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Updated: May 11, 2025
The tourist will be told that it is Pelayo's tomb, and that of his sister, that are still to be seen in the cave at Covadonga. Perhaps, though no documents or other signs exist to bear out the statement. At any rate, the sepulchres are old, which is their chief merit. The monastical church which stands hard by cannot claim this latter quality; neither is it important as an art monument.
A few only of the Gothic nobles took refuge on the seaward slopes of the Cantabrian mountains in the Asturias and there made a successful stand, electing Don Pelayo as their king. As time went on, Pelayo's descendants crossed the mountains, and taking Leon gradually extended their small kingdom southwards.
The latter fell desperately in love with Pelayo's sister Hermesinda, whom he had met in the village of Cangas. Wishing to get the brother out of the way, he sent him on an errand to Cordoba, expecting him to be assassinated on the road.
A few years later, when Rodrigo, who was king at the time, and by some strange coincidence Pelayo's cousin as well, lost the battle of Guadalete and his life to boot, the Arabs conquered the whole peninsula and placed in Gijon, a seaport town of Asturias, a garrison under the command of one Munuza.
The conditions of modern life and society are highly unfavorable to those heroic modes of resistance and existence in which alone gentlemen of Pelayo's pursuits can hope to flourish.
The parts I have been most pleased with, both on first and second readings, perhaps, are Florinda's palliation of Roderick's crime, confessed to him in his disguise; the retreat of Pelayo's family first discovered; his being made king, "For acclamation one form must serve, more solemn for the breach of old observances." Roderick's vow is extremely fine, and his blessing on the vow of Alphonso,
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