It is a valuable historical document, and contains a singularly vivid account of an interview with Napoleon. Escoiquiz was far too firmly convinced of his ingenuity and merits to conceal the delusions and follies of himself and his associates. He displays his own vanity, frivolity and futile cleverness with much unconscious humour, but, it is only fair to allow, with some literary dexterity. When the Spanish royal family was imprisoned by Napoleon, Escoiquiz remained with Ferdinand at Valençay. In 1813 he published at Bourges a translation of Milton’s Paradise Lost. When Ferdinand was released in 1814 he came back to Madrid in the hope that his ambition would now be satisfied, but the king was tired of him, and was moreover resolved never to be subjected by any favourite. After a very brief period of office in 1815 he was sent as a prisoner to Murcia. Though he was afterwards recalled, he was again exiled to Ronda, where he died on the 27th of November 1820.
ESCOMBE, HARRY (1838–1899), South African statesman, a
member of a Somersetshire family, was born at Notting Hill,
London, on the 25th of July 1838, and was educated at St Paul’s
school. After four years in a stockbroker’s office, he emigrated,
in 1859, to the Cape. The following year he moved to Natal,
and, after trying other occupations, qualified as an attorney.
He became recognized as the ablest pleader in the colony, and,
in 1872, was elected for Durban as a member of the legislative
council, and subsequently was also placed on the executive
council. In 1880 he secured the appointment of a harbour board
for Natal, and was himself made chairman. The transformation
of the port of Durban into a harbour available for ocean liners
was due entirely to his energy. In 1888–1889 he defended
Dinizulu and other Zulu chiefs against a charge of high treason.
For several years he opposed the grant of responsible government
to Natal, but by 1890 had become convinced of its desirability,
and on its conferment in 1893 he joined the first ministry
formed, serving under Sir John Robinson as attorney-general.
In February 1897, on Sir John’s retirement, Escombe became
premier, remaining attorney-general and also holding the office
of minister of education and minister of defence. In the summer
of that year he was in London with the other colonial premiers
at the celebration of the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria,
and was made a member of the privy council. Cambridge University
conferred upon him the honorary degree of LL.D.
The election that followed his return to Natal proved unfavourable
to his policy, and he resigned office (October 1897).
Throughout his life he took an active interest in national defence.
He had served in the Zulu War of 1879, was commander of the
Natal Naval Volunteers and received the volunteer long service
decoration. In October 1899 he went to the northern confines
of the colony to take part in preparing measures of defence
against the invasion by the Boers. He died on the 27th of
December 1899.
The Speeches of the late Right Hon. Harry Escombe (Maritzburg, 1903), edited by J. T. Henderson, contains brief biographical notes by Sir John Robinson and the editor.
ESCORIAL, or Escurial, in Spain, one of the most remarkable
buildings in Europe, comprising at once a convent, a church,
a palace and a mausoleum. The Escorial is situated 3432 ft.
above the sea, on the south-western slopes of the Sierra de
Guadarrama, and thus within the borders of the province of
Madrid and the kingdom of New Castile. By the Madrid-Ávila
railway it is 31 m. N.W. of Madrid. The surrounding country is a
sterile and gloomy wilderness exposed to the cold and blighting
blasts of the Sierra.
According to the usual tradition, which there seems no sufficient reason to reject, the Escorial owes its existence to a vow made by Philip II. of Spain (1556–1598), shortly after the battle of St Quentin, in which his forces succeeded in routing the army of France. The day of the victory, the 10th of August 1557, was sacred to St Laurence; and accordingly the building was dedicated to that saint, and received the title of El real monasterio de San Lorenzo del Escorial. The last distinctive epithet was derived from the little hamlet in the vicinity which furnished shelter, not only to the workmen, but to the monks of St Jerome who were afterwards to be in possession of the monastery; and the hamlet itself is generally but perhaps erroneously supposed to be indebted for its name to the scoriae or dross of certain old iron mines. The preparation of the plans and the superintendence of the work were entrusted by the king to Juan Bautista de Toledo, a Spanish architect who had received most of his professional education in Italy. The first stone was laid in April 1563; and under the king’s personal inspection the work rapidly advanced. Abundant supplies of berroqueña, a granite-like stone, were obtained in the neighbourhood, and for rarer materials the resources of both the Old and the New World were put under contribution. The death of Toledo in 1567 threatened a fatal blow at the satisfactory completion of the enterprise, but a worthy successor was found in Juan Herrera, Toledo’s favourite pupil, who adhered in the main to his master’s designs. On the 13th of September 1584 the last stone of the masonry was laid, and the works were brought to a termination in 1593. Each successive occupant of the Spanish throne has done something, however slight, to the restoration or adornment of Philip’s convent-palace, and Ferdinand VII. (1808–1833) did so much in this way that he has been called a second founder. In all its principal features, however, the Escorial remains what it was made by the genius of Toledo and Herrera working out the grand, if abnormal, desires of their master.
The ground plan of the building is estimated to occupy an area of 396,782 sq. ft., and the total area of all the storeys would form a causeway 1 metre in breadth and 95 m. in length. There are seven towers, fifteen gateways and, according to Los Santos, no fewer than 12,000 windows and doors. The general arrangement is shown by the accompanying plan. Entering by the main entrance the visitor finds himself in an atrium, called the Court of the Kings (Patio de los reyes), from the 16th-century statues of the kings of Judah, by Juan Bautista Monegro, which adorn the façade of the church. The sides of the atrium are unfortunately occupied by plain ungainly buildings five storeys in height, awkwardly accommodating themselves to the upward slope of the ground. Of the grandeur of the church itself, however, there can be no question: it is the finest portion of the whole Escorial, and, according to Fergusson, deserves to rank as one of the great Renaissance churches of Europe. It is about 340 ft. from east to west by 200 from north to south, and thus occupies an area of about 70,000 sq. ft. The dome is 60 ft. in diameter, and its height at the centre is about 320 ft. In glaring contrast to the bold and simple forms of the architecture, which belongs to the Doric style, were the bronze and marbles and pictures of the high altar, the masterpiece of the Milanese Giacomo Trezzo, almost ruined by the French in 1808. Directly under the altar is situated the pantheon or royal mausoleum, a richly decorated octagonal chamber with upwards of twenty niches, occupied by black marble urnas or sarcophagi, kept sacred for the dust of kings or mothers of kings. There are the remains of Charles V. (1516–1556), of Philip II., and of all their successors on the Spanish throne down to Ferdinand VII., with the exception of Philip V. (1700–1746) and Ferdinand VI. (1746–1759). Several of the sarcophagi are still empty. For the other members of the royal family there is a separate vault, known as the Panteon de los Infantes, or more familiarly by the dreadfully suggestive name of El Pudridero. The most interesting room in the palace is Philip II.’s cell, from which through an opening in the wall he could see the celebration of mass while too ill to leave his bed.
