in Italy, Naples and Sicily, of the Burgundian inheritance—the Netherlands and Franche Comte, and of the duchy of Milan, which his father separated from the empire for his benefit. It was a legacy of immense responsibilities and perils, for France was bound in common prudence to endeavour to ruin a power which encircled her on every side save the sea and threatened her independence. France was for a time beaten at the battles of St Quentin and Gravelines, and forced to make the Peace of Cateau Cambrésis (April 2, 1559). But the death of Mary of England on the 17th of November 1558 had deprived Philip of English support. The establishment of Elizabeth on the English throne put on the flank of his scattered dominions another power, forced no less than France by unavoidable political necessities to be his enemy. The early difficulties of Elizabeth's reign secured him a deceitful peace on that side for a time. His marriage with Elizabeth of Valois on the 22nd of June 15 59, and the approach of the wars of religion, gave him a temporary security from France. But the religious agitation was affecting his own Flemish possessions, and when Philip went back to Spain, in August 1559, he was committed to a lifelong struggle in which he could not prove victorious except by the conquest of France and England.
If Philip II. had deserved his name of the Prudent he would have made haste, so soon as his father, who continued to intervene in the government from his retreat at Yuste in Estremadura, was dead, to relieve himself of the ruinous inheritance of the Low Countries. It was perhaps impossible for him to renounce his rights, and his education, co-operating with his natural disposition, made it morally impossible for him to believe that he could be in the wrong. Like the rest of his generation, he was convinced that unity of religion was indispensable to the maintenance of the authority of the State and of good order. Family pride, also, was carried by him to its highest possible pitch. Thus external and internal influences alike drove him into conflict with the Netherlands, France and England; with the first because political and religious discontent combined to bring about revolt, which he felt bound in duty to crush; with the second and third because they helped the Flemings and the Hollanders. The conflict assumed the character of a struggle between Protestantism and Roman Catholicism, in which Philip appeared as the champion of the Church. It was a part he rejoiced to play. He became, and could not but become, a persecutor in and out of Spain; and his persecutions not only hardened the obstinacy of the Dutch, and helped to exasperate the English, but they provoked a revolt of the Moriscoes, which impoverished his kingdom. No experience of the failure of his policy could shake his belief in its essential excellence. That whatever he did was done for the service of God, that success or failure depended on the inscrutable will of the Almighty and not on himself, were his guiding convictions, which he transmitted to his successors. The “service of God and his majesty” was the formula which expressed the belief of the sovereign and his subjects. Philip must therefore be held primarily responsible for the insane policy which brought Spain to ruin. He had a high ideal of his duty as a king to his own people, and had no natural preference for violent courses. The strong measures he took against disorderly elements in Aragon in 1591 were provoked by extreme misconduct on the part of a faction. When he enforced his claim to the crown of Portugal (1579-1581) he preferred to placate his new subjects by paying attention to their feelings and their privileges. He even made dangerous political concessions to secure the support of the gentry. It is true that he was ready to make use of assassination for political purposes; but he had been taught by his lawyers that he was “the prince,” the embodied state, and as such had a right to act for the public good, legibus solutus. This was but in accordance with the temper of the times. Coligny, Lord Burghley and William the Silent also entered into murder plots. In his private life he was orderly and affectionate to his family and servants. He was slow to withdraw the confidence he had once given. In the painful episode of the imprisonment and death of his firstborn son, Don Carlos, Phiiip behaved honourably He bore the acute agony of the disease which killed him with manly patience, and he died piously at the Escorial on the 13th of September 1598.
As an administrator Philip had all the vices of his type, that of the laborious, self-righteous man, who thinks he can supervise everything, is capable of endless toil, and jealous of his authority, and who therefore will let none of his servants act without his instructions. He set the example of the unending discussions in committee and boundless minute writing which finally choked the Spanish administration.
The Histoire de Philippe II. of M. H. Forneron (Paris, 1881), contains many references to authorities and is exhaustive, but the author has some violent prejudices. Philip II., by Martin Hume (London, 1897), is more just in its treatment of Philip's personal character, and gives a useful bibliography. The main sources for the political history are the Documentos Inéditos para la historia de España (Madrid, 1842, &c), vols. i., iii., vi., vii., xv., xxi., xxiv., xl., xcviii., ci., ciii, cx., cxi. and others; L. P. Gachard, Actes des états généraux des Pays Bas, 1576–1585 (Brussels, 1861–1866); and the Calendars of State Papers, Foreign Series, Elizabeth (London, 1863–1901). See also Martin Hume, Two English Queens and Philip (1908).
PHILIP III. (1578–1621), king of Spain, son of Philip II. and his fourth wife, Anne, daughter of the emperor Maximilian II., was born at Madrid on the 14th of April 1578. He inherited the beliefs of his father, but no share of his industry. The old king
had sorrowfully confessed that God had not given him a son
capable of governing his vast dominions, and had foreseen that
Philip III. would be led by his servants. This calculation was
exactly fulfilled. The new king put the direction of his government
entirely into the hands of his favourite, the duke of Lerma,
and when he fell under the influence of Lerma's son, the duke of
Uceda, in 1518, he trusted himself and his states to the new
favourite. The king's own life was passed amid court festivities,
on which enormous sums of money were wasted, or in the practice
of childish piety. It was said that he was so virtuous as hardly
to have committed a venial sin. He cannot be justly blamed for
having been born to rule a despotic monarchy, without even
the capacity which would have qualified him to manage a small
estate. He died at Madrid on the 31st of March 1621. The
story told in the memoirs of the French ambassador Bassompierre,
that he was killed by the heat of a brasero (a pan of hot
charcoal), because the proper official to take it away was not at
hand, is a humorous exaggeration of the formal etiquette of the
court.
R. Watson and W. Thompson, History of Philip III. (1786), give the most available general account of his reign; see also the continuation of Mariana's History of Spain by Miñana (Madrid, 1817–1822).
PHILIP IV. (1605–1665), king of Spain, eldest son of Philip III. and his wife Margaret, sister of the emperor Ferdinand II., was born at Valladolid on the 8th of April 1605. His reign, after a few passing years of barren successes, was a long story of political and military decay and disaster. The king has been held responsible for the fall of Spain, which was, however, due in the main to internal causes beyond the control of the most despotic ruler, however capable he had been. Philip certainly possessed more energy, both mental and physical, than his father. There is still in existence a translation of Guicciardini which he wrote with his own hand in order to qualify himself for government by acquiring a knowledge of political history. He was a fine horseman and keen hunter. His artistic taste was shown by his patronage of Velasquez, and his love of letters by his favour to Lope de Vega, Calderon, and other dramatists. He is even credited, on fairly probable testimony, with a share at least in the composition of several comedies. His good intentions were of no avail to his government. Coming to the throne at the age of sixteen, he did the wisest thing he could by allowing himself to be guided by the most capable man he could find. His favourite, Olivares, was a far more honest man than the duke of Lerma, and was more fit for the place of prime minister than any Spaniard of the time. But Philip IV. had not the strength of mind to free himself from the influence of Olivares when he had grown to manhood. The amusements which the favourite had encouraged became the business of the
