This Pelayo was the first king of Asturias, the first king of Spain, from whom all later-date monarchs descended, though neither in a direct nor a legitimate line, be it remarked in parenthesis. 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. III LEON The civil power enjoyed by Oviedo previous to the eleventh century moved southwards in the wake of Asturias's conquering army. For about a century it stopped on its way to Toledo in a fortress-town situated in a wind-swept plain, at the juncture of two important rivers. Leon was the name of this fortress, one of the strategical points, not only of the early Romans, but of the Arabs who conquered the country, and later of the nascent Christian kingdom of Asturias. In the tenth century, or, better still, toward the beginning of the eleventh, and after the final retreat of the Moors and their terrible general Almanzor, Leon became the recognized capital of Asturias. When the Christian wave first spread over the Iberian peninsula in the time of the Romans, the fortress Legio Septima, established by Trajanus's soldiers, had already grown in importance, and was considered one of the promising North Spanish towns. The inhabitants were among the most fearless adherents of the new faith, and it is said that the first persecution of the martyrs took place in Leon; consequently, it is not to be wondered at that, as soon as Christianity was established in Iberia, a see should be erected on the blood-soaked soil of the Roman fortress. (First known bishop, Basilides, 252 A. D.) Marcelo seems to have been the most stoically brave of the many Leonese martyrs. A soldier or subaltern in the Roman legion, he was daring enough to throw his sword at the feet of his commander, who stood in front of the regiment, saying: "I obey the eternal King and scorn your silent gods of stone and wood. If to obey Cæsar is to revere him as an idol, I refuse to obey him." Stoic, with a grain of sad grandeur about them, were his last words when Agricolanus condemned him to death. "May God bless you, Agricolano." And his head was severed from his body. The next religious war to be waged in and around Leon took place between Christians and the invading Visigoths, who professed a doctrine called Arrianism. Persecutions were, of course, ripe again, and the story is told of how the prior of San Vicente, after having been beheaded, appeared in a dream to his cloister brethren trembling behind their monastic walls, and advised them to flee, as otherwise they would all be killed,--an advice the timid monks thought was an explicit order to be immediately obeyed.