KING PHILLIP II: A LIFE from BEGINNING to END (Kindle) by Hourly History

 



Published in 2020 by Hourly History

King Philip II (1527-1598) ruled Spain at its most powerful. This is the Spain that took over Portugal, consolidated its New World holdings, conquered the Philippines, stopped Ottoman naval expansion in the Eastern Mediterranean, stopped Protestant expansion in several areas yet lost the Spanish Armada to the English and suffered a series of losses in the Netherlands. It was the first that could reasonably claim that the sun never set on its empire. 
Philip II. Painting by Antonio Moro

Philip's personal life takes up a lot of this book. For such a powerful man, his personal life had to humble him. He had multiple wives who died from a variety of ways, but usually related to giving birth.  He also lost several children.

His oldest son suffered from physical and mental illnesses that were so pronounced that the Philip II stepped in and barred his son from being next in line for the throne. That son died in custody, possibly by making himself ill while being held in confinement by poisoning himself or freezing himself by covering himself in ice and sleeping on beds of ice.

The beauty and the weakness of this book series is the brevity of each book. They are designed to be read in about an hour, which means I can explore a whole new area or person with little time commitment. But, I always end up with questions. In this book, Philip's self-assigned role as a defender of the Catholic faith and the politics in that arena was given light treatment.

I rate this short e-book 3 stars out of 5. Nothing wrong with this book - it doesn't make the reader an expert, but it did fill in some blanks in my personal knowledge of this time period.

This e-book can be found on Amazon.com here: King Philip II: A Life from Beginning to End 

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