WEBVTT - A King Legitimate and Illegitimate 0:00:00.760 --> 0:00:03.920 Welcome to Noble Blood, a production of I Heart Radio 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:08.520 and Grim and Mild from Aaronminki listener discretion is advised. 0:00:17.360 --> 0:00:20.119 In the hills of Catalonia, the region of Spain, to 0:00:20.160 --> 0:00:23.639 the northeast, close to the border with France, there's a 0:00:23.680 --> 0:00:27.479 small town called La Bisba Demporta. It's not a frequent 0:00:27.560 --> 0:00:31.280 stop for most tourists. The town is quaint but a 0:00:31.320 --> 0:00:36.440 little run down. A dry riverbed, grassy and derelict runs 0:00:36.479 --> 0:00:40.520 through the town center, a place where a weekly market appears. 0:00:40.560 --> 0:00:45.920 A few tents and carts people selling mostly crafts and ceramics. 0:00:46.760 --> 0:00:49.640 There's a pub there in town, a restaurant and bar 0:00:49.760 --> 0:00:53.680 called El Drac with a large outdoor seating area that 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:58.360 sprawls onto the sidewalk. According to trip Advisory views, it's 0:00:58.480 --> 0:01:00.840 not a bad place to stop were a quick bite 0:01:00.960 --> 0:01:04.840 or something to drink. Trish gave it five stars. In 0:01:04.880 --> 0:01:09.440 her review, she wrote quote the restaurant itself is very atmospheric, 0:01:09.560 --> 0:01:14.080 with original stone walls, open fire, and well spaced out tables, 0:01:14.160 --> 0:01:18.479 which I like. Another user named beck clev M had 0:01:18.520 --> 0:01:24.640 a slightly less enjoyable experience. His one star review complained quote, 0:01:25.040 --> 0:01:27.800 there was no one behind the bar for five minutes, 0:01:28.240 --> 0:01:32.280 despite we have been sitting there, and staff was walking 0:01:32.319 --> 0:01:37.679 around the bar often. Finally bartender arrived and made us drinks. 0:01:38.360 --> 0:01:43.440 The service staff seemed to be acting without organization, everyone 0:01:43.520 --> 0:01:48.240 doing everything and nothing. I wonder if that clev M 0:01:48.320 --> 0:01:52.000 might have felt differently if he had asked around, if 0:01:52.000 --> 0:01:54.400 he had maybe turned to a local next to him 0:01:54.440 --> 0:02:00.400 and inquired who exactly Aldrack was employing as servers. If 0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:03.240 he looked closely, he might have seen a few things 0:02:03.280 --> 0:02:07.440 that made Aldrac unique. The walls were peppered with framed 0:02:07.560 --> 0:02:11.840 newspaper articles and a framed book cover. They had a 0:02:11.919 --> 0:02:16.120 sandwich on the menu called the Monarch, and one of 0:02:16.160 --> 0:02:20.640 the servers, a man named Albert Sola, answered to a 0:02:20.680 --> 0:02:24.720 specific nickname from drinkers at the bar. The regulars all 0:02:24.760 --> 0:02:29.680 called him the Little King. Albert looks younger than his 0:02:29.760 --> 0:02:32.799 sixty five years. He has a full head of salt 0:02:32.800 --> 0:02:35.960 and pepper hair, re seating slightly at the sides into 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:39.440 a deep widow's peak. His eyes are close set, deep 0:02:39.560 --> 0:02:44.200 and intelligent, and his nose is long with a patrician curve. 0:02:44.960 --> 0:02:48.920 It's the nose in particular that I think makes Albert 0:02:48.919 --> 0:02:53.680 Sola most closely resemble the former King of Spain, Juan 0:02:53.680 --> 0:02:57.720 Carlos the First, who abdicated the throne in twenty fourteen 0:02:57.840 --> 0:03:01.560 amidst a flurry of scandals, and for the past few 0:03:01.639 --> 0:03:05.920 years Juan Carlos has been deflecting the possibility of yet 0:03:06.040 --> 0:03:11.600 another scandal. Albert Sola, the waiter at Eldrach, claims to 0:03:11.680 --> 0:03:16.080 be the former king's son, and not just his son. 0:03:17.040 --> 0:03:20.760 According to Albert Sola's birth certificate, he would be the 0:03:20.880 --> 0:03:25.760 king's oldest son, older than Juan Carlos's son Philippe, who 0:03:25.800 --> 0:03:28.919 was sent to the throne in two thousand fourteen as 0:03:28.919 --> 0:03:33.280 Philippe the Sixth. Now on this