Downfall of a King: Juan Carlos of Spain Author: Paul Preston ISBN-13: 978-0008741105Publisher: William CollinsGuideline Price: £30, 544ppPaul Preston, the authoritative historian of contemporary Spain, says at the outset of this biography of Spain’s disgraced former king that he aims “to reconcile the opposing dimensions of a remarkable career”. But can these opposing dimensions – self-declared champion of democracy and grotesquely self-obsessed hedonist – ever be reconciled? The effort strains even Preston’s superb abilities, despite his meticulous account of such facts as can be ascertained. Juan Carlos’s life is not only contorted by numerous contradictions; it is obscured by the multiple sleazy characters he has associated with, and by his own stubbornly opaque personality.He was the son of Don Juan de Borbón, heir to the Spanish throne that had been superseded by the democratic Second Republic and then, after a disastrous civil war, by the right-wing military dictatorship of General Francisco Franco.As a youth, Juan Carlos was shuttled competitively between these two contrasting father figures. Don Juan hoped he would foster a liberalising parliamentary monarchy. Franco was determined that the prince would continue his authoritarian regime with an iron fist. Preston suggests that at least some of Juan Carlos’s subsequent gross extravagances may have been a form of self-compensation for the misery of this conflictive upbringing.Under enormous pressure, Juan Carlos chose to become Franco’s heir rather than his father’s on the dictator’s death in 1975. But he then played a very high-risk game to assist Spain’s potent democratic forces in forging a democratic constitution, despite fierce opposition from a largely outraged military.Juan Carlos achieved the peak of his popularity when, according to Preston’s very detailed account, he courageously and skilfully faced down the maximum expression of this outrage in a 1981 coup attempt.Hailed almost universally as the saviour of Spanish democracy, he subsequently enjoyed halcyon decades of travel as Spain’s informal trade representative. Then an accident on a luxury safari revealed that he was both profiting enormously from his international contacts, and maintaining a virtual harem of very expensive lovers.[ ‘Whitewashing Francoism’: Spanish youth flirt with far right as 50th anniversary of dictator’s death nearsOpens in new window ]Abdication and exile followed. Preston’s summary of the conclusion of judicial investigations into his most notorious financial dealings and most visible love affair (the two were closely interlinked) neatly expresses the state of play today:“Juan Carlos emerged from the investigations legally undamaged but with his reputation irrevocably tarnished. The sentimental and financial relationship that lay at the heart of the matter, however, remained clouded in mystery.”Paddy Woodworth is the author of Dirty War, Clean Hands: ETA, the GAL and Spanish Democracy.