José Álvarez de Toledo y Acuña

In June 1864, Queen Isabella II of Spain granted then 26-year-old Álvarez the title Count of Xiquena [es], a county in present day Murcia.

He used this to jump start his political career, being elected that same year to the Congress of Deputies, the lower house of the Cortes Generales, for the comarca of Torrecilla en Cameros, province of Logroño.

In 1881, he returned to the Congress as the Deputy for the district of Aguadilla, Puerto Rico (still part of the Spanish Empire).

[1] In December 1888, Prime Minister Práxedes Mateo Sagasta brought Álvarez onto the Spanish Council of State, during the regency (for her child, Alfonso XIII) of Maria Christina of Austria.

Álvarez left his Senate seat in 1894, when he was appointed President of the Council of State.