PHILIP II
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
king of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great. Philip was a man of remarkable ability. According to popular accounts he found the inhabitants of Macedon a rude lot of hill dwellers and plainsmen without seacoast or prestige. He secured seaports, subjugated surrounding tribes, and, through intrigue and despite the opposition of Demosthenes, he admitted himself to a share in the councils of Greece. He was assassinated 336 B. C. Philip took great pains with the training of his son Alexander, to whom he bequeathed a well trained mind and body, the most remarkable military organization of antiquity, the accomplished supremacy of Greece, and the carrying out of his own vast projects for the conquest of Asia. Without the preparation of money, troops, and plans by Philip, the conquests of Alexander would have been impossible. See Alexander ; Phalanx PHILIP II of France reigned from 1180 to 1223. Among the events of his reign were the banishment of the Jews, the Third Crusade, the retaking of Normandy and adjacent provinces from England, and the crusade against the Albigenses. PHILIP II of Spain was the son of the Emperor Charles V and Isabella of Portugal. He reigned 1556-98. He made it the chief object of his reign to restore the Roman Catholic religion throughout his dominions. He carried on a disastrous war in the Netherlands, resulting in the extirpation of Protestantism in the southern provinces and the revolt and independence of the northern provinces. It was in his reign that the "Invincible Armada" was dispatched against England. The Philippine Islands, discovered during his reign by Magellan, were named for him.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The biggest addition since Aiton's wrote in 1910 came in 1977, when Manolis Andronikos excavated the royal tombs at Vergina in northern Greece — the ancient Macedonian capital Aigai — and found an unlooted burial with a gold larnax, ivory portrait heads and greaves of unequal length; most scholars identify it as Philip II of Macedon himself, though some argue for his son Philip III Arrhidaeus, and the dispute is still live. One detail in the 1910 text is simply wrong: Magellan reached the islands in 1521, in the reign of Philip's father Charles V, and the name Philippines was bestowed in 1543 by Ruy López de Villalobos in honour of the then prince. Assessments of Philip II of Spain have also softened: twentieth-century archival work, notably Geoffrey Parker's, replaced the bigot of the "Black Legend" with an overworked bureaucrat governing an empire whose despatches took months to cross. The account of Philip II of France stands substantially as written.
Written for this edition, 2026.