Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 12.djvu/26

 PHILIP

PHILIP

was almost wholly destroyed by storms (1588). This was an irreparable disaster which inaugurated Spain's naval decline. The Kngli.sh corsairs could with im- punity pillage her colonies and under Drake even her own coast; in 1596 the Duke of Essex pillaged the flourishing town of Cadiz, and the sceptre of the seas passed from Spain to England. From 1559 Philip II had been at peace with France, and had contented him- self withurging it tocrushoutheresy. French interven- tion in favour of the Low Countries did not cause him to change his attitude, but when at the death of Henry III in 1589 the Protestant Henry of Bourbon became heir to the throne of France, Philip II allied himself with the Guises, who were at the head of the League, supplied them with money and men, and on several occasions sent to their relief his great general Alexan- der Farnese. He e\-en dreamed of obtaining the crown of France for his daughter Isabella, but this daring project was not realized. The conversion of Henry IV (1593) to Catholicism removed the last obstacle to his accession to the French throne. Apparently Philip II failed to grasp the situation, since he continued for two years more the war against Henry IV', but his fruitless efforts were finally terminated in 1595 by the absolution of Henry IV b}' Clement VIII.

No sovereign has been the object of such diverse judgments. While the Spaniards regarded him as their Solomon and called him "the prudent king" {el rey prudente), to Protestants he was the "demon of the south" (dcemon 7neridianus) and most cruel of tyrants. This was because, having constituted himself the de- fender of Catholicism throughout the world, he en- countered innumerable enemies, not to mention such adversaries as Antonio Perez and William of Orange who maligned him so as to justify their treason. Sub- sequently poets (Schiller in his "Don Carlos"), romance-writers, and publicists repeated these calum- nies. As a matter of fact Philip II joined great quali- ties to great faults. He was industrious, tenacious, devoted to study, serious, simple-mannered, generous to those who served him, the friend and patron of arts. He was a dutiful son, a loving husband and father, whose family worshipped him. His piety was fervent, he had a boundless devotion to the Catholic Faith and was, moreover, a zealous lover of justice. His stoical strength in adversity and the courage with which he endured the sufferings of his last illness arc worthy of admiration. On the other hand he was cold, suspicious, secretive, scrupulous to excess, indecisive and procrastinating, little disposed to clemency or forgetfulness of wrongs. His religion was austere and sombre. He could not understand opposition to her- esy except by force. Imbued with ideas of absolutism, as were all the rulers of his time, he was led into acts disapproved by the moral law. His cabinet policy, always behind-hand with regard to events and ill- informed concerning the true situation, explains his failures to a great extent. To sum up we may cite the opinion of Baumstark: " He was a sinner, as we all are, but he was also a king and a Christian king in the full sense of the term".

Gachard, Correspondance de Philippe II sur les affaires des Pays Bas (Brussels and Ghent, 184S-1851); Idem. Letlres de Philippe IlasesfiUes (Paris, 1884); Idem. Don Carlos et Philippe II (Paris. 1863); Prescott, History of the reign of Philip II, King of Spain (London. 185.5): Cordoba. Felipe II, rey de Espana (Madrid, 1876-78); Baumstark. Philippe II, KSnig von Spanien (Freiburg, 1875), tr. into French. Kcrth (1877); Mon- tana. Nueva luz y juicio verdadero sobre Felipe II (Madrid, 1882); FOHNEHON, Hisloire de Philippe II (Paris, 1882); Hume, Philip II of Spain (London, 1897).

GODEFROID KdRTH.

Philip rV, surnamed le Bel (the Fair), King of France, b. at Fontainebleau, 1268; d. there, 29 Nov., 1.314; son of Philip III and Isabel of Aragon; became king. 5 Oct., 1285, on the death of his father, and was consecrati'il at Reims, 6 Jan., 1286, with his wife .leaiHie, d;iugliter of Henry I, King of Navarre, Count of ChaiMpiignc and Brie; this marriage united these

territories to the royal domain. Having taken Viviers and Lyons from the empire, Valenciennes, the inhabi- tants of which united themseh'es voluntarily with IVance, La Marchc and Angoumois, which he seized from the lawful heirs of Hugues de Lusignan, Philip wished to expel Edward I of England from Ciuienne, all of which province, with the exception of Bordeaux and Bayonne, was occupied in 1294 and 1295. By the Treaty of IVIontreuil, negotiated bj' Boniface VIII, he gave Guienne as a gift to his daughter Isabel, who married the son of Edward I, on condition that this young prince should hold the province as Philip's vassal. Philip wished to punish Count Guy of Flan- ders, an ally of England, and caused Charles of Valois to invade his territory, but he was defeated at Coutrai by the Flemings, who were roused by the heavy taxes imposed on them by Philip; he took his revenge on the Flemings at the naval victory of Zierichzee and the land victory of Mons en Puelle; then in 1305 he recognized Robert, Guy's son, as his vassal and re- tained possession of Lille, Douai, Orchies, and V'alen- ciennes. Having thus extended his kingdom, Philip endeavoured energetically to centralize the govern- ment and impose a very rigorous fiscal system. Legists like Enguerrand, Philippe de Marigny, Pierre de Latilly, Pierre Flotte, Raoul de Presle, and Guillaume de Plassan, helped him to establish firmly this royal absolutism and set up a tyrannical power.

These legists were called the chemliers de I'holel, the chevaliers es lois, the tnililes regis; they were not nobles, neither did they bear arms, but they ranked as knights. The appearance of these legists in the Government of France is one of the leading events of the reign of Philip IV. Renan explains its significance in these words: "An entirely new class of politicians, owing their fortune entirely to their own merit and personal efforts, unreservedly devoted to the king who had made them, and rivals of the Church, whose place they hoped to fill in many matters, thus appeared in the history of France, and were destined to work a profound change in the conduct of public affairs".

It was these legists who incited and supported Philip IV in his conflict with the papacy and the trial of the Templars. In the articles Boniface VIII; Clement V; Molai; Templars, will be found an account of the relations of Philip IV with the Holy See; M. Lizerand, in 1910, has given us a study on Philip IV and Clement V, containing thirty-seven unpubUshed letters written by the two sovereigns. The principal adviser of Philip in his hostile relations with the Curia was the legist Guillaume de Nogaret (q. v.). Renan, who made a close study of Nogaret's dealings with Boniface VIII, Clement V, and the Tem- plars, thinks that despite his ardent profession of Catholic fidelity he was somewhat hypocritical, at all events "he was not an honest man", and that "he could not have been deceived by the false testimony which he stirred up and the sophisms he provoked". Nogaret's methods of combating Boniface VIII and the Templars are better understood when we examine, in Gaston Paris's work, the curious trial of Guichard, Bishop of Troyes, for witchcraft.

Another important personage whose curious writ- ings must be read to understand the policy of Philip correctly is Pierre Dubois. He had been a pupil of St. Thomas Aquinas at the University of Paris, and was a lawyer at Coutances. In 1300 Dubois wrote a work on the means of shortening the wars and conflicts of France; in 1302 he published several virulent pamphlets against Bonif.ice VIII; between 1304 and 1,308, he wrote a very important work "De recupera- tione Terra- Sancta'"; in 1309 alone, he wrote on the question of the Holy Roman Empire, on the Eastern question, and against the Templars. Dubois started from the idea t hat France ought to .subdue the papacy, after which it wcmld lie easy for the King of France to use the papal influence for his own advantage. He