The King Who Was Devoured by Insects: The End of Philip II of Spain

El Escorial, September 1598.

The corridors of the somber palace
lie in silence

broken only by the whispers of physicians

and the occasional moan
emanating from the royal chamber.

Inside the room. upon a deteriorating bed,

a man lies in agony.

His once powerful body
is now ravaged by pain,

his hands deformed by gout
resemble useless claws,

his legs swollen with edema
have not supported him for weeks-

The putrid odor that emanates
from his decomposing tissues

is so intense that even
the most dedicated servants

cover their noses
when entering the chamber.

This man is not some common
criminal paying for his sins

nor a commoner without access
to medical care.

He is Philip II, the most powerful
monarch of his time,

lord of an empire
where the sun never sets,

king of Spain, Portugal, Naples,
Sicily, Duke of Milan

and master of the vast territories
of the New World,

the man who challenged Elizabeth,
the year of England,

who built the magnificent Escoreal,

who led the fight against
the Protestant Reformation,

now succumbs to a slow
and excruciating death,

abandoned by his own body.

How did the most powerful
king in the world

come to this tragic
and repugnant end?

To understand the horror
of Philip II's final days

we must travel back in time

and meet the man behind the crown.

Born on May 21st 1527, in Valladolid,

Philip was the son of Emperor Charles V
and the Portuguese Princess Isabella.

From an early age

he was groomed to govern
the vast empire his father had built.

Unlike Charles, who was a warrior
by nature,

Philip proved to be
a meticulous bureaucrat,

an administrator obsessed with details.

He was known as El Rey de los Papeles

— the king of papers —

such was his dedication
to documents and writing.

He spent hours in his study

meticulously noting every aspect
of his empire's governance.

When Charles V abdicated in 1556,

Philip inherited the Spanish throne
and much of the empire.

In 1580, amid the Portuguese
succession crisis

following King Sebastian's disappearance
at the battle of Alcacer Quibir,

Philip claimed his right
to the Portuguese throne

as the grandson of Manuel I.

With an army led by the Duke of Alba

he defeated the forces
of Dom Antonio, Prior of Crato

and was crowned Philip I of Portugal,

uniting the two greatest world powers
under his crown.

The king was a complex man.

Deeply religious and a fervent
defender of Catholicism,

he considered himself
God's armed hand on Earth.

Under his command,

the Spanish Inquisition reached its peak

persecuting heretics and infidels.

At the same time he was
a patron of the arts,

a refined collector
and a visionary builder.

His greatest architectural legacy,

the monastery
of San Lorenzo de El Escorial,

combined palace,
monastery and mausoleum,

a perfect symbolism for a king

who saw his power
as an extension of divine will.

In his personal life,
Philip married four times.

His first wife, Maria Manuela of Portugal,

died giving birth to Prince Carlos

who would later be imprisoned
by his own father for insubordination

dying under mysterious circumstances.

His second wife, Mary Tudor of England,
known as Bloody Mary,

also died without giving him heirs.

The third, Elizabeth of Valois,
gave him two daughters,

before dying in childbirth.

The fourth and last, Anna of Austria,
who was his niece,

finally gave him his long desired heir,

the future Philip III,

along with other children,
although only five survived infancy.

Despite the almost absolute
power he wielded.

Philip II was never a healthy man.

From his youth, he suffered
from recurrent attacks of gout,

a painful disease caused
by excess uric acid in the blood

which forms crystals in the joints,
causing intense inflammation

Gout was known as the disease of kings

as it primarily afflicted the wealthy

who indulged in diets rich
in red meat and wine,

exactly Philip's case.

As the years passed, his gout attacks
became more frequent and severe

In 1590, at the age of 63,

the king's health began
to deteriorate significantly.

Besides chronic gout, he began
to suffer from ???? fevers,

Fevers spiked every three days,
a typical symptom of malaria.

He also developed severe edema,

an accumulation of fluid
that swelled his legs

to the point of making them
unrecognizable.

The combination of these diseases
gradually immobilized him.

He who had once been called
the Prudent King

was now a prisoner of his own body.

The last two years of his life
were a true calvary.

around 1596, Philip could barely write.

His gout deformed hand
could hardly hold a pen.

Ironically for a man
who had built his identity

as an administrator and a bureaucrat,

this represented a devastating loss.

His body which had never been
particularly robust, began to fail.

The king who controlled half the world,

now barely controlled
his most basic bodily functions.

In July 1598, Philip's condition
worsened dramatically

The edema had spread throughout his body

causing excruciating pain.

Gout attacked not only his hands and feet

but also his knees, elbows
and even his spine.

The royal physicians, powerless
in the face of such suffering

resorted to bloodletting and purges

that only weakened the monarch further.

