Our Edward I. was knighted by his brother-in-law, Alfonso the Wise, in S. Maria de las Huelgas, a nunnery founded by Alfonso V. and his English Queen Leonor, within sight of the city. Its church was preferred by the Castilian kings for the performance of any remarkable ceremony, the place for which was not prescribed; three kings therefore in succession were crowned there, and it was long a place of interment for the royal family. Except that at Fulda, no other nunnery ever possessed such privileges, or was so largely endowed. The cathedral, than which there is no more elaborate or more magnificent specimen of what may be called monastic architecture, was founded in 1221, by King St. Ferdinand and the Bishop Maurice, (who is said to have been an Englishman, either by birth or blood,) about 150 years after the see of Oca had been removed thither: among the relics which were shown, there was a handkerchief of the prophet Elijah, and a lock of Abraham’s hair, and one of St. Apollonia’s innumerable teeth. Two short leagues from the city is the monastery of St. Pedro de Cardeña, a far older foundation than the cathedral; where, from the time that two hundred of its monks were massacred by the Moors the pavement used on the anniversary of their martyrdom to sweat blood, till that blood, which through so many centuries had cried for vengeance, was appeased by the final subjugation of the misbelievers. There the Cid lies and his wife Ximena: some of the French officers at the commencement of this treacherous invasion used to visit the church and spout passages from Corneille’s tragedy over their tomb. There too lie his daughters, D. Elvira and D. Sol; and his father Diego Laynez; and his kinsman Alvar Fañez Minaya, and his nephew Martin Antolinez, and Martin Pelaez, the Asturian, names which will be held in remembrance as long as chivalrous history shall be preserved. And before the gate of the monastery the Cid’s good horse Bavieca lies buried, and Gil Diaz his trusty servant, by the side of that good horse, which he had loved so well.