THE ANCIEN REGIME 3
Life in 21st Century Spain (though you wouldn't know it)
3) Autobiography of King Juan Carlos
Hi everyone, JC here... Juan Carlos de Borbón, that is, King of Spain,
Jerusalem, the Ocean Sea
and so on.
Though I don’t speak English,
(and to be quite honest I have a little bit of trouble expressing myself in
Spanish), my good friend Mr Murphy has promised to listen to my reminiscences
and translate them into colloquial English. We’re going to
look at some episodes in my life, starting with:
Rome, Italy, 5 January 1938. I am born.
My grandfather Alfonso XIII had to run away from Spain
after being booted off the throne in an unfortunate misunderstanding seven
years earlier, so we live in exile in Italy
and Portugal.
Later that same year my eldest uncle Alfonso is killed in a car crash in Miami,
the second of my grandfather’s four sons to die in a road accident. The second
eldest of my uncles, Jaime, is deaf as a post, poor chap, so he renounces his
claim to the throne. Which leaves my father, Juan, who therefore becomes next
in line to the throne. Meanwhile in Spain
the Reds are being spanked and Franco looks set to become Spain’s ruler
soon. Will he ask us back? I’m just a few months old and already I’m third in
line to the throne of Spain!
Rome, Italy, 28 February 1941.
Grandfather Alonso dies and my father becomes King Juan III of Spain. But that
Franco doesn’t want to let him become king. So we carry on in exile. Rome, Switzerland,
and Portugal are all OK but
nothing like being at home in Spain
and being an honest-to-God prince. I play at soldiers. I’m tops in the Afrika
Corps vs Tommies game I play with my new younger brother Alfonso. I’m Rommel.
Estoril, Portugal, 29 March 1956. I shot my
brother little Alfonso in the face and he died. That was very careless and very
bad. Father says I must be more careful when handling guns in future. He made
me apologise to Mother.
Athens, Greece, 14 May 1962. I get married
to a nice Greek girl called Sofía who’s also my third cousin. Her daddy is the
King of Greece, mine is King of Spain but only not in Spain. Both of
us have Queen Victoria
as our great-great-great-grandmother, isn’t that neat? She is some kind of religion
called Greek Orthodox, but she changed herself to Catholic just to be really
Spanish. She says “Madrid
is worth a Mass” and then laughs, but I don’t know what she’s talking about. Is
it a joke?
Madrid, Spain, 30 January 1968. We had a
son! We already had a couple of daughters, but they don’t really count. Now
with Felipe we are a real dynasty.
Madrid, Spain, 22 July 1969. Finally, I get
to be heir to the throne! Franco declared Spain a Kingdom in 1947, but my
father wrote him a note saying he couldn’t, so Franco got all angry with Father
and said he was a Red. Meanwhile the throne stayed vacant. When Sofia and I got
married, old Franco suddenly took a shine to us. He invited us to come and stay
in Spain.
Father was angry with me, saying I was undermining him and manoeuvring to
become next King. But I didn’t. I just agreed with Franco to continue his
dictatorship in my name when he dies, and pledged eternal loyalty to him.
Clever!
Madrid, Spain, 27 November 1975. I get a
coronation ceremony with a bishop and everything. Now I’m really king. When old
Franco passed away a week ago, I swore to uphold the “Principles of the
National Movement” and keep the Franco system alive. But that lot didn’t know
that I had one hand behind my back with my fingers crossed! So it doesn’t
count. Everybody knows that.
Now I’m going to start something called a
Transition – it’s like a change to democracy, but nothing that happened in the
Franco time will be held against us. Everyone’s on board, even an old Red
called Santiago Carrillo who I pretended to make friends with. This politics
stuff is easy – just promise one thing, do another, and try to make friends
everywhere you go.
Estoril, Portugal, 14 May 1977. Daddy gives
up, finally admitting that he can’t be king. I make him Don Juan, Count of
Barcelona as a joke. He doesn’t laugh.
Madrid, Spain, 6 December 1978. The new
Constitution is approved by a referendum, and a new Spain is born! I’m the King
of a “constitutional monarchy”, legitimate head of state and nobody can take
that away, never ever. They tell me that being constitutional monarch means I just shake hands and don’t talk in
Congress. Suits me. I was tired of politics anyway.
Madrid, Spain, 23 February 1981. The
bloody, bloody, Franco lot just will not give up and go away. Now they’re
occupying Congress and have sent tanks out on the street. I’m going to go on TV
and tell them all what’s what. Nobody is going to mess with my new Kingdom. I
mean, I sympathise with them and everything, but guns in Congress is just too
much.
Mallorca, Spain, 17 July 1992. The bloody
press keeps mentioning my friends Marta Gayá and Barbara Rey. Why can’t a guy
have a bit of discreet female company? I’ve asked Prime Minister Felipe
González to kill all this gossip. I’m the King of Spain, not a bloody fashion
model.
