Philip II

Philip II or Philip Augustus, 1165-1223, king of France (1180-1223), son of Louis VII. During his reign the royal domains were more than doubled, and the royal power was consolidated at the expense of the feudal lords. Philip defeated a coalition of Flanders, Burgundy, and Champagne (1181-86), securing Amiens, Artois, and part of Vermandois from the count of Flanders. He then attacked (1187) the English territories in France. Allied (Nov., 1188) with Richard, the rebellious son of King Henry II of England, Philip compelled Henry to cede several territories to him. After Henry's death (1189), Philip and Richard, now king of England (see Richard I), left (1190) on the Third Crusade (see Crusades). They soon quarreled, and after the capture of Acre (see Akko) Philip returned (1191) to France. Richard also left the crusade but was captured on his way home by Leopold V of Austria. During Richard's captivity (1192-94), Philip conspired against him with Richard's brother John. After his release Richard made war (1194-99) on Philip, compelling him to surrender most of his annexations. When John acceded to the English throne on Richard's death (1199), Philip espoused the cause of Arthur I of Brittany and invaded John's French domains, forcing him to surrender (1204) Normandy, Brittany, Anjou, Maine, and Touraine. Philip later conquered Poitou. In 1214, at Bouvines, the French defeated the allied forces of John, Holy Roman Emperor Otto IV, and the count of Flanders; it was a victory that established France as a leading European power. When the English barons revolted against John (1215), they invited Philip's son Louis (later Louis VIII of France) to invade England and take the English throne; the venture failed. During Philip's reign the pope proclaimed the Crusade against the Albigenses. Although Philip did not participate directly in the crusade, he allowed his vassals to do so. Their victories prepared the ground for the annexation of S France by King Louis IX. In internal affairs Philip's most important reform was the creation of a class of salaried administrative officers, the baillis [bailiffs], to supervise local administration of the domain. Philip also systematized the collection of customs, tolls, fines, and fees due to the crown. He supported the towns of France against the royal barons, thereby increasing their power and prosperity. In Paris, he continued the construction of Notre-Dame de Paris, built the first Louvre, paved the main streets, and walled the city.

Philip II, 382-336 B.C., king of Macedon (359-336 B.C.), son of Amyntas II. While a hostage in Thebes (367-364), he gained much knowledge of Greece and its people. He was appointed regent for Amyntas, young son of his brother Perdiccas III, but seized the throne for himself, ruthlessly suppressing foreign and Macedonian opposition. Reorganizing his army and training it in the effective Theban phalanx formation, he entered upon an ambitious career of expansion by conquest and diplomacy. In the first two years he moved eastward, taking over Amphipolis (357) and the gold mines of Thrace (356), in the same region where he had founded Philippi. In 351, Demosthenes, fearing Philip's encroachments, delivered in Athens the first of the denunciatory Philippics. By 348 Philip had annexed the Chalcidice (now Khalkidhikí), including Olynthus, and was involved in a war over Delphi between Phocis and its neighbors. In the settlement (346) Philip became a member of the Delphic council, with a recognized position in Greece. But Demosthenes continued to agitate, and when Philip moved to absorb the European side of the straits and the Dardanelles (340), Athens and Thebes went to war with him. Philip crushed them at Chaeronea (338). Now master of Greece, he established a federal system of Greek states. He was preparing an attack on Persia when he was killed. His wife, Olympias, was accused (probably falsely) of the murder. Philip's consolidation of his kingdom and his reduction of Greece to relative peace made possible the campaigns of his son, Alexander the Great. Philip was the true founder of Alexander's army and trained some of his best generals, e.g., Antigonus Cyclops, Antipater, Nearchus, Parmenion, and Perdiccas.

Philip II, 1527-98, king of Spain (1556-98), king of Naples and Sicily (1554-98), and, as Philip I, king of Portugal (1580-98).

Philip's Reign

Philip ascended the Spanish throne on the abdication of his father, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, who had previously made over to him Naples and Sicily, the Low Countries, Franche-Comté, and the duchy of Milan. His first wife, Maria of Portugal, died giving birth to the unfortunate Don Carlos (1545-68), and in 1554 Philip married Queen Mary I of England. Continuing his father's war with France, he drew England into the conflict in 1557. In the same year Spain won the major victory of St.-Quentin, but in 1558 England lost Calais to France. After Mary's death (1558), Philip offered his hand to her sister, Elizabeth I of England, but he was refused. In 1559 the war with France was brought to an end by the Treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis, which was sealed by Philip's marriage to Elizabeth of Valois.

