Philip III

Philip III, (born April 14, 1578, Madrid—died March 31, 1621, Madrid), king of Spain and of Portugal (as Philip II) whose reign (1598–1621) was characterized by a successful peaceful foreign policy in western Europe and internally by the expulsion of the Moriscos (Christians of Moorish ancestry) and government by the king’s favourites.

Philip was the son of Philip II of Spain by his fourth consort, his Habsburg cousin Anna of Austria. Though pious, benevolent, and highly virtuous in private conduct, Philip, after he became king (September 13, 1598), showed himself to be indolent and indifferent to his responsibilities. His father revealed his disappointment when he remarked that his son was unfit to govern the kingdoms God had given him and would instead be governed by them. In April 1599 the new king married his Habsburg cousin the Austrian archduchess Margaret.

From the beginning, Philip placed affairs entirely in the hands of a favourite, Francisco Gómez de Sandoval y Rojas, marqués de Denia, later the duke of Lerma—the first in a line of royal favourites who governed 17th-century Spain. Philip’s government continued a policy of hostility toward the Turks, and in Italy it faced the rivalry of the Republic of Venice and the duchy of Savoy. In the rest of western Europe, however, a Spanish policy of conciliation ruled. Peace in the West enabled the government to deal with the internal problem of the Moriscos, and on April 9, 1609, the decision was made for their expulsion, which caused serious economic and demographic difficulties in certain areas. The peace was brought to an end by the outbreak (1618) of the Thirty Years’ War, in which Philip gave his unconditional support to the Holy Roman emperor Ferdinand II and the Catholic German princes.

Remote from his subjects, Philip spent huge sums on court entertainments and neglected Spain’s growing economic problems, which were to reach crisis proportions in the following reign. Having resided in Valladolid in the first years of his reign, he eventually fixed his court in Madrid. After a visit to Portugal (1619), he suffered the first attack of an illness that two years later brought about his death.