podcast, I have covered 0:03:33.440 --> 0:03:37.160 more than a few stories of royal pretenders. There was 0:03:37.200 --> 0:03:40.800 the Tickborne claimant, the Australian man who came to England 0:03:41.160 --> 0:03:44.960 claiming to be the long missing Roger Tickborn, heir to 0:03:45.000 --> 0:03:49.160 his family's barancy, presumed dead in a shipwreck. Then there 0:03:49.240 --> 0:03:52.560 was the woman who appeared in Bristol in eighteen seventeen 0:03:52.920 --> 0:03:56.480 who spoke in a made up language and declared that 0:03:56.520 --> 0:04:00.040 she was Princess Cariboo of a far away island. And 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:04.760 throughout the centuries a number of royal children whom history 0:04:04.760 --> 0:04:08.280 acknowledged to be dead, like Marie Antoinette's son and the 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:13.520 royal Romanov Princess Anastasia, have been the subject of numerous hoaxes, 0:04:13.960 --> 0:04:18.000 with actors and grifters appearing and proclaiming that they've been 0:04:18.000 --> 0:04:22.760 alive this whole time, living lives of secret poverty, waiting 0:04:22.839 --> 0:04:27.279 for their chance to re emerge. You, the listener, are, 0:04:27.440 --> 0:04:31.440 of course welcome to believe whatever you want, although I 0:04:31.480 --> 0:04:34.120 think I would be remiss in my duties as the 0:04:34.120 --> 0:04:36.800 host of this podcast if I didn't tell you that, 0:04:36.880 --> 0:04:40.320 in my professional opinion, all of the people who pretend 0:04:40.360 --> 0:04:44.400 to be the lost of Fa Louis or Anastasia Romanov 0:04:44.600 --> 0:04:49.520 are just factually, on the evidence lying, and that the 0:04:49.520 --> 0:04:52.839 man who claimed to be Roger Tickborne was actually, by 0:04:52.960 --> 0:04:56.240 all the evidence, a man named Arthur Orton, the son 0:04:56.240 --> 0:05:00.680 of a butcher, and that, of course Princess Cariboo was 0:05:00.839 --> 0:05:06.159 complete nonsense. And so the case of Albert Silla might 0:05:06.200 --> 0:05:10.280 be the first occasion in which I think the evidence 0:05:10.360 --> 0:05:14.680 actually weighs more likely than not that a man who 0:05:14.760 --> 0:05:17.479 was working as a waiter in a restaurant for most 0:05:17.520 --> 0:05:21.360 of his adult life might actually be the previous King 0:05:21.400 --> 0:05:26.200 of Spain's oldest son. He's not necessarily the heir to 0:05:26.279 --> 0:05:31.200 the throne. He was, after all illegitimate, but certainly someone 0:05:31.320 --> 0:05:36.160 with a claim to it. Unlike most episodes of Noble Blood, 0:05:36.520 --> 0:05:40.000 this is a modern story from the twentieth century, and 0:05:40.160 --> 0:05:45.039 a story that's ongoing, continually developing today. But it's a 0:05:45.080 --> 0:05:48.640 story that sheds a light on the problems for modern 0:05:48.720 --> 0:05:52.640 monarchies to day. Back in the sixteen hundreds, it was 0:05:52.720 --> 0:05:56.440 easy enough to shroud a king in majesty, back when 0:05:56.480 --> 0:05:59.080 the people of a kingdom would only be exposed to 0:05:59.120 --> 0:06:03.960 a king through portraitures and glamorous pageantry, and of course 0:06:04.000 --> 0:06:08.880 the words of the trusted Church. But today journalists and 0:06:09.040 --> 0:06:13.760 internet gossip makes easy work of proving that the people 0:06:13.800 --> 0:06:17.000 who are supposed to be God's chosen rulers on earth 0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:20.920 are just as mortal in their failings as the rest 0:06:20.960 --> 0:06:24.680 of us. It's enough to make you wonder who are 0:06:24.720 --> 0:06:31.080 the real pretenders. I'm Danish wartz, and this is Noble Blood. 