They lived first at the Hotel Royal, before Alfonso and his younger brother Gonzalo were sent to the Collège Saint-Jean (later Villa St. Jean International School) in Fribourg.

[5] The king's eldest son, Alfonso, Prince of Asturias, had inherited hemophilia from his maternal great-grandmother Queen Victoria, yet had been considered Spain's heir apparent until the republic was established in 1931.

In 1933 he renounced any claim to inherit the Spanish throne (in the event of a restoration) to marry a Cuban commoner, Edelmira Sampedro-Ocejo, and later died of internal bleeding following a minor auto accident by September 1938.

[7] During the Spanish Civil War which began in July 1936 Franco emerged as the Caudillo of the Falangist movement, overturning the republic and promising restoration, yet consolidating his grip on power in Madrid.

Following Alfonso XIII's death in Rome in February 1941, Franco wrote Don Juan, acknowledging him as rightful heir to the throne (though without inviting him to occupy it), implicitly confirming that he considered Segovia and his sons excluded from the royal succession.

[6] Reluctantly, Alfonso moved from Switzerland to Spain, initially to study law at Deusto University and, in 1955 to attend the elite Centro de Estudios Universitarios (CEU).

[6] Asked by Juan Carlos to be chief witness at the ceremony declaring him successor and Prince of Spain, Alfonso immediately agreed to do so and sent some of his supporters to visit his father in Paris to persuade him to express no opposition publicly.

[6] But in June 1972, after he had taken up that post, Alfonso advised Franco's foreign minister Laureano López Rodó that he deemed his support conditional upon his cousin's continued loyalty to Francoist Spain.

He further hinted that Spain's law of succession should be amended to facilitate Alfonso's replacing or succeeding Juan Carlos as Franco's heir or on the throne, if circumstances called for such a change.

On 22 November 1972, General Franco awarded Alfonso the Spanish title Duque de Cádiz with the dignity Grandee of Spain, and he received the style of Royal Highness.