Philip II of Spain

Philip II of Spain (Spanish: Felipe II) - (May 21, 1527 – September 13 1598), the first King of Spain understood as the whole peninsula of Hispania (r. 1556-1598), Naples and Sicily (r. 1554-1558), and Portugal, as Philip I (Portuguese: Filipe I), (r. 1580-1598), was born at Valladolid, the heir apparent and only legitimate son of the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V and queen consort Isabella of Portugal to survive childhood.

Philip II, the self-proclaimed leader of the Counter-Reformation, assumed the throne in 1556 with a great deal of potential, inheriting from his father Charles V the Habsburg lands in Spain, Italy and Burgundy, thus inheriting Castille, Aragon, the Netherlands, Franche-Comté, Naples, Sicily, Milan and overseas Spanish America, which was far more lucrative than his father's empire in Germany. Philip's empire was so vast that it was said to be the first empire on which the sun never set. Subsequently, he was at peace for a total of 6 months throughout his 42 year reign. The death of Charles V also divided the Habsburg territories, freeing Philip from the burden of governing the unstable German territories, which were thereafter ruled by the Austrian branch of the Habsburgs. Philip's reign marked perhaps the zenith of Spanish power abroad. After the death of Suleiman the Magnificent in 1566, the Turkish advance on Mediterranean continued in 1570 with the Turks capturing the Venetian island of Cyprus — the last Christian outpost in the region. At the height of his power, the Pope and Christian Europe urged Philip to block Turkish expansion. In turn, Philip would form a Holy League to destroy Ottoman naval power in Mediterranean. Spanish and Venetian warships, joined by volunteers across Europe, would later crush the Turks in the Battle of Lepanto. This mission marked the height of the respectability of Spain and its sovereign abroad as Philip bore the burden of leading the Counter-Reformation.

His first marriage (1543) was to his cousin Princess Maria of Portugal, who provided him with a son, Don Carlos of Spain (1545-1568). Following Maria's death in 1546, he sought an alliance with England, marrying the Catholic Queen Mary I of England in 1554. The marriage was unpopular with her subjects, and was a purely political alliance as far as Philip was concerned. On January 16 1556, Philip succeeded to the throne of Spain, as a result of his father's abdication, but he did not choose to reside in the country until his father's death two years later.

After his second wife, Mary Tudor, died childless in 1558, Philip showed an interest in marrying her Protestant younger sister, Queen Elizabeth I of England, but this plan fell through, for a number of reasons. Philip believed his son Don Carlos had conspired against him; as a result, Philip had him imprisoned. When the prince died shortly thereafter, Philip's enemies accused him of having ordered the murder of his own son. There is limited evidence for this, and the circumstances surrounding the death of Don Carlos have remained an area of historical controversy.

In 1559 the 60-year war with France ended with the signing of the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis. Part of the peace process was Philip's third marriage to Princess Elisabeth of Valois, daughter of Henri II of France who in fact had first been promised to his son, Don Carlos. Elisabeth (1545-1568), provided him with two daughters, but no son. Philip's fourth wife, Anne, daughter of the emperor Maximilian II, provided him with an heir, Philip III.

During Philip II's reign the Philippine Islands were conquered and named for him and a North American colony was established in Florida.

But, his reign was troubled by financial instability and threatened Muslim invasions, as well as conflict with England and the seccession of the Netherlands. Philip also faced various rebellions against his rule in mainland Spain, most notably the Morisco revolt of 1568, or the Aragonese revolt following the Antonio Perez affair, as Philip attempted to arrest him through use of the Inquisition, thereby breaching the fueros of Aragon.

Spain's quagmire in the Netherlands (see Dutch Revolt), the defeat of its "invincible Armada" in 1588, and the economic strain of supporting so many wars with an insufficient tax base would lead to the collapse of Spanish hegemony by Philip's death in 1598. In the seventeen provinces of the Netherlands, Philip II continued the policies of heavy taxation since Charles V. Like Charles V, he continued to exclude local nobility from administration, preferring the use of a Castilian Consulta, maintained an army of occupation, and upheld an Inquisition to stop the advance of Calvinism.

