Philip II

(1527–98)

   Monarch.

   Philip II was the son of the Emperor Charles V and in 1556, on his father’s abdication, he became King of Spain, Naples, Milan and the Netherlands, as well as having considerable possessions in the New World. At this point in his life he was married to Mary I of England where he was widely hated as a representative of a repressive Roman Catholic power. After Mary’s death in 1559, he wanted to marry her half-sister Elizabeth i. When it eventually became clear that England was to be a Protestant power, he sent his ‘invincible Armada’ to capture the island in 1588. This proved to be an unmitigated disaster. In addition, revolt in the Netherlands led to the establishment of the Protestant Dutch republic in 1579. Many of his policies, however, were successful. He defeated the French at St Quentin in 1557 and the Turks at Lepanto in 1571 and he was undoubtedly the most powerful monarch in Europe of his day. A devout Roman Catholic, he made use of the Inquisition in Spain and supported the Jesuits. Under his leadership Spain became the intellectual and political centre of the Counter- Reformation.

   J. Buckler, Philip II and the Sacred War (1989);

   H.G. Koenigsberg, ‘The statecraft of Philip II’, European Studies Review, i (1971);

   J. Lynch, ‘Philip II and the Papacy’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 5th series, xi (1961);

   G. Parker, Philip II (1979).