Pedro Fernández Barbadillo (Bilbao, 1965) holds a PhD in Public Law from the Universidad San Pablo CEU and a Master’s degree in Journalism from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and the newspaper El País. He works as a journalist for several Spanish media such as libertaddigital.com and gaceta.es. He was director of the news services of 7NN channel (2022-2023). He has written two humorous books about Basque nationalism and the socialist Prime Minister Rodríguez Zapatero, another about Spain under Franco’s regime (Eternamente Franco), a selection of characters and episodes of the Spanish Golden Age (Eso no estaba en mi libro de historia del Imperio español) and a history of the United States through its presidents, its Constitution and its electoral system (Los césares del imperio americano). He coordinated the book edited in 2020 by the ECR group of the European Parliament entitled Historical Memory: threat to peace in Europe.

The orders of chivalry founded in the Middle Ages are no longer brotherhoods of princes or warriors willing to fight in crusades or to make their lives a model of sacrifice and religiosity. Many of them have disappeared. But one survives, so prestigious that many personalities yearn for joining it. It is the Order of the Golden Fleece. Although it was founded in 1430 by Duke Philip III of Burgundy, since the 16th century it has been part of the patrimony of the Spanish Crown.
It should be emphasized that it is not a state-dependent award, like the Orders of Charles III and Isabella the Catholic. The Toisón is granted by the King of Spain by his will and the Government merely endorses that decision.
In 1559 the last general chapter of the Order was held in Ghent, in the territory where it was founded, under the presidency of Philip II. Then, the king returned to Spain. From then on, the Spanish monarch would obtain bulls from the popes to attribute to himself the appointments that corresponded to the assembly of knights.
These orders served to form alliances, reward the faithful and honor friends. In this last case we must place the collars granted to several sovereigns of the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Emperor Charles V gave one to Sigismund I Jagiellon (1519). Philip III gave two others, to Sigismund III Vasa (1600) and to Vladislaus IV when he was prince (1615). Philip IV appointed Sigismund IV Vasa as a member (1638). Charles II incorporated into the Insigne Order King Michael Korybut Wisniowiecki (1669), Prince James Ludwig Sobieski (1682) and Augustus II (1697).
The War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1713) led to the split of the Order. After the conquest of Flanders, the troops of Archduke Charles seized the Order’s archives and treasury and moved them to Vienna. From then on, two monarchs, the King of Spain, of the House of Bourbon, and the Emperor, of the House of Habsburg, considered themselves heads and sovereigns of the Order and behaved as such. Charles, elected emperor, awarded a collar to Augustus III (1716), the last Pole to receive it.
Already in the 19th century, the Order lost its religious sense and the Spanish kings themselves granted it to Christians of other confessions. The first lucky one was the Duke of Wellington, for his leadership of the allied armies in Spain during the war against Napoleon. The following beneficiaries, appointed by King Ferdinand VII, were the Russian Tsar Alexander I (Orthodox), the King of Prussia Frederick William III (Lutheran), the King of Sweden Charles XIII (Lutheran), and the British Prince Regent George of Hanover (Anglican). Before the end of the century, the Sultan of Turkey and the Emperor of Japan joined the Order.
The first woman who belonged to the Order was Isabel II; she did it as sovereign in her condition of queen of Spain. The first female memberships took a century and a half more. They were Queens Beatrix of the Netherlands, Margaret of Denmark and Elizabeth of the United Kingdom. The fourth necklace awarded to a woman was in 2018 by Felipe VI to his firstborn, Princess Leonor.
It is curious that nine presidents of successive French republics from the 19th century to the 21th one have received the Order of the Fleece. The first was Louis Napoleon Bonaparte in 1850 and the last was Nicolas Sarkozy, in 2011. Even to one who asked for it, Valery Giscard d’Estaing, the Spanish Government of the time took the pleasure of denying it to him with legalistic arguments. It would seem that those French presidents had more esteem for an aristocratic and Catholic order than for the republican and democratic Legion of Honor, of which they were grand masters.