King Philip III of Spain

PART ONE: LECTURE:
Philip II: ” God, who has given me so many
kingdoms, has not given me a son fit to govern them.”

Subjects for tonight:
Philip III (1578-1621)
His father; Philip II (1527-1598)
His mother: Anna of Austria (1549-1580)
His wife: Margaret of Austria (1584-1611)
Daughter: Anne of Austria, Queen of France (1601-1666)
His prime minister: Duke of Lerma (1552-1625)

From Wikipedia:
Philip III of Spain ( April 14, 1578 to March 31, 1621) was King of Spain (as Philip III in Castille and Philip II in Aragon) and Portugal (Portuguese: Filipe II). A member of the House of Habsburg, Philip III was born in Madrid to King Philip II of Spain and his fourth wife and niece Anna, the daughter of the Emperor Maximilian II and Maria of Spain. Philip III later married Margaret of Austria, sister of his cousin Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor. Although also known in Spain as Philip the Pious, Philip’s political reputation abroad has been largely negative : an ‘undistinguished and insignificant man,’ a ‘miserable monarch,’ whose ‘only virtue appeared to reside in a total absence of vice,’ to quote historians C. V. Wedgwood, R. Stradling and J. Elliot. In particular, Philip’s reliance on his corrupt chief minister, the Duke of Lerma, drew much criticism at the time and afterwards. For many, the decline of Spain can be dated to the economic difficulties that set in during the early years of his reign. Nonetheless, as the ruler of the Spanish Empire at its height and as the king who achieved a temporary peace with the Dutch and brought Spain into the Thirty Years’ War through an (initially) extremely successful campaign, Philip’s reign remains a critical period in Spanish history.

PART TWO: Pictures
The family of Philip III.