It was a very big story all over Europe. In the days before the internet the general public expected them to marry. Tatjana attending school in Madrid only fuelled the flames of the rumours since it was said that it was part of a plan set up by their mothers to let them get to know each other better in private and have Tatjana learn more about Spain before the engagement was announced.
I believe the king and queen were most pleased this came to an end.
Her parents were divorced, I dont think this will have played a role Felipe went on to marry a divorced woman. Isabel was a few years older and all in all rumored not to be Princess material with regard to the hard work that is expected in Spain.
I think at that time they had higher expectations for the future Princess of Asturias which they had given up by the time Letizia appeared.
According to Isabel herself, Queen Sofia was very kind to her and supportive of her because of her family situation. On paper she as the daughter of the Marquess of Marino was the perfect girl for Prince Felipe, but her mother's drug addiction and her parent's divorce spoke against her. In the end the relationship ended because they were to young.
They gave her a hard time and threw her under the bus for almost a decade, in JCs case even to this very day. They had fought off all these girlfriends until after Eva Sannum Felipe said, no more. At the time of the engagement, he was almost 36, it was time to settle, some pressure to get a wife and heirs on the way. No way a decade earlier Letizia would have gotten a foot in the door at Zarzuela.
