Fernando Ramon Folch, 2nd Duke of Cardona

Fernand was also 2nd Marquis of Pallars, 7th Count of Prades, Viscount of Villamur, Baron of Entenza, Great Constable and Admiral of Aragon as well as a Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece invested in 1519 by King Charles I of Spain.

He was married on 17 February 1498, at Epila, Zaragoza, Spain, to Francisca Manrique de Lara (deceased at Arbeca, prov.

Don Fernando and Doña Francisca had no sons, but four daughters of whom the eldest, Juana Folch De Cardona y Manrique de Lara (Juana I, born circa 1490), inherited her father's titles, including the honour of Grandee of Spain, on her father's death in November 1543.

"El Africano" because of his long residential times in surrounding Muslim areas in North Africa, strongholds of Imperial Spain.

Thus, the study of notorious old family pressure groups and rather elusive "power lobbies" could be very complicated and erroneous or at least misleading to process, without today's computer info retrievals, indeed, at least in the Spanish case.

Coat of Arms of the family Cardona, Barons, Viscounts, Counts, (since 1375), and Dukes, (since 1491), successively, since their beginnings around the 11th century, from the kingdom of Aragon - Catalonia.

Súria and Cardona, in Catalonia have provided for over 1000 years potassium salts for dried meat keeping and gunpowder manufacturing.

By the second half of the 16th century, the 4th ruling duke, duchess Juana II Folch de Cardona, deceased 1608 had married the Andalusian 3rd marquis of Comares, a title of lesser rank, a "Fernandez de Cordoba", named "El Africano", because he was born in 1523, and lived for very long times in the Spanish naval strongholds in Algeria and Morocco, North Africa.