British in Iberia

On the first of March, 1909 in the courts of Madrid, a trial began which caused deep expectations both in Spain and in England of the early twentieth century, in particular in London.  The trial was to dispute the inheritance of the multi-titled aristrocrat Lord Lionel Sackville-West, Count of Warr, Baron of Buckhurst, previous ambassador to Madrid, Paris, Washington and heir to the family estate of Knole, Kent.

Two Englishmen disputed the family estate including all its assets, titles and honors – one of the Lord’s nephews and one the Lord’s sons to the Spanish dancer, Pepita Durán with whom he lived in Arcachón.   Several children were born to this relationship, one of which was Henry Sackville who today contests the inheritance.  Lord Sackville had registered all of his children as legitimately born from his relationship with Pepita Durán in the civil registry in France.  The successor named in the estate, in case of there being no descendants, was the Lord’s nephew who claimed that these children could not possibly be legitimate as Pepita Durán, at the time of the births, was married to a Spanish bolero singer called Juan Antonio Gabriel de la Oliva.   The certificate of this supposed marriage appeared in the relevant parish archives, but exhibited some scratched-out changes, as a result of which a relation of Henry Sackville, with the surname Rophon and born and raised in Algeciras and José Sánchez, a local shopkeeper, were held accused.  The outcome of the trial which was taking place in London during this period depended on the validity or the invalidity of this certificate.

Lord Sackville lived in Knole castle until 1908.  Towards the end of 1896 an illness took hold of him which was to lead him to his grave, meanwhile his relatives began to worry about what would happen to his assets when the fateful outcome would eventually happen.  Lionel Edward, blood nephew of Lord Sackville had married the eldest daughter of Pepita Durán and also lived in Knole Castle.  He was aware that his wife, possible daughter of the Lord, was listed as being of unknown parentage, and he was also aware that the dancer was married to Gabriel de la Oliva and, consecuently, Henry, the only one that could contest the inheritance, was illegitimate.  However, he needed to prove this and therefore sent two English lawyers, Brain and Harrison to Spain to obtain an authentication of the marriage certificate and proof from the file in the vicarage.

The file never appeared but they discovered a note in the book of entries and the license granted by the vicarage to hold the wedding.   Having partly completed their task, the lawyers returned to England but Lord Sackville’s nephew, infuriated by the disappearance of the document, ordered a witness testimony in Gibraltar but this didn’t produce the desired results either.
On hearing about this unfortunate matter, Pepita’s nephew Enrique Rophon began making investigations of his own.  Aware of the enormous fortunes at stake, together with the lawyer Francisco Lastres, he went to check out the archives of the Church of San Millan and confirmed that the wedding certificate had been interfered with.  As a result, Enrique de Sackville reported the facts to the courts on the 30th October, 1901 and consequently the church assistant, Ricardo Dorremoces was prosecuted but, due to not being able to prove that he was the perpetrator of the falsification, the court dismissed the case.
 

Written by Jesús Castro

Translated by Rachael Harrison

Sponsored by www.costaluzlawyers.es

“I don’t know of any true account of this type of relationship, not one which has been written without the intention of titillating the reader.  I am convinced that as we get older, and genders mix according to our increasing similarity, these types of relationships will stop being regarded as simply unnatural and we will understand them much better, not just on an intellectual level but also a physical level.  The psychology of people like me will be of interest, and we will have to recognize that there are many more people of my kind than we care to recognize in today’s hypocritical system.”  From the autobiography of Vita Sackville-West.

“There is nothing more ideal, more dreamy and more chivalrous than the love between a lord and a dancer.”

In 1912 Virginia Woolf was married to Leonard Woolf, a recognized intellectual who, like herself and Vita, was part of the Bloomsbury group.  Leonard knew about Virginia’s lesbian tendencies and both of them agreed to a marriage based on sexual freedom.

It was against this backdrop that the unusual honeymoon took place, “when Virginia was seeing Vita Sackville-West, a writer and aristocratic, militant lesbian who supported the authoress of ‘Orlando’ in her entry to the exclusive Penn Club”.

Vita Sackville-West is a great expert on Spain, a country which was to figure constantly in the conversations with her lover.  Vita was the granddaughter of the dancer from Malaga, Pepita Durán, and of Lord Sackville-West, who kept his marriage to the Spaniard secret right up to his death.  Virginia’s lover, Vita, retold the story of her grandfather in her book entitled, ‘Pepita’.

Woolf soon discovered the bitter taste of romantic betrayal, and whilst in Spain received a letter from Vita: “I have a huge problem as I have become involved with Mary Campbell and the beastly Roy is prowling around London with a gun in his hand to try and kill me.”  In disgust, Virginia replied, “That’s what happens for being promiscuous.”

Vita’s grandmother, the famous dancer Josefa Dominga Duran Ortega (Malaga, 1830-1871), better known as Pepita de Oliva, was a true character of this era, and embodied flamenco in the widest sense of the word.   Her personality and fervent life, her artistic successes and performances abroad, an impossible romance and illegitimate children all help to shape her biography, a story to which it is difficult to be indifferent considering the era in which this woman lived.
Born in Malaga in 1830, an attractive Josefa Durán left for Madrid to make her fortune in the world of flamenco dancing where she was pupil of the great teacher Juan Antonio Oliva.  She adopted the stage name of “Pepita de Oliva” and building on the friendship and the generosity of her teacher, in 1851 they got married.

