L. de Cabrera de Cordova, Felipe Segundo (Madrid, 1619); James
Wadsworth, Further Observations of the English Spanish Pilgrime
(London, 1629, 1630); Ilario Mazzorali de Cremona, Le Reali
Grandezze del Escuriale (Bologna, 1648); De los Santos, Descripcion
del real monasterio, &c. (Madrid, 1657); Andres Ximenes, Descripcion,
&c. (Madrid, 1764); Y. Quevedo, Historia del Real Monasterio, &c.
(Madrid, 1849); A. Rotondo, Hist. artistica, ... del monasterio de
San Lorenzo (Madrid, 1856–1861); W. H. Prescott, Life of Philip II.
(London, 1887); J. Fergusson, History of the Modern Styles of
Architecture (London, 1891–1893); Sir W. Stirling-Maxwell, Annals
of the Artists of Spain (London, 1891).
ESCOVEDO, JUAN DE (d. 1578), Spanish politician, secretary
of Don John of Austria, and chiefly notable as having been the
victim of one of the mysteries of the 16th century, began life
in the household of Ruy Gomez de Silva, prince of Eboli, the
most trusted minister of the early years of the reign of Philip II.
By the will of the prince he was endowed for life with the post of
Regidor, or legal representative of the king in the municipality
of Madrid. He was also associated with Antonio Perez as one of
the secretaries who acted as the agents of the king in all dealings
with the various governing boards which formed the Spanish
administration. When Don John of Austria, after the battle of
Lepanto in 1571, began to launch on a policy of self-seeking
adventure, Escovedo was appointed as his secretary with the
intention that he should act as a check on these follies. Unhappily
for himself and for Don John he went heart and soul into
all the prince’s schemes. He began to disobey orders from Madrid
and became entangled in intrigues to manage or even to coerce
the king. In July 1577, and contrary to the king’s orders, he
came to Spain from Flanders, where Don John was then governor.
It is said that he discovered the love intrigue between Antonio
Perez and the widowed princess of Eboli, Ana Mendoza de la
Cerda. This is, however, mere gossip and supposition. There can
be no doubt that he was a busy intriguer, or that the king, acting
on the then very generally accepted doctrine that the sovereign
has a right to act for the public interest without regard to forms
of law, gave orders to Antonio Perez that he was to be put out
of the way. After two clumsy attempts had been made to poison
him at Perez’s table, he was killed by bravos on the night of
Easter Monday, the 31st of March 1578. According to an old
tradition the murder took place outside the church of St Maria
in Madrid, which was pulled down in 1868.
See Gaspar Muro, La Princesse d’Eboli (Paris, 1878); and W. H. Prescott, Reign of Philip II. (1855–59).
ESCUINTLA, the capital of the department of Escuintla,
Guatemala; on the southern slope of the Sierra Madre, 45 m.
S.W. of Guatemala city. Pop. (1905) about 12,000. Escuintla
is locally celebrated for its hot mineral springs. It is the commercial
centre of a fertile district, which produces coffee, cane-sugar
and cocoa; it has also a brisk transit trade in most of the
products of Guatemala, owing to its position on the interoceanic
railway between Puerto Barrios on the Atlantic and San José
(30 m. S.) on the Pacific. A branch railway which goes westward
to San Augustin meets this line at Escuintla.
ESCUTCHEON (O. Fr. escucheon, escusson, modern écusson,
through a Late Lat. form from Lat. scutum, shield), an heraldic
term for a shield with armorial bearings displayed (see Heraldry).
The word is also applied to the shields used on tombs, in the
spandrils of doors or in string-courses, and to the ornamented
plates from the centre of which door-rings, knockers, &c., are
suspended, or which protect the wood of the key-hole from the
wear of the key. In medieval times these were often worked
in a very beautiful manner.
