Philip

Philip, name of five kings of Spain. Philip I, or Philip the Handsome (1478–1506), was archduke of Austria, duke of Burgundy, and inheritor of the Netherlands. He became first Habsburg king of Castile in 1506, ruling jointly with his wife Joanna. Philip II (1527–98), crowned in 1556, united the Iberian peninsula and ruled an empire that included Milan, Naples, Sicily, the Netherlands, and vast tracts of the New World. Though son of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, he never became emperor. A fanatical Catholic, he married Mary I of England, supported the Inquisition, and tried in vain to crush the Protestant Netherlands. He was recognized king (Philip I) of Portugal in 1580 but lost naval supremacy to England after the defeat of the Armada (1588). His son Philip III (1578–1621), crowned in 1598, made peace with England and the Netherlands but was frustrated in Italy by the Thirty Years' War. Philip IV (1605–55), crowned in 1621, son of Philip III and the last Habsburg king of Spain, was the patron of Diego de Velázquez. He attempted unsuccessfully to dominate Europe by fighting France, Germany, and Holland in the Thirty Years' War, and lost Portugal in the process (1640). Philip V (1683–1746), crowned in 1700, founder of the Bourbon line, restored influence, but his accession led to the war of the Spanish Succession. By the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) his title was recognized, though he ceded possessions in Italy and the Netherlands to Austria.