Philip II of Spain

Philip II (21 May 1527 – 13 September 1598), sometimes known in Spain as Philip the Prudent (<a href="/facts/Spanish_language/95BgYNfv">Spanish</a>: Felipe el Prudente), was <a href="/facts/King_of_Spain/6raU7qTs">King of Spain</a> from 1556, <a href="/facts/King_of_Portugal/VQE52Utq">King of Portugal</a> from 1580, and <a href="/facts/King_of_Naples/BxIjvNW3">King of Naples</a> and <a href="/facts/List_of_Sicilian_monarchs/VprpzL33">Sicily</a> from 1554 until his death in 1598. He was also <a href="/facts/Jure_uxoris/1LSd13Gm">jure uxoris</a> <a href="/facts/King_of_England/qpow970E">King of England</a> and <a href="/facts/List_of_Irish_monarchs/cKLGWFhC">Ireland</a> from <a href="/facts/Wedding_of_Mary_I_of_England_and_Philip_of_Spain/xHl16YF7">his marriage</a> to Queen <a href="/facts/Mary_I/smBAdhhD">Mary I</a> in 1554 until her death in 1558. Further, he was <a href="/facts/Duke_of_Milan/SQ0RFGJB">Duke of Milan</a> from 1540. From 1555, he was Lord of the <a href="/facts/Seventeen_Provinces/FphfVQIA">Seventeen Provinces</a> of the <a href="/facts/Habsburg_Netherlands/qKjvseHF">Netherlands</a>.
The son of <a href="/facts/Emperor_Charles_V/QdqkWAeq">Emperor Charles V</a> and <a href="/facts/Isabella_of_Portugal%2c_Holy_Roman_Empress/IRJI0tUB">Isabella of Portugal</a>, Philip inherited his father's <a href="/facts/Spanish_Empire/RaWWgnQS">Spanish Empire</a> in 1556, and succeeded to the <a href="/facts/Kingdom_of_Portugal/KUUfjXpt">Portuguese throne</a> in 1580 following a dynastic crisis. The Spanish conquests <a href="/facts/Spanish_conquest_of_the_Inca_Empire/jE6mWa1y">of the Inca Empire</a> and of the <a href="/facts/Philippines/ARpmxXQV">Philippines</a>, named in his honor by <a href="/facts/Ruy_L%25C3%25B3pez_de_Villalobos/5EWh4wDt">Ruy López de Villalobos</a>, were completed during his reign. Under Philip II, Spain reached the height of its influence and power, sometimes called the <a href="/facts/Spanish_Golden_Age/0DPPX8IU">Spanish Golden Age</a>, and ruled territories in every continent then known to Europeans. Philip led a highly <a href="/facts/National_debt/DerGEK3v">debt-leveraged regime</a>, seeing <a href="/facts/Sovereign_default/YuRMPUnz">state defaults</a> in 1557, 1560, 1569, 1575, and 1596. This policy was partly the cause of the <a href="/facts/Act_of_Abjuration/5Yd8co3b">declaration of independence</a> that created the <a href="/facts/Dutch_Republic/PlxBXbKF">Dutch Republic</a> in 1581. Philip finished building the royal palace <a href="/facts/El_Escorial/1XhqxAyC">El Escorial</a> in 1584.
Deeply devout, Philip saw himself as the defender of Catholic Europe against the <a href="/facts/Ottoman_Empire/6QvfTRsg">Ottoman Empire</a> and the <a href="/facts/Protestant_Reformation/9ClEbhnL">Protestant Reformation</a>. In 1584, Philip signed the <a href="/facts/Treaty_of_Joinville/uAL63qEX">Treaty of Joinville</a>, funding the French <a href="/facts/Catholic_League_(French)/SGtsk89P">Catholic League</a> over the following decade in its civil war against the French <a href="/facts/Huguenots/x2FcqQ8J">Huguenots</a>. In 1588, he sent an <a href="/facts/Spanish_Armada/wjzhE7Ns">armada</a> to invade Protestant England, with the strategic aim of overthrowing <a href="/facts/Elizabeth_I/5cT5QrWj">Elizabeth I</a> and re-establishing Catholicism there, but his fleet was defeated in a skirmish at Gravelines (northern France) and then destroyed by storms as it circled the British Isles to return to Spain. The following year Philip's naval power was able to recover after the failed invasion of the <a href="/facts/English_Armada/sE3MMXm3">English Armada</a> into Spain. Two more Spanish armadas unsuccessfully tried to invade England in <a href="/facts/2nd_Spanish_Armada/ktAu9tfX">1596</a> and <a href="/facts/3rd_Spanish_Armada/mIMFJfRr">1597</a>. The <a href="/facts/Anglo-Spanish_War_(1585%25E2%2580%25931604)/dqmXsha4">Anglo-Spanish War</a> carried on until 1604, six years after Philip's death.

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Philip II of Spain