WHEN Prince
Charles and Princess Diana accepted an invitation to spend a summer
holiday with the king of Spain the shadow of Camilla Parker Bowles
already loomed over their marriage.
Perhaps Diana confided in Juan Carlos or he simply sensed
her vulnerability and unhappiness. In any case it’s claimed
in an explosive new book that the king seized his opportunity
when Charles’ back was turned and made a pass at Diana.
The book alleges the seduction was attempted in Mallorca in 1987.
At the time the royals of Britain and Spain regularly played happy
families together but it’s now claimed both marriages were
elaborate shams.
Charles’ infidelity pales into insignificance alongside
the behaviour of the Spanish king if the book The Solitude Of
The Queen is to be trusted. It’s claimed Juan Carlos, 74,
is a serial philanderer who has a loveless marriage to Queen
Sofia, mother of his three children, and has used his power to
sleep with 1,500 women.
Intriguingly the allegations about the handsome Juan Carlos and
the beautiful British Princess were first aired a few years ago
by royal biographer Lady Colin Campbell.
Prince Charles’ infidelity pales into insignificance alongside
the behaviour of the Spanish king if the book The Solitude Of
The Queen is to be trusted.
She asserted that the pair were occasional lovers, also having
a brief fling the previous year on a cruise, and that Diana fell
into the king of Spain’s arms to take revenge on her own
straying husband.
Photographs from the period show Diana was clearly relaxed in
the company of Juan Carlos. In one informal pose she’s seen
sitting on a settee with him, wearing an off-the-shoulder dress,
while Prince William sits between the king’s legs.
During a 1987 visit, in which Charles and Diana went to Madrid,
the king was pictured smiling as he kissed the Princess on the
hand in a gesture that left Diana looking flustered.
Rumours of an affair have always been derided but the new claim
that Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia, who celebrate their golden wedding
in May, have not shared a bed for 35 years is bound to fan the
flames. Normally the royal family in Spain is out of bounds for
gossip columnists because an attack on the monarchy is regarded
as an attack on democracy.
Now it seems the gloves are off and the Spanish press is awash
with reports of Juan Carlos’ alleged infidelities.
The monarch received treatment for a lung tumour last year but
it seems age and ill-health have not affected his voracious sexual
appetite. Pilar Eyre, a respected author and journalist, claims
in the new book that Juan Carlos’ most recent conquest is
a young German translator. She also names several of the king’s
other alleged mistresses.
Royalists in Spain fear the fallout could permanently damage the
monarchy. Spain’s republican streak means affection
for Juan Carlos does not always extend to the monarchy as an institution,
raising doubts about its ability to outlive the septugenarian
king. For the king and queen to divorce is almost unthinkable
in staunchly Catholic Spain.
Like Andrew Morton’s book Diana: Her True Story the account
emerging from Spain contains a remarkable level of detail about
the strife in Spain’s royal family. Eyre states: “Queen
Sofia is a woman betrayed and hurt by the man she once loved blindly.
Her married life has been a real tragedy. Juan Carlos is
a professional seducer and age has not slowed him down.”
The king is said to regularly receive vitamin injections and anti-ageing
treatments to boost his libido.
Juan Carlos came to the throne in 1975 two days after General
Franco’s death and is credited with transforming Spain from
a fascist dictatorship into a modern democracy.
In 1962 he had married Princess Sofia of Greece and Denmark. Eyre
claims the marriage effectively ended in 1976 when Sofia, daughter
of the last king of Greece, took their children for a surprise
visit to her husband at a friend’s country house near Toledo.
She arrived to find the king’s favourite pet dog roaming
free and the home-owner frantically barring her route. Sofia burst
in and caught her husband with his lover, a well-known Spanish
actress.
A few days later a distraught Sofia took the children and stormed
out of the Zarzuela Palace near Madrid, the royal couple’s
principal residence, and spent 10 days in India with her mother,
the exiled Queen Frederika of Greece.
Sofia intended to separate but Frederika advised her to stand
by her man, warning: “Do you want to end up living in the
south of France like so many other former kings and queens, being
paid to liven up the parties of the newly rich?”
Sofia returned to Madrid but from then on reserved her affection
for her dogs and her children, notably Crown Prince Felipe. The
book claims Sofia, 73, suffered in dignified silence as Juan Carlos,
who has a fleet of 70 vehicles including Franco’s old Rolls-Royce,
continued to enjoy a playboy lifestyle.
One fling is said to have been with an interior decorator from
Mallorca, where members of the royal family spend their summer
holidays. The king is said to have had a particular penchant for
blondes. It’s said Sofia’s chauffeur, named only as
Gaudencio, had to pretend not to notice when she was crying
in the back of the car. The queen could not count on her Spanish
female friends because she could never be sure they had not slept
with her husband.
Despite being married to an allegedly insatiable Lothario the
queen is said to have remained faithful. But it’s reported
she has had the living quarters in their official residence rearranged
so she is not even on the same level as her errant husband. Eyre
adds: “In this country it is a feather in your cap to be
successful with women. In spite of his disloyal behaviour towards
his wife he is still more popular than her. Their backgrounds
made them an ideal couple but in reality they were chalk and cheese.
She dislikes bullfighting and hunting, which he adores.”
Juan Carlos has long been admired for his role in quashing an
attempted military coup in 1981, with the result that many Spaniards
call themselves “Juancarlistas” – supporters
of Juan Carlos – rather than monarchists.
Despite her husband’s greater popularity, Sofia, a direct
descendant of our Queen Victoria, is Spain’s “queen
of hearts”. The nation will never forget images of her weeping
with relatives of the 191 people killed by Islamic terrorists
in bomb blasts aboard trains in Madrid in 2004.
The author says the monarchy will survive, adding: “Juan
Carlos and Sofia have always fought for the throne of Spain. They
are aware of their responsibilities. From the moment she first
discovered her husband’s infidelity Sofia put on a
mask. Now they barely speak. Her only real goal is preparing her
son to become king. She has no friends, no one to confide in and
fears she is being spied on.
“The king is surrounded by a clique. Everyone loves him.”
Last year Sofia raised eyebrows when she did not attend her husband’s
hospital bedside.
In Spain parallels are being drawn between the marriages of Juan
Carlos and Sofia and Prince Charles and Diana. Equally unhappy
the couples chose very different solutions.
Sofia will continue to do her duty but Eyre, who has exposed the
50-year-old marriage as a sham, says: “She is the loneliest
woman in Spain.”
EUROPE’S royal families just can’t avoid scandal.
For instance, Prince Albert of Monaco is never far away from trouble
having fathered two illegitimate children. After his wedding to
former Olympic swimmer Charlene Wittstock in July 2011 it was
revealed there might be a third.
In Sweden the popularity of the monarchy has waned after the costly
2010 wedding of Crown Princess Victoria to her personal trainer
Daniel Westling. The festivities included an ostentatious royal
barge and the event left taxpayers with a bill for £1.8million.
It was then claimed her father King Gustaf VI Adolf once enjoyed
romps in sleazy nightclubs.
In 2009 Belgians were infuriated to discover that King Albert
II had avoided paying tax on his new yacht and in the Netherlands
in the same year Prince Willem-Alexander was accused of “behaving
like a spoiled child” over plans to build a luxury villa
in impoverished Mozambique.
In Norway Crown Prince Haakon announced in 2000 that he intended
to marry Mette-Marit Høiby, a single mother whose previous
boyfriend had been convicted for drugs possession.
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