- Hapsburg monarch
- The Hapsburg king
of Spain, Philip II used his position to promote the Catholic Counter-Reformation.
Too mistrustful to delegate, he ruled autocratically, miring his empire
in a bureaucracy that exacerbated his own indecisiveness.
Before he was king of Spain, Philip was married to Mary Tudor, queen
of England, daughter of Henry VIII and half sister to Elizabeth I. In
1556 he inherited Spain, its dominions in Italy and the New World, and
the Netherlands. Announcing "I do not propose nor desire to be
the ruler of heretics," he set out to impose Catholicism through
force and the brutal means of the Inquisition, exiling Christianized
Muslims from Granada and fighting to crush Protestantism in the Netherlands,
England, and France. The "Invincible Armada," sent to invade
and convert England was destroyed by a storm, adding to huge costs that
crippled the state.
Despite this, the Spanish Empire reached its greatest extent and power
during Philip's reign and his magnificent palace, El Escorial, in which
he died, is one of Europe's greatest architectural monuments.
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