It appears that Peptia and Lord Sackville met in Berlin and when the aristocratic diplomat came to Spain as secretary to the English embassy, he was already romantically involved with Pepita.   It is said that in 1855, the Lord bought an elegant hotel in Arcachón which he named Villa Pepa and gave it as a gift to Pepita and it was in this hotel that the long love affair between the two developed.  This was also where their two children were born and where Pepa died in 1871.  Here, in the romantic gardens, he buried the body of the woman whom he had loved so deeply, having her tombstone engraved with the following, “Here lies Josefina, Countess  Sackville”.   When Pepita died, the Lord went to the registry offices in Bordeaux and declared the assets left by his wife and the children he had had legitimately with her and requested an obituary to published in the French press saying, “Lionel Sackville-West, first secretary to the English embassy in Paris and interim Minister Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary, requests the assistance of his friends and colleagues at one of the masses which will be held in the Chuch of Our Lady, on the 21st March, for the resting of the soul of his wife,  Josefina, Countess Sackville-West”.

During this period in Granada a boy was born and baptized in the name of Maximiliano, the legitimate son, according to some, of Pepita and the bolero singer, Oliva, and according to others, of Pepita and the Lord.  Amongst the children named by Lord Sackville in the Bordeaux offices was a Maximiliano.  The birth of this child which is registered as Maximiliano Oliva Duran is the one which is linked with the marriage certificate of the singer and Pepita in Madrid.   On this certificate the name of Oliva is not scratched off but the name of Pepita has been scratched away (to remove it) and is dated 10th January, 1851.  One of Pepita Durán’s nieces confessed something very interesting, after confirming that the child was Sackville’s.  According to this witness, some years after his birth, the boy introduced himself in Spain as Sir William Sackville, brother to Lord Sackville, saying that the Lord who was a member of the highest echelons of English society, was committed to diplomatic affairs and it was necessary to eliminate traces of his marriage to Pepita Durán.   Doña Catalina added: Pepita got married to Lord Sackville in the Church of San Millán in Madrid.  In order for evidence of this marriage not to appear anywhere, the mother of Doña Catalina looked for the dance teacher, Juan Antonio Gabriel de la Oliva who allowed himself to be passed off as her husband and the certificate was “altered” in the house of the parish priest.

Later, the Granada register of baptisms was taken to England where a huge fortune was paid to have the surnames of Maximiliano changed from Sackville to Oliva.

What would be interesting would be to find out if the marriage between Oliva and Pepita was legitimate, before she got together with Lord Sackville.  Another conflicting fact is that in the death certificate of Oliva in 1888, it states that the famous dancer was married to Mercedes Gómez.

“Going back to what I told you at the beginning don’t try and remember the love affair of Arcachon.  It was a love story, an ode in tune with nature, for two hearts, not for one day but for a whole existence.”
 

Written by Jesús Castro

Translated by Rachael Harrison

Sponsored by www.costaluzlawyers.es

Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1903, he was the son of Russian Jewish immigrants which, in some circles, gave rise to the tongue-in-cheek name of The Bullfighter of the Torah.  His original surname was Frumkin.

In 1929 Sidney Franklin was a tall, blonde young man with blue eyes who had that exceptional physical quality that made it impossible to tell his age.  He could have been 20 or 30 years old.  With an inexpressive, childlike face, when he spoke he moved his arms a lot, just like a Spaniard or an Italian, as if he were born in Malaga or Naples.   This made him quite an ungainly, lively bullfighter, with an incomparable charm.  When anyone asked him, “Do you speak Spanish, Mr. Franklin?”, he always replied asking, “and you, do you blag in English?”

The whole of Spain was amazed that there was a North American bullfighter as everything was missing there for such a thing to exist – interest and the right atmosphere, but if the USA allowed it, bullfighting would have had just as much success as in Mexico.

Sidney Franklin’s interest started when he was working in Mexico and he attended “tientas” (trials where young bulls’ strength is tested with lances) where he began to take part, realizing that “bullfighter’s blood” was in his veins.  One day he took up a cape and discovered that it wasn’t as difficult as he had imagined.   He learned the art of bullfighting officially in Mexico and Peru before coming to Spain where he fought as an apprentice matador in the main bullrings of Seville, Madrid and San Sebastian.  His favourite bullfighter was Cagancho.

As is the case with all celebrities, Franklin was surrounded by a cloud of freeloaders: the friend who would give up his life for him, his contacts in the press, his manager, instant “close” friends.  However, with regard to these others, he displayed another great quality: he knew how to smile at them all and knew how to step away from them when he needed to be alone.  In this respect he was very much a New Yorker.

In his autobiography, A Bullfighter from Brooklyn, Franklin stated that he learnt the art of bullfighting on the cattle ranch at Xajay and his mentor was none other than El Califa de León, Rodolfo Gaona.

