Philip III

King of Spain (r. 1598-1621)

• Born: April 14, 1578
• Birthplace: Madrid, Spain
• Died: March 31, 1621
• Place of death: Madrid, Spain

Philip III has been maligned as a pious but incapable ruler who lacked the will to reverse Spain’s accelerating political, socioeconomic, and strategic decline. Overshadowed by a corrupt favorite, Philip nonetheless made peace with Spain’s most powerful enemies and kept his Iberian, Italian, and American dominions intact.

Early Life

Philip III, one of five sons, was the only son to outlive his father, King Philip II (r. 1556-1598). His mother was the king’s cousin and fourth wife, Anna of Austria (1549-1580), daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II. Reliable information about Philip’s personality is lacking, for the prince and future king wrote little. Contemporary, as well as later, descriptions tended to be colored by the political agendas of those who manufactured them. The frail heir’s training was entrusted to Philip II’s most senior and capable advisers, including García de Loaysa Girón (1534-1599), governor and later archbishop of Toledo, who embraced the Erasmian theory that a just ruler’s education must emphasize virtue and self-control.

Influenced by the uncompromising Catholicism of his clerical tutors, the earnest and tractable youth acquired a reputation for piety; even when he was king, Philip favored the company of the clergy and attended mass several times daily.

There had been unflattering rumors that the prince was lazy, immature, and uncomprehending. Philip II was alarmed by these confidences, but incapacitation compelled the aged king to delegate his authority prematurely. By 1595, Philip represented his father at public audiences, and by 1597, the prince signed royal orders. Fearing that his son, as king, would be manipulated by unscrupulous favorites (privados), Philip II ordered his informal privy council to meet daily in the prince’s chambers. Philip did not embrace his father’s choice of advisers, however, and instead placed his trust in an impoverished Castilian grandee—Francisco Gómez de Sandoval y Rojas, the fifth marquis of Denia, fourth count and, under Philip III, first duke of Lerma.

Life’s Work

On September 13, 1598, Philip III became ruler of a “mixed” monarchy, which included the Iberian crowns of Aragon, Castile, and Portugal, each jealous of its constitutional liberties (fueros); the duchy of Milan and kingdoms of Naples and Sicily in Italy; the Low Countries, or Flanders (Spanish Netherlands); and a vast empire in the Americas. Few contemporaries doubted that Philip had ascended the throne of the world’s greatest economic and military power.

A sense of crisis nonetheless led self-styled arbitristas (reformers) to lament that only miracles could save the monarchy. American silver and Castilian resources had sustained Spanish expansion during the sixteenth century, but these twin pillars of Spanish might were crumbling by the year 1600. Average annual silver imports during Philip’s reign fell to less than half the imports of the peak years (1584-1587), while onerous taxes, epidemics of bubonic plague, and a declining overseas market for wheat crippled Castilian agriculture and depopulated its countryside.

In foreign affairs, the monarchy had been mired since 1560 in a futile effort to subjugate the United Provinces (now the Netherlands). Spain at this time confronted the steadily growing ambitions of England, France, and Savoy as well. Philip’s only reliable allies, his Austrian Habsburg cousins, required constant Spanish financial support.

Philip III also faced Spain’s clamoring nobility, which expected to benefit from royal largesse and resented the parsimony of Philip II’s later reign. The new king responded with a blizzard of appointments and mercedes (royal awards, often financial), leading contemporaries and historians to speak of an “aristocratic reaction” in Spanish government. A fulsome Lerma used this reckless patronage to consolidate his dominance at court. Corruption thereafter became the hallmark of the reign, as Lerma’s venal hechuras (creatures) obtained posts throughout the royal households and on every governmental council.

The extravagant Philip consistently ignored pleas for fiscal restraint; his annual court expenses far outstripped those incurred by his father or his successors. Lavish patronage gave Spain its first baroque court, but at a crippling cost: Royal debt more than doubled between 1598 and 1621. Although fiscal crises dogged his reign, Philip preferred to leave these and other unpleasantries to Lerma and fourteen regular administrative councils staffed primarily by minor nobles and letrados (lawyers). Desperation led to repeated issues of debased copper coinage (vellón), which occasioned fitful, damaging bursts of inflation. In 1607, Philip’s government was forced to declare bankruptcy (actually, a forced conversion of short-term obligations to long-term state bonds).