Following the 1566 Calvinist revolt, Philip II set out to stamp out treason and heresy. Issuing a new sales tax of roughly ten percent to pay for the required military expenditures (the 10th penny), the situation in the Netherlands only worsened. The region fell under open revolt once again in 1568 under William the Silent of the House of Orange, crushed by the brutal Spanish Fury led by the Duke of Alba, who convened the council of troubles (or council of blood as it came to be known), to condemn thousands to death and confiscate land. But following the Pacification of Ghent in 1576, poorly fed and poorly nourished Spanish troops, formerly considered invincible, especially after the successful campaign against the Ottomans, mutinied. The Dutch Calvinists declared that Spanish soldiers must be expelled and to be governed by the Estates General. But the Spanish took advantage of the strong religious, cultural and linguistic variation between the northern and southern provinces, playing local aristocrats against each other and recapturing the Southern provinces. Secure behind the "Great Rivers" of the Rhine delta, the north of the Netherlands emerged as the United Provinces.

The seven United Provinces eventually declared their independence from the Spanish king in 1581 following the Union of Utrecht of 1579, their leader, William of Orange was outlawed by Philip, and assassinated in 1584 by a Catholic fanatic.

Aside from draining state revenues for failed overseas adventurism, the domestic policies of Philip II exacerbated Spanish decline. For one, far too much power was concentrated in Philip's hands. Unlike England, Spain was subject to separate assemblies: the Cortes in Castile along with the assembly in Navarre and three for each of the three regions of Aragon. While France was divided by regional states, it had a single Estates-General. The lack of a viable assembly would lead to a great deal of power being concentrated in Philip's hands. Authority was administered by local agents appointed by the crown and viceroys carried out instructions of the crown. Philip, a compulsive micromanager, presided over specialized councils for state affairs, finance, war, and the Inquisition. A distrustful sovereign, Philip played royal bureaucrats against each other, leading to a system of checks and balances that would manage state affairs in a very inefficient manner, sometimes damaging state business (leading to the Perez affair - see Antonio Perez). Calls to move capital to Lisbon from the Castilian stronghold of Madrid — the new capital Philip established following the move from Valladolid — could have perhaps lead to a degree of decentralization, but Philip adamantly opposed such efforts.

Philip's regime severely neglected farming in favor of sheep ranching, thus forcing Spain to import large amounts of grain and other foods by the mid-1560s. Presiding over a sharply divided conservative class structure, the Church and the upper classes were exempt from taxation (to be expected, considering their lack of parliamentary powers) while the tax burden fell disproportionately on the classes engaged in trade, commerce, and industry.

Due to the inefficiencies of the Spanish state structure, industry was also greatly over-burdened by government regulations. The religious expulsion of the Jews and the Moors also deprived Spain of skilled financiers and craftsmen.

While inflation throughout Europe in the sixteenth century is a broader and more complex phenomenon, the flood of bullion from Americas contributed to high inflation. Under Philip's reign, Spain saw a fivefold increase in prices. Due to inflation and high tax burden for Spanish manufacturers, Spain’s riches were frittered away on imported manufactured goods by an opulent aristocracy and Philip's wars. Only the revenues flowing in from the mercantile empire in the Americas was keeping Spain afloat, although this was inflationary, before Spain's first bankruptcy in 1557 due to the rising costs of military efforts. Dependent on sales taxes from Castile and the Netherlands, Spain's tax base was far too narrow to support Philip's overseas adventurism. Philip became increasingly dependent on loans from foreign bankers, particularly in Genoa and Augsburg. By the end of his reign, interest payments on these loans alone would account for 40% of state revenue.

