His maternal uncle Tiburcio Rodríguez could have been involved in the 1869 assassination of the Burgos anticlerical civil governor Isidoro Gutiérrez;[34] he was later persecuted[35] and joined headquarters of Carlos VII during the Third Carlist War.

The young Francisco was growing up as an Integro; already as a boy he was listed along his father and brothers as financially contributing to the homage of Félix Sardá y Salvany, one of the chief theorists of the group.

[44] His zeal produced conflicts and incidents;[45] at one point he resigned from the director job[46] but he kept contributing, not a step deviating from the fixed line which hailed great Christians confronting sinister Liberalism.

[48] Another thread of his religious activity was charity, to become his trademark later on; from his teens engaged in organizations like Congregación de San Luis Gonzaga[49] he took part in numerous juntas and committees.

As Integrist politician he did not share the earlier anti-Carlist venom of the group and in 1910 he was noted speaking at a Catholic rally in Palencia jointly with Carlist militants Larramendi, Bilbao and Polo.

[70] Named gentilhombre de cámara[71] and camarero secreto[72] of the archbishop, in 1923-1924 Estévanez accompanied Benlloch on a long religious and political mission[73] to America, which involved visits to Cuba, Peru and Chile.

[74] In the mid- and late 1920s he was greatly engaged in numerous Catholic religious initiatives in Burgos, co-organizing feasts,[75] sponsoring various associations[76] or welcoming ecclesiastic hierarchs.

[94] During the first republican campaign to the Cortes of June 1931 the Burgos Integrists joined forces with Partido Agrario; it seems that Estévanez personally negotiated the provincial alliance with leader of the Agrarians, José Martinez de Velasco.

[111] This was due to his grandiose apology of Spanish Catholic tradition,[112] claim that all public power comes from the Almighty and challenging fellow deputies by asking whether they read the Gospel, to which many cheerfully responded either to the negative or with laughter.

[113] As a result, he gained opinion of one of the most reactionary deputies,[114] sort of a prehistoric relic, mocked as fanatic, extravagant and picturesque ridicule;[115] some dubbed him "cavernícola de las estalatitas".

[116] Undeterred, in one of the opening Cortes sessions when discussing reported extremism of the Left he declared the government responsible and warned that "the Republic was already reaping a revolutionary harvest from the seeds it had sown itself".

He did not assume any major post in the organization,[139] was only mentioned in a Carlist luxury publication which hailed 100 years of the movement[140] barely spoke at rallies and did not publish in party newspapers.

He vehemently opposed governmental agrarian reform[144] which he considered socialist;[145] though he supported growth of the class of rural owner farmers he envisaged the process as based on credit, syndicates, and agricultural organizations,[146] not on state socialism.

[147] In defense of private property[148] he also lobbied for flexible application of new regulations like términos municipales or jurados mixtos; when speaking to minister of labor he described these measures as undermining Castilian rural life.

[162] Deprived of his parliamentary tribune, Estévanez used his position of head of Federación Católico Agraria Burgalesa to lobby about wheat contracts,[163] trade barriers[164] and price regulations.

[166] However, immediately after the rebels had taken control of Burgos he published a large article which hailed the insurgents and dwelled on their patriotic stand against the background of such historical events like the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa.

[172] In wake of the forced political unification of April 1937 Estévanez was applauded in heavily censored press as a champion of patriotic movement, "nosotros carlistas y vosotros fascistas" who fought against "servants of Russia", yet it is not clear whether he actually supported the merger.

[173] He did not assume any post in the newly created state party, Falange Española Tradicionalista, and there is no information he accepted its ticket; similarly no source confirms he continued as independent Carlist.

[176] Estévanez kept practicing as a lawyer and in this role he defended individuals charged with politically flavored crimes,[177] he went on with charity action and was involved in running the Burgos Hogar del Herido.

[181] Estévanez[182] requested help on part of religious administration and the primate Goma;[183] it is possible that he actually transferred ownership of El Castellano, at the time issued twice a day in a morning and evening edition,[184] to the Toledo curia.

None of the sources consulted notes him as involved in political activities, either within Carlism[189] or any other structures; in police files he appeared as "desafecto totalmente a FET y de las JONS".

[192] Estévanez was then noted as involved in local organizations of wheat producers, notably in the mid-1940s he acted as president of Cámara Oficial Agrícola in the Burgos province, heavily engaged in trade, distribution and quality control.

It seems also that the chamber made some effort to protect small producers; as the 1940s were in Spain the years of food shortages and hunger, the position of Estévanez rendered him a locally prominent person.

[200] In the mid- and late 1940s the Estévanez couple at least twice travelled to Latin America[201] and at least some of these journeys were related to charity and religion, as he was noted as involved in the Cuban Sociedad Benéfica Burgalesa.

Except a minor related piece he has not earnt a monograph;[205] when mentioned in historiographic works he is usually presented as a reactionary landowner busy with preserving social inequality in rural Castile.

[207] The 2005 novel is set in Burgos before and during the outbreak of the Civil War; Estévanez is pictured in an episode possibly related to actual events, namely when introducing Manuel Machado to general Fidel Dávila.