Juan Carlos de Borbón is the only man whose name appears in Spain’s 1978 Constitution. Yet on Sunday night, the former king was forced to flee Spain as evidence builds up of his financial scandals. After crossing over to Portugal he boarded a private jet to the Dominican Republic, where he is now in exile.

Recent revelations into a series of massive illegal payments he received from Arab royal families and Spanish CEOs had left Juan Carlos increasingly vulnerable to prosecution, in both Spain and Switzerland. Particularly damaging was last week’s news that a €62 million London penthouse had been “gifted” to him by Oman’s royal family and then rapidly resold, in an act of apparent money laundering.

Since this occurred after his abdication in 2014, it would not be covered by the sweeping immunity Juan Carlos had enjoyed as king. But the scope of the allegations against him and his sudden escape have raised much wider questions about the legitimacy of the monarchy and the post-Franco order known to Spaniards as the ’78 regime.