Felipe II of Spain (21 May 1527-13 September 1598), known as Philip II in English, was King of Spain from 16 January 1556 to 13 September 1598, succeeding Carlos I of Spain and preceding Felipe III of Spain. Felipe was the jure uxoris King of England as a consort to Mary of England from 1554 to 1558, and he was despised by the English people for being a Catholic. Felipe would fight against Queen Elizabeth I of England and her successor James I of England from 1585 to 1604, with both Felipe and Elizabeth dying before the war's end.
Biography[]
Early life[]
King Philip in 1554
Felipe was born on 21 May 1527, the son of Carlos I of Spain (who was also the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire) and Isabella of Portugal; he was from the House of Habsburg. His father married him to Queen Mary of England in 1554 to form an alliance with the English, and both Felipe and Mary were Catholics, making them unpopular with the Church of England and the Protestant majority of England. He would lose this title upon Mary's death in 1558, but in 1556 he inherited the title King of Spain when his father abdicated (he would also gain the Spanish Habsburg territories in the New World, Italy, and the Netherlands).
King of Spain[]
King Philip in 1585
During his reign as King of Spain and the Habsburg domains, Felipe had to rule a crumbling empire. In 1568, the Protestant Dutch population of the Spanish Netherlands rose in revolt against him, starting the Eighty Years' War. King Felipe attempted to crush the rebellion, but it grew in strength due to William the Silent's resolve and tactical skill. King Felipe also attempted to intervene in the French Wars of Religion when his neighbor to the north, the Catholic Kingdom of France, underwent a series of wars between the Protestant Huguenots and the Catholics, dividing both the nobility and the population. Felipe assisted in the formation of a "Catholic League" in France, but this failed to end the war; eventually, the House of Valois would take power under Henry IV of France (a Huguenot who would convert to Catholicism).
Felipe became rivals with France as a result of the Huguenot victory, and he also had to deal with the hostility of England, which had given refuge to Dutch privateers that launched attacks on Spanish shipping, while many privateers such as Francis Drake and John Hawkins struck at the Spanish treasure fleets to steal their gold on the way back from the New World. This led to war breaking out in 1585, and the "Anglo-Spanish War" saw a developing Royal Navy of England fight against the fearsome Spanish Navy. In 1588, the Spanish Armada suffered a humiliating defeat at the Battle of Gravelines off the coast of France, and the Spanish fleet would be annihilated. While the English Armada and English attempts to conquer Spanish colonies failed, the war would see the Spanish lose a huge percentage of its currency to English privateers. Felipe II died in 1598 before the war's end, and he was succeeded by Felipe III of Spain.