Juan Carlos: A People's King
by Paul Preston
614pp, HarperCollins, £25
Paul Preston starts by saying that there are two central mysteries in the life of King Juan Carlos of Spain. Why did he accept, with apparent equanimity, his exiled father's decision to send him home to be educated at the behest of General Franco? And why, having been brought up to continue the fascist dictatorship in the guise of a restored monarchy, did Juan Carlos lead the way in returning Spain to democracy? The answer to these questions, Preston states, is to be found in his self-sacrificing dedication to the profession of kingship.
Perhaps that is true. But it is hard to tell from this book, which is not so much a biography of Juan Carlos as a history of Spain since his birth in 1938 from the royal point of view. No one is better equipped to recount this saga than Preston, the grand panjandrum of modern Hispanic studies. But he focuses so intently on the public career of Juan Carlos that he fails to bring the private man to life. Thus, for example, it comes as a surprise (after 512 pages) to learn that a senior official in the royal household fell out with Juan Carlos in 1990 because he was so "shocked by the behaviour of the circle in which the King moved".
To be sure, Preston does hint that Juan Carlos, though a model of propriety compared to his louche great-grandfather Alfonso XIII, has always been something of a playboy. He likes parties and practical jokes - in fact horseplay apparently led to the major tragedy of his life, Juan Carlos's accidental killing of his younger brother with a .22 pistol in 1958. He enjoys skiing, yachting and hunting. He adores fast cars and fast women. When his future wife, Princess Sofía of Greece, first met Juan Carlos, she thought him a scatterbrained hooligan. Today his image is tarnished by rumours of financial scandal.
It would be helpful to have more personal detail about the Spanish king, such as Ben Pimlott used to enliven his portrait of our own dear queen. Maybe the evidence is lacking. Or maybe Preston, who is as respectful towards the king as he is disdainful towards the press, scorns royal gossip. Yet only through a minute appraisal of Juan Carlos's personality can we really understand what motivated him during his long pilgrimage towards constitutional monarchy.
Although Preston writes English as though he were translating from Spanish, he guides readers through the twists and turns of the story with magisterial authority. What emerges is that Juan Carlos was a pawn until he became a king. His father, Don Juan, treated him with scant con-sideration, advancing the 10-year-old child into fascist Spain as a ploy to regain the throne after the civil war. Franco accepted Juan Carlos in order to conciliate Spanish monarchists and to instil in him authoritarian beliefs.
The dictator was determined to retain power as long as he lived, and he evidently regarded Juan Carlos as a hostage for the good behaviour of his father. Franco distrusted Don Juan for having said that he wanted to be a moderate, liberal king of all Spaniards - not just of the Nationalist victors. So the Caudillo and the Pretender tugged the boy this way and that. His schooling suffered. His father bound him as tightly, a Franco spy reported, as "the feet of young Chinese girls in iron shoes". His Spanish mentors made him pray for the conversion of Russia and for a Conservative election victory in Britain.
The fascist influence prevailed, especially after Juan Carlos had received tough training at several military academies (where he was deemed to be of average intelligence). He genuflected to the icons of autocracy and swore fealty to its principles. He hailed the dictator as a second father. He complimented the Caudillo on his Galician guile and said that he had learned much from him. Certainly Juan Carlos needed all the guile he could get, for Franco was a vicious and capricious master. He kept his protégé under constant surveillance and occasionally subjected him to public humiliation.
As Franco neared his end, however, he made Juan Carlos his political heir. This caused ructions with Don Juan, but at least in 1975 his dynasty would reign in Madrid once more. Many Republicans were also dissatisfied, naming the new king "Juan Carlos the Brief" and saying that he enabled Franco to rule from the grave. This was just what Juan Carlos's first prime minister, Carlos Arias Navarro, had in mind. He confessed to visiting the basilica in the Valley of the Fallen in order to commune with the Caudillo, to receive instructions and sometimes to request his immediate return to sort things out.
Like his father, Juan Carlos had long realised (and secretly acknowledged) that the monarchy could only survive if it became identified with the entire nation as represented by some form of democratic government. Employing considerable skill, tact and charm, therefore, he moved to modernise the political system. He dismissed Arias and appointed a reformer, Adolfo Suárez, who legalised political parties, held elections and introduced a constitution that gave real power to parliament.
This was anything but a simple process, being hampered by Basque terrorism and military obscurantism. One general denounced ETA as "a series of murdering dwarves, sewer rats who attack us from behind". Franco loyalists in the army feared that the state was disintegrating and in 1981 they staged a coup. Its leader was General Alfonso Armada, one of the king's closest confidants, who claimed to be acting in his name. But Juan Carlos knew that another fascist regime was unacceptable and he did much to ensure that the rebellion was crushed.
As a result Spain progressed and the king's political parsnips were buttered for life. Even the socialist leader Felipe González, though he caused perturbation in the palace by trying to avoid using the term "his majesty", seemed to think that Juan Carlos had established himself as the "people's king". Perhaps he had done so in pursuit of his royal duty. But there is another possible explanation, which also resolves Preston's twin royal mysteries. This is that he always had his eye on the main chance and that, while serving the institution of monarchy, he was also serving himself. He was prepared to do anything, whether condoning dictatorship or embracing democracy, in order to win and wear the crown.
· Piers Brendon's books include The Dark Valley: A Panorama of the 1930s.
