Philip 2 (born May 21, 1527 - death September 13, 1598) - Spanish king from the Habsburg dynasty. The son of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.
Origin
Philip 2 was born on May 21, 1527 in Valladolid from the marriage of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V to the Portuguese princess Isabelle, was named after the grandfather of the King of Castile, Philip the Fair. Traditionally, preparations were made in the palace for the grand celebration of the birth of the heir to the throne. But the plans of the royal couple were disrupted by the arrival of a messenger with the news of the capture of Rome by the troops of Charles and the monstrous sack of the city. This forced the emperor, a devout Catholic who did not want to quarrel with the pope, to cancel the celebration.
The people considered what happened as an unkind omen, which did not bode well for the future reign. Nevertheless, in April 1528, a solemn ceremony took place, during which the nobility, clergy and people took an oath of allegiance to the 11-month-old prince. And after the act of the oath was made public, the Spaniards were able to catch up with grandiose illuminations, dances and bullfights in all cities and villages of the country.
Upbringing
Until the age of 6, the prince was in the care of the queen. His father, who was on the road all the time and lived for a long time in other parts of the empire, he hardly saw. Karl, however, always remembered his son. Guided by the treatise of Erasmus of Rotterdam "The Education of Christian Princes", he began to prepare the only heir for the performance of royal duties. The upbringing of the prince was taken up by a professor at the University of Salamanca, Juan Martinez Celecio, and a trusted adviser to the emperor, Juan de Zuniga. In addition, for the heir, his own court was created, which consisted of 50 young offspring of noble Spanish families. And the ministers explained to the boy the essence of the events taking place in the world and introduced him to the art of government.
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With the help of teachers, Philip studied the ancient classics, Latin, French and Italian. However, he, apparently, did not know them very well, preferring to speak Spanish all his life, although he happened to rule a multilingual country. But the prince was very fond of reading. At the time of his death, the king's personal library consisted of 14 thousand volumes. Thus, he can be considered one of the most educated monarchs of his era.
Initial stages of government
When Philip was 12 years old, his mother died. From that moment, Philip began to attend meetings of the highest deliberative body of Spain, and in 1543 his father appointed him regent of the Spanish kingdom. Since that time, the emperor regularly sent letters and instructions to his son about the conduct of state affairs, paying particular attention to the need to rely on God and a sense of responsibility. The young regent's closest advisor was the notorious Duke of Alba, who devotedly served the king until the end of his life.
By that time, the regent of Spain and the possible heir to the throne of the Holy Roman Empire had become one of the most eligible suitors in Europe. It's time to think about choosing a princess worthy of becoming a queen. As always in such cases, purely political motives were taken into account. Therefore, out of many candidates, Karl chose two - the French princess Marguerite and Maria of Portugal. A marriage with Margarita could improve relations with the emperor's longtime enemy, King Francis I of France. But Philip liked his cousin Maria better. Karl did not argue with his son and in October 1543 the wedding took place. Alas, in July 1545, Mary died in childbirth. The fate of her son Karl became the source of the famous "black legend" about the prince-victim and cruel father.
Equestrian portrait of Philip 2
Netherlands
For the next decade, Philip was forced to live outside Spain. Charles decided to make him the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and summoned his son to the Netherlands to get acquainted with the future possessions. This time became a brilliant school for the prince and made it possible to better understand the essence of the intricacies of European politics, but did not help to overcome spiritual provincialism. Unlike his cosmopolitan father, he was very attached to everything Spanish, which eventually helped him to elevate Spain to the pinnacle of power and influence, but led to the loss of the Netherlands, which were an important part of his father's inheritance.
Philip 2 and the nobility
European customs were alien to the prince. The subjects of the Holy Roman Empire did not like him either. Philip's exorbitant pride, his severity and abstinence in food, a cold attitude to tournaments and other amusements repelled the cheerful Burgundians and Flemings. And religious intolerance aroused hatred among the Germans. Philip's one weakness was a tendency to red tape, which did not add to his popularity among the fathers and husbands of the court beauties. Therefore, everyone breathed a sigh of relief when the heir went back to Spain.
