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.
