Resource Sheet 2: Interpretations
– The Exercise of power
Extract A
More than most of his royal contemporaries, Philip II believed in dividing his own servants to rule
them. He allowed no man but himself to know all the moves on the board, and in the latter part of
his reign, his jealous secrecy and fatal industry, his passion for seeing and handling, annotating
and eventually answering all important correspondence himself, lay like a dead weight on the
conduct of his foreign policy. As a result, responsibility among his Secretaries of State remained
dispersed and uncertain, and, though they were abler and more independent men than their
successors under Philip III, they shrank in stature and initiative after 1580. Instead of growing into
a real ministry, the office of Spanish Secretary of State was already dwindling to the routine clerical
status which was all its holders could pretend to in the 17th century.
Mattingly G (1955), Renaissance Diplomacy, p.218
Extract B
There was basic continuity of political policy from Charles through Philip, though the latter
obviously reacted differently to specific problems. Philip tried to respect his father’s priorities but
there were always substantial differences between them, even in the 1540s when the prince
governed Spain. For both, the war against heresy and against the Turks was fundamental, ‘peace
with Christians and war against the infidel’ being a principle repeated ritually since the days of the
Catholic Monarchs. The priority given by Philip to religion, however, was never absolute. It would
be an error to judge his policy solely by the statement he made in 1566 through his ambassador in
Rome, informing the pope that ‘I would prefer to lose all my dominions and a hundred lives if I had
them, because I do not wish to be lord over heretics’. The declaration was made specifically to
impress the Pope, who at the time was criticising the king for doing nothing to control heresy
among his subjects in the Netherlands.
Kamen H. (2014), Spain 1465-1714: A Society of Conflict, p.109
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Extract C
He was forever measuring himself against his father, desperately attempting to live up to the
idealised model of the great Emperor; and this in turn made him acutely conscious of his own
shortcomings. His feelings of inadequacy only increased this indecisiveness which appears to have
been a hereditary characteristic of the Hapsburgs. Always in need of advice, and yet intensely
suspicious of the motives of those who proffered it, he would endlessly procrastinate as he
struggled to reach his decision. Himself a weak man, he tended to shun strong personalities,
whose resolution he envied and whose strength he feared; instead he would turn for counsel to the
faceless men, to a Ruy Gómez or a Mateo Vazquez – supple characters who would insinuate
where an Alba would command. Distrustful and yet too trusting, Philip felt completely safe only
among his state papers, which he would tirelessly read, mark, annotate, and emend, as if hoping to
find in them the perfect solution to an intractable conundrum – a solution which would somehow
dispense him from the agonising duty of making up his mind.
Elliot J.H. (Penguin 2002), Imperial Spain 1469-1716, p.249-50
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