It’s taken 11 years, but Rosario Bermúdez has finally seen that wait rewarded. This Monday, October 21, a judge from Soria has ruled that his four brothers on his father’s side, Leoncio González de Gregorio y Martíthey must pay her 1.2 million euros in total as the strict legitimate compensation that corresponds to her for being the first-born – in addition to also assuming the costs of the trial. With this sentence, Rosario Bermúdez closes a circle that began in 2013, when she began her filiation process, just five years after her father—whom she never met—died in his palace in the Soria municipality of Quintana Redonda.
“I’m very happy, but I don’t understand much of this,” Rosario, on the other end of the phone, explains to EL PAÍS, somewhat overwhelmed. For this humble housewife from the Madrid town of Torrejón de Ardoz, who is now 72 years old, her father’s inheritance will help her compensate for a life of hardship and sacrifice that she now carries forward with a pension of 800 euros, but, above all, to alleviate her husband’s health problems and help her three children. “There are a lot of things at once, I don’t know where I’m going to start,” he says.
After a tough process to get recognized as the daughter of the widower of the red duchess, which ended in December 2018 with a ruling by the Supreme Courtafter having exhumed the remains of his father and having confirmed that DNA matching was 99.9%, Rosario once again encountered the reluctance of his already recognized four brothers – the three that the nobleman and horseman from Soriano had with the Duchess of Media SidoniaLeoncio, Pilar and Gabrieland another, Javier, the result of a romantic relationship that was recognized by his father in 1995—to make effective the amount that legally corresponded to him as strictly legitimate.
In May of this year, the Soria court urged all of Leoncio’s children to reach an agreement for the payment of the inheritance. They all agreed to pay an amount in cash, except Pilar, who insisted on paying her share—larger than that of the rest of her siblings because she had been designated universal heir—by giving a mountain of pine trees in Soria. Finally, Leoncio also disassociated himself from the agreement and faced each other in the trial that was held on October 9 to settle the payment of the strict legitime.
Finally, the judge has ruled that they all pay Rosario 1.2 million euros in cash, as claimed. his lawyer, Fernando Osuna. Of that amount, Pilar is the one who will have to contribute the most, 800,000 euros, as she is the one who inherited the most, as confirmed to this newspaper by Osuna himself, who has also indicated that his client is “very happy.” According to the lawyer, the sentence specifies that the money must be deposited “in cash” and not pay part or all of it with material possessions other than money. Although there is an appeal against the judge’s decision, the decision allows Bermudo to request payment of the money in advance before filing the appeal.
These 11 years have not just been a long-distance race in the courts. For Rosario, above all, they have meant fighting to assert her truth, the truth that her mother transmitted to her since, after becoming pregnant in 1950 with the son of the owners of the house in which she served—one of the most important aristocratic families. from Spain with a lineage that dates back to the 15th century—was fired and had to take refuge in Écija to leave her daughter in the care of her maternal grandparents. She, like so many other maids of the time, had to cover up that reality when she had to go to Madrid to clean houses to survive, but she never hid her origin from Rosario. In fact, in the Sevillian municipality they called her “the little duke.” She had to wait 66 years for justice to recognize her lineage and now she can also consider herself a legitimate heir.
