Abuse, secret children, luxury trips and bedroom scandals: The old European monarchies are finding it hard to hide their modern scandals

"When French authorities accused Prince Luis Fernando de Orleans y Borbon of drug trafficking, Spain's Alfonso XIII quickly pulled strings to ensure the scandal involving his cousin went as unnoticed as possible. The year was 1924, Miguel Primo de Rivera's dictatorship was just beginning, and the Spanish king managed to silence the matter by pressuring the media and making his troublesome relative disappear. Stripped of his titles and condemned to exile, Luis Fernando died in Paris in 1945, impoverished and forgotten by the Spanish people."

"Juan Carlos I, grandson of Alfonso XIII, has just published his memoirs in France with the intention, in his own words, of reconciling with his past, his family, and Spain. But Reconciliation, which will arrive in Spanish bookstores in December, has only reopened old wounds. Television, newspapers, online publications, magazines, and social media streamers specializing in the monarchy have spent days dissecting the book's most sensitive issues without restraint: the almost father-son bond the monarch had with Francisco Franco and his complicity with the dictatorship;"

"The omerta enjoyed by Juan Carlos is a thing of the past. That pact of silence began to crack in the summer of 1992, when Spain's then-prime minister Felipe Gonzalez was forced to reveal that he could not appoint a minister because the king was not in Spain. A simple phrase the King is not here caused the first fissure in the great taboo of the Spanish transition to democracy: the end of silence about the private life of the head of state."

Spanish royalty historically used influence to suppress scandals, as in 1924 when Alfonso XIII pressured the media and forced Prince Luis Fernando into exile; the prince died impoverished and forgotten in Paris in 1945. That capacity to conceal controversies has weakened. Juan Carlos I has reopened scrutiny of the monarchy, prompting media examination of his bond with Francisco Franco, complicity with the dictatorship, role in the February 23, 1981 coup attempt, opaque finances, extramarital affairs, and tensions with Felipe VI and Queen Letizia. The pact of silence began to crack in 1992 when Prime Minister Felipe González revealed the king's absence; El País reported the king was in Switzerland and Juan Carlos I had to return to Madrid.

Read at english.elpais.com