KING ALFONSO IN ENGLAND

" YOUR Majesty may be pleased to I remember that the erection of the Chapel of the Blessed Sacrament, to which, Your Majesty, Your Majesty's most Catholic and August Mother, Your Majesty's Royal Family and the Spanish Nation have a deep and lively devotion, is entirely due to the piety and generosity of Spain and Spanishspeaking people. and we gratefully embrace the opportunity which Your Majesty has graciously afforded us of humbly expressing to Your Majesty the gratitude which we feel in common with the Catholics of England in consequence of that noble and generous gift." Archbishop (later Cardinal) Bourne, of Westminster, and the 16 Bishops of England and Wales appended their signatures to the above message of gratitude, read by the Archbishop, when In June, 1905, Alfonso XIII, then King of Spain, visited in state the newly finished chapel of the Blessed Sacrament in Westminster Cathedral, the cost of which was in great part borne by Spain. The King was at the time on an official visit to King Edward VII of England.
The picture above shows Archbishop Bourne sprinkling the King with holy water on arrival at the main door of the Cathedral prior to a Mass of thanksgiving which was celebrated by Mgr. Amigo, Bishop of Southwark, at the temporary High Altar.
Pictures on the left show the golden chalice and paten presented by the King to the Archbishop on occasion of the visit, and the illuminated address quoted above.
The picture of King Alfonso with his eldest child, who was to be known later, until his tragic death, as the Duke of Covadonga, is an intimate one, hitherto unpublished. The King was known to have had a great affection for his children.
During the last days of King Alfonso's life he received from Spain the mantle of Our Lady of the Pillar. Before he died he expressed the hope that he would he able to pray for Spain from Heaven.