0:06:45.120 --> 0:06:47.400 Maybe now is as good a time as any to 0:06:47.480 --> 0:06:52.359 go over a little bit of Spanish history. In the 0:06:52.480 --> 0:06:56.160 monarchy of Spain was overthrown in favor of the Second 0:06:56.360 --> 0:07:00.960 Spanish Republic, the former King Alfonso the third teenh went 0:07:01.040 --> 0:07:05.520 peacefully into exile. He and his two oldest sons renounced 0:07:05.520 --> 0:07:08.200 their claims to the throne and went to live in Rome. 0:07:09.160 --> 0:07:13.200 But the Second Spanish Republic was short lived. There was 0:07:13.240 --> 0:07:17.520 an election for a Constitutional Cortes, a group to rewrite 0:07:17.520 --> 0:07:21.920 the constitution of Spain with progressive reforms, and those reforms 0:07:21.960 --> 0:07:26.400 included the separation of church and state, forbidding religious teachings 0:07:26.440 --> 0:07:30.960 in public schools. But Spain was still an incredibly Catholic 0:07:31.000 --> 0:07:34.840 country and the Republican prime minister at the time was 0:07:34.920 --> 0:07:39.600 religious himself. He resigned and another prime minister, the more 0:07:39.680 --> 0:07:44.040 liberal Azagna, was eventually ousted in an election in favor 0:07:44.120 --> 0:07:47.800 of a right winger, Laurel. From that point on, there 0:07:47.800 --> 0:07:51.840 were a number of socialist uprisings throughout the country, and 0:07:51.880 --> 0:07:56.640 the factionalism among the Republicans weakened their hold on the country, 0:07:56.720 --> 0:08:01.240 which gave the military opportunity to attempt a coup. When 0:08:01.280 --> 0:08:04.160 I refer to the Republicans here, I'm not talking about 0:08:04.240 --> 0:08:08.920 a specific political party like Republicans in America. I'm referring 0:08:08.960 --> 0:08:12.240 to the people in favor of the Second Spanish Republic, 0:08:12.760 --> 0:08:17.800 the ostensible, democratic, more progressive government of the country which 0:08:17.880 --> 0:08:22.520 was recognized internationally, but which because it contained people from 0:08:22.560 --> 0:08:26.480 across the political spectrum, failed to be united enough to 0:08:26.520 --> 0:08:33.640 maintain control against the oncoming coup. The war between the 0:08:33.679 --> 0:08:36.959 Republicans and the military, who came to be known as 0:08:37.040 --> 0:08:43.400 the Nationalists, devastated the country with countless atrocities, massacres, and 0:08:43.480 --> 0:08:47.640 brutal attacks, including the bombing of Guernica, now immortalized in 0:08:47.640 --> 0:08:53.280 one of Pablo Picasso's most famous paintings. Eventually, the Nationalists 0:08:53.480 --> 0:08:58.720 the Spanish military, captured Barcelona and then Madrid, and their leader, 0:08:59.000 --> 0:09:04.320 Francisco Front declared victory, setting off the next several decades 0:09:04.360 --> 0:09:09.520 of his far right authoritarian regime. I'm skating through a 0:09:09.600 --> 0:09:12.480 lot of history here very quickly, but to get back 0:09:12.520 --> 0:09:16.440 to the monarchy. Fringo was attracted to the idea of 0:09:16.480 --> 0:09:20.840 the Grand Deur of Spain, historically the pomp and pageantry 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:25.320 of nationalist Spain, and he hated the idea of a 0:09:25.400 --> 0:09:29.360 democratic republic forming after he was gone, and so he 0:09:29.440 --> 0:09:33.960 decided he would reinstate the monarchy. At this point, the 0:09:34.160 --> 0:09:38.280 grandson of Alfonso was living in Rome, a man named 0:09:38.360 --> 0:09:43.480 Juan Carlos, and so Franco brought the Prince Juan Carlos 0:09:43.520 --> 0:09:48.040 back to Spain and named him his heir. Franco imagined 0:09:48.160 --> 0:09:51.200 that Juan Carlos would be something of his protege and 0:09:51.240 --> 0:09:55.760 would continue on his authoritarian regime after his death. Well, 0:09:55.920 --> 0:10:00.599 Franco died, but then Juan Carlos did something un expected. 0:10:01.520 --> 0:10:05.200 Rather than carry on the dictatorship, to the surprise of 0:10:05.280 --> 0:10:08.960 Spain and the rest of the world, King Juan Carlos 0:10:09.000 --> 0:10:15.040 the first ushered democracy into Spain, spearheading the first democratic 0:10:15.080 --> 0:10:19.120 election in the country since the nineteen thirties and facing 0:10:19.160 --> 0:10:22.720 down the ensuing right wing military coup that was attempted 0:10:22.720 --> 0:10:27.000 in the aftermath. It's almost difficult to overstate what an 0:10:27.040 --> 0:10:32.120 incredible thing Juan Carlos did, how he peacefully unraveled decades 0:10:32.200 --> 0:10:35.800 of authoritarianism and ushered in a new era of Spain 0:10:36.240 --> 0:10:40.000 in which the nation would be democratic and participatory in 0:10:40.000 --> 0:10:43.200 the economy of the rest of the world. He was 0:10:43.600 --> 0:10:48.520 a hero beloved by two generations of grateful Spaniards still 0:10:48.559 --> 0:10:53.200 reckoning with the trauma of Franco's authoritarian regime. Juan Carlos 0:10:53.280 --> 0:10:56.280 was a king who could have become an autocrat, but 0:10:56.400 --> 0:11:01.160 instead gave a country back to its people. Later, King 0:11:01.240 --> 0:11:05.800 Juan Carlos would have another admittedly smaller scale hero moment 0:11:06.280 --> 0:11:08.839 when he went viral in two thousand seven at a 0:11:08.920 --> 0:11:13.640 summit in Chile when he told the then President of Venezuela, Hugoshavez, 0:11:14.280 --> 0:11:21.199 why don't you shut up? But the goodwill towards the 0:11:21.280 --> 0:11:26.040 King of Spain would soon run out. In twent twelve, 0:11:26.320 --> 0:11:30.760 King Juan Carlos went on a secret vacation, a vacation 0:11:30.840 --> 0:11:34.480 that would have remained secret had he not injured himself 0:11:34.559 --> 0:11:37.760 and need to be airlifted out to receive an emergency 0:11:37.880 --> 0:11:44.560 hip replacement. The king was in Botswana hunting elephants. Now, 0:11:44.600 --> 0:11:48.080 that would have been bad enough, but every new detail 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:52.199 about the story that emerged just made the situation worse 0:11:52.360 --> 0:11:57.680 and worse. Spain was in a massive economic downturn, a 0:11:57.800 --> 0:12:01.640 period of huge unemployment in aftermath of the two thousand 0:12:01.720 --> 0:12:07.200 eight global recession. This little elephant hunting vacation cost over 0:12:07.280 --> 0:12:11.800 forty thousand euros, and it was subsidized by an adviser 0:12:11.960 --> 0:12:16.120 to the Saudi royal family with ced ties to fifteen 0:12:16.200 --> 0:12:21.079 offshore companies named in the Panama papers. And on this 0:12:21.800 --> 0:12:26.800 pretty dodgy vacation, the King wasn't accompanied by the Queen Sophia, 0:12:27.040 --> 0:12:29.959 the mother of his children. He was with a woman 0:12:30.160 --> 0:12:35.720 named Corina Zussain Wittenstein, a German princess by marriage. The 0:12:35.840 --> 0:12:40.280 media in Spain had been historically very generous in their 0:12:40.320 --> 0:12:44.120 coverage of the royal family. A reporter from The New 0:12:44.200 --> 0:12:47.359 Yorker once wrote that he was told by a newspaper 0:12:47.480 --> 0:12:52.479 editor that he and his peers quote exercise self censorship 0:12:52.600 --> 0:12:55.960 on the subject of the king. When the New Yorker 0:12:56.040 --> 0:12:59.560 reporter wrote an article alluding to one of the king's 0:13:00.080 --> 0:13:04.760 alleged numerous rumored affairs, one of the journalists with whom 0:13:04.800 --> 0:13:07.880 he had spoken felt so guilty and nervous for the 0:13:07.920 --> 0:13:10.960 future of his own career that he called the chief 0:13:11.000 --> 0:13:16.199 of the royal household to apologize. But after the elephant 0:13:16.280 --> 0:13:20.040 hunting incident, it seemed like the royal family was stuck 0:13:20.080 --> 0:13:24.720 on a treadmill with a speed that kept increasing. When 0:13:24.720 --> 0:13:28.320 the King tried to downsize by giving up his eighteen 0:13:28.400 --> 0:13:31.960 million euro yacht, it just brought more attention to the 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:35.440 fact that he had an eighteen million euro yacht. To 0:13:35.480 --> 0:13:39.280 begin with, and that it cost twenty thousand euros just 0:13:39.400 --> 0:13:42.440 to staff it, and that it had been a gift 0:13:42.640 --> 0:13:45.800 by an assortment of twenty five random businessmen and the 0:13:45.800 --> 0:13:53.240 Blair government. For all of the king's relatively progressive politics, 0:13:53.640 --> 0:13:57.760 je Carlos had a bad habit of accepting exorbitant gifts 0:13:58.160 --> 0:14:01.480 and swaddling himself with the luxe jury that maybe he 0:14:01.559 --> 0:14:04.280 felt he had been denied as a child in exile. 