Although Philip was a devout Roman Catholic who sought to repress heresy whenever feasible, he subordinated religious questions to his political aims. His relations with the papacy were generally bad, because most of the popes feared Spanish power in Italy. Religious persecution and the Spanish Inquisition were used to eliminate resistance to Philip's policy of centralizing power under an absolute monarchy. The repression of the Moriscos, especially after the revolt from 1568 to 1571, assured Spanish religious unity; its main purpose, however, was to prevent the Moriscos from helping the Ottomans to invade Spain. Philip's half-brother, John of Austria (1545-78), defeated the Ottomans at the battle of Lepanto (1571), and Tunis was captured and held briefly (1573-74).

The second half of Philip's reign was dominated by the revolt of the Netherlands (see also Netherlands, Austrian and Spanish). Philip appointed (1567) the duque de Alba to replace his half-sister, Margaret of Parma, as governor, but when Alba's harsh methods failed to quell the revolt, Philip supported the more conciliatory tactics of Alba's successors—Luis de Zúñiga y Requesens, John of Austria, and Alessandro Farnese, duke of Parma—who managed to reconquer the S Netherlands (approximately present-day Belgium). English support of the Dutch rebels and their persistent attacks on Spanish shipping led Philip to plan the invasion of England in 1588. However, the "Invincible Armada" (see Armada, Spanish) was ignominiously defeated. The Dutch also received support from the French Protestants, and Philip intervened (1590) in the French Wars of Religion to aid the Catholic League against the Protestant Henry of Navarre (Henry IV). He claimed the French throne for his daughter Isabella but was finally forced (1598) to recognize Henry.

The only major military success of Philip's later reign was the conquest of Portugal, to which he had a claim as the son of Isabella of Portugal, daughter of Manuel I. When King Henry of Portugal died (1580) without issue, Alba overran the country, and Philip was recognized as king by the Portuguese Cortes.

The main stage of Spanish colonial expansion was completed before Philip's accession; during his reign, however, the Spanish established colonies and garrisons in the present S United States and conquered the Philippine Islands (named for the king). The debilitating effects of depopulation, of colonial overexpansion, and of the influx of gold began to make themselves strongly felt in Philip's Spain. American gold and the proceeds of an increasingly burdensome taxation were not enough to finance Philip's foreign wars and interventions and had to be supplemented with loans. The king repudiated his debts four times during his reign. He was succeeded by Philip III, his son by his fourth wife, Anne of Austria.

Character

Philip was not the bloodthirsty tyrant portrayed by his enemies and by later writers. The embodiment of the hard-working civil servant and bureaucrat, he sought to direct the destinies of a world empire from the seclusion of his cabinet, devoting infinite time and pains to the minutest administrative details. He did not trust even his ablest and most loyal servants, and partly as a result his court was riddled with faction. Philip's administration was generally just, but his bureaucratic absolutism, with its disregard for local conditions and privileges, inevitably caused discontent. This was true not only of the Netherlands but also of Aragón, which rose in revolt (1591) over the affair of Antonio Pérez. Isolated from reality, Philip lived and died in his strange court at the Escorial.

French Philippe known as Philip Augustus

(born Aug. 21, 1165, Paris—died July 14, 1223, Mantes) French king (1179–1223). The first of the great Capetian kings, he gradually reconquered the French territories held by the kings of England. He joined with Richard I on the Third Crusade, but the two kings soon quarreled. Philip returned to France (1191) and attacked English possessions; imprisoned in Austria on his journey home, Richard was freed in 1194 and promptly went to war with the French. When Richard was killed (1199), his brother John signed a treaty with Philip (1200), but within two years France and England were again at war. Philip conquered Normandy (1204) and subdued Maine, Touraine, Anjou, and most of Poitou (1204–05). John later organized a coalition against France, but he was defeated by Philip at the Battle of Bouvines (1214). Philip also expanded his territory into Flanders and Languedoc.

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Philip II Augustus (Philippe Auguste) (21 August1165 – 14 July 1223) was the King of France from 1180 until his death. A member of the House of Capet, Philip Augustus was born at Gonesse in the Val-d'Oise, the son of Louis VII and his third wife, Adela of Champagne. He was originally nicknamed Dieudonné — the God-given — as he was the first son of Louis VII late in his father's life.

Philip was one of the most successful medieval French monarchs in expanding the royal demesne and the influence of the monarchy. He broke up the great Angevin Empire and defeated a coalition of his rivals (German, Flemish and English) at the Battle of Bouvines in 1214. He reorganized the government, bringing financial stability to the country and thus making possible a sharp increase in prosperity. His reign was popular with ordinary people because he checked the power of the nobles and passed some of it on to the growing middle class.

Early years

In declining health, Louis VII had him crowned and anointed at Rheims by the Archbishop William Whitehands on 1 November 1179. He was married on 28 April 1180 to Isabelle of Hainaut, who brought the County of Artois as her dowry. His father died on 20 September.

