June 5, 2014 WALKS IN HISTORY: The Kings of Spain in Rota by J. A. Pilares Last Monday, the Spanish king, Juan Carlos I, made public his intention to abdicate the Crown on the heir apparent; his son Felipe, Prince of Asturias, Gerona and Viana. This move is not to be automatic though.The Spanish Crown is a far cry from the medieval or absolutist kingdoms of old, where the king could do as he pleased. In Spain all the actions of the King have to be endorsed by the Government; this means that the Spanish parliament, or “Cortes”, have to approve his abdication by absolute majority. It has not always been this way. There was a time when the kings of the different Spanish kingdoms wielded almost absolute power, although the Church was always out of reach, and other times when the king was nothing more than a “primus inter pares” (a “first amongst equals”) when compared to the nobility. Kings could be chosen by the nobility, and their rule had to be based on the principle of “Rex eris si recte facias” (“You will be King as long as you do righteously”). This type of monarchy, so far away from the Germanic model of the absolute king, gave the Western world the first documented example of a Parliament in the Cortes of the Kingdom of León, in 1188. In this Cortes, the King accepted that a Parliament including nobles, clergy and the cities, would have to sanction his taxes before they could be collected, as well as the declarations or war and peace. The Cortes de León and the documents it produced, known as the Charta Magna Leonesa, would influence the future English Magna Charta of 1215. And through it, modern parliamentary and constitutional democracy. I know that to many Americans, the very concept of Spain being a kingdom can seem anachronic or even undemocratic. And a lot of people in Spain think so as well. However, as we have just seen, the Monarchy in Spain has always been more on the side of representation than that of repression. Today we are going to meet some of the kings of the Spanish kingdoms that have visited Rota to prove it! The first King that we have news of passing through Rota is Pedro I “the Cruel” of Castile; we talked about him some weeks ago when we discovered the story of “El pozo de la Llorona”. Pedro was a King that desired to have absolute control over law and order in his realm, and to this end he swore to obey the laws of the Kingdom in the Cortes of Valladolid saying that: “Kings and princes live and rule for Justice, in which they order they lives and govern their peoples, and must make all obey the Law. True to his oath, Pedro campaigned against unruly nobles and even against his own cousins whom felt that they could do as they wished. His own sheriffs would patrol the Kingdom and apply the Law any nobles that did not rule by it. That is why Pedro
received the nickname “el Cruel”, although his supporters used the term “el Justiciero”. The folk tale of “La llorona” says that King Pedro did come to Rota… and executed the local lord (el Castellano) for his ruthless administration. Two hundred years later, in 1477, the most famous of the kings of Spain, the Catholic Monarchs (Isabel of Castile and Fernando V of Aragón) came to stay in Rota, establishing their court in the Castillo de Luna. Their visit was again a “peace-making operation”. At the time, most of Lower Andalucía was ruled by two nobles, the marquis of Cádiz and the Duke of Osuna. But these men, instead of guarding
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the border with Muslim Granada and keeping the peace, had dedicated themselves to make war on each other and disrupt inner peace and commerce.The Catholic Monarchs fined both nobles and restored the peace, turning them against the kingdom of Granada. These kings unified the kingdoms of Aragon and Castilla, and conquered those of Navarra and Granada to form what we today call Spain. To do so they had to overcome the power of local nobles, but this was not done through sheer power, but through politics; by getting the free support of the cities and the lesser nobles represented in parliament. In the “annus mirabilis” of 1492, the Muslim kingdom of Granada was conquered and Christopher Colombus discovered America to the Old World aboard Spanish ships; one of them even carrying a roteño, Bartolomé Pérez. Over the centuries, some other monarchs of Spain have stopped in Rota, but just on quick leisure visits that haven’t given us much to remember. On one such occasion in the 1800’s, the King came to Sanlúcar and Rota’s mayor raced to meet him there. Recognizing the King’s authority, the Mayor handed over his staff of office, but the King just kept it the entire day as he realized that the Mayor was anxious
to get it back. I guess he must have considered it a funny prank to make! Our last royal visitor to Rota is of course today’s “interin” King, Juan Carlos I. He has visited Rota’s Naval Station on several occasions, and once Rota’s town and castle in the 1990’s. Juan Carlos was imposed as King by the late dictator Franco, hoping maybe for an absolute monarchy just like the Dictatorship. However, other plans where on the new king’s mind. He knew that Spain was ripe for a return to democracy and that his duty as king was to help the nation to that goal. Many say that the King brought back democracy, I say that he was the key to it, but that it was the Spanish people that did it. The King helped in bringing together the democrats and in isolating those that were willing to carry out a blood bath in order to impose their ideas.The communist party was legalized (against the wishes of the government inherited from Franco) in 1977, and an attempted coup d’ètat by some extremist military personnel dismantled in 1981.The 23rd of February of 1981 some army units held hostage the Cortes in Madrid and drove tanks into the streets in Valencia. The King kept his cool, talked personally with most of the high ranking officers in the armed forces to secure their loyalty, and announced on television that a coup against Democracy and the Constitution would not be tolerated by the Crown.The next morning, the rebels put down their arms and freed the members of parliament. As the reporter Fernando Ónega put it: “Good morning, Democracy.” Ever since, the King has become a symbol of Spanish unity and democracy, he has never sided up with any political party, collaborating with all, and has been Spain’s prime ambassador overseas. Such has been his neutrality that one cannot even be sure of which football team he supports. However, his age has worn down his body, and some scandals such as the corruption of his son-in-law Iñaki Urdangarín as well as his own several romantic affairs have undermined somewhat his authority. The move to pass on the Crown to his son Felipe has been a wise one.A younger King can be a symbol for renewal that Spain desperately needs. Felipe speaks French and English as fluently as Spanish and has a lengthy experience in international politics as well as in military affairs. Like his father, he is a person committed to his duty since the day he was born; unlike his father, everyone in Spain knows that he supports Atlético de Madrid. From my particular stand I would like to use this opportunity to wish the new King Felipe IV a long, peaceful, productive and above all, FREE, reign. ¡Viva el Rey Felipe VI!
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