Eldest Son of Alfonso Dead

Manawatu Times, Volume 63, Issue 212, 8 September 1938, Page 7

Eldest Son of Alfonso Dead

MAN WHO RENOUNCED HEIRDOM TO THRONE United Press Association. —Br Electric Telegraph—Copyrlgh t. MIAMI, Bept. 6. Count Covadonga, eldest son of exKing Alfonso, of Spain, died in hospital six hours after a car driven by a companion, Mildred Gaydon, aged 25, crashed into a telephone pole en route to home at dawn from the casino. His physician said that death was due to heart failure and shock and not to haemophilia. The Count of Covadonga was twice married and twice divorced. Five years ago, Spain's Crown Prince Alfonso. Prince of the Asturias, Knight of the Golden Fleece, while undergoing treatment in a Lausanne sanatorium, met and married a fellow-patient, Senorita San Pedro-Ocedo, a rich Cuban sugar-planter’s daughter. As the senorita was a commoner, ex-King Alfonso XIII. refused to countenance the marriage, or, for a long time, to recognise his eldest son. Because of his father’s attitude the Crown Prince relinquished his title and heirdom to the Spanish throne, and became Count of Covadonga. Afterwards he went to New York, where he became director of a firm of motor-car distributors. He is 30 years old. In July of 1936 the Count married Marta Rocafort, aged 23. formerly a New York model. They were divorced later. An official statement issued by exKing Alfonso at about the time the count planned his second marriage said that the count’s public assertions that he still considered himself the legitimate heir to the Spanish Crown had caused real anguish to Alfonso and the Royal Family. An additional cause for deep grief to Alfonso was the Count of Covadonga’s plan to remarry, which could never be approved by the Royal household, as it was in absolute conflict with Roman Catholic faith and the laws of the Fatherland. Alfonso had been painfully compelled to sever all relations, believing that he thus interpreted the sentiments of all Soanish Catholics and Monarchists.