His arrival in the world was a national event and the spotlight is still on him. The first child of the infanta Elena and Jaime de Marichalar who was also the first grandchild of the then kings Joan Carlos and Sofia was born on July 17, 1998 at the Ruber Internacional clinic in Madrid becoming the third in the line of succession to the throne, after Prince Felipe and Infanta Elena, a position he kept until his cousin Elionor was born in 2005. 25 years ago today.
She currently ranks fourth after the Princess of Asturias, Infanta Sofia and her own mother. He has been living in Abu Dhabi since the beginning of the year, where his grandfather King Juan Carlos has found him a job in a state-owned new energy company and where, apparently, he has found the anonymity he lacked in Madrid. In recent months, he has been seen accompanying his family to the funeral of Constantine of Greece, in Athens, and to the graduation of Irene Urdangarin in Geneva. These days he is in Spain, on holiday, before returning to the emirate to be part of his company’s team preparing the Climate Summit to be held in Dubai in the autumn.
“He will be called Felipe, after his uncle the Prince of Asturias; Joan, in memory of his grandfather the count of Barcelona, ??and Froilà, as a tribute to the city of Lugo”, was what his father, then Duke of Lugo, said when he gave an account of the arrival in the world of his first child. He had previously uttered a phrase that would haunt him for years: “He’s just like his mother, the poor thing”, a description he had to qualify to clarify that it was a merit and not a misfortune. Over the years, Froilà de Lugo became his nickname and, although during his childhood he was called Pipe and, now, Felip, dryly, he has never been able to get rid of the popular name. More than his mother, Felipe de Marichalar resembles his ancestor Ferdinand VII, which reaffirms his Bourbon vein.
A mischievous child, he always made himself known in all his public appearances, and reached his moment of childhood glory at the wedding of Felip de Borbó and Letizia Ortiz when, at almost 7 years old, dressed in a 19th century coat, he revolutionized the rest of pages and ladies of the link, with kick included in Victòria López-Quesada and Borbón-Dos Sicilias. Their stays in Mallorca did not help either and it was at the sailing school in Calanova that the first children’s fights were caught, of which the more placid Urdangarin brothers were victims. A bad student, he studied primary school at the San Patricio school in Madrid and from there, at the age of 12, his parents, on the advice of Queen Sofia, sent him to a boarding school in Sussex (England), where he studied 1st of ESO The following year, again in Madrid, he enrolled at the El Pilar school, where he repeated the 2nd year of ESO. When he was 16, his parents, already divorced, sent him to the Sagrada Familia Episcopal College (Safa) in Sigüenza (Guadalajara) for a summer. His passage through the rigorous school allowed him to pass in September and enroll in the 3rd year at El Pilar, although the following year he returned to Safa to attend the 4th year of ESO. Afterwards, he went to the United States to study the equivalent of high school at the Blue Ridge boarding school in Saint George (Virginia), an Episcopal center of the Anglican Church branch. He finally entered the business school The College for International Studies, in Madrid, to study Business Administration and Management. Currently, he is expanding his business studies from Abu Dhabi.
In recent years, the son of Infanta Elena moved in Spain in an environment where it was easy to find provocateurs who, when they recognized him, bothered him by word or deed, but it is also true that he did not know how to react with temperance and , he was often involved in incidents that prompted his move to Abu Dhabi. Those who know him say that he is impulsive but a good guy, very similar to his mother, with whom he has remained more united than with his father, Jaime de Marichalar, always dependent on his daughter Victoria, who after years in the second row has now become the famous one in the family.
