The royals rarely get together, and to paraphrase Tolstoy, while all happy families are alike, this seemingly unhappy family has had its own political trials and tribulations.

Felipe ascended the throne after his father, King Juan Carlos, who helped usher the country toward democracy, announced in 2014 that he would abdicate.

The royal family was rocked in 2016 by tax fraud allegations against Princess Cristina, the sister of King Felipe. She was tried and acquitted on charges of corruption and embezzlement tied to an investigation into her husband, Iñaki Urdangarin, and his business associates. Mr. Urdangarin is appealing his prison sentence.

The country at large is in the throes of bigger problems, not least a political crisis unleashed by the failed attempt at secession by the government of the restive region of Catalonia.

King Felipe stepped into the fray when, in a televised address after a Catalan referendum on secession last year, a vote which went ahead despite Spanish courts having ruled it unconstitutional, he accused Catalonia’s separatist leaders of “inadmissible disloyalty” and of threatening the country’s Constitution and unity.

Recently, two Catalans — Enric Stern and Jaume Roura — were sentenced to 15 months in prison for insulting the monarchy, a felony, after setting fire to a life-size, upside-down photo of the royal couple during a visit by King Juan Carlos I to the northeastern city of Girona in September 2007.

The sentence was later reduced to a fine of about $3,300 each. The defendants took their case to the European Court of Human Rights, which ruled this year that the act was justifiable political criticism.