Philip II of Spain and I of Portugal 1527-98
King of Spain and of Portugal

He was born in Valladolid, the only son of Emperor Charles V. In 1543 he married the Infanta Mary of Portugal, who died in 1546 giving birth to their son, Don Carlos. In 1554 he married Mary I (Mary Tudor) of England, but spent only 14 months in that country, where the marriage was not popular. However, it provided him with a potentially useful ally for Spain upon the Continent, and opened the prospect of a union between England and the Spanish Netherlands. In 1555-56 Charles abdicated the sovereignty of Spain, the Netherlands, and all Spanish dominions in Italy and the New World to Philip (King of Spain from 1556), who remained in Flanders until after his father's death (1558), and returned in 1559 to a Spain suffering serious financial crisis and panicking at the apparent spread of religious heresy. Philip increasingly indentified himself with the Spanish Inquisition, which he saw as useful both for combating heresy and for extending his control over his own dominions. He was involved in war against France and the papacy (1557-59), and against the Turks in the Mediterranean (1560), both wars necessitating a sharp increase in domestic taxation which served only to increase unrest. Mary Tudor died in 1558. Philip failed to secure the hand of her sister and successor, Elizabeth I, married Isabella of France (daughter of Henri II) in 1559 to seal the Valois-Habsburg peace, and in 1570 married as his fourth wife, his cousin Anna, daughter of the Emperor Maximilian II, by whom he had a son, the future Philip III. At home, he faced threats from the Moriscos (converted Muslims) of Granada, who rebelled between 1568 and 1570 and, more seriously, from the Netherlands, in open revolt from 1573. Abroad, Spain contributed to the Holy League against the Ottoman Turks, which, under the command of Philip's half-brother, Don John of Austria, defeated the Ottoman fleet at Lepanto in 1571. In 1575, for the second time in Philip's reign, the Spanish crown was obliged to declare itself bankrupt and in 1576 the discontented and unpaid Spanish troops in the Netherlands ran wild and sacked the city of Antwerp. In 1579 seven United Provinces of the Low Countries won independence, although this was not formally accepted by Spain until the truce of 1609. In 1580 Philip succeeded to the Portuguese throne. The increase in trade-revenue from the New World in the 1580s resulted in a new prosperity and a more confident expansionist policy. Portugal was annexed to Spain in 1580, and attempts to re-conquer the northern Netherlands came close to success. In 1588, the year after Sir Francis Drake's sack of Cadiz, the great Armada was launched against England but was destroyed. The 1590s saw further revolt in Aragon (1591-92), and renewed financial crisis leading in 1596 to a third bankruptcy. Philip died two years later, leaving his empire divided, demoralized and economically depressed. The violence of his campaign against Protestants had destroyed all harmony within his dominions, while constant wars continued to deplete Spain's financial resources.

Bibliography: Geoffrey Parker, Philip II (1978)