Later on Franklin came to Spain where a media campaign began and thus, from the end of 1928 brief announcements appeared in the press informing that the New York bullfighter would be appearing in the bullrings of Spain.

Sidney Franklin was the first North American to take the rites of initiation to become a matador and during this they sent two bulls into the ring as he was not capable of killing them.  He was a close friend of Lorca and Hemingway.

Franklin was essentially an adventurer, belonging to a certain group of North Americans at the beginning of the last century.  He was Hemingway’s assistant during his correspondence in Spain during the civil way and abandoned an enviable position and his studies in his home country and began to travel the world.  He was a bullfighter, journalist, television presenter and wrote one autobiography, The Bullfighter of Brooklyn.  He travelled and lived out adventures in Mexico, Spain and Cuba with Hemingway until a misunderstanding came between them.   He died in anonymity in an institution in New York in 1976.  To the whole of that generation lost through wars and adventures he left the Aristotelian and laconic quote with which he began his book, “living honorably is worth more than just living”.
 

Written by Jesús Castro

Translated by Rachael Harrison

Sponsored by www.costaluzlawyers.es

At the time when Her Majesty Queen Cristina was visiting the city’s hospitals, King Edward of England and King Alfonso XIII of Spain were sailing around in the English navy battleships “Queen” and “Venerable”.

On board the “Queen”, the Lord Admiral treated them to a lunch, attended by Queen Cristina.  The banquet was held in the royal dining room which was permanently decorated with sporting trophies and pieces of artwork seized over a long period of time by the captain and crew.  As soon as the lunch was over, the monarchs returned to their respective ships which were moored alongside the “Queen”.   In the evening, the King of Spain paid a visit to the batteries and the arsenal of weapons before attending a banquet with the King of England on his ship, the regal “Victoria and Albert”, with the cutlery and vases, heavily decorated with carnations and roses, rolling left to right due to the heavy swell of the sea.   Queen Cristina was dressed in purple with sparking jewelry and the English sovereign was wearing dark grey and also heavily adorned with jewelry and with pretty flowers at her chest.   Accompanied by Kings Alfonso and Edward, the Spanish General Captain and the English Admiral respectively, the English monarch was wearing for the first time the high rank uniform which he had been given just the day previous.   Princess Victoria was wearing a black dress with jewelry.  English music played throughout the mea, starting with the march entitled “Long Live King Alfonso and Queen Victoria”, based on the “Royal March”, and followed by various regional pieces from Great Britain played on instruments unknown in Spain. 

On making a toast, King Edward improvised in English, congratulating himself on his visit to Cartagena and announced his intention to visit Madrid.  He made a tender dedication to Queen Victoria, giving his congratulations on the birth of the heir to the crown, claiming that this would be a new link bonding together the English and Spanish royal families.  He paid a warm tribute to the talent and the virtues of the Queen Mother and ended by toasting to the health of the King and Queen and the people of Spain.  Alfonso XIII responded by congratulating himself on having welcomed the English monarchs into Spanish waters and he assured them of the deepest support from his nation.  He then made a toast to the prosperity of the royal family and the English people.   The Kings spoke to each other alone, but only for a brief time.   The departure was very friendly, the Kings shaking hands, kissing each other on the cheek and saying, “So long, until we meet again”.   The King of Spain also kissed Queen Alexandra.   The Queens also said their goodbyes the same way.   The following day the King and Queen of Spain left for Madrid by train and the English monarchs set sail in their ship, heading for Malta.  The members of the English entourage were all given a gift of a Spanish crucifix and the Spanish crew received English medals.    The meeting in Cartagena was described in glowing terms by all the English newspapers and was considered as a great sign of understanding with England.

The Standard said, “England and Spain have common interests which we all have no objection in recognizing.  Although they don’t yet think this way in many other European capital cities,  in the interests of Europe and maybe even other continents, they are strengthening the ties which bind these two western countries”.

The Times: “It is not simply the royal wedding which contributes towards bringing together Great Britain and Spain, but the common interests of both nations which, albeit not as essential as during the period of Lord Wellington, put great value on the understanding between both countries”.

King Edwards headed to Italy to repeat the actions of Cartagena with the King of Italy.  The political goal of the journey could not have been clearer. 

A few days after the royal visit to Cartagena, “La Epoca” published the following official notice from the Government:
    “Before the meeting between  the King and Queen of Spain and of England, we explained the reasons and the importance of such success in a way that highlighted the fact that this was an act of courtesy between the two sovereigns, without the presence of the Spanish Ministers of State and of the Navy,  validated by the official nature of the visit and without the assistance of the President of Council changing in any way the nature of things.”

However, behind all of these events were the consequences and the developments from meetings which had taken place many years earlier; the Conferences of The Hague and Algeciras were both high on everyone’s agenda, including the parallel conversations between the Spanish ministers and Sir Charles Harding and Sir John A. Fischer.
 

Written by Jesús Castro

Translated by Rachael Harrison

Sponsored by www.costaluzlawyers.es