Consolidation of royal demesne

While the royal demesne had increased under Philip I and Louis VI, under Louis VII it had diminished slightly. In April 1182, Philip expelled all Jews from the demesne and confiscated their goods.

Philip's eldest son, Louis, was born on 5 September 1187 and inherited Artois in 1190, when Isabelle, his mother, died.

Wars with his vassals

In 1181, Philip began a war with the Count of Flanders, Philip of Alsace. Philip managed to counter the ambitions of the count by breaking his alliances with Henry I, Duke of Brabant, and Philip of Heinsberg, Archbishop of Cologne. In July 1185, the Treaty of Boves confirmed to the king the possession of the Vermandois, Artois, and Amiénois.

In 1184, Stephen I of Sancerre and his Brabançon mercenaries ravaged the Orléanais. Philip defeated him with the aid of the Confrères de la Paix.

War with Henry II

Philip also began to wage war with Henry II of England, who was also Count of Anjou and Duke of Aquitaine in France. Two years of combat (1186–1188) followed, but the situation remained unchanged. Philip initially allied with Henry's young sons, Richard and John, who were in rebellion against their father. However, news of the fall of Jerusalem to Saladin, followed quickly by the death of Henry, diverted attention from the Franco-English war.

Philip was close friends with all of Henry's sons and he used them to foment rebellion against their father, but turned against both Richard and John after their respective accessions to the throne. With Henry the Young King and Geoffrey of Brittany he maintained friendship until their deaths. Indeed, at the funeral of Geoffrey, he was so overcome with grief that he had to be forcibly restrained from casting himself into the grave.

War with John Lackland

In May 1200, Philip signed the Treaty of Le Goulet with Richard's successor king John of England, as youngest son of Henry called the Lackland, now also duke of Normandy. The treaty was meant to bring peace to Normandy by settling the issue of the boundaries of the much reduced duchy and the terms of John's vassalage for it and Anjou, Maine, and Touraine. John agreed to heavy terms, but Philip in turn recognised John as king, formally abandoning Arthur I of Brittany, whom he had thitherto supported, and recognised John's suzerainty over the Duchy of Brittany. To seal the treaty, a marriage between Blanche of Castile, John's niece, and Louis the Lion, Philip's son, was contracted.

This did not stop the war, however. In 1202, disaffected patrons petitioned the French king to summon John to answer their charges and, when the English king refused, Philip dispossessed him of his French lands. Within two years, most of Normandy and the Angevin lands, including much of Aquitaine, had been conquered. The war, called the "War of Bouvines The 'War' of Bouvines (1202-1214). Retrieved on 2008-09-29.. ," continued for the next decade until Philip won a decisive victory at Bouvines (1214) over a coalition of forces that included the Emperor Otto IV and Ferdinand, Count of Flanders. The battle was crucial in ordering Western European politics in both England and France. In the former, so weakened was the defeated King John of England that he soon needed to submit to his barons demands and sign the Great Charter giving rights to men and establishing common law and in forming the strong central monarchy that would characterize France until the first French Revolution.

Third Crusade

Philip went on the Third Crusade (1189–1192) with Richard I of England (1189–99) and the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick I Barbarossa (1155–90). His army left Vézelay on July 1, 1190. At first the French and English crusaders traveled together, but the armies split at Lyons, as Richard decided to go by sea, and Philip took the overland route through the Alps to Genoa. The French and English armies were reunited in Messina, where they wintered together. On March 30, 1191 the French set sail for the Holy Land and Philip arrived on May 20. He then marched up to Acre which was already besieged by a lesser contingent of crusaders and started to construct large siege equipments before Richard arrived in June 8 (see Siege of Acre). By the time Acre surrendered on July 12, Philip was severely ill with dysentery which reduced his crusading zeal. Ties with Richard were further strained after the latter acted in a haughty manner after Acre had fallen. More importantly, the siege resulted in the death of Philip of Alsace, who held the county of Vermandois proper; an event that threatened to derail the Treaty of Gisors which Philip had orchestrated to isolate the powerful Blois-Champagne faction. Philip decided to return to France to settle the issue of succession in Flanders, a decision that displeased Richard, who said, "It is a shame and a disgrace on my lord if he goes away without having finished the business that brought him hither. But still, if he finds himself in bad health, or is afraid lest he should die here, his will be done." So on July 31, 1191 the French army of 10,000 men (along with 5,000 silver marks to pay the soldiers) remained in Outremer under the command of Hugh III, duke of Burgundy. Philip and his cousin Peter of Courtenay, count of Nevers, made their way to Genoa and from there returned to France. This decision to return was also fuelled by the realization that with Richard campaigning in the Holy Land, English possessions in northern France (Normandy) would be open for attack. After Richard's delayed return home after the Third Crusade, war between England and France would ensue over possession of English-controlled territories in modern-day France.