At home, however, he did not stay long. 1553 - Mary the Catholic ascended to the English throne, who received the nickname Bloody Mary for persecuting Protestants. She was 36 years old, Philip - 26. But the age difference was smoothed over by the prospect of occupying the English throne over time and now getting the rights to the Kingdom of Naples and the Duchy of Milan, which Charles V gave as a "dowry" to his son. The marriage took place, and Philip arrived in England - to the great displeasure of not only English Protestants, but also Catholics, who feared the union of "gloomy" Mary and "ice" Philip. The Parliament of England did not agree to the coronation of Mary's husband, which deprived him of his rights to the English crown.
Abdication of Charles V
Fortunately for the British, Mary soon died, and Philip, who had unsuccessfully tried to persuade the new Queen Elizabeth to marry, was forced to return to Spain in 1559. But by this time an important event had taken place in his life that brightened up the failure of an English marriage. 1555, September 12 - the solemn ceremony of Charles V's abdication from the throne took place in Brussels. The emperor had long thought of retirement, but could not make his son the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
It was his brother, Archduke Ferdinand. And behind Philip remained Spain, Naples, Sicily, the Duchy of Milan, Franche-Comté and the Netherlands - the most flourishing and populated province of Christendom. Outside of Europe, Charles's heir owned the West Indies, Mexico City and Peru, the Canary Islands, the Philippines, the Moluccas and Tunisia. Despite the fact that in comparison with his father's territorial possessions became smaller, Philip nevertheless remained the most powerful monarch in Europe.
Charles V and Duke of Alba
Absolute monarchy
More Philip practically did not leave Spain. In the hostilities, unlike Karl, he also did not take part, entrusting them to his commanders. He preferred to rule as an absolute monarch, using extensively bureaucratic methods. Convinced of the divine origin of his power, the king did not tolerate any objection. He almost never left the gloomy palace-monastery of Escurial, erected by his order near Madrid, and communicated with the outside world through endless office correspondence.
Inquisition
The capital was moved from Valladolid to Madrid, and Aragon lost its autonomy. Castilian garrisons were sent to the Aragonese fortresses. The State, Financial and Military Councils played an important role in governing the country. But the most powerful was the Council of the Inquisition. Under him, the Inquisition completely turned into the highest political court in Spain, which gradually dealt with all opponents of the monarch. And Philip saw opponents primarily in the Protestants. To his horror, they even managed to appear in Spain.
The Inquisition was ordered to arrest anyone suspected of heresy. Overcrowded prisons could not accommodate all the unfortunate. They had to be kept in monasteries and private homes. Once again in the country, as in the days of Torquemada, bonfires blazed. The exact number of victims is not known; at least there were many thousands. Indeed, in 1570, when the last Protestant was burned in Spain, they began to destroy the Moriscos and Marani still living in the country, who were suspected of insincere adherence to the Christian faith. In the capital, a gallery was built for the king and the courtiers, so that from it one could observe the auto-da-fe. They say that one of the convicts, Don Carlos de Saso, going to the fire, said to the king: "Why do you torture your innocent subjects?" - and heard in response: "If my son was a heretic, I myself would have built a fire to burn it!"
To some extent, the Spanish monarch proved his sincerity in this matter in practice. His son from Mary of Portugal, Don Carlos, was ugly, extremely cruel and, as many believe, had mental disabilities, which was not uncommon in the family of Spanish monarchs. The only creature in Escurial to whom he was attached was his stepmother, Philip's third wife, Elizabeth of France. She felt sorry for her stepson and was attentive to him. Father Carlos hated. The sovereign suspected this, and upon learning about his son's connections with Protestants in the Netherlands (he had long allowed himself to rudely interfere in state affairs), he asked the confessor to find out the true mood of the prince. After repeated refusals to confess, the prince nevertheless admitted that he would like to kill the king. This decided his fate: Carlos was imprisoned in the tower of the castle of Arevalo, where he died on July 25, 1568,having a bad cold.