Meanwhile, Philip annexed the throne of Portugal, and the success of colonisation in America improved his financial position, enabling him to show greater aggression towards his enemies. In 1580 the direct line of Portuguese royal family died out following a disastrous campaign in Morocco, giving Philip the pretext to claim the throne through his mother, who was a Portuguese princess. When Lisbon refused Philip's claims he orchestrated a take-over, invading, annexing, and seizing the throne, which would be held by Spain for sixty years. Philip famously remarked upon his acquisition of the Portugese throne: "I inherited, I bought, I conquered", a variation on Julius Caesar and Veni, Vidi, Vici. Thus, Philip added to his possessions a vast colonial empire in Africa, Brazil, and the East Indies, seeing a flood of new revenues coming to the Spanish crown. In the ruling of Portugal however, Philip showed tact, trimming his beard and wearing clothes in the Portugese style, and ruling from Lisbon for the next couple of years, leaving Portugese privileges and fueros alone.

Another ostensible boost to Spanish hegemony and the Counter-Reformation achieved a clear boost when Philip married Mary Tudor — a Catholic — in 1554 (the older daughter of Henry VIII). However, they ended up childless (a child would have been heir to all but France) after Queen Mary or “bloody Mary” as she was known by English Protestants, died in 1558 before the union could revitalize the Catholic Church in England.

The throne went to Elizabeth, the Protestant daughter of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. But due to their premises against divorce, this union was deemed illegitimate by English Catholics, who instead claimed that Mary Queen of Scots, the Catholic great-granddaughter of Henry VII, was the legitimate heir to the throne.

The execution of Mary, Queen of Scots provided him with an excuse for an attempted invasion of England. Philip thus sought to oust Elizabeth I with the invasion by the “invincible Armada.” However, the so-called “Protestant Wind” thwarted Spanish ambitions, enabling the small, deftly maneuverable English ships to soundly out-maneuver the large Spanish fleet. Two more armadas would be sent during Philip's reign, both of which would fail, and this particular Anglo-Spanish war would be fought to a stalemate, until the death of both Philip and Elizabeth I.

Spain's crushing 1588 blow with the defeat of the Armada also meant the success of the Dutch rebellion. Philip, ill for the remainder of his life for another ten years left behind a Spain backwards in comparison to its Western European neighbors. And Spain has not closed the gap between its level of development and those of its neighbors to this day.

From 1590 to 1598 he was again at war against the Huguenot King Henry IV of France, joining with the Papacy and the Duke of Guise in the Catholic League during the French Wars of Religion. Philip's interventions in the French wars of religion (sending Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma to relieve the siege of Paris in 1590, and again into Rouen in 1592), to aid the Catholic faction, although producing military victories, was disastrous in terms of the Dutch Revolt, allowing the rebels time to regroup and refortify their defenses. Henry IV of France was also able to use his propagandists to identify the Catholic faction with a foreign enemy (Philip and Spain), damaging the Catholic cause in France somewhat.

By the end of the century, Philip's rule was largely a failure, with the Netherlands free and Spanish designs on England thwarted. Upon his death, the union with Portugal remained one of his lasting achievements, remaining under Spanish rule for the time being. So despite having far more gold and silver than any other European power flowing in from Spanish America and the addition of Portugal, and the enthusiastic support under the guise of the Counter-Reformation, Philip's rule ended in devastating setbacks for Spain.

As Spain plunged into disaster, a Golden Age in Spanish literature developed, despite censorship. Following the defeat of the invincible Armada, Spanish art turned gloomy and pessimistic. The most brilliant manifestation of this is Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote, which was perhaps a satire of Spain's failed quixotic adventures in the Netherlands and England under Philip II.

Philip was bankrupt by 1596. He died in 1598 and was succeeded by his son, King Philip III. Philip's enemies (generally protestant propagandists), were instrumental in the creation of the Black Legend of Spain, depicting Philip II as a bloodthirsty tyrant among other things. This view has recently been challenged by revisionist historians.

Preceded by: Henry I or Anthony I (disputed)	King of Portugal	Succeeded by: Philip II/ III
Charles I	King of Spain
	King of Naples
	King of Sicily

ca:Felip II

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