Days after the proclamation of Don Felipe on June 19, 2014, Queen Letizia received from Doña Sofía the jewels of passing, collection of watershed of incalculable value that have passed from Queen in Queen since Victoria Eugenia, wife of Alfonso XIII,
This was established in his legacy.
She conceived it as a ritual to transmit power and strength to her successors in the form of rings, bracelets, earrings or tiaras.
After his death in Lausanne on April 15, 1969, in a codicyl of his testament, these jewels were included, the most important of the dynasty, which had received from the sovereign.
Among them a diadem of bright with three flowers of lis, a large necklace of impressive chatons, another with 37 large pearls, a brilliant brooch hanging pilgrim, pearl to which some attribute a kind of hex, some earrings with a
Bright thick and other smaller around, a brooch with a large pale gray pearl surrounded by bright hanging another in the shape of pear, two shiny butt bracelets, nicknamed cardier, and four wires of large pearls.
The jewels were the passion of Victoria Eugenia, not as boasting of richness or shaken exhibitionism, but as a maximum exponent of art and beauty, equipped with energies as a talisman.
According to her bridesmaid Lady William Cecil, expert in Egyptology, “the Egyptians attributed to precious stones a magical power that benefited the bearers of it.”
With the transmission of jewelry to go to Letizia begins the jeweler of the queen, the new book by Journalist Nieves Herrero, who presents this November 4.
“Letizia stared at the peregrine pearl and the rest of pieces with curiosity, that my predecessors looked at it does not mean that they made them happy, it is not given happiness,” she says.
The fascinating story of these jewels serves to enter the turbulent existence of Victoria Eugenia, the protagonist, and other queens of Spain.
According to Nieves Herrero “there is a clear fascination of Doña Letizia by Victoria Eugenia. Day after the important speech of Don Felipe after the Referendum Catalan, that October 12 decided to premiere the pilgrim in homage to his predecessor, which was one of the great architects of the
Return from the monarchy to Spain “.
The Queen’s jeweler relates the day to day of Victoria Eugenia and Alfonso XIII, adeeded with amenuous dialogues between the two, a marriage that was not because of a state, usual custom in royalty.
When the monarch saw ENA, a favorite granddaughter of Queen Victoria de England, she felt an authentic crush: she was 18 years old, she was tall and slender, with beautiful blue eyes and porte of authentic queen.
However, his life in Spain was unhappy: his difficulty speaking the language and his modern customs such as smoking, drinking liquor or losing a bathing suit on the beach, made him feel isolated.
In addition, despite her charity works and her initiatives such as creating the body of nurses of the Red Cross, the Spaniards considered it cold, “a beautiful indifferent statue.”
Nor did he have a good relationship with his mother-in-law, María Cristina.
“You are Queen of Spain, not from England. Here is not well seen that smoke, drink liqueur and do not expect the king to ask you before heading to him,” she reprimanded her.
His support was the sister-in-law of him Infanta Teresa, who prevented him.
“For the Bourbons, women have been the perdition of Him. I ask God that with my brother the tradition is lost, he is very much in love with you.”
But the king ended up resumed his hobby for nightlife and artists, like actress Carmen Moragas, with whom he had two children.
He used Duke’s pseudonym of Toledo.
“The king has no more love than his wife, but the Duke of Toledo can have some aventur,” he came to recognize him.
However, the true tragedy of Victoria Eugenia, which also destroyed the king’s love for her, was the poor health of her children, motivated by Hesse’s illness or hemophilia that she transmitted in her genes and became her calvary every pregnancy.
It affected four of its five stems, being the only healthy John, who fell the succession.
He prowered himself in Alfonso and in the little Gonzalo, Jaime was deafly and Fernando, was born dead.
The infants Beatriz and Cristina did not suffer it but could transmit it.
“Why did not he warn me in England from the Battenberg’s evil?” Alfonso XIII complained to Duke of Alba.
“I have a lot of sank against the queen, I do not deserve that almost all my children have health problems.”
As the love of the monarch mermed increased the jeweler of the queen with pieces of incalculable value.
As that aqua necklace of 215,000 franks that she bought him in Vaillant after discovering that she had a son before her marriage.
Ansorena, jewelers suppliers of the royal house, were the artificists of the order, and of many other jewels, in addition to passing, which treasured the queen: sapphires, emeralds, aqua … something that promotes the parallel story of the other protagonist of
Book, Ramiro Ansorena, whom he joined such familiarity with Victoria Eugenia who in Palacio announced his visits as “from home”.
Platonic, almost reverential lovers, who felt for the queen of him turns the presence of him into therapeutics for ENA, who listened with the stories of her about the Spanish sovereigns.
The conductive thread is the peregrine pearl, wedding gift of the king, by which he felt fascination despite her malefic legend and looked at her wedding, when she was about to die for a bloody attack.
Originally from Panama, a native believed to see in it the shape of a tear boiling that would bring great misfortunes.
She was fulfilled with Felipe II, first monarch that bought her, because two of her wives died soon.
Ramiro was narrating the chain of misfortunes of his predecessors, until the pilgrim left Spain with José Bonaparte and was sold by Luis Napoleon to finance his arrival to power.
What he never dared to reveal was that that pilgrim, which he considered the most precious gift of Alfonso, was not the authentic, something that he symbolized the culmination of the conjugal betrayal when he discovered it.
He later arrived the painful exile in Paris after the Second Republic, in which ENA was leaving Spain saving its most precious jewelry, its separation from the king and the subsequent death of it in Rome after a fleeting reconciliation.
Already settled in Lausanne, the authentic pilgrim was auctioned in New York and ENA entrusted the grandson of her Alfonso, Duke of Cádiz, who pushes up to $ 20,000 to recover it.
But she took her by 37,000 a shipped by actor Richard Burton, as a gift for her wife, Liz Taylor.
It occurred shortly before Victoria Eugenia returned to Spain on February 68 after 37 years of exile, for the baptism of his grandson, Felipe, in which he dominated Franco to designate successor and returned the monarchy.
Against prognosis, the streets of Madrid were filled with people acclaiming it.
“I can die quiet, I noticed that the Spaniards loved me,” the queen exclaimed.
At the reception they offered the dawn in the honor of it at the Palace of Liria, she became redunded with a Ramiro Ansorena and an old man and mentioned the auction of authentic pilgrim.
“Majesty, for me theirs will always be the great pearl of her jeweler, there is no other with such beauty.”
