Philip II - a pen portrait
Court fashion, a love of birdsong and the pressures of being a king are some of the subjects discussed in letters between Philip II of Spain and his teenage daughters. Janet Ravenscroft explores the human side of one of Europe’s most powerful Renaissance monarchs.
Philip II (1527-98) was the eldest son of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (1500-58), on whose abdication in 1556 he inherited control of Spain and its empire. In 1581, when Spain was united with Portugal, Philip left for Lisbon and remained in the country for almost two and a half years. It was during this period of absence that the 54-year-old king began writing to his daughters in Madrid, the princesses Isabel Clara Eugenia (1566-1633) and Catalina Micaela (1567-97), who were nearly 14 and 15 years old respectively when the correspondence began.
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