The principles that govern the succession of the Crown, and which are one of the basic elements of the legality on which the Traditional Monarchy is based, cannot be modified without the joint action of the King and the Nation legitimately represented in the Cortes.

Without taking into account the pressing need that Spain feels for stable institutions, without realizing that what the country wants is to get out as soon as possible of an increasingly dangerous interim period, without understanding that the hostility that surrounds the country in the world is born in large part from the presence of General Franco as Head of State, what is now intended is purely and simply to convert this personal dictatorship into a lifelong one, to validate some titles, apparently precarious up to now, and to disguise with the glorious mantle of the Monarchy a regime of pure governmental arbitrariness, the need for which has long since ceased to exist.

Tomorrow History, today the Spanish people, would not forgive me if I remained silent in the face of the attack that is intended to be perpetrated against the very essence of the hereditary monarchical institution, which is, in the words of our Balmes, one of the greatest and happiest conquests of political science.

The hereditary monarchy is, by its very nature, a basic element of stability, thanks to the institutional permanence that triumphs over the expiration of persons, and thanks to the fixity and clarity of the principles of succession, which eliminate the reasons for discord, and make possible the clash of appetites and factions.

All these supreme advantages disappear in the succession project, which changes fixity into imprecision, which opens the door to all internal disputes, and which dispenses with hereditary continuity, to return, with a lamentable spirit of regression, to one of those imperfect formulas of elective leadership, in which the people tragically debated at the dawn of their political life.

Faced with this attempt, I have the inexcusable duty of making a public and solemn affirmation of the supreme principle of legitimacy that I embody, of the imprescriptible rights of sovereignty that the Providence of God has wanted to come together in my person, and that I cannot in conscience abandon because they are born of many centuries of history, and are directly linked to the present and the future of our Spain.

For the same reason that I have placed my supreme desire in being the King of all Spaniards who wish in good faith to abide by a State of Law inspired by the essential principles of the life of the Nation and which binds both governors and governed, I have been and am willing to facilitate everything that will allow for the normal and unconditional transfer of powers.

On 9 November 1948 Juan Carlos was received by Franco at his residence in the Royal Palace of El Pardo, where he informed him that his education would be in charge of a group of professors with firm loyalty to the Movimiento Nacional.