RARE "Duke And Duchess of Cadiz" Alfonso & Borbon Hand Signed Card COA For Sale

Up for sale a RARE! "Duke And Duchess of Cadiz" Alfonso & Borbon Hand Signed Card.  This item is authenticated By Todd

Mueller Autographs and comes with their certificate of authenticity.

ES-3144

Alfonso,

Duke of Anjou, Duke of Cádiz, Grandee of Spain (Alfonso Jaime Marcelino Manuel

Víctor María de Borbón y Dampierre, French citizen as Alphonse de

Bourbon; 20 April 1936 – 30 January 1989) was a grandson of King Alfonso XIII of Spain, a

potential heir to the throne in the event of restoration of the

Spanish monarchy, and a Legitimist claimant to the defunct

throne of France as Alphonse II. lfonso was born at Sant'Anna

Clinic in Rome, the elder son of Infante Jaime, Duke of

Segovia, King Alfonso's second of four sons. His mother was Donna Emanuela de

Dampierre, daughter of Roger, Duke of San Lorenzo and Donna Vittoria Ruspoli dei principi di Poggio Suasa. The Segovias lived in

Rome where Jaime's father had maintained a royal court-in-exile since the royal family fled Spain

following the 1931 election of republicans and socialists in Spain's major

cities. Alfonso was baptised by Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli (later Pope Pius XII) at the Palazzo Ruspoli on

the Via del Corso in

Rome, home of his maternal principi di Poggio Suasa. In 1941

Alfonso and his parents followed his English-born grandmother, Queen Victoria Eugenie to Lausanne in Switzerland. They lived first at the Hotel

Royal, before Alfonso and his younger brother Gonzalo were sent to

the Collège Saint-Jean (later Villa St.

Jean International School) in Fribourg.[4] On 8 December 1946 Alfonso made his first communion with his brother, Gonzalo; on the same

day he was confirmed by Cardinal Pedro Segura y Sáenz, Archbishop

of Seville. The king's eldest son, Alfonso,

Prince of Asturias, had inherited hemophilia from his maternal great-grandmother Queen Victoria, yet had been considered Spain's heir apparent

until the republic was established in 1931. In 1933 he renounced any claim to

inherit the Spanish throne (in the event of a restoration) to marry a

Cuban commoner, Edelmira Sampedro-Ocejo, and later died of internal bleeding

following a minor auto accident by September 1938. Next in the line of

succession, Infante Don Jaime, deaf and largely mute, was previously persuaded

to renounce his claim (and that of future descendants) before his elder

brother, thereby assuming the Duke of Segovia title and clearing the way for

King Alfonso's third son, Don Juan, Count of Barcelona to

take up the monarchist cause on behalf of the banished dynasty. There being no need for Segovia to contract a

dynastic alliance, Emanuela de Dampierre's noble rather than royal background

was looked upon approvingly by the former king and former queen when the couple

wed in Rome in 1935, and neither style nor title is attributed to Alfonso de

Borbón-Segovia y Dampierre in the 1944 edition of the Almanach de Gotha. During the Spanish civil war which began in July 1936 Franco emerged

as the Caudillo of the Falangist movement,

overturning the republic and promising restoration, yet consolidating his grip

on power in Madrid. Following Alfonso XIII's death in Rome in February 1941,

Franco wrote Don Juan, acknowledging him as rightful heir to the throne (though

without inviting him to occupy it), implicitly confirming that he considered

Segovia and his sons excluded from the royal succession. Although in 1947, following the overturn of

monarchies in Eastern Europe and Italy, Franco promulgated, and voters

approved, a succession law which defined Spain as a kingdom, it also empowered

Franco to decide whom to enthrone and when. Don Juan responded by issuing

the Estoril Manifesto which affirmed the traditional order of succession, and

followed up with comments embracing a democratic monarchy. The new law allowed

Franco or his successor to choose any man "of royal lineage" as king,

and Alfonso was mentioned that year as a possible alternative to Don Juan and

his son, Juan Carlos, should Franco consider the former too liberal to reign

over a Falangist Spain.

