The Escorial / A Historical and Descriptive Account of the Spanish Royal Palace, Monastery and Mausoleum

by Albert Frederick Calvert

In 1586 the king was busy with preparations for the ceremony of consecrating the church of the Escorial, which had been completed some time previously. During the erection of the church, services were held in a temporary structure, and in this building there was a celebration of the mass before the procession entered the new church. Philip, the prince, and several great clerics supported the canopy which was carried in the solemn pageant. The temporary church, which stood in the hamlet, was afterwards reconstructed, and placed at the service of the people.

About the year 1582 the king was seized with a distemper of an epidemic character, and was so prostrated that he prepared himself for death, and wrote his will. But his disorder, although dangerous, was not fatal, though the queen, who was also attacked, died in this same year. She was interred among other royal persons in the Escorial. The death of Philip II. occurred in 1598. He was indisposed at Madrid, and desired to be at once removed to his beloved Escorial. So severe was his illness that it was necessary to bear him thither slowly in a litter. Six days were spent in conveying the stricken monarch over the eight leagues from Madrid to the palace among the Guadarrama Mountains.

For fifty days the king lay in suffering. It was his wish to see every part of the building before he died, and he was borne slowly through the palace, the church, the convent, and the college. Philip was patient and resigned in the contemplation of the last hour of his life. He evinced his zeal in piety to the end, and ordered the release of certain prisoners as a final act of mercy. When death approached, the king asked that the prince and Isabella might attend at his bedside, and to them he exhorted holiness, and spoke of the vanity of ambition and the insecurity of power. On September 13 Philip II. partook of the last sacrament, and passed away.

So died the Founder of the Escorial, and the initiator of the great work which the Spanish people claimed as one of the chief wonders of the world. He had lived to see the realisation of his desire. Year by year he had watched the development of his plans, the building of the monastery, the uplifting of the church, and the establishment of a court and a college in this remote Castilian highland. The hours of his retirement had been devoted to the gratification of his taste in the arts, to contemplation, and to penance. Like Solomon, he had surrounded himself with objects of priceless worth, and he passed his days in an atmosphere of beauty. Æsthetic, and at the same time ascetic, Philip seemed possessed of a dual nature in which rival forces constantly contended. If his mind was marked by gloom, it was relieved by his passion for art and by his love of the simple pleasures of a country life. Nor was the king apparently devoid of a capacity for enjoying occasionally the conventional gaieties of life, for among his numerous retinue, he maintained a fool, or royal jester, one Miguel D’Antona, a grotesque dwarf, with an ugly, humorous countenance.

The Escorial was a royal hobby. But for us it is something more, for it illustrates in divers ways the thought, fancy, and idiosyncrasy of an enigmatic personality. And more than this, the building instructs us in the temper of a memorable age, profound in faith, zealous in patriotism, and conspicuous in martial valour. An inspection of the Escorial is as the reading of a long and remarkable chapter in the history of Spain.

In accordance with his father’s wishes, Philip III. began to build the present burial-vaults soon after his accession to the throne. He did not live to see the completion of the work, which was continued during the reign of Philip IV. The construction was, however, delayed through the attitude of the overseer of the works, who objected to the expenditure of so large a sum of money from the national exchequer; but under the monk Nicolas, the Panteon was at length made ready, in 1654, for the reception of the coffins of members of the royal families.

‘No monarchs of the earth,’ writes a chronicler, ‘have a mausoleum comparable to this of the Escorial, which to the glory of Spain was conceived by Charles V., undertaken by Philip II., carried on by Philip III., and completed by Philip IV.’

The second devastating fire at the Escorial broke out in 1671, and was supposed to have been caused by the fall of a rocket during a firework exhibition, following upon a day of rejoicing. The English translator of the works of Francisco de los Santos states that the fire ‘ruined and destroyed’ the edifice, but this is an exaggeration, though the damage was very great. It is said that the flames were not quenched for fifteen days, and that the peal of bells was melted. The queen-regent, Anne of Austria, restored the Escorial in 1676, and provided it with a new set of bells.

Another disaster might have befallen the Monasterio in 1755, when Lisbon was levelled by the great earthquake, but, fortunately, only a shock was perceived by the inmates of the building.

Charles III. made a few additions to the Escorial, and his son proposed the addition of a bull-ring; but the king, upon hearing of this project, forbade the work, and the prince contented himself with erecting a caseta or villa, which was named de Abajo.