Philip IV

King of Spain (r. 1621-1665)

• Born: April 8, 1605
• Birthplace: Valladolid, Spain
• Died: September 17, 1665
• Place of death: Madrid, Spain

As penultimate monarch of a withered Spanish Habsburg Dynasty, Philip IV presided over the end stages of the economic and political decay of the Spanish Empire in Europe and the New World, continuing a stalwart defense of the Catholic Church against Protestantism. At the same time, he was patron of the final, brilliant manifestations of the arts and literature of the Spanish Golden Age.

Early Life

Philip IV reigned over one of the most politically debilitating yet culturally illustrious periods in Spanish history. His father, Philip III , was king of Spain from 1598 to 1621. Given to suffocating religiosity and bankrupting luxuries, Philip III was indifferent to government, delegating administration to court favorites. His mother was Archduchess Margaret of Austria. Philip III’s sister, Anne of Austria , became queen of France and the mother of King Louis XIV. Philip IV’s grandfather was Philip II, the most industrious and austere of the Habsburg, or Austrian, kings of Spain. When Philip III died in 1621, Philip IV became, at the age of sixteen, the king of Spain, Portugal, and the vast Spanish and Portuguese colonies in the New World.

During his childhood, Philip IV witnessed some of the most enduring achievements of Spanish culture, the peak of the Golden Age. Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) published his classic Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605, 1615); Lope de Vega Carpio (1562-1635) staged his masterful plays; and El Greco (Doménikos Theotokópoulos, 1541-1614) painted his greatest masterpieces.

Life’s Work

The glory of Spain and its monarchs in the sixteenth century had been supported by wealth accumulated from the New World. With those sources diminishing, however, Spain’s economy dramatically declined by the end of the century and definitively decayed in the following century. Spanish elites were well aware of the economic and international decline their country was experiencing and made efforts for its reverse. Among these elites was Gaspar de Guzmán y Pimental, count-duke of Olivares, whom Philip appointed chief minister, delegating to him almost all authority. The policies of Olivares determined the first half of Philip’s reign.

The crisis of Spain in the seventeenth century centered on its core kingdom, Castile. Having been the chief beneficiary of imperial wealth and trade, it could no longer bear the burden of supporting, through troops and taxes, the vast expanse and expense of the Spanish Empire. In Europe, Madrid had to rule the states and provinces of Iberia, the kingdom of Sicily and Naples, and the Habsburg Netherlands. In the Americas, it ruled the Spanish and Portuguese colonies, and in Asia it ruled the Philippine archipelago. This realm was essentially a vast confederation of states allied only by varying degrees of allegiance to the Spanish monarchy.

The financial pressure of imperial administration was so great that in 1627 the Spanish monarchy went bankrupt, unable to pay its creditors or support its currency. Olivares attempted, therefore, to address the problems of Castile and the Spanish monarchy in two ways. To ensure a steady supply of troops that could systematically defend the empire, he formulated around this time a Union of Arms, which would raise and maintain a standard number of reserve troops from each region. To finance this plan and supplement declining colonial revenue, he enacted a series of taxes and fees. Over the decade of the 1630’s, the crushing burden of expanded taxes and the enhanced potential for intervention by a larger military prompted elements throughout the Spanish realm to rebel. In 1640, Portugal reasserted its independence. Catalonia then separated from Spain with the support of France. In the face of unprecedented upheaval against a Spanish monarch, Philip IV accepted the resignation of Olivares in 1643.

In the midst of these national crises, Philip IV suffered several personal blows. His first wife, Elizabeth (Isabella), whom he had married in 1621, died in 1644. Her death was followed by the death of his heir two years later. In 1649, he married Mariana de Austria, a niece. Of their two sickly sons, only one survived, the pallid Charles, who would become the final Habsburg monarch of the Spanish throne as Charles II (r. 1665-1700). Philip had twelve legitimate children (four boys, eight girls) and numerous illegitimate ones.