Madrid, Spain, 22 May 2004. My son Felipe
got hitched. Bloody nice girl, Letizia, I used to watch her reading the news on
TV and I always thought, nice bit o’ crumpet there. She’s a commoner and
previously divorced, but never married in the Church, so it doesn’t count, and
she can wear virgin white and be a Catholic queen. Funny, my uncle Alfonso
renounced the throne to marry a common lady, but that was a long time ago. Died
in a car crash anyway, silly bugger.
Madrid, Spain, 12 December 2011. The bloody,
bloody, bloody fool son-in-law of mine, Iñaki, has gone and got himself mixed
up in a fraud case. Little yuppy bastard is going out in the cold – I’ve
already cancelled his Christmas party invite. I asked Prime Minister Mariano
Rajoy to kill all the gossip about my daughter Cristina. He says she’ll stay
out of the courts, no matter what.
Madrid, Spain, 9 April 2012. My grandson
Froilán was shot in the foot when out hunting with his father, the bloody
worthless toff Jaime de Marichalar. My turn to administer the telling-off. I
used the exact words my Father used to me back in Estoril so long ago: you’ve
got to be more careful with guns in future. Jaime just shrugged and went off to
the bathroom. Little Froilán made a face at me like a sad sheepdog, so I said,
“Look boy, when I was your age I shot my brother in the face. But since then,
I’ve taken care and I never shot anyone.” I think he understood that. I called
that nice Mr Rajoy again, he said there’ll be no court for Jaime. Bloody
cokehead won’t be grateful.
Botswana, Africa,
14 April 2012. Bloody hell! I fell over while taking aim at a bull elephant and
I broke my bloody hip! Now everyone is going to find out I was hunting
elephants in Africa just after I appealed to the people in Spain to bear
up and face the austerity cuts with good cheer. I’ve already worked out my
damage-control strategy. When I get out of hospital, I’m going to limp up to
the cameras and say “Sorry, won’t happen again” really quick, then I’m outta
there.
London, England, 20 May 2012. My wife Sofía
calls me from London.
She’s very unhappy that the government told her that she couldn’t attend the
Queen of England’s jubilee bash. We’ve got to snub the UK over Gibraltar,
apparently. She says Queen Elizabeth said she’s having a great party, except
that “Cousin Sofía won’t be coming”, and can she go anyway? I told her, that a)
Queen Elizabeth is my cousin too, but I couldn’t go anyway because of my dodgy
hip; and b) If that nice Mr Rajoy tells her to be rude to the Queen of England,
then it’s her duty to do it. We owe him more than a couple already. And fishing
rights in Gibraltar is much more important than cordial diplomatic relations
with the UK,
everyone agrees on that.
Barcelona, Spain, 27 September 2012. That
bloody little bloody bastard Artur Mas snubbed me. Snubbed me! His rightful
sovereign! I was visiting Barcelona
to do some inaugurating, and I shared a car on the way over with Mas and his
sneaky little eyes. He said “You know, it was overstepping your role as
constitutional monarch and taking sides in politics when you publicly called my
self-determination plan a chimera”. I said “What’s a chimera?” Boom! You could
tell he was stuck for an answer. So then he arrives late at the official photo
and refuses to stand with me. That little bugger ought to watch it. It’s far
more important to appear united than to bother with stupid stuff like rights to
self-determination. Everyone agrees on that.
When I got back to Madrid I had a nice chat with that Soraya Saénz de Santamaría, Rajoy's right-hand-girl. She told me not to worry, the Spanish government had all the weapons at their disposal to deal with snotty upstarts like Mas. Nice girl, Soraya. You know it kind of gets me thinking that everything's come full circle. My moment of glory, the consolidation of democracy, was when I faced up to the 23-F coup plotters in 1981. Funnily enough, Soraya's father the General was there, running the police. Now we have his daughter, nice lady, who knows exactly what is needed for democracy. Reassuring, that. Safe pair of hands.
I slept soundly for the first time in months. The hip twinge let up, my mind was at rest. Mas and his smarmy little face receded into the mists. Even bloody Iñaki couldn't disturb me.
Sources
King Juan Carlos general background
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Carlos_I_of_Spain
Paul Preston, Juan Carlos:
Steering Spain from Dictatorship to Democracy (New York: W.W.
Norton, 2004)
Father, uncles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfonso_XIII_of_Spain
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfonso_of_Spain,_Prince_of_Asturias
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_de_Borb%C3%B3n,_Count_of_Barcelona
Death of Alfonso 1956
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infante_Alfonso_of_Spain
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Q55BoPYJYo
23-F 1981 attempted coup
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/23-F
23-F – Did JC sympathise with coup plotters?
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/revealing-conversation-with-german-diplomat-did-spanish-king-sympathize-with-coup-attempt-a-814156.html
Soraya's father in 23-F
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Antonio_S%C3%A1enz_de_Santa_Mar%C3%ADa
Queen Sofia forced to snub Queen
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/spain/9276931/Queen-Sofia-of-Spain-Europes-lonely-royal-consort.html
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