Philip of Spain by Henry Kamen

Author:Henry Kamen [Kamen, Henry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780300070811
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: 1997-05-29T00:00:00+00:00

The somewhat giddy pace was quite usual. Because of the distances involved, and also because he went accompanied either by his family or by his papers, the king normally travelled in his carriage. For short distances, he continued to travel on horseback.113

He seldom stayed in San Lorenzo, or any other palace, for more than a short time. For him the Escorial was his perfect office, where he could work peacefully, away from administrators, ministers and petitioners. His librarian testified that ‘he completed more business here in one day than in Madrid in four, because of the tranquillity’.114 The family on these occasions was usually encouraged to stay in some other palace, such as the Alcázar of Madrid. But he did not reserve the Escorial only for work. At Pentecost in 1575, for example, he made a special two-week visit there to celebrate his birthday and to entertain Anna. The evening that the royal party arrived, 20 May, Anna arranged for a group of local shepherds to shear their flocks in the traditional way outside her window. They accompanied their efforts with boisterous and indelicate songs, much to the amusement of the king and queen. The shepherds were plied liberally with wine, which further lowered the tone of the songs but increased the general hilarity. The day after his birthday, the king and the young archdukes participated in a mounted procession through the cloister. The following evening, 23 May, Philip acted as guide to his wife, his daughters, the archdukes and a large court following. He took them proudly through what was going to be his future library: ‘he went along chatting about all the things in the library, showing and explaining them to queen Anna, so that she saw everything fully and at leisure’.115 The first delivery of books had just been made, some 4,000 volumes, from his own collections.116

Despite the separations, at no time in the 1570s was business given precedence over family matters. He was in constant touch with the queen and the children. The queen's chamberlain informed him regularly of every aspect of her household. In the case of Anna, Philip used to write to her about twice a week during separations, and she did the same. When their letters crossed, ‘it was not necessary to write yesterday [he informed her chamberlain] since I have seen the queen's reply to mine; and you may now hand the queen the present letter’.117 Over and above the letters, the royal couple would make regular outings (jornadas) to see each other, and in this way would manage to visit the various palaces in turn.

The king could not afford to stop work completely. When the queen and family came to see him at San Lorenzo on 22 May 1572, he spent most of his time with them; but in the evening he returned to his papers. It was a particularly splendid spring that year, and the outings continued regularly through May and June. After a few days in San Lorenzo, with

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