Note 115 — Chapter IV · 1555-1558
Reading edition
The vast monastery palace of the Escorial owed its origin to such a promise on the part of Philip II. when he saw to his sorrow that his troops had destroyed and sacked a church and cloister dedicated to St. Laurence at St. Quintin. To appease the saint, he promised on the spot to build the grandest monastery to St. Laurence in the world, and he kept his word. For the greater part of his life the building of this stupendous pile upon the sterile Guadarrama steppes was an obsession of the King.