and punch him also.

Heinrich Kramer tried to hit on her. If you don't know, he was a German churchman and inquisitor. With his widely distributed book Malleus Maleficarum, which describes witchcraft and endorses detailed processes for the extermination of witches, he was instrumental in establishing the period of witch trials in the early modern period. Professor Malcolm Gaskill has described Kramer as a "superstitious psychopath."

And Lilia, in fact, was good friends (potential fling??) with Helena Scheuberin, an Austrian woman who stood trial accused of witchcraft just because she herself had rejected Henrich Kramer's advances. During the trial, thirteen other people were accused. Lilia was one of them. Luckily, the trial was dismissed.

She stayed in Germany for a while, to live with her good friend (perhaps even girlfriend.) Aka, the witch from Hansel & Gretel. She watched her, later, be put to death in her own over—persecuted for witchcraft. And then, she watched again as her tale was combined with other medieval stereotypes and bastardized into an antisemitic stereotype that painted her as a cannibalist, child-stealing villain. Lilia hates it. She says it's a tale that celebrates the order of the patriarchal home, seen as a haven protected from the dangerous characters that threaten the lives of children outside, while it systematically denigrates the adult female characters, which are seemingly intertwined between each other.

She met Evanora Harkness when she was pregnant and deeply disliked her.

While in Germany, she was subjected to yet another witch trial. She survived, hasn't talked about how, but she has scars from it that she will not show. (Würzburg witch trials. The Würzburg witch trials of 1625–1631, which took place in the self-governing Catholic Prince-Bishopric of Würzburg in the Holy Roman Empire in present-day Germany, formed one of the biggest mass trials and mass executions ever seen in Europe, and one of the largest witch trials in history.)

After Germany, she went to England to escape that mess of trauma. And so she witnessed the Great Plague of London, lasting from 1665 to 1666, was the most recent major epidemic of the bubonic plague to occur in England.

She lived in Styria for quite a few years, where she dated Carmilla, from the lesbian vampire novel. Eventually, they broke up. Lilia had been empathetic at first, but grew tired of being fed off of and punched her.

Out of spite, she spent a decade or two in Transylvania, helping other vampires escape vampire hunting trials. She witnessed a lot of friends be killed.

She lived in Greece for a few years after the Greek War of Independence. Later spent time in Asia Minor, until she had enough of Greek and Turkish witches arguing about who coffee reading belongs to.

She became an opera singer in spain, for a while. One of the many jobs she took over the years. It's when she met Tchaikovsky, in a trip to russia, as mentioned earlier, and bitch-slapped that twink into oblivion.

While in russia, she also met Alexandra Kollontai.

She met Rosa Luxemburg during the First World War. She also met Clara Zetkin.

She went to Argentina for a few years, met Virginia Bolten.

So, America it is... She wasn't happy about it. She went to Massachusetts, like a moth to the flame. Not Salem, no—Boston.

She was friends with Sylvia Plath. Maybe they even kissed a little!! Lilia tried to help her, but couldn't.

Her mental health was so terrible that she couldn't hold jobs for too long. She worked as a seamstress, as a stenographer, a governess, a maid.

She got married to a gay man, one time, for a few years, because people grew suspicious. He died.

She decided she deserved to be alone, because she was a bad omen. A jinx, a habringer of doom. She chose the life of the hermit.

She was at the Women’s Suffrage Parade in 1913 in Washington, D.C.

During the roaring 20's she became a jazz singer. She wasn't able to continue, because she was getting some really bad mental health episodes.

She had to sell a lot of her old sicilian jewellery and good dresses for money after the economy crashed on 1929. The Great depression made her... Greatly depressed.

She was unable to keep paying for a house and started traveling with a caravan. If she'd stayed in Boston at that time, perhaps she could have met Jen. She didn't.

She was attacked & robbed three separate times while in said caravan.

Obviously she's a polyglot, familiar with the language of every country she's lived in. But even as she forgets words and confuses details between languages, she never forgets anything about her native tongue. She hasn't been in Italy for centuries, but all her notes & personal writings are in Sicilian. She really misses speaking it and she feels like she can never truly, genuinely express herself in English.

Before whichever war, due to all the death she was predicting, she'd scream and cry like a banshee. It's one of the reasons she repressed her magic, put it away, ignored it.

She was in The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on 1963.

She was in the stonewall riots in 1969. She made some friends again, non witch folk.

She was also in Woodstock, again, in 1969.

She did activism during the AIDS crisis. She lost the friends she made.

At one point she got bored and got a history degree.

At another point she got bored and got a philosophy degree.

She's taught in schools, once or twice, but was deemed unfit after a few years even though the students loved her.

She moved to New Jersey, opened Madame Calderu's Psychic Readings and Lilia's Leggings, but the money from that is still not enough. I mean, her house is decomposing, her bed is her wall, and her food is scarce enough that she doesn't mind a lapsed expiration date. Girl is dirt poor.

She does a lot of children's parties. She often hates the parents, though.

She has very few clients on the daily, but one of her regulars (in both businesses) is Madisynn King from She-Hulk.

[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!

[roehenstart]

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

He was the nephew of Empress Eugénie de Montijo.

[ldagence-royal]

Princess Leonor of Spain ❤ Attend Princess of Asturias Awards 2024

[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."

[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