King d' Espagne. Son of Charles Quint and Isabelle of Portugal, Philippe II accepted in Spain an accomplished education.

As of its youth, it showed a dark and silent character. Pale of face, the blue eyes, the fair hair, it hardly resembled to a Spanish. It made its political training in Spain as from 1543, his father having entrusted the kingdom lasting to him its absence. From 1548 to 1550, he travelled to Germany and to the Netherlands, but it hardly rained, because of its cold character and of its incapacity to be expressed in Flemish and French.  

It Maria four times: in 1543 with the Portuguese infante Marie, which died in 1545 after having put at the world the prince gift Carlos; in 1554 with Marie Tudor, Queen of England, which died without child in 1558; in 1559 with Elisabeth (in Spain, Isabelle) of Valois, girl of Henri II, who gave him two girls; in 1570 with Anne of Austria, girl of the emperor Maximilien II: it had the latter five children, of which the future Philippe III.  

Officially king in 1556, with the abdication of his father, Philippe II was the most powerful monarch of his time. Its possessions extended not only on the Iberian peninsula, but also in Burgundy, in the Netherlands, in Italy, in Africa and America. Philippe II reflected a long time before making a decision, which sometimes made accept a certain irresolution of its share, more especially as it was reserved and secret; he had, on the other hand, an extreme pride. He showed an acute conscience of his role, the taste of work, but the direction of the detail and a certain narrowness of sights joined in him a very great mistrust: he was the first king bureaucrat.

Contrary to his father, who travelled much, it hardly left Spain and the palate of Escurial, which it had made build with about sixty kilometers of Madrid and where it establishes a strict label. It was shown only once in charge of its armies, in 1557, and did not fight. He did not seek, like Charles Quint, to increase his territories; he was especially worried to preserve them and protect the catholic faith from the Reform and Islam.  

In Spain even, he encouraged the Enquiry to strike those which were suspected of heresy, in particular richest and most powerful, which made the Enquiry popular.  

In the Netherlands, he entrusted the government to his Marguerite sister of Parma. He decided, in 1564, to apply against the Protestants the decisions of the council of Thirty. This decision, made in spite of the warnings of Marguerite of Parma, caused the revolt of the Netherlands (1566). Philippe II sent the pile cluster to subdue it, but excesses of this one did nothing but exasperate the populations, which grouped around Guillaume III of Orange. This revolt was to lead to the separation of the Netherlands into two: north, protesting, gathered in the independent United Provinces, officially in 1648, quite front; the South, catholic, remained faithful to Spain.  

The war threatened a long time with Protestant England of Elisabeth I, whose corsairs Hawkins and Drake attacked with the ships and the Spanish possessions of America. Philippe II conceived the idea to reduce England thanks to Invincible Armada, but the failure was total (1588).  

In Spain, he wanted to reduce to the common law Morisques, these Moslems of the kingdom of Grenade converted officially with Catholicism, but who continued to practice their religion. It encountered an insurrection (1568-1571) which it had to subdue by the force and following which many Morisques were off-set. Against the Turkish power in the Mediterranean, he concludes with the pope Pie V and Venice “Holy Leagues” which ends in the Christian victory of Lépante (1571), but this one hardly had continuation, Tunis, conquered by gift Juan of Austria, having been lost shortly after.  

No major interior crisis occurred under its reign; death, remained mysterious, of his/her son gift Carlos (1568), with whom it was in conflict since always and that it had made lock up, did not carry damage to him. More serious appears the business Antonio Pérez, his former secretary, who, stopped for obscure reasons (1579), managed to flee, in 1590, and gained Aragon, its country of origin, which was raised. Philippe II sent an army, which subdued the rebellion (1591); but this will of separatism was symptomatic mistrust which remained between the two kingdoms of Aragon and Castille. With regard to Portugal, its conquest was fast (as well as the dilapidation of the richnesses which Philippe II seized), and the large neighbor was annexed in 1580.

Transformations of the company

Under Philippe II the Spanish company changed, being closed with all the innovations. The nobility prohibits the access of the high positions to those which one called the conversos (Jewish converts with Catholicism) and required the “purity of blood”. At the same time, the multiplication of the majorats, which one built even for thenoble ones, sclerosed the company by preserving the property. The very strict censure of the books tried to choke very thought nonorthodoxe, especially if it came from abroad, but it did not reach that point completely.

The “century of Spanish gold” (thus named because it is that of Cervantès, of Wimp of Vega and good of others) was prolonged until the medium of the XVII E century. At the same time spread in all the classes of the company the passion of the revenue, caused by the desire of living nobly, as well as the exacerbated feeling of the honor. The disaffection for work will be, and a long time, the most visible consequence. The back of this company is little glittering: a bunch of beggars, swindlers, robbers, that the picaresque novels describe with much happiness and truth.  

Philippe II was certainly a large king; but it failed in its fight against the Reform the Netherlands, England, France. If, in Spain, it reinforced the unit of the country, it is at the cost of an ideological rigor which also had, at the next century, to cause a demographic, economic impoverishment and intellectual of the country.