With Olivares banished, Philip IV tried to rule on his own. However, he was soon dependent on the nephew of Olivares, Luis de Haro, who acted as a chief minister (until his own death in 1661). Financial crises and military confrontations ensued. In 1647 and 1653, the Spanish monarchy again went bankrupt, definitively ruining the banking and trade system of the country. Moreover, it could no longer defend its treasure ships on the high seas, meaning that the depleted wealth of the colonies, too, was pirated away by other powers. In 1648, Spain was forced to recognize the independence of its possessions in the Netherlands, and, in 1659, Spain surrendered territories to France along their mutual border, territories that almost two centuries previously it had won, on the eve of its ascendance to power.

Nonetheless, the Golden Age of Spain in literature and the arts, begun early in the sixteenth century, continued into the reign of Philip IV. The painter Diego Velázquez (1599-1660) made his first portrait of Philip IV shortly after the young monarch assumed the throne. Recognizing the appeal of the painter’s artistry, the king became Velázquez’s principal patron. Few monarchs in history have been so thoroughly portrayed throughout their reign by so brilliant an artist. Also, Velázquez was given charge of the royal household and ceremonials of Philip’s court. During the closing years of Philip IV’s reign, the brilliant dramatist Pedro Calderón de la Barca (1600-1681) was the court playwright. An artist of extraordinary insight into Spanish mores and human psychology, Calderón developed a series of plays at the court focusing on themes of classical mythology.

Significance

The reign of Philip IV marked the end of Spain’s role on the world stage as a major economic and political power. Moreover, it confirmed the position of Spanish monarchs as pawns of their court favorites. Spain was no longer enriched by the vast wealth that had buttressed it a century beforehand from discoveries in the New World. Committed to debilitating wars resulting from the dynastic entanglements of the Habsburgs in Europe, Spain lost its position of paramount continental power to France, but it continued as a bulwark of defense for the Catholic Church against the Protestant Reformation. This commitment, however, eventually fostered paralyzing religious orthodoxy and intellectual stagnation.

Despite political and economic decay, the reign of Philip IV continued to see stellar Spanish accomplishments in the arts and literature. These were sustained by a fertile cultural momentum mounted from the preceding decades. This inheritance was quickened by an acute but waning intellectual consciousness of the tragic decline in which Spanish society and culture were locked.

Bibliography

Acker, Thomas. The Baroque Vortex: Velázquez, Calderón, and Gracián Under Philip IV. New York: P. Lang, 2000. Acker’s work examines the visual and literary attempts in classic works of Spanish Baroque culture that attempted to integrate the religious and mythic imagery supporting Habsburg rule in Spain.

Brown, Jonathan, and John H. Elliott. A Palace for a King: The Buen Retiro and the Court of Philip IV. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2003. Brown analyzes architectural and stylistic details of the palace built by Philip IV on the outskirts of Madrid beginning in the 1630’s. Its theater and large salons highlighted the king’s interest in drama, painting, and decorative arts. Extensive illustrations.

Darby, Graham. Spain in the Seventeenth Century. London: Longman, 1994. Reviews the economic, political, and military conditions of the reign of Philip IV in relation to his Habsburg predecessors and successor.

Elliott, John Huxtable. The Count-Duke of Olivares: The Statesman in an Age of Decline. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1986. A masterful account of the political strategies and personal flaws of the disastrously failed administration of the most important minister of Philip IV’s reign. Black-and-white illustrations and foldout genealogical chart.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Imperial Spain, 1469-1715. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1964. A classic work that analyzes the economic conditions and sociopolitical developments in the rise and fall of the Spanish Empire and the Habsburg Dynasty.

Greer, Margaret Rich. The Play of Power: Mythological Court Dramas of Calderón de la Barca. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1991. Greer offers a critique of five myth-related court plays of Calderón, examining their political assumptions and insights.

López-Rey, José. Velázquez: Catalogue Raisonné. 2 vols. Cologne, Germany: Wildenstein Institute, 1999. This catalog lists and describes all paintings by Velázquez, including portraits of Philip IV, his family, and court officials. Extensive color illustrations.

Orso, Steven N. Art and Death at the Spanish Habsburg Court: The Royal Exequies for Philip IV. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1989. Orso examines the decorative and symbolic environments of the funerary honors for Philip IV as reflections of aesthetic and sociocultural norms of period. One-third of book is made up of black and white illustrations.

Stradling, R. A. Philip IV and the Government of Spain, 1621-1665. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988. An authoritative analysis of the philosophical and political assumptions, ambitions, policies, and practices of Philip IV and his ministers.