The activity of the Kings Felipe and Letizia in recent weeks has been frantic, but for months they have blocked this Friday afternoon and Saturday morning from their schedules to travel to Londonwhere they will remain for a few hours to attend the celebration splendors for the coronation of Charles III of the United Kingdom and the Queen Camilla.
Although from the institutional point of view, it is an unavoidable appointment; it is also for the relationship that exists between the Spanish and British Royal House. Related to Queen Victoria of England, her common ancestor —her granddaughter Victoria Eugenia married Alfonso XIII, great-grandfather of Felipe VI in 1906—, the links between the two monarchies They go far beyond blood ties.
When Don Felipe and Doña Letizia made their first trip as Kings of Spain to England in 2017, at the reception that took place at Buckingham Palace, Felipe VI thanked Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Felipe of Edinburgh for the invitation with a speech in which he spoke of the similarities between both parliamentary monarchies and highlighted shared values such as the plurality and diversityand the ties between people.
It was precisely during that state trip when Carlos and Camila invited Don Felipe and Doña Letizia to have tea at Clarence House, a gesture that showed the closeness and good harmony between the King and Queen and the then Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall.
Institutional role aside, personally Carlos III (74 years old) and Felipe VI (55) have values in common such as traditionthe friendship and the I respectsome beliefs instilled from parents to children. “Although they have very different personalities”, according to Henri Estramant, an expert on royal houses in the world. Estramant values ”very positively” that Felipe VI is an athlete, because it is a characteristic that gives the King a character of “effort and struggle” and of not giving up despite adversity. De Carlos III highlights his activism in causes such as the fight against climate change. In this sense, “King Felipe is very formal and with a constitutionalist profile.” These traits of Carlos III and Felipe VI have a common root: “They are Kings very committed to their country”.
Don Felipe was proclaimed King of Spain in 2014, after the abdication of Juan Carlos I. Carlos of England will be crowned after the death of Elizabeth II in September 2022. Thus, they become contemporary Kings, despite the 19 years that separate them.
The Kings Felipe VI and Carlos III have the responsibility of giving continuity to two reigns with historical legacies that they must maintain and perpetuate. They are aware that for this they also have to modernize, adapt to the new times and to the realities that the countries of which they are much more than ambassadors are going through. Hence one of the most outstanding phrases of Don Felipe on the day of his proclamation in the Cortes, in 2014: “I embody a renewed Monarchy for a new time.” A phrase that Carlos III can also make his own.
They have prepared throughout their lives to assume these institutional challenges and, along the way, throughout this formation of so many years —based on studying, observing and having good advisers— they have been outlining and designing the style of King they wanted to become. A personality that they have defended with courage and determination, especially when it comes to making personal decisions, like the women with whom they had to share their lives.
Carlos III could endorse a phrase that Felipe VI said on the day of his proclamation: “I embody a renewed monarchy for a new time”
«Both Felipe VI and Carlos III are married to divorced women. Those divorces caused quite a stir in their respective countries for different reasons,” says Estramant. “In Spain, some sectors of society thought that a Queen should not have a past in this sense,” she recalls. In the UK, it became “a matter of constitutional law.”
Carlos and Camila’s wedding in 2005 has been highly questioned by constitutional experts. “It was the first civil ceremony for a member of British royalty, and contradicted the then current Royal Marriages Act 1772, which was repealed in 2013,” explains Estramant, while adding that “the government’s jurists at the time assured public opinion that the marriage was legal.” «The two queens they were highly questioned. Doña Letizia for the Spanish nobility and Camila for the British of the various commonwealth domains. But both have proven with their exemplary work that they deserve the respect of the populations they represent,” concludes Estramant.
Felipe VI and Carlos III freely chose their life partners, aware of what the challenge posed to them was. With them they had to build a common life project that would always be linked to their institutional work. Already scenarios which many times would be difficult and challengingespecially since the two of them have to reign in a world that is constantly changing and which, on many occasions, they attend more as witnesses than as de facto leaders.