The fever did not subside

and Philip alternated between delirium
and moments of agonizing lucidity.

It was during this period

that his situation reached
the height of horror.

Permanently confined to bed,

the king developed deep bed sores
that quickly became infected.

The open wounds on his back,
buttocks and legs

became breeding grounds for infection,

attracting insects
and creating an environment

conducive to the proliferation
of parasites.

Reports indicate that his mattress
had to be perforated

to allow the king's bodily fluids to drain
without him having to move

which would have been impossible
due to the excruciating pain.

As if this were not enough,

the monarch's weakened and immobile body

became host
to a massive infestation of lice.

The king himself, in one
of his last moments of lucidity

is said to have commented
with bitter irony

"See how this body that commanded
half the world,

"now cannot even command
its own parasites."

The closest courtiers witnessed
how the great Philip II

was literally being devoured alive,

unable to defend himself

even against the smallest creatures.

The horror of this situation
was not merely physical.

For a deeply religious man like Phillip,

the degradation of his body
also represented a spiritual trial.

Several accounts indicate
that in his moments of lucidity

the king viewed his suffering
as an anticipated purgatory,

an expiation of his sins
even before death.

One of the clerics
who attended him in his final days

wrote that his majesty endured the pain

with such patience and Christian devotion

that he seemed more like a
saint under trial

than a dying monarch.

At dawn, on September 13th 1598,

after 52 days of uninterrupted agony,

Philip II finally met his end.

His last moments were a mixture
of feverish delirium

and extreme religious devotion.

With a crucifix clutched
in his deformed hand,

he murmured his final words,

a prayer, or perhaps
a plea for forgiveness,

no one knows for certain.

What is known is that
when death finally took him,

his face transfigured by pain
seemed to relax

as if finding at last the relief

that the medicine of his time
could not provide.

The king's body, that tortured shell,

that once housed one of
Europe's most powerful minds

was quickly prepared for burial.

The embalmers worked with difficulty

trying to give dignity
to what had become in the last weeks,

something almost inhuman.

The corpse was then taken
to the royal crypt

of the Escoreal monastery,

that same majestic building
that Philip had ordered built

as a symbol of his power and faith.

The death of Philip II closes
a fascinating and contradictory chapter

in European history.

The king who dedicated his life
to expanding and preserving Catholicism,

who sent the Spanish Armada
against England,

who suppressed revolts in the Netherlands,

who unified Portugal and Spain,

ended his days in a state of degradation

that shocked even his most
fervent admirers.

There is a powerful lesson
in how Philip II's end

contrasts with his life.

During his reign he tried
to control everything:

politics, religion, culture, the seas,
distant territories

E built a bureaucratic system
so detailed

that nothing escaped his knowledge

and yet, in the end,
he could not control

even the most basic
functions of his own body.

The man who considered himself
God's instrument on Earth

became a vivid example
of human fragility.

Historians today debate the extent
to which Philip's prolonged illness

affected political decisions
in the final years of his reign.

Some argue that
his debilitated state of health

forced him to rely more on advisers,

many of whom lacked his strategic vision,

thus, contributing to the military
and economic setbacks

that Spain began to suffer.

Others suggest that the experience
of physical suffering

may have tempered his obstinacy

and made him more inclined
to seek peace

as seen in some treaties
signed in the final years of his reign.

what is not debated

is the symbolic impact
of Philip II's death

For an era in which the king's body

represented the body of the state,

seeing the most powerful
monarch of Christendom

reduced to an invalid
devoured by parasites

was a profound blow

to the period's perceptions
of power and divinity.

if the king anointed by God

could suffer in such a terrible
and humiliating way,

what did this say
about the divine order

that supposedly governed the world.

Philip's son who would become

Philip III of Spain
and Philip II of Portugal,

inherited an empire still vast

but already showing the first signs
of the long decline

that would mark the following century.

Unlike his father, he was not
a meticulous administrator,

delegating much of the government
to favorites like the Duke of Lerma.

Perhaps horrified
by the end he had witnessed

the new king seemed more
interested in enjoying life's pleasures

than in consuming himself
in the bureaucratic work

that had slowly killed his father.

The death of Philip II reminds us
that, in the end,

not even the most powerful monarchs
escaped the human condition.

The king who ruled an empire
where the sun never set

experienced a long painful
and degrading personal sunset.

His horrific end remains a momento mori,

a reminder of mortality

that sooner or later makes us all equal
whether kings or beggars.

The story of the powerful monarch
who died in agony,

slowly consumed
by disease and parasites

is more than a macabra tale
to satisfy morbid curiosities.

It is a vivid reminder

that behind crowns, scepters
and royal mantels,

exist fragile and fallible
human beings

and that, however
great earthly power may be,

there are limits

that no royal decree
can overcome.