One finds Philip himself, with his despatches in that high
nook, rather than among the bronze-gilt royalties at the high altar,
though his statue is duly there with those of his three wives. The group
does not include that poor Bloody Mary of England, who should have been
the fourth there, for surely she suffered enough for his faith and him
to be of his domestic circle forever.
IV
It is the distinct merit of the Escorial that it does not, and perhaps
cannot take long in doing; otherwise the doer could not bear it. A look
round the sumptuous burial chamber of the sovereigns below the high
altar of the church; a glance at the lesser sepulchral glories of the
infantes and infantas in their chapels and corridors, suffices for the
funereal third of the trinity of tomb and temple and palace; and though
there are gayer constituents of the last, especially the gallery of the
chapter-house, with its surprisingly lively frescoes and its sometimes
startling canvases, there is not much that need really keep you from the
royal apartments which seem the natural end of your visit. Of these
something better can be said than that they are no worse than most other
royal apartments; our guide led us to them through many granite courts
and corridors where we left groups of unguided Americans still maddening
over their Baedekers; and we found them hung with pleasing tapestries,
some after such designs of Goya's as one finds in the basement of the
Prado.
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