Philip IV of Spain

 - King of Spain and Portugal -

( 1605 - 1665 )
 


* List of the stories he appears in :
- D 90227 : "Treasure Under Glass", from 1991, by Don Rosa (by name only) ;
- D 96066 : "The Last Lord of Eldorado", from 1997, by Don Rosa (by name only).

 

* His biography :
     Philip was born on April 8, 1905, at Valladolid, Spain, the son of King Philip III of Spain and Margaret, sister of the emperor Ferdinand II.
   In 1621, he accessed the throne of Spain, Naples, and Sicily as Philip IV and on the throne of Portugal as Philip III.
   He was intelligent but lacked interest in the affairs of state, which were handled by the conde de Olivares and other favourites. He was one of the most frequently portrayed monarchs, thanks to the painter Velázquez. He was also a patron of Rubens and Cano and was largely responsible for building up the royal collection of paintings, which later became the basis of the Prado Museum. Calderón de la Barca and Tirso de Molina continued the great tradition of Spanish drama during his reign. He hired Francisco Nuñez Melian as salvager to recover the sunk treasures of the Armada.
   During his reign, Spain continued to decline politically and economically. Spanish involvement in the Thirty Years War increased as war was resumed, in 1621, in the Netherlands, and in 1622, fighting started with France over the Valtellina question. In 1640, the war gave Portugal the opportunity to revolt, and so Philip wasn't king of Portugal anymore. Catalonia also rose and was long occupied by the French.
   Spain had to recognize the independence of the United Provinces of the Netherlands at the Peace of Westphalia , in 1648, but the war with France continued, became complicated by Spanish intervention in the French Fronde, and ended in 1659 with the humiliation of Spain and the Peace of the Pyrénées, during which Spain left Roussillon and part of the Spanish Netherlands to France.
   His daughter, Marie Thérèse, was married to King Louis XIV of France.
   He died on the September 8, 1665, and was succeeded by his son, Charles / Carlos II.
 

* His place in the Barks/Rosa stories universe :
    In "Treasure Under Glass", Scrooge evocates the fact that Captain Francisco Melian had been hired by King Philip IV to find and bring back to treasure of the Armada, sunk with a galleon in 1622.
   In "The Last Lord of Eldorado", the Ducks use Melian's map to find sunk treasures and Scrooge says that, as the map was exact, it's not surprizing that Philip IV hired him to find sunk treasures.
 

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