On 7 October 1920 he married Maria del Rosario de Silva, 9th Marchioness of San Vicente del Barco (Madrid, 4 April 1900 – Madrid, 11 January 1934), lady of the bedchamber to Queen Victoria Eugenie and sole heiress to the enormous fortune and long list of titles of the house of Híjar as the only child of Alfonso de Silva, 16th Duke of Híjar and her mother María del Rosario Gurtubay, at the Spanish Embassy in London. The two had a single daughter, Cayetana, who inherited all of the family's titles and fortune.
Early years
He carried out his first studies under private tutors, but was later sent to England to study at Beaumont College, followed by Eton. After returning to Spain, he continued with his higher education enrolling in the Universidad Central de Madrid, where he obtained his bachelor's degree in law.
Diplomatic career
Portrait by Maurice Fromkes, 1925
He served as Lord of the Bedchamber to the young King Alfonso XIII, who had acceded on his birth. In May 1902, royal visitors came to Madrid for the festivities to mark the King's birthday and enthronement. The Duke received the Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order (GCVO) from the Duke of Connaught, who was present for the festivities.[5][6]
Between 2 February 1930 and 18 February 1931, Alba was Foreign Minister of Spain. During the Spanish Civil War, the Communists occupied his residence, the Palace of Liria, which his daughter later restored, and they murdered his younger brother Hernando Carlos María Teresa Fitz-James Stuart y Falcó (1882-1936).
Alba became General Franco's official representative in London and opened the new building at Campion Hall, University of Oxford, in June 1936, alongside Alban Goodier S.J., the former Archbishop of Bombay, and the Earl of Oxford.[7] He was still the ambassador there in 1939, when Neville Chamberlain's cabinet formally gave to Franco's Nationalists diplomatic recognition.
The master Soviet spy Kim Philby wrote in his memoir My Silent War that the Spanish diplomatic bag during the Second World War was regularly accessed, "and from it [we] learnt that Alba periodically sent to Madrid despatches on the British political scene of quite exceptional quality. As we had no doubt that the Spanish Foreign Ministry would make them available to the German allies, these despatches represented a really serious leakage. Yet there was nothing that could be done. There was no evidence that the Duke had obtained his information improperly. He simply moved with people in the know and reported what they said, with shrewd commentaries of his own." In fact, King George VI was warned of this possibility in October 1943, as his Private Secretary Sir Alan Lascelles reported in his diary, and advised not to say anything that he did not want to reach the enemy.[8]
^Diary entry of 14 October 1943, page 201, "King's Counsellor - Abdication and War - the diaries of Sir Alan Lascelles, edited by Duff Hart-Davis, published 2006
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