0:14:05.320 --> 0:14:09.960 Royal biographer Lawrence Debray wrote that one Carlos quote had 0:14:10.040 --> 0:14:13.160 known as a young man the humiliation of having to 0:14:13.679 --> 0:14:19.080 economically depend on rich Spanish aristocrats who were voluntarily ensuring 0:14:19.160 --> 0:14:24.080 the lifestyle of the royal family in exile. That stress 0:14:24.200 --> 0:14:28.600 or anxiety, no doubt shaped his magpie like tendency to 0:14:28.720 --> 0:14:32.200 hoard wealth, but it didn't make it any less palatable 0:14:32.320 --> 0:14:36.160 to a modern and struggling Spanish population. In the twenty 0:14:36.200 --> 0:14:43.720 one century, the snowball of scandals were just too much 0:14:43.800 --> 0:14:48.640 for the monarchy to bear. In the Prime Minister announced 0:14:49.040 --> 0:14:52.200 that the king had told him that he intended to abdicate, 0:14:52.960 --> 0:14:56.160 and later in that year, Juan Carlos the First did 0:14:56.240 --> 0:15:00.320 just that, becoming the fourth European monarch to app decay 0:15:00.400 --> 0:15:04.400 in just over a year after Pope Benedict sixteenth, Queen 0:15:04.440 --> 0:15:09.880 Beatrix of the Netherlands and King Albert the Second of Belgium. 0:15:09.920 --> 0:15:13.320 It was a reckoning for the monarchies of Europe, a 0:15:13.360 --> 0:15:19.200 global moment of modernism colliding with an inherently regressive institution. 0:15:19.960 --> 0:15:26.040 To survive, monarchies needed to adapt, to become likable, likable 0:15:26.280 --> 0:15:29.840 multi multimillionaires to whom people need to bow when they 0:15:29.960 --> 0:15:34.520 enter a room. It's a tricky order. Youth and good 0:15:34.520 --> 0:15:38.960 looks help more progressive politics due too, although not too 0:15:39.000 --> 0:15:43.280 progressive as to not alienate the traditional base who make 0:15:43.360 --> 0:15:46.160 up the support for having a monarchy at all in 0:15:46.160 --> 0:15:50.360 the first place. It seems, in my estimation at least, 0:15:50.640 --> 0:15:54.640 that many of the present day European monarchies recognized the 0:15:54.760 --> 0:15:58.120 utility in a shift towards what I consider a sort 0:15:58.160 --> 0:16:01.680 of kitch, the sale of tea towels and china plates 0:16:01.680 --> 0:16:06.000 with their faces painted on them, the monarch becoming less 0:16:06.040 --> 0:16:10.120 a political power and more a mascot, someone that the 0:16:10.160 --> 0:16:13.080 country can unite behind, much in the same way a 0:16:13.120 --> 0:16:16.000 crowd at a football game can get excited about a 0:16:16.040 --> 0:16:20.680 guy dancing in a tiger costume for the crowns of Europe. 0:16:20.760 --> 0:16:24.240 It was a moment of adapt or die. The new 0:16:24.360 --> 0:16:28.640 King of Spain, Phillip the six, was handsome and comparatively 0:16:28.760 --> 0:16:32.440 unadorned by scandal, and the country was further indeared to 0:16:32.520 --> 0:16:36.040 him by his marriage to a beautiful non royal woman 0:16:36.040 --> 0:16:42.760 who had worked as a news reporter. Now our story 0:16:42.880 --> 0:16:46.480 requires us to go back in time once again, to 0:16:46.680 --> 0:16:50.880 nine fifty six in Barcelona, where a baby was born 0:16:51.080 --> 0:16:56.000 and given the name Alberto Fernando Augusto back Roman. Alberto, 0:16:56.040 --> 0:16:59.480 who would eventually begin going by Albert, was one of 0:16:59.520 --> 0:17:04.840 the hundred thousand children orphaned during the Franco regime, not 0:17:05.040 --> 0:17:08.760 all infants whose parents had died, but also children whose 0:17:08.800 --> 0:17:13.040 parents were political enemies or unwed mothers in the deeply 0:17:13.119 --> 0:17:16.960 Catholic country, mothers who smuggled their children out of their 0:17:16.960 --> 0:17:21.320 homes to be raised by different families. As an infant, 0:17:21.480 --> 0:17:23.679 Albert was sent to the island of Babitha to be 0:17:23.720 --> 0:17:27.119 cared for it by a poor farming family. The daughter 0:17:27.160 --> 0:17:30.400 of that family is still alive. Her name is Yulalia, 0:17:30.520 --> 0:17:33.800 and she's ninety years old now. She recounted how her 0:17:33.840 --> 0:17:39.240 family had frequently fostered children from the mainland, illegitimate children 0:17:39.280 --> 0:17:44.320 of powerful families