The life of Juan Carlos I, Spain\u2019s 88-year-old former king, who reigned from 1975 until his abdication in 2014, falls into two parts: richly deserved triumph followed by richly deserved disgrace. Building on his 2004 biography, Juan Carlos: A People\u2019s King, Paul Preston\u2019s account of this extraordinary life is magisterial.<\/p>\n
The son of Don Juan de Borbon, the exiled heir to the Spanish throne, Juan Carlos was born in Rome in 1938. With a view to the eventual restoration of an authoritarian monarchy, he was sent to Spain, aged ten, to be indoctrinated in General Franco\u2019s political tenets. He also had to endure the dictator\u2019s long lectures on the mistakes made by previous Spanish monarchs. Preston may exaggerate slightly in saying that the boy had effectively been \u2018sold into slavery\u2019, but he was certainly very lonely. \u2018This child radiated affection, though they only ever spoke to him about duties and responsibilities,\u2019 one of his teachers later recalled. \u2018I am watched always,\u2019 the young prince told his father.<\/p>\n
Among several rivals, he eventually emerged as the favourite to be named successor upon Franco\u2019s death, a position that heightened the acute tension of his daily life. Though he believed that the monarchy would manage to survive in a democratic Spain, he nevertheless had to manifest commitment at all times to the continuation of the dictatorship. His telephone was tapped and his servants were paid to report on his every move to Franco. For 20 years, he later remarked, he had to pretend to be an idiot.<\/p>\n
The scrutiny intensified further when he was officially nominated Franco\u2019s successor in 1969. Many remained deeply suspicious of his political inclinations and the dictator\u2019s family wanted him replaced by a rival Borbon who had married Franco\u2019s granddaughter. The jostling for power grew more urgent as \u2018the biological fact\u2019 (the euphemism for Franco\u2019s death) became imminent. The collapse of the neighbouring Portuguese dictatorship in 1974 confirmed the Francoists\u2019 worst fears. Franco himself reportedly started taking a machine gun to bed with him, and died the following year.<\/p>\n
When Juan Carlos was proclaimed king on 22 November 1975, he was nicknamed Juan Carlos el Breve \u2013 suggesting a short reign. The Francoist establishment was determined to prevent change at all costs. Astonishingly, the prime minister regularly visited Franco\u2019s tomb to commune with his spirit and request his political revival to thwart the king. Meanwhile, among the opposition there was a massive pent-up demand to dismantle the dictatorship as quickly as possible.<\/p>\n
As Harold Wilson observed, the new king certainly had \u2018a very hard row to hoe\u2019. He longed to give away the immense powers that Franco had bequeathed and become a constitutional monarch, but for several years he had no option but to play a dangerously active role in the political arena. In the face of terrorism \u2013 right-wing, left-wing and Basque \u2013 he proved himself shrewd, ruthless and audacious. With tireless energy, courage and consummate skill he and a new prime minister, Adolfo Suarez, used the authoritarian system against itself to initiate democratic reform.<\/p>\n
His supreme test came in 1981 when, facing down an attempted coup, \u2018only he stood between Spanish democracy and its destruction\u2019. Grateful Spaniards poured out onto the streets: \u2018We thought we deserved better than a king, but it turns out that we got a king better than we deserve.\u2019 Nevertheless, after decades of sacrifice, a weary Juan Carlos was beginning to feel that it was now time to attend to his personal wishes: \u2018In that shift from sacrifice to indulgence,\u2019 Preston suggests, \u2018his downfall began.\u2019<\/p>\n
While Franco left Spain only three times during his almost four decades in power \u2013 to see Hitler, Mussolini and the Portuguese dictator Salazar \u2013 Juan Carlos made 242 visits to 102 countries, projecting Spain\u2019s image abroad, promoting business and fostering international links. But he was also giving free rein to his \u2018financial acquisitiveness\u2026 and unbridled sexual appetite\u2019.<\/p>\n
The final 100 pages of this excellent book make for sad reading. With increasing media scrutiny, Juan Carlos\u2019s reputation is trashed and the moral capital he had earned squandered. One implausibly high and precise estimate is that he had sexual encounters with 4,786 women. Preston notes that Andrew Morton has \u2018put the figure at a more modest 1,500\u2019. Rumours of illegitimate children, public sympathy for his long-suffering wife Sofia, munificent gifts of dubious origin, suitcases full of cash, corruption charges against his close family and 17 major operations resulting from sporting accidents and a licentious lifestyle all contributed tohis abdication.<\/p>\n
Still, as Juan Carlos enjoys his luxurious, self-imposed exile in Abu Dhabi, he can reflect that his sober, hard-working son Felipe VI is successfully securing the dynasty \u2013 while also agreeing with Preston on \u2018the immense utility of the monarchy in providing a neutral headship of state in a highly conflict-ridden country\u2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The life of Juan Carlos I, Spain\u2019s 88-year-old former king, who reigned from 1975 until his abdication in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38780,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[18200,2883,193,18201,18202,18203,18204,9439,18205,17,18206],"class_list":["post-38779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-biography","tag-corruption","tag-democracy","tag-dictatorship","tag-exile","tag-general-franco","tag-illegitimate-children","tag-juan-carlos-i","tag-philandering","tag-spain","tag-spanish-monarchy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38779\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}