It was a chilly December morning in 1948 when 10-year-old prince Juan Carlos, grandson of exiled Spanish King Alfonso XIII, first set foot on the land his ancestors had ruled through a series of ages. Sixty-two years on, the 82-year-old former king has fled into oblivion to escape a cloud of scandal and possible scrutiny over alleged financial corruption.

Spain's royal household broke the news on Monday with a letter sent by the emeritus king to his son, reigning monarch Felipe VI, saying it was time to "move outside of Spain" in light of the "public repercussions that certain past events in my private life are generating." The stunning revelation, without any indication about his next destination, left Spaniards wondering about their former ruler's whereabouts.

While a few reports suggest he has gone to the Dominican Republic, some say Portugal, France or Italy could not be ruled out as his refuge. The ABC newspaper reported a Caribbean country is also on the haven list. However, El Confidencial said he was in his childhood home, not far from Lisbon.

So, what forced a former king to run like a fugitive?

In June, Spain's Supreme Court ordered a probe into Carlos's involvement in a 6.7-billion-euro contract to build a high-speed rail line between the Saudi cities of Medina and Mecca after Switzerland's La Tribune de Geneve newspaper reported he had received kickbacks worth 100 million U.S. dollars from Saudi Arabia's late King Abdullah.

According to reports, he transferred around 3.5 billion euros from an account at the Swiss bank Mirabaud that was opened in the name of Panama-based Lucum Foundation, whose first beneficiary was Juan Carlos I. The money ended up in the Bahamas in an account held by Swiss lawyer Dante Cononica, allegedly his former mistress. A separate investigation into money laundering is underway against Cononica in Switzerland.

Born in exile in Rome in 1938, a year before the Nationalist forces led by General Francisco Franco defeated the Second Republic of Spain in the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), young Carlos became a royal hostage of dictator Franco as part of his father Infante Juan's covert plan to restore monarchy in Spain.

After personally supervising his life for almost two decades, Franco named the prince his successor in 1969.

Enthroned at the will of a dictator in 1975, Carlos, unlike his mentor, favored reforms and quickly bulldozed the old authoritarian regime, rebuilding Spain into a constitutional monarchy.

In 1981, Carlos supported democracy in a televised address during an attempted army coup, rejecting claims that it was orchestrated with his blessings as a king, earning public praise for thwarting a return to dictatorship.

Although his active involvement in politics ended with the election of a socialist government in 1982, his largely ceremonial role was seen as a unifying symbol in Spain. By mid-2000s, Carlos had an approval rate of more than three-quarters of Spaniards.

Long seen as the father of Spain's third republic, Carlos increasingly lost his popularity in the following years after a series of political blunders and personal scandals.

In 2011, his name came up in financial irregularities involving his daughter Cristina and son-in-law Inaki Urdangarin. In 2017, though his daughter was acquitted, Urdangarin was sentenced to five years and ten months in prison and fined 512,000 euros in the case.

Many other issues like "luxury hunting trips" added fuel to the fire. In 2004, he angered many when he killed four bears including a pregnant female.

When Spain struggled amid a devastating financial crisis in 2012, the then king chose to splurge on a 60,000-U.S.-dollar elephant-hunting adventure in Botswana. He later apologized, but the damage was already done.

As tens of thousands of people took to the streets demanding a referendum on monarchy, Carlos abdicated the throne in favor of his son Felipe VI in 2014.

After taking over the reins, Felipe VI tried to restore some lost glory. He reduced his own annual salary from 330,000 U.S. dollars to 265,000 U.S. dollars. But this failed to quell the public outrage.

Carlos's already blemished image was further tainted when rumors of an alleged mistress and money laundering surfaced in 2018. A year later, Carlos retired from all official royal duties.

Facing intense pressure to defend the monarchy, Felipe VI relinquished any future personal inheritance from his father in March this year after a report named him as one of the beneficiaries of an offshore fund Carlos had allegedly set up in 2008. 

Pablo Iglesias, Spanish government's left-wing deputy leader, wrote on Twitter: The "flight abroad" exposes "an unworthy attitude of a former Head of State," which "leaves the monarchy in a very compromised position."

Juan Carlos should "answer for his actions in Spain and before his people," Iglesias added.

What appears to be a porridge of embarrassing gaffes and royal arrogance with ignorance as the chief ingredient has left a sour taste with the people of Spain.

Once the most revered institution in Spain, monarchy is facing an existential crisis. Will the legacy of one of the world's last few surviving monarchies vanish with the former king? Or will Spaniards move past the international humiliation and continue to put their faith and money into the royal house? The symbol is fast losing its symbolism.