usually, but Albert's case was peculiar from 0:17:44.320 --> 0:17:49.280 the start. According to Yulalia, they were paid almost twice 0:17:49.480 --> 0:17:53.160 their usual rate to care for him, given almost three 0:17:53.240 --> 0:17:57.520 hundred pas a month. As a young boy, Albert was 0:17:57.560 --> 0:17:59.880 taken from Abatha and brought to live in a mansion 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:04.800 in Barcelona. Although the force behind these movements and machinations 0:18:05.000 --> 0:18:09.080 weren't clear then and still aren't clear to Albert today, 0:18:09.320 --> 0:18:12.119 all he has to go on are his hazy half 0:18:12.160 --> 0:18:16.760 memories in Barcelona. He remembers the manner he lived at 0:18:16.840 --> 0:18:20.440 had a garden and high walls, and that an older 0:18:20.480 --> 0:18:24.720 woman would come and visit him, bringing him toys. He 0:18:24.840 --> 0:18:28.240 believes now the woman might have been his grandmother. A 0:18:28.359 --> 0:18:31.159 tutor would come to the house to teach him, and 0:18:31.200 --> 0:18:34.399 he lived in the mansion in Barcelona until age eight, 0:18:34.840 --> 0:18:36.960 when he was sent to the home of a farmer 0:18:37.160 --> 0:18:42.080 named Salva Torsola in the province of Hurona. A whisper 0:18:42.119 --> 0:18:45.639 followed him there, a whisper that he was noble, born 0:18:46.080 --> 0:18:50.600 a child of an important family. It was that whisper 0:18:50.600 --> 0:18:54.919 that Albert clung to as his life became even stranger, 0:18:55.560 --> 0:19:01.040 more inexplicably charmed. After Albert got his driver license, a 0:19:01.119 --> 0:19:06.920 mysterious gift appeared, an expensive motorcycle and a car. When 0:19:06.960 --> 0:19:11.239 Albert served his mandatory military service in his twenties, he 0:19:11.320 --> 0:19:15.280 was given cushy preferential treatment. He was even given a 0:19:15.400 --> 0:19:18.800 chartered helicopter to take home to visit family after one 0:19:18.840 --> 0:19:24.280 of his relatives was injured in an accident. Eventually, Albert 0:19:24.320 --> 0:19:26.320 would begin working as a waiter at the job he 0:19:26.359 --> 0:19:30.160 would keep for his entire life. But he remained curious 0:19:30.200 --> 0:19:34.719 about his childhood, his origins, the way good things just 0:19:34.800 --> 0:19:38.480 tended to follow him, and why he had faint memories 0:19:38.880 --> 0:19:41.439 of a woman in a garden who looked like the 0:19:42.000 --> 0:19:49.000 by then deceased mother of the King. In two Albert 0:19:49.000 --> 0:19:52.879 took his curiosity to a local office in Barcelona that 0:19:53.080 --> 0:19:58.439 specialized in finding adoption records. Albert waited while several of 0:19:58.480 --> 0:20:01.280 their employees were called over to look at his files. 0:20:01.920 --> 0:20:06.000 There was speaking behind lifted hands, a visit to the 0:20:06.040 --> 0:20:10.520 manager in the back of the office. Finally, the manager 0:20:10.600 --> 0:20:14.679 emerged to tell Albert that they couldn't help him, but 0:20:14.800 --> 0:20:18.680 the manager did give Albert one cryptic piece of information 0:20:19.480 --> 0:20:23.240 that this was the most complicated adoption case that they 0:20:23.240 --> 0:20:28.440 had ever seen. Albert has decades of stories of gossip 0:20:28.520 --> 0:20:32.040 following him, of powerful people telling him that he came 0:20:32.080 --> 0:20:35.359 from a powerful family. He made a claim in court 0:20:35.440 --> 0:20:38.640 to see his birth records, a claim that got no 0:20:38.720 --> 0:20:44.240 official response. Finally, off the record, Albert was given the 0:20:44.280 --> 0:20:47.920 answer that he had waited for his entire life. The 0:20:48.040 --> 0:20:52.879 judge on his case called him privately after hours and 0:20:52.960 --> 0:20:56.800 told him that he was the son of King Juan Carlos, 0:20:56.840 --> 0:21:00.560 the first an illegitimate child. That the king had it 0:21:00.720 --> 0:21:06.000 eighteen before he married Queen Sophia several years later. Later, 0:21:06.400 --> 0:21:09.160 that judge would deny making the phone call at all, 0:21:09.600 --> 0:21:13.199 but in Albert's mind the case was solved. He was 0:21:13.280 --> 0:21:20.680 the king's son and the king's oldest son. In two 0:21:20.720 --> 0:21:24.760 thousand and seven, Albert sent a handwritten letter by facts 0:21:25.080 --> 0:21:30.199 to Zezuela Palace. It began, dear Father. Someone in the 0:21:30.240 --> 0:21:33.639 palace responded and told Albert that his letter would be 0:21:33.720 --> 0:21:38.480 forwarded along to the king. But Albert waited and waited, 0:21:39.080 --> 0:21:43.560 and no response came, And so Albert continued to write letters. 