Gen. Franco’s granddaughter marries Bourbon prince

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32862, 10 March 1972, Page 5

Gen. Franco ’s granddaughter marries Bourbon prince

(N.Z P A.-Reuter—Copyright)

MADRID, March 9.

General Francisco Franco’s favourite granddaughter became a Bourbon princess in Madrid last night when she was married to the eldest grandson of Spain’s last king.

Members of European royal households and the international jet-set mingled with politicians and bullfighters as Maria Del Carmen Martinez-Bordiu, aged 21, wed Don Alfonso of Bourbon and Dampierre, Spain’s 35-year-old Ambassador to Sweden. More than 2000 guests attended the wedding ceremony—Madrid’s most glamorous social event for years —in the eighteenth-century chapel of General Franco’s residence and the outskirts of Madrid and the gala reception that followed in the adjoining gardens. General Franco gave the bride away in the religious ceremony, which lasted 50 minutes and was conducted by the Archbishop of Madrid (Cardinal Vicente Enrique Y T' rancon). Prince Juan Carlos, the bridegroom’s first cousin and designated by General Franco as Spain’s next King, was a chief witness, with his wife, the Greek-born Princess Sophia.

The wedding came after a series of minor skirmishes between police and students and workers in Madrid earlier in the day. In one incident, a group of some 90 persons, apparently workers, smashed windows at a local bank. At the troubled Madrid University, several students were reported detained in scuffles with police after the authorities reported widespread absenteeism there. Underground workei and student groups had called for a “general holiday” yesterday as an anti-Government protest timed to coincide with the palace* wedding.

The call went virtually unheeded.

The handsome Don Alfonso, eldest grandson of Alfonso XIII, who abdicated as Spanish king in 1931, first met Maria Del Carmen when they were children. They met again in Stockholm last year and became engaged last December.

Maria Del Carmen, a pretty and vivacious browneyed blonde, is the eldest daughter of General Franco’s only child, Carmen, and a prominent Spanish surgeon, the Marques of Villaverde. She wore a wedding gown fashioned by the Spanish designer, Balenciaga, who came out of retirement to make it. The highlight of the glittering reception in the palace grounds—the site of a mediaeval hunting lodge—came when the couple cut a I Oft wedding cake as the elegantly turned-out guests sipped champagne served by white-gloved waiters in eighteenth-century hose and waistcoats. ’The couple will have a long honeymoon, which will include a six-week round-the-world tour before Don Alfonso takes his bride to Stockholm.