Philip could have challenged the fueros of subject kingdoms that contributed little to the royal treasury, but he shrank from confronting potentially rebellious regional aristocracies. His monarchy’s only recourse was to curtail expenses by reducing its foreign commitments and making peace with its enemies. The loss of an armada sent to support Irish Catholic rebels (1601-1602) cooled Philip’s early martial ardor, while the death of Queen Elizabeth II (r. 1558-1603) removed the principal obstacle to rapprochement with his English archenemy. The Treaty of London (1604) brought a welcome end to English piracy against the Spanish treasure fleets and raised expectations for a lengthy detente with King James I (r. 1603-1625). A cease-fire was reached with the Dutch in 1607, and the Twelve Years’ Truce followed in 1609. The fortuitous assassination of King Henry IV of France (r. 1598-1610) enabled Philip to engineer a double marriage alliance with Henry’s Bourbon successor, which took place on the Pyrenean frontier in 1615. Taken together, these achievements constituted the laudable Pax Hispanica, or Spanish Peace.

Peace with Protestants nonetheless threatened Philip’s standing as the pope’s anointed Defender of the Faith. To save his reputation and, perhaps, salve his conscience, Philip secretly authorized the expulsion of all Moriscos (descendants of conquered Muslims and dubious Catholics) on the day he ratified the Twelve Years’ Truce. Between 1609 and 1614, approximately 300,000 Moriscos were deported to North Africa in an operation that some observers described as organized and peaceful, others as brutal and chaotic. The expulsion of this unassimilated, potentially subversive minority was immensely popular and, despite regional disruptions, did little overall harm to Spain’s economy. It also paralleled a reorientation of royal policy toward the Mediterranean, where conflict with the Barbary corsairs and with Islam polished Philip’s Catholic credentials while safeguarding Spain’s commerce and Italian communications.

Lerma supported disengagement from northern Europe, for the Pax Hispanica lessened fiscal pressures and permitted the monarchy to focus upon its core territories. The duke never monopolized the king’s ear, however, for Lerma had to contend with a powerful pro-Austrian Habsburg faction initially centered upon Philip’s beloved queen, Margaret of Austria (1584-1611). The privado later competed for influence with a bellicose grouping headed by his eldest son, Cristóbal, first duke of Uceda. When the Holy Roman Emperor Matthias (r. 1612-1619) requested Philip’s aid to suppress a Bohemian revolt in 1618, the aging duke’s objections to yet another costly and hopeless war were overruled. Spain intervened, at first financially and then militarily, in what would become the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648). His influence spent, Lerma was finally ordered to leave the court.

Philip did not delegate his authority to another favorite after Lerma’s fall. Spanish domestic policy (or the absence thereof) continued unchanged after 1618. The successes achieved by his earlier foreign policy of retrenchment were squandered, however, as Philip was drawn back into the struggle for European hegemony by his desire to preserve the Habsburgs’ position in Germany. Two days before his death, Philip III ordered renewal of the war against the Dutch. The Pax Hispanica died with him.

Significance

Philip III has been portrayed as a disinterested epicure who immersed himself in the ceremonials and pleasures of courtly life while Spain entered an irreversible political and socioeconomic decline. He has been criticized for delegating too much authority to Lerma, a favorite allegedly fixated upon self-aggrandizement and familial enrichment. Philip pursued no fiscal policy other than expediency, refused to limit royal prodigality, and shrank from challenging the fueros of non-Castilian elites.

To be fair, however, Philip inherited a deepening dilemma. Spain’s resources no longer matched its commitments or aspirations, yet the feudal conservatism of its government and society presented an insuperable obstacle to recovery or reform. Philip guaranteed his personal authority through unstinting, if biased, patronage, perhaps the one domestic policy available to him that did not threaten his monarchy’s aristocratic and clerical bases of support. He was not the first Spanish monarch to govern with the help of favorites, just the first to acknowledge one as de facto chief minister. In foreign policy, Philip’s goals were limited and pragmatic. Peace with the English and Dutch gave Spain a needed respite from the struggle against international Protestantism. Catholic militancy was maintained, but redirected against a weaker Islamic opponent.

Philip’s reign should therefore be judged not by his failure to reverse Spain’s decline, but by his ability to preserve an imperiled monarchy. Philip minimized domestic and international risks without abandoning his underlying commitments to royal supremacy within Spain and universal Catholicism abroad. He thereby managed to pass on his patrimony—as well as Spain’s dilemma—to his son and successor, Philip IV (r. 1621-1665).

Bibliography

Feros, Antonio. Kingship and Favoritism in the Spain of Philip III, 1598-1621. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000. This work discusses the governing partnership of Philip and Lerma within the context of early modern Spanish political theory.

Lynch, John. The Hispanic World in Crisis and Change, 1598-1700. Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1992. Lynch provides masterful analyses of the reigns of Philip III and his successors.

Sánchez, Magdalena S. The Empress, the Queen, and the Nun: Women and Power at the Court of Philip III of Spain. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. Sánchez discusses the political and personal influence wielded by Philip’s queen and other female relations.