Philip II of Spain

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Philip II of Spain (Spanish: Felipe II, 1527–1598) was King of Spain (1556–98), King of Portugal (Finland: Filipe I), King of Naples and Sicily (both from 1554 to 1558), and jure uxoris King of England and Ireland (during his marriage to Queen Mary I from 1554 to 1558).

He was also Duke of Milan and the lord of the Seventeen Provinces of the Netherlands from 1555. Philip Brudente, the son of the Spanish emper and king of Portugal, was nicknamed "Felipe el Prudente" ("Philip the Prudent") in the Spanish kingdoms; his empire included territories on every continent then known to Europeans, including the Philippines.

The Spanish kingdoms ruled during his reign to a period of realism and power.

This is often described as the Spanish Golden Age. In 1557, 1560, 1569, 1576, 1580, and 1596, Philip led a highly debt-leveraged period, with state bankruptcies in 1557, 1560, 1576, 1578, and 1596.

The declaration of independence that established the Dutch Republic in 1581 was part of this program.

On December 31, 1584, Philip signed the Treaty of Joinville with Henry I, Duke of Guise, supporting the Catholic League; consequently, Philip gave the League a significant annual grant to keep the French civil war alive, in the hopes of destroying the French Calvinists.

Philip, a devout Catholic, saw himself as the defender of Catholic Europe against the Ottoman Empire and the Protestant Reformation.

In 1588, he sent a large armada to invade Protestant England, with the intention of overthrowing Elizabeth I of England and re-establishing Catholicism there.

He hoped to prevent both English interference in the Spanish Netherlands and the harm that Spanish interests caused by English and Dutch privateering. In 1563, Venetian Ambassador Paolo Fagolo described Philip as "slight of stature and round-faced, with pale blue eyes, a prominent lip, and pink skin, but his overall appearance is quite appealing."

"He dresses very tastefully, and everything he does is courteous and generous," the ambassador continued. Besides Mary I, Philip was married three other times and widowed four times.

Early life: 1527–1544

Philip, a member of Habsburg, was the son of Emperor Charles V, who was also king of Castile and Aragon, and Isabella of Portugal. He was born in Valladolid, Spain, on May 21st, 1527, which was owned by Don Bernardino Pimentel (the first Marqués de Távara). Castile's early life was influenced by his culture and courtly life. Leonor de Mascareas, the heirs of Toledo, had him tutored by Juan Martnez Siliceo, the future archbishop of Toledo. Philip was a natural performer in both arts and letters. Juan Cristóbal Calvete de Estrella, a humanist, will later study with more illustrious tutors, including the humanist Juan Cristóbal Calvete de Estrella. Despite Philip's command of Latin, Spanish, and Portuguese, he failed to honor his father, Charles V. as a polyglot. Although Philip was also an archduke of Austria, he was regarded as a stranger in the Holy Roman Empire. The feeling was mutual. Philip was destined to be Spanish; he was born in Castile and raised in the Castilian court; his native language was Spanish; and he preferred to live in the Spanish kingdoms. This ultimately stymied his ascension to the throne.

Philip was obedient to the crown from the Cortes of Castiles in April 1528, when he was eleven months old. He was raised in the royal court of Castile from the birth of his mother and one of her Portuguese ladies, Doa Leonor de Mascarenhas, to whom he was devotedly attached from that time until his mother Isabella's death in 1539. Philip was also close to his two sisters, Mara and Juana, and his two pages, Rui Gomes da Silva and Luis de Requesens, the son of his governor Juan de Ziga, were both close, and he was also close to his son Juan de Ziga. These men will all be in Philip, as will Antonio Pérez, his secretary from 1541.

Juan de Zaga, a Castilian nobleman who served as the commendador mayor of Castile, supervised Philip's martial training. During the Italian Wars, the Duke of Alba supervised practical lessons in warfare. Philip was present at the Siege of Perpetnan in 1542, but he did not see action when the Spanish army under Alba decisively defeated the besieging French forces under the Dauphin of France. Philip obtained the oath of allegiance of the Aragonese Cortes at Monzón on his return to Castile. His political education began a year earlier under his father's care, discovering his son studious, grave, and alert beyond his years, and wanting to train and enroll him in the Spanish kingdoms. The king-emperor's interactions with his son during his stay in Castile convinced him of Philip's precocity in statesmanship, so he decided to abandon the Spanish kingdoms' reign in 1543. At the age of sixteen, Philip, who had been given the Duke of Milan in 1540, began ruling the world's most influential empire.

Charles left Philip with seasoned advisors, including secretary Francisco de los Cobos and the general Duke of Alba. Philip was also left with extensive written instructions stressing "piety, patience, modesty, and mistrust." Charles's basic principles were gradually adopted by his son, who would grow up to become grave, self-possessed, and suspicious. Philip spoke softly and had an icy self-mastery; in the words of one of his ministers, "he had a smile that was cut by a sword."

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