24 ANDREW J. SHIPMAN MEMORIAL 



sons, or over three times as many as Spain possesses per 

 capita. Yet we are not prone to think that the United States 

 is "clergy-ridden." A little comparison of the relative situa- 

 tion of things v^ould make the usual criticism of Spain a little 

 more charitable and certainly more judicious. 



Some eighteen miles away to the northwest lies the village 

 of Escorial, where Philip II built the pile which has taken that 

 name to itself in the minds of most sightseers. Escorial 

 (from the Latin scoria) was a forlorn village surrounding 

 certain iron mines, where slag and cinders were the chief 

 ornament of the landscape, at the foot of the Guadarrama 

 mountains. This spot was selected by Philip II to erect the 

 great building which is at once a palace, a temple, a monas- 

 tery, and a tomb, and which was the abiding-place of that 

 monarch in the declining years of his life. When the traveller 

 arrives by train, a dashing automobile takes him from the 

 station up the hill to the centre of the village, where the 

 famous buildings are. The dull gray stone and severe archi- 

 tecture make it a part almost of the frowning Guadarramas 

 which lie behind it. High up on the mountain side is a little 

 plateau called "Philip's Chair" (La Silla de Felipe) where it 

 is said that the king caused a large throne-like chair to be 

 placed in which he sat and watched the workmen build the 

 Escorial. 



The gray building is situated in an enormous courtyard, 

 with still an inner court. Toward the east is the temple or 

 church, which is built in a severe style of architecture, simple, 

 yet resembling St. Peter's Church at Rome. The high altar 

 has a retablo or reredos of carved wood, rising to the ceiling. 

 Oin the Gospel side, in a niche over the sanctuary, are the 

 figures of Charles V and his family kneeling and facing the 

 altar. On the epistle side is a similar bronze group of Philip 

 II and some of his family in a similar attitude. High up in 

 the rear of the church is the famous coro alto, the choir in 

 which Philip sat in his stall as a monk and which had the 

 little postern door by his side through which he entered and 

 received communications. He was kneeling here when the 

 news was brought to him that Don John of Austria had won 

 the battle of Lepanto ; he immediately rose and commanded the 

 choir to sing the Te Deum. This choir loft is supported upon 

 a single flat arch or vaulting which trembles under footsteps. 



