Albert Frederick Calvert

Royal Palaces of Spain Albert Frederick Calvert

IF men may be known by their works, the Escorial will help us to a better understanding of Philip of Spain-of his temperament and his purpose-than can be gained by the study of any other architectural monument for which he was responsible. Philip II. was guilty of craft and duplicity; he inflicted suffering and death upon hosts of his innocent vassals; he has been depicted as a monster of cruelty and bigoted intolerance. But as a monarch inspired with unfaltering belief in the divine right of his kingship, he could not be expected to be tolerant of the stubbornness of others; and as the instrument of God, appointed to enforce religious unity not only among his own subjects, but also upon the rest of Europe, he doubtless felt he was justified in employing any means to accomplish his mission. The Emperor Charles V. had exhorted Philip to exterminate every trace of heresy from his dominions, and his son never forgot the injunction nor sought to escape the obligation that had been thrust upon him. Throughout his reign, which was inaugurated by an impressive auto-da-fé at Valladolid-in which twelve tortured creatures were sacrificed on the fiery altar of their sovereign's religious zeal-and closed in an agony of devotion and unshaken faith, he pursued a course which he never doubted was right. A Spaniard of the Spaniards, convinced that Spain was the only centre of true religion, he allowed nothing to stand between him and the attainment of his high purpose. An intense and dangerous individualist, cursed with the religious exaltation of his house, his ecstatic asceticism enabled him to endure suffering and practise rigid mortifications with the same stoicism as that with which he afflicted others. In his zeal for God and Spain he was sincere; he never permitted failure, disaster, or catastrophe to daunt him. His most cherished schemes were frustrated; his beloved country was pauperised and desolated by his policy; he, who devoted all his energies and power to the crushing of Protestantism, lived to see the hated faith enthroned in England, Scotland, Holland, North Germany, and Scandinavia; yet he died after a lingering illness of indescribable physical suffering in the great monastery he had built to the honour of God, convinced to the end of his acceptability as Vicegerent of Jehovah, and conscious that he had exercised his trust to the brighter glory of his Maker.