ANOTHER of the Spanish royal residences, of which no other European country can boast so many, is, to give the edifice its correct title: “El Real sitio de San Lorenzo el Real del Escorial,” which is situated some twenty-five miles from Madrid. The ancient glory of El Escorial, its revenues, its monks and its magnificence, are vanished, but the activity and importance of the district have been revived by virtue of the wonderful copper mines which lie almost under the shadow of the mighty walls of the historical building. The immediate vicinity of the Escorial is extremely beautiful. Close at hand rises a mountain range, highly picturesque in form and outline, and of a colouring singularly rich and varied, while many of the upland slopes are clothed with thickets and bushy patches of copse-wood, their varied tints thrown into bright relief by the dark grey rocks cropping out here and there along the face of the mountain. Immediately below lies the park with its dark foliage of ibex, while to the east lies a tiny lake, which glistens under the early sunbeams.

The Escorial, which has been pronounced to be the “eighth wonder of the world,” owed its existence to Philip II. and the celebrated architects, Juan Bautista de Toledo and Juan de Herrera, and is at once a palace, a monastery and the pantheon of the monarchs of Spain. Formerly, it was known as the Royal Monastery of St. Lawrence, and it was raised in commemoration of the battle of St. Quentin, when the Spanish army routed the French on the festival day of the martyr, St. Lawrence. Philip II., or the architect, or both, are commonly believed to have designedly planned the outline of the building in the shape of a gridiron, out of respect for the butchered saint, whose martyrdom on one of those utensils is a matter of history. Probably, however, chance rather than design is responsible for the exact plan; though there can be no doubt, looking down at the Escorial from the top of the neighbouring mountains, that the simile is justifiable. A desire to protect majesty from the keen winds and to obtain for majesty’s apartments the bulk of the sunshine in the neighbourhood, perhaps helped to make the Escorial what it is, architecturally speaking.

Before the French invasion, the church teemed with treasures of art—sacred vessels of gold and silver—a multitude of shrines—reliquaires—and a tabernacle of such exquisite workmanship, that it was wont to be spoken of as worthy to be one of the ornaments of the celestial altar. All these were destroyed by La Houssage’s troopers when they occupied the Escorial in 1808, by way of giving vent to their national feeling respecting the battle of St. Quentin, two-and-a-half centuries before. The Escorial sustained a still greater loss in 1837, during the Carlist war, when about a hundred of the choicest paintings were removed, for safety’s sake, to the Museo at Madrid.

The exploration of the Escorial is a formidable undertaking, comprising as it does the inspection of a palace, a convent, two

colleges, three chapter-houses and three libraries, with their concomitant complement of halls, dormitories, refectories and infirmaries. There are no fewer than eighty-six staircases; and someone, gifted with a turn for statistics, has calculated that to visit every individual room and to traverse each staircase and corridor, would occupy four entire days, and carry the adventurer over a distance of about a hundred and twenty English miles. The square of the building covers 500,000 feet; there are eighty-eight fountains, fifteen cloisters, sixteen courtyards, and 3,000 feet of painted fresco.

Twenty-one years were occupied in its construction, but a century did not suffice to collect the wonderful literary treasures which it now contains. One of the most famous MSS. in the Escorial library is the “Libro de Oro,” the letters of which are composed of eight kilogrammes (18 lbs.) of gold leaf. These letters, which are of course very thin, are attached to parchment. Forty-two richly-decorated altars are to be seen in the interior of the palace church, but more wonderful in their way than the altars are the service books for the use of the choir. It is said that each leaf of each book was made from an entire calf-skin, 17,000 skins being used in the process.

Beneath the church is the burial place of the kings of Spain; the one spot, one would imagine, where etiquette would not rule; but where, in reality, it is most rigorously observed; for right royal dust must not mingle with the dust of princes, and a separate pantheon was for this cause built for those sons of kings who had not actually worn the purple. Apart from its treasures and its curiosities, there is one quarter of the Escorial which is of particular interest to English-speaking peoples. In three small rooms, as bare as the cell of the anchorite, dwelt the husband of Queen Mary of England, that monkish and forbidding sovereign at whose command the myriad ships of the Invincible Armada were hurled against England. His ambition was to make England the appanage of Spain; all he obtained were a few English elms which still flourish in the palace gardens.

Yet another Royal Palace, occupying an extensive valley, surrounded by hills, is situated at Aranjuez, in the extreme south of the province of Madrid, on the left bank of the full-flowing river Tajo. In the town of Aranjuez there are splendid farms, palaces and hotels, wide thoroughfares, good churches, theatre, hospital, barracks, very beautiful promenades, and all the other adjuncts of a model town. All these, however, are surpassed by the beauty of the gardens and parks which, with the Royal Palace, are the property of the Crown. The illustration shows the side of the Royal dwelling which opens on to what are called the Island gardens, on account of their being surrounded by the waters of the river Tajo. The first thing that strikes one is the monumental fountain which deals with the allegory of the Pillars of Hercules, and was designed by the Italian sculptor, Alexander Algardi. The building, which was commenced in 1561 by Philip II. and continued by all the Bourbon kings, is elegantly proportioned, and is surrounded by delicious gardens, luxurious avenues of trees, picturesque woods, and large lakes.