“They had a fancy for that sort of thing. Maria Louisa, Philip’s wife, scratched her name on one of these marble cases with her scissors.”
The party in the pantheon returned to the church to make room for another company to visit it. Dr. Winstock and his friends ascended the grand staircase, and from the top of the building obtained a fine view of the surrounding country, which at this season was as desolate and forbidding as possible. After this they took a survey of the monastery, most of which has the aspect of a barrack. They looked with interest at some of the portraits among the pictures, especially at those of Philip and Charles V. In the library they glanced at the old manuscripts, and at the catalogue in which some of Philip’s handwriting was pointed out to them.
They next went to the palace, which is certainly a mean abode for a king, though it was improved and adorned by some of the builder’s successors. Philip asked only a cell in the house he had erected and consecrated to God; and so he made the palace very simple and plain. Some of the long and narrow rooms are adorned with tapestries on the walls; but there is nothing in the palace to detain the visitor beyond a few minutes, except the apartments of Philip II. They are two small rooms, hardly more than six feet wide. One of them is Philip’s cabinet, where he worked on affairs of state; and the other is the oratory, where he knelt at the little latticed window which commanded a view of the priests at the high altar of the church. The old table at which he wrote, the chair in which he sat, and the footstool on which he placed his gouty leg, are still there. The doctor, who had been here before, pointed them out to the students.
“It almost seems as though he had just left the place,” said Sheridan. “I don’t see how a great king could be content to spend his time in such a gloomy den as this.”
“It was his own fancy, and he made his own nest to suit himself,” replied the doctor. “He was writing at that table when the loss of the invincible armada was announced to him. It is said he did not move a muscle, though he had wasted eighteen years of his life and a hundred million ducats upon the fleet and the scheme. He was kneeling at the window when Don John of Austria came in great haste to tell him of the victory of Lepanto; but he was not allowed to see the king till the latter had finished his devotions.”
“He was a cool old fellow,” added Murray.
“When he was near the end, he caused himself to be carried in a litter all over the wonderful building he had erected, that he might take a last look at the work of his hands,” continued the doctor. “He was finally brought to this place, where he received extreme unction; and, having taken leave of his family, he died, grasping the crucifix which his father had held in his last moments.”
The party passed out of the buildings, and gave some time to the gardens and grounds of the Escurial. There are some trees, a few of them the spindling and ghostly-looking Lombardy poplars; but, beyond the immediate vicinity of the “eighth wonder,” the country is desolate and wild, without a tree to vary the monotony of the scene. The doctor led the way down the hill to the Casita del Principe, which is a sort of miniature palace, built for Charles IV. when he was a boy. It is a pretty toy, containing thirty-three rooms, all of them of reduced size, and with furniture on the same scale. It contains some fine pictures and other works of art.
The tourists dined, and devoted the rest of the day to wandering about in the vicinity of the village. Some of them walked up to the Silla del Rey, or king’s chair, where Philip overlooked the work on the Escurial. At five o’clock the ship’s company took the slow train, and arrived at Madrid at half-past seven, using up two hours and a half in going thirty-two miles.