IDENTITY CRISIS
A bitter debate about Spanish national identity has raged all year, and the king's position as a national symbol made him a target.
Young radicals seeking independence for the region of Catalonia took to burning his photograph in public, leading the king to make an unprecedented public defence of the monarchy in October.
But he has also came under attack from an unexpected quarter: a strongly monarchist presenter on a popular radio station owned by the Catholic Church who has called on him to abdicate, in part for failing to do more to protect Spanish institutions.
Members of the governing Socialist Party said the attacks were the result of frustration in conservative circles with the king, who is seen as getting on better with left-leaning politicians.
"The far-right can't stand the fact that the king is not one of them," said a former defence minister, Jose Bono.
Yet despite his travails, the king is considered to be broadly popular. Opinion polls on the subject of the monarchy are relatively rare, but one showed the crown to be the third-most trusted institution in the country.
Ironically, the one recent incident in which the king himself clearly violated rules of protocol, telling Chavez to "shut up", might be the one to make him more popular.
In the words of philosopher Fernando Savater, many Spaniards see the king's behaviour towards the Venezuelan as a fitting response to "a first class fathead."
(Reporting by Jason Webb)
