The Red Duchess of Medina Sidonia married her secretary on the day she died, and her children sued over the palace foundation

Luisa Isabel Álvarez de Toledo, 21st Duchess of Medina Sidonia, was jailed in Alcalá de Henares in the 1960s for anti-Franco activity. In 1990 she created the Fundación Casa Medina Sidonia and gave it most of her estate. That included the Palace of the Guzmanes in Sanlúcar de Barrameda, a protected monument since 1978, and the ducal archive of 6,318 bundles of documents, which she had catalogued. On 7 March 2008, dying of lung cancer at 71, she married Liliane Dahlmann, her secretary and partner of more than 20 years, in a civil ceremony. She died the same day. The foundation's statutes made Dahlmann president for life. Her three children from her 1955 marriage, Leoncio, Pilar and Gabriel, demanded that the foundation be restructured. They argued that her lifetime gifts must be reduced to pay the shares Spanish law reserves for children. On 15 July 2008 the Justice Ministry granted Leoncio the title of Duke of Medina Sidonia. Pilar and Gabriel contested his claim to other titles, and those were settled in 2010. In 2024 the Cádiz provincial court sentenced Dahlmann to six months in prison and ordered her to pay the duke 278,678 euros for taking money from a bank account in England. She appealed. No final ruling reducing the foundation's assets was found in the sources checked^†. In 2026 the foundation still holds the palace and archive, runs volunteer tours and held public events there in September.