0:21:44.480 --> 0:21:47.199 Give me some answers, and I will not bother you again. 0:21:47.600 --> 0:21:50.880 One of the letters read my patients has run out. 0:21:52.119 --> 0:21:55.560 Albert wasn't asking for money or to claim the throne. 0:21:56.160 --> 0:21:59.760 He just wanted answers and maybe a chance to get 0:21:59.760 --> 0:22:02.679 to the father that he had been missing his entire life. 0:22:03.720 --> 0:22:07.840 Albert requested DNA and a paternity lawsuit, both of which 0:22:07.840 --> 0:22:11.439 were denied. When Juan Carlos the First was king, he 0:22:11.520 --> 0:22:15.040 had full protection under sovereign immunity from both civil and 0:22:15.240 --> 0:22:19.520 criminal lawsuits, but the question became a little trickier after 0:22:19.600 --> 0:22:23.879 Juan Carlos abdicated and Albert Sola isn't the only person 0:22:24.000 --> 0:22:26.760 claiming to be an illegitimate child of the former king. 0:22:27.800 --> 0:22:32.000 A Belgian woman named Ingrid Sartua born in nineteen sixty six, 0:22:32.359 --> 0:22:35.640 claims that she's the King's daughter, born from an affair 0:22:35.680 --> 0:22:39.960 that the king had in France with her mother Lilian. Allegedly, 0:22:40.280 --> 0:22:43.960 Lilian turned down royal offers to get an illegal abortion, 0:22:44.560 --> 0:22:47.119 and because bearing a child out of wedlock would have 0:22:47.119 --> 0:22:51.240 been dangerous and Franco Spain, Lilian smuggled her infant daughter 0:22:51.320 --> 0:22:55.159 to Belgium. Lilian had told young Ingrid for her entire 0:22:55.280 --> 0:22:58.440 life that her father had died in a plane crash, 0:22:58.760 --> 0:23:02.040 until finally she believed that her child was old enough 0:23:02.080 --> 0:23:06.520 to hear the truth. As with Albert's, all of Ingrid's 0:23:06.600 --> 0:23:08.919 legal avenues to try to get an answer as to 0:23:08.920 --> 0:23:13.560 our paternity hit dead ends. But then the parent decided 0:23:13.600 --> 0:23:18.800 to test their DNA against one another's. An independent agency 0:23:18.880 --> 0:23:24.080 in Belgium verified the results. The two Ingrid and Albert 0:23:24.440 --> 0:23:29.600 are most likely have siblings. It makes a certain kind 0:23:29.640 --> 0:23:33.840 of sense. I mean, for centuries, kings had been having 0:23:33.880 --> 0:23:37.560 affairs and having illegitimate children. If you're a fan of 0:23:37.560 --> 0:23:41.680 this podcast, you're probably well aware that that's just sort 0:23:41.680 --> 0:23:45.480 of what kings do. But that type of behavior looks 0:23:45.520 --> 0:23:49.960 a little different in the twenty first century, and the 0:23:50.040 --> 0:23:55.080 incredibly self serious question of the quote unquote legitimacy of 0:23:55.240 --> 0:23:59.479 claims to the thrones of Europe seem almost even a 0:23:59.480 --> 0:24:02.920 little silly in a world of Wikipedia and books being 0:24:02.920 --> 0:24:07.520 delivered to our front doors via drone. Personally, I would 0:24:07.520 --> 0:24:10.320 welcome someone who had spent a lifetime in the service 0:24:10.359 --> 0:24:14.240 industry becoming the king of a nation. It seems to 0:24:14.240 --> 0:24:16.840 me that a server would have the best ability to 0:24:17.680 --> 0:24:21.720 actually well serve the people, and not just provide lip 0:24:21.760 --> 0:24:26.480 service to that effect while smiling for the cameras. Albert 0:24:26.520 --> 0:24:29.560 Solo may never become the King of Spain, but he'll 0:24:29.600 --> 0:24:32.880 always be the little King to the patrons at his bar. 0:24:39.080 --> 0:24:43.480 That's the still unfolding story of the possible illegitimate son 0:24:43.640 --> 0:24:46.800 of the former