The Spanish King—for another 10 days at least—Juan Carlos, has told courtiers that his decison to abdicate was in part prompted by a fear that his son, Felipe, would “wither waiting” like Prince Charles.
“I do not want my son to wither waiting like Prince Charles,” he reportedly told Rafael Spottorno, chief of the royal household, according to a report in Spain’s daily El Mundo newspaper.
Aged 65, Prince Charles is now the oldest heir to the British throne in over 300 years.
“He saw, above all, that his son was in his prime and didn’t want to see him like Prince Charles who will be 66 years old in November,” the newspaper quoted Mr Spottorno as saying, according to the Daily Telegraph.
The Queen is adamant that she won’t be abdicating.
Although he is being allowed to implement changes already, Charles is known to be frustrated by his long wait for power but he fully accepts that bar some unforeseen disaster that made it impossible for his 86-year-old mother to carry on, the chances of the Queen of England abdicating remain at absolute zero, insiders say.“The Queen dedicated herself to ‘a life of service’ when she made her 21st birthday speech in South Africa,” a senior courtier—who refuses to even utter the word ‘abdication’—previously told the Royalist, “The word ‘life’ is the important bit.”Part of the reason for a reluctance to even consider resignation is that in the UK, abdication is associated in the national consciousness exclusively with the darkest days of the monarchy, the abdication crisis in 1936.
