In 1985 an elderly lady of nearly 80, living with her sister in a modest home at 722 Cadima Ave. in Coral Gables, received an unexpected invitation. The invitation, which came from King Juan Carlos of Spain, invited her to a royal funeral at the El Escorial Monastery. The ceremony was for the entombment of His Royal Highness Alfonso of Borbon, Prince of the Asturias, the heir to the Spanish throne, and later styled the Count of Covadonga. What made the royal invitation unusual was that Edelmira Sampedro-Robato, the lady in question, was not only that that she had once been wed to Alfonso, or that in 1933 the prince had renounced his rights to the abolished Spanish throne in 1933 to marry her, that the couple had divorced in 1937 after a tempestuous marriage of four years, but that Alfonso had, by 1985, been dead for nearly 40 years. If those reasons were not enough for her surprise, Alfonso, shortly before his untimely death had remarried, and divorced. Edelmira respectfully dec...
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