Who married Philip II of Spain?

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.

During his reign, Spain participated in notable victories against the Ottomans in Oran, Malta and Lepanto. In 1584, during the Eighty Years' War, Philip signed the Treaty of Joinville, funding the French Catholic League over the following decade against the French Huguenots. In 1588, he sent an armada to invade Protestant England, with the strategic aim of overthrowing his former sister-in-law Elizabeth I and re-establishing Catholicism there, but his fleet was repulsed in a skirmish and wrecked by storms as it returned to Spain. Philip's naval power recovered after the defeat of a similarly sized English Armada sent against Spain. As a consequence of these conflicts, Philip led a highly debt-leveraged regime, seeing state defaults in 1557, 1560, 1569, 1575, and 1596. An ambitious plan to extend his conquests to China and across Asia was also considered and abandoned.

Historical reception of Philip II became heavily influenced by enemy propaganda, which he refused to answer or defend himself against, even prohibiting biographical accounts of his life. His negative foreign reputation eventually developed into the Spanish Black Legend, while reappraisals of his figure would later entangle in turn with the White Legend. As a result, historian Helmut Koenigsberger would write about Philip, "there has, perhaps, been no personality in modern history, not even Napoleon or Stalin, who has been both as enigmatic and controversial as Philip II of Spain... Neither his own contemporaries nor later historians have been able to agree on his character, his aims or even the degree of success he achieved."

Dona Maria Manuela (15 October 1527 – 12 July 1545) was the eldest daughter and second child of King John III of Portugal and his wife Catherine of Austria. She was Princess of Asturias and Duchess of Milan as the first wife of the future Philip II of Spain, and Princess of Portugal as heir presumptive to the Portuguese throne between 1527 and 1535.

Mary I (18 February 1516 – 17 November 1558), also known as Mary Tudor, was Queen of England and Ireland from July 1553 and Queen of Spain as the wife of King Philip II from January 1556 until her death in 1558. She made vigorous attempts to reverse the English Reformation, which had begun during the reign of her father, King Henry VIII. Her attempt to restore to the Church the property confiscated in the previous two reigns was largely thwarted by Parliament but, during her five-year reign, more than 280 religious dissenters were burned at the stake in what became known as the Marian persecutions, leading later commentators to label her "Bloody Mary".

Mary was the only surviving child of Henry VIII by his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. She was declared illegitimate and barred from the line of succession following the annulment of her parents' marriage in 1533, but was restored via the Third Succession Act 1543. Her younger half-brother, Edward VI, succeeded their father in 1547 at the age of nine. When Edward became terminally ill in 1553, he attempted to remove Mary as heir to the throne because he supposed, correctly, that she would reverse the Protestant reforms that had taken place during his reign. Upon his death, leading politicians proclaimed their Protestant cousin, Lady Jane Grey, as queen instead. Mary speedily assembled a force in East Anglia and deposed Jane.

Mary was—excluding the disputed reigns of Jane and the Empress Matilda—the first queen regnant of England. In July 1554, she married Philip of Spain, becoming queen consort of Habsburg Spain on his accession in 1556. Marriage to the Spanish king was controversial in England. After Mary's death in 1558, her re-establishment of Catholicism in England was reversed by her younger half-sister and successor, Elizabeth I.

Elisabeth of France, or Elisabeth of Valois (Spanish: Isabel de Valois; French: Élisabeth de Valois; 2 April 1546 – 3 October 1568), was Queen of Spain as the third wife of Philip II of Spain. She was the eldest daughter of Henry II of France and Catherine de' Medici.

Anne d'Autriche, née à Cigales le 2 novembre 1549 et morte à Badajoz le 26 octobre 1580, est une archiduchesse d'Autriche et une reine d'Espagne par son mariage avec le roi Philippe II d'Espagne, son oncle. Elle est sa quatrième épouse et la mère de son héritier et successeur Philippe III d'Espagne.

Elle est également la fille de l'empereur germanique Maximilien II et de Marie d'Autriche. Sa sœur cadette Élisabeth d'Autriche est l'épouse du roi Charles IX de France.