Both married to divorced women, committed to the most modern concept of monarchy, both Charles III as Philip VI they had to impose their will in love affairs on their parents. The British monarch’s struggle to carry out his desire to be with the woman of his life, despite all the difficulties, is much better known than that of Philip of Bourbon faced with his father Juan Carlos I, that pointed to Letizia as the cancer that would end up undermining the continuity of an institution. However, time tells us that Camilla has gone from villain to crowned queen of England and that Letizia is the opposite: a basic piece that supports the Crown with her good image, also internationally. The added task that Letizia and Felipe face is to rebuild the image of corruption left by Juan Carlos I while in the United Kingdom the power of the sacred and unquestionable figure of Elizabeth II is missed and the challenge of the new King and his consort is to keep some of that heritage of prestige and popularity.
Charles III y Philip VI They last saw each other in person in November, when the Spanish sovereign visited our Chamber of Commerce in London and officially invited his British colleague to visit Madrid with Camilla. In the background, Gibraltar, of course.
Almost 20 years of age separate Philip VI of Charles from England. The greater the difference between Joy and Camilla, a quarter of a century older than our consort. However, the son of Juan Carlos I began to reign at the age of 46 while the eldest son of Isabel II he has had to wait until retirement age to accede to the throne.
Both descend from Queen Victoria of England, but the distance between the monarch who is crowned today and our head of state goes much further and when we compare it, we can affirm without a doubt that the Spanish have a better king and queen than the British.
The lives of Felipe VI and Carlos III have become more mixed than it seems. It may seem that the father of William and Harry has come across more in person with Isabella Preysler than with the Spanish sovereign. Pwero is not like that. It was in the worst summer of Lady Di’s life (if we discount 1997) when the then Prince of Wales landed at the Son Sant Joan airbase in Mallorca.
Isabel II, in an act of desperation, had asked Juan Carlos I to host her son and his wife for a few days, whose marriage was already failing, in the vain hope of redirecting conjugal peace. They owed the British Sovereign great favors, above all that it was she and especially the Duke of Edinburgh who welcomed Constantine of Greece and his family when the little brother of Doña Sofía, cousin of Felipe of Edinburgh, had to leave by legs of his country. It was there, at that airfield in Palma, when both heirs wanted to show the world that their personal and family ties were above Gibraltar.
It was a gesture between a boy of just 18 years excited about the summer and his first dalliances and a man who was walking towards his forties He already had two children… And two wives. They have had to spend almost four decades for them to greet each other again in public but in private they have seen each other and have spoken on many more occasions than have been reported.
But the china in the shoe of these illustrious relatives is called Gibraltar. Let’s not forget the humiliation for Spain that Carlos and Diana began their honeymoon on the Rock back in 1981, which eliminated Juan Carlos and Sofía from the guest list for the wedding in Westminster.
The state trip that Felipe VI and Queen Letizia undertook in 2017, invited by Elizabeth II, included a moment of true rapprochement between our monarch and his wife and the then heir. Charles and Camilla, then Duchess of Cornwall, invited them to tea at Clarence House. We saw a surprising empathy between Letizia and Carlos in that meeting, where they shared their concerns on issues such as food, ecology or culture.
The chronicles of both the British tabloids and the Spanish press then highlighted the good vibes between the four of them, despite the fact that they are not precisely of similar ages (or perhaps because of that) and the respective propaganda apparatuses revealed the values shared by both institutions.
Also read: Gibraltar mourns the death of Elizabeth II: this is how they honor the figure of their queen on the Rock
