This 2026 is marked at the House of Alba by a key date. On March 28, the centenary of Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart, the XVIII Duchess of Alba, is commemorated. For this important occasion, her family has prepared a full program of events in her honor. From the inauguration of the exhibition Cayetana, Grandee of Spain, which counted on the presence of Felipe VI at the Palacio de las Dueñas in Seville, to the publication of a book about the aristocrat written by Cayetano Martínez de Irujo.
The Duke of Arjona celebrates the memory of his mother, whom he was very close to, in The Last Duchess, the second title he writes about her since the publication of his memoirs, which were titled From Cayetana to Cayetano. This book will go on sale on March 25 and, to promote it, Cayetano Martínez de Irujo granted an interview to the newspaper El Mundo in which he speaks about his mother, the Duchess of Alba, but also about the always media-scrutinized relationship with the rest of his siblings.
Since the Duchess’s death in 2014, tensions among the Duchess’s children have been constant. Often focused on Cayetano, who was always her favorite son. The wedding of the Olympic rider to Bárbara Mirjan last October seemed to serve as a peace treaty within the family. Then, harmony seemed to reign among the Albhas. Unfortunately, such perception shattered once again during the last Christmas holidays, when Cayetano and Bárbara did not spend Christmas Eve with their family.
“After eleven years, I think for me that door is already closed”, the aristocrat asserted about his absence at the Palacio de Liria. Now, however, he adopts a conciliatory stance with his siblings again. “I have paid a very dear price for being the chosen one, valued and recognized by my mother, but now everything is in its place and my relationship with Carlos and Eugenia has recovered. With Fernando it has always been fantastic,” the Olympic rider asserts, unequivocally.
Cayetano and His Mother’s Unfulfilled Wishes
Cayetano Martínez de Irujo does not avoid in this conversation the reproaches to his brother Carlos. “An eldest son must be generous with the rest of his siblings. All of us have contributed to the eldest inheriting what he has inherited,” he says about the current Duke of Alba. And he adds that Cayetana Fitz-James Stuart’s eldest son “now realizes that everything I did with my mother was for him.”
Peaceful as ever, Cayetano Martínez de Irujo laments during the interview not having inherited the title of Conde Duque de Olivares or that his mother’s wish that he take charge of all the estates was not respected. “Carlos did not want to,” he comments without apparent acrimony, “and that even though she used to tell me: ‘It’s amazing, Mom, with you. She has listened to many people, but only paid attention to her father, to our father, to the Pope, and to you’”.
Cayetano Martínez de Irujo with his mother, the late Duchess of Alba.
The Duke of Arjona also recalls painful episodes from his childhood, marked by a rigid education due to the lack of physical affection from his parents. A traumatic experience, which has helped him to be a better father. “That is why I have given my children all the affection I did not have. And thus they have grown, affectionate, responsible, friendly, succeeding professionally in London,” he says about Luis and Amina, his two children from his marriage to Genoveva Casanova.
The Last Duchess
Cayetano Martínez de Irujo recounts in this book with the collaboration of some of the people who knew the duchess best: his children Carlos and Fernando; her husband Alfonso; her grandchildren Tana, Luis and Amina; and his friend Luis María Anson. The aristocrat collects a large number of vital episodes of a Duchess of Alba whom he describes as “kind, festive, generous, rebellious, open and charismatic.” At the same time, he also says of her that she was “a relentless mother, strict and conservative who could glare with a look. She was not perfect, but she was unique.”
Among the stories that fill its pages is Picasso’s aborted portrait of the duchess in the nude or the harsh criticisms of the controversial Jesús Aguirre, her second husband. “It was disastrous for everyone, trying to subdue us. My sister Eugenia hated Jesús because he treated her terribly. I think she felt jealous of her, that she was a girl! And one day he threw a beer glass in her face,” remembers Cayetano about him. He adds that years later he forgave him, because “he was not to blame for what he had lived in his youth.”
