Philip II of Spain

1527 – 1598 · Generation XXIII · King of Spain

Philip II of Spain (1527–1598). King of Spain. Married Mary I Tudor in 1554. Co-monarch of England during the marriage; thirty years later he sent the Armada against his sister-in-law. Known in Spain as “the Prudent,” he inherited his father Charles V’s Spanish empire in 1556 and added the Portuguese crown in 1580, joining the two in the Iberian Union and governing lands spread across all the continents Europeans had yet reached — Spain at its zenith, entering its Golden Age. Deeply devout, he cast himself as Catholic Europe’s defender against Ottomans and Protestants alike, sharing in victories at Oran, Malta and Lepanto and funding the French Catholic League. The wars cost dearly: his regime defaulted five times, and three further armadas after 1588 failed like the first. He finished the palace of El Escorial in 1584; hostile propaganda he declined to rebut hardened into the “Black Legend” that long shadowed his name.

Partners

Married Queen Mary I (1516 – 1558) in 1554

Life

1527 — Born
1554 — Married Mary I Tudor
1598 — Died