Meet the good-looking Euro royal families
Their last official visit was 31 years ago, but King Felipe and Queen Letizia are no strangers to Britain, says Matthew Bell
When the King of Spain makes his state visit to Britain this week, much will be made of the fact it’s the first Royal Spanish tour in more than 30 years. The last time was in 1986, before Lionel Messi had even been born, when patatas bravas were still a strange foreign delicacy.
But it will hardly be King Felipe and Queen Letizia’s first exposure to British society. Only last weekend, the handsome couple were entertained royally at a lavish joint birthday in the Cotswolds.
Felipe, 49, and Letizia, 44, were among a bevy of good-looking Euros who helicoptered in to the Sunday night extravaganza laid on by Crown Prince Pavlos of Greece to celebrate his 50th and his daughter Princess Olympia’s 21st. The Greeces’ Gloucestershire pad formed the backdrop to a “5021 Revolution” (geddit?) themed party that encouraged guests to “revolutionise” their black tie, prompting much outrageous accessorising and channelling of Marie Antoinette.
Prince Pavlos and wife Marie-Chantal are big fans of British life. They divide their time between a vast house in Chelsea and Farmington Lodge, the 10-bedroom house near Northleach, which they bought for £7.5million in
2010. In the winter, they hunt madly with the Heythrop. And in summer, they hold barbecues by the pool, or give parties like last weekend’s. It is telling that, of all the homes they have around the world, they chose Farmington as the venue for a landmark bash.
So who are all these party-loving Euros? And how are they all related? Luckily for Prince Harry, who will be hosting the Spanish visitors on Thursday – in his first Royal duty of this kind
– they’re all young, fun and unafraid to dive headfirst into the dressing-up box.
Much like Harry himself…
The tweed-loving troublemaker…
In private, King Felipe VI loves all things British. He and his father King Juan Carlos – who abdicated in 2014 to make way for his son – are particularly fond of Harris Tweed, which their tailor in Madrid, Jaime Gallo, orders in vast quantities to make the Royal suits. In public, though, they’re not afraid to stir up a few hornets nests, especially when it comes to Gibraltar.
Only last year, the King used a speech at the UN to demand we give the Rock back to Spain, and his father spent much of his reign banging on about it, too. So much so that Juan Carlos refused to attend the wedding of Charles and Diana in 1981, after learning their honeymoon cruise would begin at Gibraltar. Foreign Office mandarins are hoping Felipe’s youthful and dynamic outlook will help heal old wounds, though it may just be safer for everyone this week if no one mentions Spain’s G-spot?
…and his war-reporter wife
Queen Letizia is Spain’s Kate Middleton equivalent, in that she is the first “commoner Queen”. But in most other ways she is quite different, having had a job and a husband before marrying King Felipe. She would have had even less in common with Princess Di, being an all-out journalist, who has reported on everything from 9/11 to the Iraq war. Her entry into Royal life came relatively late in life, in 2003, when her engagement to the then Prince Felipe was announced (she was 31). Not only had she worked as a news anchor for a main TV network but she had also been married before, to Alonso Perez, a writer and teacher.
None of that mattered to the forward-looking Felipe, who saw a clever, beautiful woman and snapped her up. He installed her in the Zarzuela Palace and married her a year later in the Cathedral Santa Maria La Real of Madrid. The couple have two daughters and have helped bring some much-needed modernity and spark to the fading house of Bourbon.
The urbane hedgie Greek…
The Greek invasion of London has been quietly gathering momentum since the Thirties, when King George II of Greece moved into Brown’s Hotel. He stayed there during the Second World War, quipping that “the most important tool for a king of Greece is a suitcase”. His nephew, the ousted King Constantine II, lived overlooking Hampstead Heath from the early Seventies until 2013, when he and his wife, Queen Anne-Marie, moved back to Athens, apparently, homesick.
But for Constantine’s oldest son, Crown-Prince Pavlos, London feels like home, so this was a last hurrah before he, his wife, Marie-Chantal, and their five blonde children, move to Manhattan later this year. He leads the classic hedge funder life – commuting between Chelsea and the Cotswolds, and invests money on behalf of King Felipe and Letizia, who are his cousins. Friends say the Greeces are a particularly close-knit and loving family: guests at last weekend’s party were moved to tears by his speech about his daughter. “First of all you’re beautiful,” he said, adding, “you’re full of energy; that comes from your mother.” Fathers, take note.
…and his duty-free heiress wife
There is always something a little nauseating about millionaires who marry other millionaires, but actually it’s for the best: no one can be accused of gold-digging. That was certainly the case when Prince Pavlos hooked up with one of the Miller sisters, Marie-Chantal, the middle daughter of US tycoon Robert Miller, who made a fortune from the early days of Duty Free shopping in the Sixties. But finances aside, she comes from a totally different background to her husband: for example, she worked for Andy Warhol when she was 16. This otherness has been welcomed by Prince Pavlos’s family, who say she has brought youth and vigour. When she celebrated her 40th, the theme was “Angels and Demons”. Last Sunday’s bash was a tea-party in comparison.
… and their daughter, the most eligible princess in all of Gloucestershire
When Princess Olympia gave an interview to Tatler, she was described as having “the most thrilling genes in the world”. Indeed, she is descended from Queen Victoria, among others. And her social circuit is riveting too: among those celebrating her 21st were Poppy Delevingne, Paris and Nicky Hilton, Valentino and a few from European Royal families, like the actual Queen of Holland.
There was a suggestion last year that Princess Maria-Olympia of Greece and Denmark (as she’s officially known; the Royal houses are linked by marriage, it’s complicated) could be the one to snag Prince Harry’s heart.
But perhaps the most exciting thing about Princess Olympia right now are her shoes: a social media storm has kicked off about the £640 gold leather Gucci platform trainers she wore, with some po-faced types suggesting they were the glass slippers of our age. One Guardian writer dedicated an entire article to pontificating on the significance of these Gucci trainers, noting that: “photographs of the world’s wealthiest doing the conga around gold-plated pineapples and pyramids of macaroons haven’t gone down brilliantly”. Perhaps. But what should a 21st-century princess wear on her birthday? A sackcloth?