ESHER, WILLIAM BALIOL BRETT, 1st Viscount (1817–1899),
English lawyer and master of the rolls, was a son of the
Rev. Joseph G. Brett, of Chelsea, and was born on the 13th of
August 1817. He was educated at Westminster and at Caius
College, Cambridge. Called to the bar in 1840, he went the
northern circuit, and became a Q.C. in 1861. On the death of
Richard Cobden he unsuccessfully contested Rochdale as a
Conservative, but in 1866 was returned for Helston in unique
circumstances. He and his opponent polled exactly the same
number of votes, whereupon the mayor, as returning officer,
gave his casting vote for the Liberal candidate. As this vote
was given after four o’clock, however, an appeal was lodged,
and the House of Commons allowed both members to take their
seats. Brett rapidly made his mark in the House, and in 1868
he was appointed solicitor-general. On behalf of the crown he
prosecuted the Fenians charged with having caused the Clerkenwell
explosion. In parliament he took a leading part in the
promotion of bills connected with the administration of law and
justice. He was (August 1868) appointed a justice in the court
of common pleas. Some of his sentences in this capacity excited
much criticism, notably so in the case of the gas stokers’ strike,
when he sentenced the defendants to imprisonment for twelve
months, with hard labour, which was afterwards reduced by
the home secretary to four months. On the reconstitution of
the court of appeal in 1876, Brett was elevated to the rank of a
lord justice. After holding this position for seven years, he
succeeded Sir George Jessel as master of the rolls in 1883. In
1885 he was raised to the House of Lords as Baron Esher. He
opposed the bill proposing that an accused person or his wife
might give evidence in their own case, and supported the bill
which empowered lords of appeal to sit and vote after their
retirement. The Solicitors Act of 1888, which increased the
powers of the Incorporated Law Society, owed much to his
influence. In 1880 he delivered a remarkable speech in the
House of Lords, deprecating the delay and expense of trials,
which he regarded as having been increased by the Judicature
Acts. Lord Esher suffered, perhaps, as master of the rolls from
succeeding a lawyer of such eminence as Jessel. He had a caustic tongue, but also a fund of shrewd common sense, and
one of his favourite considerations was whether a certain course
was “business” or not. He retired from the bench at the close
of 1897, and a viscounty was conferred upon him on his retirement,
a dignity never given to any judge, lord chancellors excepted,
“for mere legal conduct since the time of Lord Coke.” He
died in London on the 24th of May 1899.
Lord Esher was succeeded in the title by his only surviving son, Reginald Baliol Brett (b. 1852), who was secretary to the office of works from 1895 to 1902, but subsequently came into far greater public prominence in 1904 as Chairman of the war office reconstitution committee after the South African War.
ESHER, a township in the Epsom parliamentary division
of Surrey, England, 14½ m. S.W. of London by the London
& South Western railway (Esher and Claremont station). It
is pleasantly situated on rising ground above the river Mole,
3 m. from its junction with the Thames. To the north-west
lie the grounds of Esher Place. Of the mansion-house founded
by William of Waynflete, bishop of Winchester (c. 1450), in which
Cardinal Wolsey resided for three or four weeks after his sudden
fall from power in 1529, only the gatehouse remains. It is known
as Wolsey’s Tower, but is apparently part of Waynflete’s foundation.
A new mansion was erected in 1803. To the south is
Claremont Palace, built by the great Lord Clive (1769) on the
site of a mansion of Sir John Vanbrugh. In 1816 it was the
residence of Princess Charlotte, wife of Prince (afterwards King)
Leopold. She died here in 1817, and on the death of her husband
in 1865 the property passed to the crown. Louis Philippe, ex-king
of the French, resided here from 1848 until his death in
1850. In 1882 Claremont became the private property of Queen
Victoria. Christ Church, Esher, contains fine memorials of
King Leopold and others, and one of its three bells is said to
have been brought from San Domingo by Sir Francis Drake.
To the north near the railway station is Sandown Park, where
important race meetings are held. Esher is included in the
urban district of Esher and The Dittons, of which Thames
Ditton is a favourite riverside resort. The whole district is
largely residential. Pop. (1901) 9489.
ESKER (O. Irish eiscir), a local name for long mounds of
glacial gravel frequently met with in Ireland. Eskers (the
Swedish åsar) are among the occasionally puzzling relics of the
British glacial period. They wind from side to side across
glaciated country and have evidently been formed by channels
upon or under the ice. “Where streams of considerable size form
tunnels under or in the ice these may become more or less filled
