Philip II
Philip, son of Charles V, was born at Valladolid in 1527. In 1554 he married Mary I of England and was king beside her during the Marian persecution. In 1555–1556 his father gave him the Netherlands, Spain, and Spain’s empire in Italy and the Americas, and he ruled them for more than forty years from his desk at the Escorial.
Philip regarded himself as the sword of the Catholic faith. Small evangelical circles had formed at Seville and Valladolid in the 1550s. In 1559 the Inquisition destroyed them in a series of great autos-da-fé, and Philip himself attended the one at Valladolid in October. The Protestant movement in Spain did not survive.1 Merle d’Aubigné drew the lesson:
Unfortunately the papacy and Philip II. had the last word, and they ensured its ruin.1 J. H. Merle d’Aubignéon the Reformation in Spain
In the Netherlands, Philip’s enforcement of the heresy laws and his refusal of toleration provoked revolt. In 1567 he sent the Duke of Alba to crush it, and the Eighty Years’ War followed, in which William of Orange led the northern provinces to independence and the Reformed faith. Philip also backed the Catholic League in France and, after Elizabeth’s execution of Mary Queen of Scots, sent the Armada against England in 1588. It was scattered by English ships and storms. Philip died at the Escorial on September 13, 1598.
