Didn’t come too many times Spainbut although no one knows, the relationship between Isabella II D Spain were very intense, starting with the obvious family ties: let’s remember that Queen Victoria Eugenie was an English princess (born in balmoral, no less) and that it was at Buckingham Palace that she met her future husband, King Alfonso XIII. Considering such a wedding, Isabella II D Juan Carlos Bourbon they were cousins. But the matter did not end there: Queen Sophia, a nee Greek woman, was also a cousin Philip of Edinburgh, also born Greek. So family relations were quite close and, as far as we know, very cordial.

In fact, there is a rather revealing anecdote about this: when the queen once received players in Buckingham Arsenal, he approached for a moment Cesc Fabregas, who then played in the team (before moving to barca) and commented that she was very close with “juanito“as they call it in the family. She, for her part, was always for the Spanish cousins.Lilibet”, that affectionate nickname she gave herself as a child when she didn’t know how to pronounce Elizabethhis name is in English.

Salute to Spanish Democracy

But there is much more: John Bourbonfather of King Juan Carlos, trained at the Naval School Dartmouth and it is known that Dickie Mountbatten, Felipe’s uncle, gave some advice during the exile of the royal family. When Franco died and Juan Carlos was crowned, one of the few international dignitaries who came to the coronation in Los Jeronimos was the Duke of Edinburgh. Many European leaders flatly refused to attend the coronation of what they considered “Franco’s heir”, but Isabelle wanted international support for a country that, although few could have guessed at the time, was about to turn into a democracy faster than expected. could guess.

Years later, she herself came to Spain in person. in 1988, a month after the prime minister at the time also made Margaret Thatcher. He visited Andalusia, Barcelona and then spent several days in the Balearic Islands. The image of the sovereign watching the flamenco dance is famous, while Juan Carlos and Sofia are trying to explain to her what castanets are and how they work.

However, just because they got along well with each other doesn’t mean they didn’t have problems. It was very well known, for example, that Juan Carlos D Sofia did not attend the wedding Prince Carlos D Lady Diana Spencer. It was all due to diplomatic confusion: a few days before the wedding, when the then kings of Spain had already prepared everything and prepared their costumes, it became known that the Princes of Wales would begin their honeymoon (cruise on board Britanniaroyal yacht) Gibraltar, British colony. The Spanish government was so upset that they forbade the king and queen from going to London for the wedding.

It is known that the Queen herself Sofia explained it city ​​polethat Juan Carlos even called Lilibet try to mediate, but that the latter, although saddened by what had happened, told him that he could do nothing. Of course, always diplomatically, in a few days, Lilibet He wrote them a letter telling them that they would always be welcome in England and that they even had rooms waiting for them when they wanted to come.

Diana and Charles

It was the love he felt for them, a love that extended to the rest of the family. It is known, for example, that he was very sympathetic to the then prince – and now the king – Felipe. Not surprisingly, he invited them on a grand tour of state and—the highest honor—allowed King Philip to be inducted into the Order of the Garter, an honor bestowed on very few.

The relationship between the two royal houses also helped Diana D Carlos can spend several years Marivent, in Majorca. In principle, this was supposed to promote British tourism in the islands (which had already begun to actively emerge), but no one knew that Isabella II she wanted her sister-in-law and Carlos to be surrounded by loving people at the time when it became known that the marriage had ended.

So much so that it is known – from the memoirs published by the princess’s bodyguard after her death – that Diana took advantage of one of her stays in Mariventa to tell her bodyguard that she was having an affair with James Hewitt. In the same memoirs, by the way, it is recorded that King Juan Carlos seemed to Diana a “sobon”.