Parker, Geoffrey. The Grand Strategy of Philip II. New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1998.
During the reign of Philip II, the “Most Catholic King,” Spain reached the apex of
its power. At one time its territories encompassed the entire Iberian Peninsula, much of
Italy, the Netherlands, the New World, and various smaller entities. Wealth from the
empire’s trade cities and Central and South America made the Spanish Empire the
greatest of its age. Despite this infusion of gold and silver, Philip’s empire was often
bankrupt. Philip was constantly at war, experiencing peace only once during a six month
period in 1577. Although the king presided over great victories such as that over the
Ottoman Turks at Lepanto in 1571, he also experienced defeat in the Netherlands and at
sea against the English. Indeed, the Netherlands and England were his greatest foreign
policy failures. By the time of Philip’s death, Imperial Spain had begun its decline. What
caused this? What role did Philip play? Geoffrey Parker attempts to answer these
questions in The Grand Strategy of Philip II. He examines Philip’s governance, his
foreign policy decisions, and his personality, and ties them together to create a picture of
a monarch who was instrumental in his own failure to achieve his goals.
The author lays out his thesis in the preface: he seeks to find out what Philip’s
Grand Strategy was and why it failed. To support his arguments, Parker has collected an
impressive array of resources from King Philip’s policy statements to letters and notes by
those who came into contact with him such as ambassadors and ministers. Readers will
find the endnotes especially helpful as most of them are annotated. The author breaks the
book down into three manageable parts: Philip’s governance, Philip’s formation of
strategy (using three case studies), and an examination of the flaws in the execution of the
strategy.
One common characteristic of all great empires is an efficient bureaucracy. To
administer his empire, Philip created an extremely layered and complicated web of
government offices with the king at the center. It was because of this growth in
government personnel that Philip moved to a permanent capital. The king had fourteen
councils to help him synthesize information and formulate recommendations. Each had
its own standard operating procedure, and business between the councils took place in
three hundred twenty-six categories until reforms in 1590 brought it down to just four:
administration, justice, war, and finance. Council ministers often operated in the dark,
ignorant of what other councils were doing. This deficiency was corrected somewhat
when Philip appointed key officials to multiple councils to create an overlap. According
to Parker, the primary problem of Philip’s government was Philip. King Philip read
everything that crossed his desk. This was due to his own penchant for attention to detail,
his desire to make all the decisions (to maintain absolute power), and a measure of
suspicion of his officials.
This huge workload compounded by the problems of distance, restrictions
imposed by religion, and the often contradictory needs of his empire put a great amount
of stress on Philip. Various measures were developed to alleviate this problem. The king
introduced a steering committee, the Junta de Noche. When this did not suffice, he added
two more: the Junta de Gobierno and the Junta Grande. Even these did not bring the
work down to manageable levels, so Philip created an “alter ego” in the form of Cardinal
Espinoza. The cardinal acted as a buffer between the government and the king, sifting
through the stacks of paper to present the most pressing business. Although the king
discontinued the practice of using an “alter ego” after the cardinal’s death, it continued on
under Mateo Vasquez as “Chief of Staff.” Despite these actions taken to reduce his
workload, King Philip continued to be inundated with paper. The problem, as seen by the
author, is that Philip had a compulsion to micromanage. This “need” to see everything
prohibited any meaningful delegation of authority or easing Philip’s stress due to
overwork. Additionally, the author argues that Philip’s fear of failure (“zero-defect
mentality”), stemming from an inferiority complex, also kept him at the table poring over
details.
These behaviors also contributed to his failures in foreign policy. Although the
king probably had the finest courier service in Europe, distance still had a profound effect
on decision-making. Philip’s style of micromanagement often had negative if not
disastrous results. In one case, Philip changed his mind over policy in the Netherlands,
calling for conciliation instead of repression, but the message was too late. Parker also
points out that Philip’s excellent courier service added to the problem because Philip
received so much information he delayed decisions so he could get all the facts. This
dithering by Philip belies the phrase, “knowledge equals power.” The author covers this
problem in depth. He contends that Philip often used delays as a tactic to manage a
particular crisis. Philip would put off all other business and focus only on the information
pertaining to the immediate problem causing still further logjams of paper in the system.
Parker states: “His insistence on acquiring ever more data, and his illusions that this
enabled – entitled – him to micromanage operations throughout his global empire,
paradoxically served to diminish his control.”1
Parker sees three major problems stemming from information overload. First, it
led to micromanagement. Secondly, to micromanage, Philip sought seclusion that, in
turn, isolated him even further from the real world. Finally, since it was not possible to
synthesize all the information available, Philip only selected the information that
supported the course of action he had already decided upon. This fixation on a single
approach was even further restricted when Philip’s deep religious beliefs were brought
into the mix. With “God” affecting the data, Philip often allowed himself to pursue overambitious objectives- his “Messianic Imperialism.” His belief in the Providence of God
also kept him from considering “Murphy’s Law,” the inevitability of things going wrong,
and back-up plans were rarely considered. Parker contends that Philip’s Catholicism was
a major factor in the failures of the Grand Strategy. It cost Philip allies (England), it
caused the rebellions of religious minorities within the empire, and his need to champion
the Catholic Church often directly contradicted Spain’s national interests.
Perhaps one of the greatest contributions the book makes to the historiography of
Imperial Spain is in the case studies of the Netherlands and England. Parker delivers two
brief histories that make the revolt in the Netherlands and the defeat of the Armada very
understandable for the average reader. The author uses the case studies to bolster his
argument that Philip’s religious intransigence, his penchant for micromanagement, and
his rigidity led to his policy failures. Again, distance was a crucial factor in the
Netherlands as policy changes came too late to help the situation, and the Armada broke
down into complete confusion with order, counter-order, and counter counter-order.
1
Geoffrey Parker, The Grand Strategy of Philip II (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1998), 72.
Philip continuously made strategic and even tactical decisions without a firm grasp of the
situation on the ground. Had he allowed his commanders to use their initiative, Parker
argues, Philip’s invasion of England may well have succeeded. The studies are also
helpful in that they take seemingly isolated events, such as the Saint Bartholomew’s Day
Massacre, and place them in a broader context. The accompanying maps have an even
briefer history in the captions that would make these excellent study guides for students.
Why did Philip ultimately fail in carrying out his Grand Strategy? Don Martin de
Padilla, commander of the unsuccessful armadas of 1596 and 1597 wrote that it was
because Spain took on too many commitments so that, in the end, it could not accomplish
any of them. The Spanish were also firm believers in the “Domino Theory.” They feared
if one territory fell then the others would fall in their turn. This accounts for their tenacity
even when it was clear they could not win. The political dictum, “absolute security for
one nation means absolute insecurity for its neighbor,” applies to Spain as well. Parker
explains that Philip never really understood how his moves affected the policies of other
nations such as the movement of masses of troops into the Netherlands and its effect on
the perceived security of England and France. The author supports these as contributing
factors but he clearly believes that the primary reason for the failure of King Philip was
Philip.
Geoffrey Parker has made an important contribution to the study of King Philip
and Imperial Spain with his work, The Grand Strategy of Philip II. Readers will gain
valuable insight into the inner workings of the imperial government, policy decisions, and
why Spain failed to meet its objectives. The work is also an excellent source for the nuts
and bolts history of the revolt in the Netherlands and the Spanish Armada.
John Q. Student
HIST 540 Early Modern Spain
Dr. Cruz
10 March 2001