In December 1949 Segovia retracted his renunciation as coerced and

claimed that he was the rightful claimant to Spain's crown. Relations

between Don Juan and Franco continued to deteriorate and in 1952 the latter

prevailed upon Segovia to send his elder son to Spain to be educated under his

guidance. Reluctantly, Alfonso moved from Switzerland to Spain, initially to

study law at Deusto University and, in 1955 to attend the elite Centro

de Estudios Universitarios (CEU). By 1956 Franco was diverting

sponsors of some civic events from Juan Carlos, who was also being educated in

Spain under the Caudillo's supervision, to Alfonso. By 1964

Franco considered Juan Carlos his preferred candidate for the throne over his

father, but also considered that if the latter deviated from obedience to

Franco or loyalty to his Movimiento Nacional, Alfonso was a

suitable alternative. Alfonso's strongest supporter in Franco's government

was Jose Solis, minister and secretary-general of the Movimiento. Anticipating that Franco would soon offer to

declare him Spain's next king rather than Don Juan, in June 1969 Juan Carlos

warned his father that if he declined Franco's offer, Alfonso would be invited

to accept the crown, nevertheless Don Juan refused to consent to being

bypassed. Nonetheless on 12 July 1969 Franco offered to

designate Juan Carlos king whenever he stepped down from power, and Juan Carlos

accepted. Asked by Juan Carlos to be chief witness at the ceremony

declaring him successor and Prince of Spain, Alfonso immediately

agreed to do so and sent some of his supporters to visit his father in Paris to

persuade him to express no opposition publicly. In return for his full

support, Franco later appointed Alfonso Spain's ambassador to Sweden. But

in June 1972, after he had taken up that post, Alfonso advised Franco's foreign

minister Laureano López Rodó that

he deemed his support conditional upon his cousin's continued loyalty to Francoist Spain. He further hinted that Spain's law of

succession should be amended to facilitate Alfonso's replacing or succeeding

Juan Carlos as Franco's heir or on the throne, if circumstances called for such

a change. On 8 March 1972, in the Palace of El Pardo in Madrid, Alfonso married Doña María del

Carmen Martínez-Bordiú y Franco, daughter of Don Cristóbal Martínez-Bordiú, 10th Marquis de Villaverde, and of

his wife, Doña Carmen Franco y Polo (Franco's

only daughter. Doña Carmen was granted a title in 1975 becoming the 1st Duchess de Franco after Franco's death). The witnesses of

the marriage were Franco and Alfonso's mother. Alfonso and Carmen separated in

1979, received a civil divorce in 1982 and an ecclesiastical annulment in 1986. On 22 November 1972, General Franco

awarded Alfonso the Spanish title Duque de Cádiz with the dignity Grandee of Spain, and he received the style of Royal

Highness. The Cádiz title had been held by the Infante Francisco de Asís. Since

Alfonso's mother was not born a princess of royal descent, his grandfather

Alfonso XIII did not consider young Alfonso in line to the Spanish throne in

accordance with the Pragmatic Sanction of 1830.

Alfonso's father Jaime, however, came to assert that his sons were French dynasts entitled to the style of Royal Highness.

In Spain up until 1972 Alfonso was generally addressed as Don Alfonso

de Borbón y Dampierre. Elsewhere he was often addressed as a prince. From

his birth Alfonso was considered a prince du sang by those legitimists who believed that

Alfonso XIII was also the heir to the French throne. When his grandfather died

on 28 February 1941, Alfonso's father Jaime succeeded him in this French claim;

Alfonso was thereupon recognised by the legitimists as Dauphin of France. On 25 November 1950, Alfonso received the

title Duc de Bourbon (Duke of Bourbon) from his father. In 1963 Alfonso engaged

the French historian and ardent royalist Hervé Pinoteau as his private secretary. Pinoteau

remained with him until the duke's death. On 20 March 1975,

Alfonso's father Jaime died; he was immediately recognised by his supporters as

King Alphonse II of France. On 3 August 1975, he took the courtesy title Duc

d'Anjou (Duke of Anjou). 

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