Excerpt from Castilian Days Its greatness was thrust upon it by Philip II. Some premonitory symptoms of the dangerous honour that awaited it had been seen in preceding reigns. Ferdinand and Isabella occasionally set up their pilgrim tabernacle on the declivity that overhangs the Manzanares. Charles V. Found the thin, fine air comforting to his gouty articula tions. But Philip II. Made it his court. It seems hard to conceive how a king, who had his choice of Lisbon, with its glorious harbour and unequalled communications; Seville, with its delicious climate and natural beauty; and Salamanca and Toledo, with their wealth of tradition, splendour of architecture, and renown of learning, should have chosen this barren mountain for his home, and the seat of his Empire. But when we know this monkish king, we wonder no longer. He chose Madrid simply because it was cheerless and bare and of ophthalmic ugliness. The royal kill-joy delighted in having the dreariest capital on earth. After a while there seemed to him too much life and humanity about Madrid, and he built the Escorial, the grandest ideal of majesty and ennui that. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

"The papers composing this volume were written in Madrid in the spring of last year. [1870?] Since then, a series of important modifications have taken place in the politics of Spain, through the accession of King Amadeus, and the death of Marshal Prim."--Introduction