Note 17 — FIRST MASTER

The Duke of Escalona was the maternal grandfather of the author. The town of Escalona is on the right bank of the river Alberche, and about one hundred feet above it. Escalona is twenty-five miles north-west of Toledo. It was surrounded by a wall ten feet thick and thirty feet high, with two gates. In the principal square there were arcades and a stone cross. Juan II. gave Escalona to the Constable Alvaro de Luna in 1424, who built a great palace there, which was demolished by the French under Marshal Soult. King Henry IV. gave Escalona to Juan Pacheco, the Master of Santiago. In Lazarillo’s time it belonged to Don Diego Lopez de Pacheco, second Duke of Escalona and Marquis of Villena. He distinguished himself in the last Moorish war in Granada, and died in 1529. He resided in the old palace built by the Constable Alvaro de Luna, where he dispensed hospitality, among many others to Don Alonzo Enriquez de Guzman (see translation of that young adventurer’s life and acts, p. 71, Hakluyt Society, 1862). Madoz states that, in his time, Escalona consisted of 190 houses, population 580.