The pious Philip II. came here, though he preferred his mountain palace of the Escorial. He ordered the portraits of the Kings of Spain to be painted in the Hall of the Ambassadors. As we have read, Philip incurred the resentment of the Sevillian merchants by his confiscation of their ingots. But the prelates and clergy of the city honoured the sovereign, who always supported the Church and favoured the priests. In his reign the Primate of Spain was almost as wealthy as the Pope. The Archbishop of Seville received an income of eighty thousand ducats a year. Philip spent his time at the Alcázar in his usual daily labours, writing like a clerk in his private room until the small hours of the morning. Every morning he attended Mass. The King lived simply, for he feared the gout. But in spite of this form of frugality, Philip spent his revenue freely in maintaining a large household. In his retinue there were fifteen hundred persons, including forty pages, all of noble family. In the Queen's train there were twenty-six ladies-in-waiting, and four physicians were in constant attendance on Her Majesty. We may picture Philip moodily roaming in the gardens, dressed in black velvet, with a plumed cap. From his neck was suspended the fine jewel of the Golden Fleece. He wore sober clothes, and changed his suits once every month for new ones. His wear, like the cast of his mind, was sombre. A dread of society possessed the King, and in his later days he became more taciturn and morose. 'I am absolute King,' was the boast of the despotic Philip. His ambition was to attain power, to extend his kingdom beyond the seas, and to crush out heresy. Yet Tennyson's love-dazzled Mary is made to ask, as she gazes upon the face of the Spanish King, in a miniature painting: 'Is this the face of one who plays the tyrant? Peruse it; is it not goodly, ay, and gentle?' These gardens evoke reflections upon the ever-changing fate of Spain. We gaze at relics of the Moors, and remember the eight hundred years of that sanguinary history of the expulsion of the infidels. Yet everywhere there are traces of that mighty civilisation built up by Morisco knowledge and industry. The _Mudéjar_ has touched the palace and the gardens with his magic wand. Fernando, Pedro, Philip, Carlos--all the Catholic sovereigns--preserved the Moorish style of decoration, and borrowed from the art of the hated race. Passing under a handsome gateway, represented in one of our illustrations, we come to a fountain surrounded by a tiled pavement, and overshadowed by trees. Before us is the Pavilion of Carlos Quinto, with a fine ceiling and _azulejos_. This summer-house was built by Juan Hernandez in 1543. Turn to the left, and inspect the archway in the wall, and the curious mural paintings. We may then retrace our steps to the pavilion, and pass another tank and a grotto till we reach the maze and a tangled garden beyond it. This is the Garden of the Labyrinth. Further, we may not ramble.