Marital problems

After Isabelle's early death in childbirth, in 1190, Philip decided to marry again. On August 15, 1193 he married Ingeborg (1175–1236), daughter of King Valdemar I of Denmark (1157–82). She was renamed Isambour, and Stephan of Dornik described her as "very kind, young of age but old of wisdom." For some unknown reason, Philip was repelled by her, and he refused to allow her to be crowned Queen. Ingeborg protested at this treatment; his response was to confine her to a convent. He then asked Pope Celestine III for an annulment on the grounds of non-consummation. Philip had not reckoned with Ingeborg, however; she insisted that the marriage had been consummated, and that she was his wife and the rightful Queen of France. The Franco-Danish churchman William of Paris intervened on the side of Ingeborg, drawing up a genealogy of the Danish kings to disprove the alleged impediment of consanguinity.

In the meantime Philip had sought a new bride. Initially agreement had been reached for him to marry Marguerite of Geneva, daughter of William I, Count of Geneva, but the young bride's journey to Paris was interrupted by Thomas I of Savoy, who kidnapped Philip's intended new queen and married her instead, claiming that Philip was already bound in marriage. Philip finally achieved a third marriage, on May 7, 1196, to Agnes of Merania from Dalmatia (c. 1180 – July 29, 1201). Their children were:

1. Marie (1198 – October 15, 1224)
2. Philippe Hurepel (1200–1234), Count of Clermont and eventually, by marriage, Count of Boulogne

Pope Innocent III (1198–1216) declared Philip Augustus's marriage to Agnes of Merania null and void, as he was still married to Ingeborg. He ordered the King to part from Agnès; when he did not, the Pope placed France under an interdict in 1199. This continued until September 7, 1200. Due to pressure from the Pope and from Ingeborg's brother, King Valdemar II of Denmark (1202–41), Philip finally took Ingeborg back as his Queen in 1213.

Last years

Understandably, he turned a deaf ear when the Pope asked him to do something about the heretics in the Languedoc. When Innocent III called for a crusade against the Albigensians or Cathars, in 1208, Philip did nothing to support it, but neither did he hinder it. The war against the Cathars did not end until 1244, when finally their last strongholds were captured. The fruits of it, namely the submission of the south of France to the crown, were to be reaped by Philip's son, Louis VIII, and grandson, Louis IX. From 1216 to 1222 Philip also arbitrated in the War of Succession in Champagne and finally helped the military efforts of Eudes III, Duke of Burgundy and Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor to bring it to an end.

Philip II Augustus would play a significant role in one of the greatest centuries of innovation in construction and in education. With Paris as his capital, he had the main thoroughfares paved, built a central market, Les Halles, continued the construction begun in 1163 of the Gothic Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral, constructed the Louvre as a fortress and gave a charter to the University of Paris in 1200. Under his guidance, Paris became the first city of teachers the medieval world had known. In 1224, the French poet Henry d'Andeli wrote of the great wine tasting competition that Philip II Augustus commissioned The Battle of the Wines.

Philip II Augustus died July 14, 1223 at Mantes and was interred in Saint Denis Basilica. Philip's son by Isabelle de Hainaut, Louis VIII, was his successor.

Portrayal in fiction

Philip is a character in James Goldman's historical play The Lion in Winter. The play maintains the historical theory that he and Richard the Lionhearted had previously had a homosexual relationship. In the 1968 film of The Lion in Winter, which downplayed the homosexual aspect present in the stage play, Philip was played by Timothy Dalton. Jonathan Rhys Meyers played Philip in a 2003 television version which somewhat resurrected the matter.

Ancestors

Philip's ancestors in three generations

Philip II of France	Father: Louis VII of France	Paternal Grandfather: Louis VI of France	Paternal Great-grandfather: Philip I of France
			Paternal Great-grandmother: Bertha of Holland
		Paternal Grandmother: Adelaide of Maurienne	Paternal Great-grandfather: Humbert II of Savoy
			Paternal Great-grandmother: Gisela of Burgundy
	Mother: Adèle of Champagne	Maternal Grandfather: Theobald II, Count of Champagne	Maternal Great-grandfather: Stephen II, Count of Blois
			Maternal Great-grandmother: Adela of Normandy
		Maternal Grandmother: Matilda of Carinthia	Maternal Great-grandfather: Engelbert, Duke of Carinthia
			Maternal Great-grandmother: Utta of Passau

References

• Payne, Robert. The Dream and the Tomb: A History of the Crusades. New York: Stein and Day, 1984. ISBN 0-812829-45-X
• Baldwin, John W. The Government of Philip Augustus: Foundations of French Royal Power in the Middle Ages. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1986.
• Meade, Marion. Eleanor of Aquitaine: A Biography. New York: Hawthorn Books, 1977. ISBN 0-801522-31-5