Cultural Depictions of Philip II of Spain - Literature

Literature

• The Belgian Charles de Coster's 1867 novel The Legend of Thyl Ulenspiegel and Lamme Goedzak depicts Philip II in a highly unsympathetic light. The narrative recounts the adventures of the Geuzen, or Sea Beggars, who fought against the Spanish occupation of the Southern Netherlands, and imagines the legendary figure of Thyl Ulenspiegel fighting on their side. Critic Jonathan Nield describes the work as "of unmistakable power, if somewhat coarse in tone".
• Philip II is portrayed in Fire Over England, a well known 1937 historical drama. Breaking with British artistic tradition, the portrayal of the former English co-monarch is not entirely unsympathetic. He is shown as a very hard working, intelligent, religious, somewhat paranoid ruler whose prime concern is his country. As he orders the Armada to sail to its doom he admits to having no understanding of the English.
• Margaret Irwin wrote Elizabeth and the Prince of Spain (1953), a historical novel about Princess Elizabeth's imprisonment and survival during the uneasy marriage between Philip and Queen Mary I. The novel was the third in Irwin's "Young Bess" trilogy.
• Jean Plaidy wrote Spanish Bridegroom (1954), a historical novel about Philip's first three marriages.
• The plot of Carlos Fuentes's novel Terra Nostra (Mexico, 1975) revolves around the construction of Philip II's combined monastery and palace of San Lorenzo de El Escorial in the Sierra de Guadarrama near Madrid. Critic Raymond L. Williams has explained that Fuentes modelled the tripartite structure of Terra Nostra on that of the Escorial, where Philip consciously set out to create a world apart. The novel makes the architecture a metaphor for Spain's imperial stance towards the New World.
• Harry Turtledove's alternate history novel Ruled Britannia (2002) imagines a world in which the Spanish Armada succeeded and King Philip conquered England, a theme anticipated, suggests literary scholar Anne J. Cruz, by the Spanish novelist Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616).
• In Philippa Gregory's novel The Queen's Fool (2004), set in the court of Mary I of England, Princess Elizabeth flirts with Mary's husband King Philip. The plot, observes reviewer Emma Hagestadt, "burns with passions with which Freud—let alone the Church—would have a field day".
• Harry Kelsey's biographical novel Philip of Spain, King of England: The Forgotten Sovereign (2011) takes place during his marriage to Queen Mary Tudor of England and his role as king-consort in a foreign country.