Wer heiratete Philip II of Spain?

Philip II (21 May 1527 – 13 September 1598), sometimes known in Spain as Philip the Prudent (Spanish: Felipe el Prudente), was King of Spain from 1556, King of Portugal from 1580, and King of Naples and Sicily from 1554 until his death in 1598. He was also jure uxoris King of England and Ireland from his marriage to Queen Mary I in 1554 until her death in 1558. Further, he was Duke of Milan from 1540. From 1555, he was Lord of the Seventeen Provinces of the Netherlands.

The son of Emperor Charles V and Isabella of Portugal, Philip inherited his father's Spanish Empire in 1556, and succeeded to the Portuguese throne in 1580 following a dynastic crisis, forming the Iberian Union. The Spanish conquests of the Inca Empire and of the Philippines, named in his honour by Ruy López de Villalobos, were completed during his reign. He finished building the royal palace El Escorial in 1584. Under Philip II, Spain reached the height of its influence and power, advancing into the Spanish Golden Age, and ruled territories in every continent then known to Europeans. Deeply devout, Philip saw himself as the defender of Catholic Europe against the Ottoman Empire and the Protestant Reformation, and invested Spain's position as the leading European power in multiple simultaneous warring efforts.

During his reign, Spain participated in notable victories against the Ottomans in Oran, Malta and Lepanto. In 1584, during the Eighty Years' War, Philip signed the Treaty of Joinville, funding the French Catholic League over the following decade against the French Huguenots. In 1588, he sent an armada to invade Protestant England, with the strategic aim of overthrowing his former sister-in-law Elizabeth I and re-establishing Catholicism there, but his fleet was repulsed in a skirmish and wrecked by storms as it returned to Spain. Philip's naval power recovered after the defeat of a similarly sized English Armada sent against Spain. As a consequence of these conflicts, Philip led a highly debt-leveraged regime, seeing state defaults in 1557, 1560, 1569, 1575, and 1596. An ambitious plan to extend his conquests to China and across Asia was also considered and abandoned.

Historical reception of Philip II became heavily influenced by enemy propaganda, which he refused to answer or defend himself against, even prohibiting biographical accounts of his life. His negative foreign reputation eventually developed into the Spanish Black Legend, while reappraisals of his figure would later entangle in turn with the White Legend. As a result, historian Helmut Koenigsberger would write about Philip, "there has, perhaps, been no personality in modern history, not even Napoleon or Stalin, who has been both as enigmatic and controversial as Philip II of Spain... Neither his own contemporaries nor later historians have been able to agree on his character, his aims or even the degree of success he achieved."

Maria Manuela von Portugal (* 15. Oktober 1527 in Coimbra; † 12. Juli 1545 in Valladolid) war eine portugiesische Prinzessin und die erste Ehefrau des späteren spanischen Königs Philipp II. Ihre Eltern waren König Johann III. von Portugal und Katharina von Kastilien, die jüngere Schwester Kaiser Karls V.

Elisabeth von Valois (französisch Élisabeth de France; spanisch Isabel de Valois; * 2. April 1545 in Fontainebleau; † 3. Oktober 1568 in Aranjuez) war Prinzessin von Frankreich und Königin von Spanien.

Elisabeth von Valois war die älteste Tochter von Heinrich II. von Frankreich aus dem Haus Valois-Angoulême und seiner Gemahlin Katharina von Medici. Obwohl sie eigentlich mit dem spanischen Infanten Don Carlos verlobt war, wurde im Rahmen von Friedensverhandlungen zwischen Spanien und Frankreich die Vermählung zwischen der französischen Prinzessin und dem spanischen König Philipp II. beschlossen. Elisabeth von Valois wandelte sich im Laufe ihres kurzen Lebens von einer französischen Prinzessin zu einer spanischen Königin, deren politische Intelligenz, Milde und Schönheit in ganz Europa gerühmt wurden. Elisabeth versuchte, ihre Pflichten als spanische Königin perfekt zu erfüllen. Sie starb bei der Geburt eines Kindes.

Anna von Österreich (Spanisch Ana de Austria) (* 2. November 1549 in Cigales bei Valladolid; † 26. Oktober 1580 in Talavera la Real bei Badajoz) war Erzherzogin von Österreich. Als vierte Gemahlin König Philipps II. war sie ab 12. September 1570 bis zu ihrem Tod Königin von Spanien, Neapel, Sardinien und Sizilien etc. sowie kurzzeitig ab 12. September 1580 auch Königin von Portugal. Ihr einziger die Kindheit überlebender Sohn war Philipp III., der seinem Vater 1598 auf dem Thron folgte.