This gave rise to numerous rumors, one more terrible than the other. They said that he was poisoned, or strangled by a pillow, or his head was cut off … Documents related to this case have not survived, since before his death Philip 2 ordered to burn his personal papers. All this created the very "black legend" that was mentioned a little earlier.
Philip II at a royal celebration with his family and courtiers
Foreign policy. Wars
Like his father, Philip II fought many wars that were aimed at expanding the Spanish kingdom. But only a few of them were successful. 1580 - he annexed Portugal to Spain. 1571 - his half-brother Juan of Austria inflicted a major defeat on the Turkish fleet at Lepanto, which largely contributed to the beginning of the decline of the Ottoman Empire. But in the struggle with England, the Spaniards suffered a fiasco. The campaign of the famous "Invincible Armada" - a huge Spanish flotilla - ended in the summer of 1588 with its death. As a result, Spain lost its dominance at sea. Philip's war with France, which he started in 1589, ended with a big failure. He intervened in the struggle of the French Catholics against the Huguenots. Philip's troops fought against the leader of the Huguenots, Henry of Navarre, who besieged Paris. But the city was forced to surrenderand the Spaniards surrendered to the victor's mercy.
Interestingly, by nature, Philip 2 was not cruel at all. His actions were governed by a sense of duty, because he considered his main duty to be the fight against heretics. But it was thanks to this that the monarch earned the sad glory of the executioner of the Netherlands, which he shared with his governor, the Duke of Alba, who was sent to pacify the rebellious country.
Uprising in the Netherlands
The confrontation between the sovereign and the inhabitants of the Netherlands began long ago. Here, since the time of Charles V, the Spaniards were treated with hatred, and Philip - in the first place. The hostility was mutual, but at first, under the influence of his father, the new king did not change the order in these lands and limited himself only to confirming the previous decrees directed against heretics. But if under Charles they were performed without much zeal, now the monarch began to persecute too indulgent officials, ordered to seize property from persons who emigrated for religious reasons, to monitor wandering orators and singers and allowed the Jesuit order to settle in Belgium, although he knew that it was will cause protests from the population.
Even more discontent was caused by the increase in the number of bishoprics - a step by which Philip II wanted to strengthen the influence of Catholicism in the country, only intensified the protest. It got to the point that at the request of the ruler of the Netherlands, half-sister of King Margaret of Parma, Minister Granvella, hated by the people, was recalled to Spain. However, in his place as a military pacifier of the rioters in August 1567, the Duke of Alba arrived, who fully shared Philip's hatred of the Protestants. Out of a sense of duty, he drenched the province in blood. In this he was helped by the Inquisition introduced here as well.
To justify himself in the eyes of neighboring states, the king presented the case of the Netherlands to the inquisitorial court, which made an astonishing decision: everyone guilty of heresy, apostasy or rebellion, or who did not offer resistance to the named categories of the population, were accused of treason. After that, on February 16, 1568, the monarch issued an edict, according to which virtually the entire people of the Netherlands for treason were sentenced to death and confiscation of property "without hope of any kind of mercy." To create the appearance of legality, the country established the Council for the Investigation of Unrest, called the Bloody Council, which, no less widely than the Inquisition, used brutal torture. Alba was the chairman of the council, only in the first year and a half of his reign more than 6 thousand people were executed.
There is nothing surprising in the fact that the people of the Netherlands, at the beginning of the reign of Philip II, did not think about secession from Spain, rebelled. In April 1562, the northern regions of the country rebelled, later the southern regions joined them. The brutal war lasted for a very long time and went on with varying success. However, in 1581, Philip was deposed by the State General (Parliament) and the northern Netherlands became an independent state. But Spain recognized this independence only in 1648 at the Westphalian Congress - when the ashes of Philip had been in the ground for almost half a century.
Board result
The monarch died in his gloomy Escurial in 1598 from a fever. The heir, Prince Philip, born of his fourth marriage to the daughter of Emperor Maximilian II, Anna of Austria, inherited a large country completely exhausted by wars, exorbitant taxes, lagging behind a number of European countries in terms of creating new forms of production relations characteristic of the emerging bourgeois system. and has lost a significant part of the intellectual potential.
V. Miroshnikova