King of Spain. But keep listening after 0:24:46.840 --> 0:24:50.800 a brief sponsor break to hear yet another scandal Juan 0:24:50.920 --> 0:24:55.600 Carlos got himself into. And just on a personal note, 0:24:55.600 --> 0:24:57.760 I want to thank everyone so much for all the 0:24:57.800 --> 0:25:00.879 support they throw to the show. Everyone over on the 0:25:00.880 --> 0:25:04.680 Patreon Just a reminder, we're on patreon dot com slash 0:25:04.720 --> 0:25:08.040 Noble Blood Tales, where you can get episode scripts and 0:25:08.200 --> 0:25:11.320 bonus episodes like where I go through episodes of The 0:25:11.400 --> 0:25:15.200 Tutors on Showtime and the television show Rain about Mary, 0:25:15.280 --> 0:25:19.080 Queen of Scott's on the CW. We also have merch 0:25:19.280 --> 0:25:21.880 at d F TB a dot com. I'm linking that 0:25:22.040 --> 0:25:26.400 in the episode description. And also I'm leading a pilgrimage 0:25:26.720 --> 0:25:29.760 to Sussex this spring in April. I think there might 0:25:29.800 --> 0:25:32.120 still be a few spots left if you sign up soon. 0:25:32.480 --> 0:25:35.080 It's a pilgrimage to discuss the works of Mary Shelley, 0:25:35.359 --> 0:25:39.199 particularly Frankenstein, to walk to talk to read. I think 0:25:39.240 --> 0:25:41.399 it's going to be a really great experience. Now I 0:25:41.400 --> 0:25:44.159 would be so excited to meet any listeners in person, 0:25:44.400 --> 0:25:48.320 so that's very exciting. And also, oh gosh, Anatomy the 0:25:48.320 --> 0:25:51.560 book that I've been yammering on about forever. It's a 0:25:51.640 --> 0:25:55.240 novel about the dawn of surgery in nineteenth century Scotland. 0:25:55.600 --> 0:25:59.400 It finally comes out January, and thank you so much 0:25:59.440 --> 0:26:02.240 to anyone who has already pre ordered it. If it 0:26:02.320 --> 0:26:04.280 interests you at all, it would mean the world to me. 0:26:04.320 --> 0:26:06.720 If you take a look, if you like this podcast, 0:26:06.720 --> 0:26:21.600 I think you'll really like it. Even after Juan Carlos 0:26:21.640 --> 0:26:25.520 abdicated from the throne, he still managed to find trouble. 0:26:26.160 --> 0:26:29.159 The Supreme Court in Spain was forced to open a 0:26:29.240 --> 0:26:33.760 preliminary investigation about the former king's involvement in the building 0:26:33.880 --> 0:26:37.119 of a high speed rail in Saudi Arabia after a 0:26:37.160 --> 0:26:41.560 Swiss newspaper reported that when Juan Carlos was king, he 0:26:41.680 --> 0:26:45.240 had received a hundred million dollars in kickbacks from the 0:26:45.280 --> 0:26:49.520 Saudi king. While this was coming to light, the former 0:26:49.640 --> 0:26:55.320 Spanish king literally disappeared from the country for three weeks, 0:26:55.720 --> 0:26:58.879 no one in the world knew who he was. The 0:26:58.960 --> 0:27:01.919 media speculator did that he was in the Dominican Republic 0:27:02.119 --> 0:27:06.360 or maybe Portugal. The only clue was an enigmatic goodbye 0:27:06.440 --> 0:27:09.200 letter that he wrote to his son, the current King, 0:27:09.240 --> 0:27:14.000 Philippe the sixth. Three weeks later, after the former king 0:27:14.080 --> 0:27:18.399 of Spain was missing for three weeks, the Palace confirmed 0:27:18.440 --> 0:27:23.080 his whereabouts. He was in the United Arab Emirates, where 0:27:23.080 --> 0:27:34.639 he remains today under self imposed exile. Noble Blood is 0:27:34.680 --> 0:27:37.200 a production of I Heart Radio and Grimm and Mild 0:27:37.280 --> 0:27:40.159 from Aaron Minky. The show was written and hosted by 0:27:40.240 --> 0:27:45.600 Dana Schwartz. Executive producers include Aaron Manky, Alex Williams, and 0:27:45.720 --> 0:27:49.400 Matt Frederick. The show is produced by rima Ill Kali 0:27:49.600 --> 0:27:52.920 and Trevor Young. Noble Blood is on social media at 0:27:53.000 --> 0:27:55.399 Noble Blood Tales, and you can learn more about the 0:27:55.440 --> 0:27:58.400 show over at Noble Blood Tales dot com. For more 0:27:58.440 --> 0:28:01.639 podcasts from I Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, 0:28:01.760 --> 0:28:05.000 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. 0:28:06.720 --> 0:28:06.760 H