Philip V of Spain (19 December 1683 – 9 July 1746), called El Animoso ("The Spirited"), was King of Spain and Duke of Anjou during the first half of the 18th century. He was the first Spanish monarch of the French Bourbon dynasty, replacing the Austrian House of Habsburg after the War of the Spanish Succession, and ushered a whole new era in the Spanish Empire, characterized by Francophile politics, centralism, naff wigs, and insanity. He was the longest-reigning King of Spain in history — much to his misery, given that this was a man whose job effectively drove him to madness.
Although he was part of both of Europe's greatest houses, being the half-grandnephew of Charles II of Spain and grandson of Louis XIV,note Philip was far too removed from the lines of succession to be expected to be king of anywhere at first. He was also a shy, sweet kid with brainy interests, reportedly a prodigy child who wrote treatises on Don Quixote, very influenced by his stern tutor, theologist Archbishop François Fénelon. As a consequence, being appointed to the throne of the Empire in Which the Sun Never Set was probably a shock to the young Philip, who had grown accustomed to the idea of remaining a mere courtier that spent his time studying. Gathering courage, Philip arrived in Spain as a new and promising king, who sincerely intended to respected the prexistent environment and save the empire from its decline, and when the clusterfuck that was the aforementioned war came stomping after him, he also proved to be a fearless military leader. He initially chose wisely his ministers, married a nice lady in his double second cousin Maria Luisa Gabriella of Savoy,note and prepared many economic and cultural reforms. In sum, everything looked fine for the new dynasty. Or did it?
Originally, there had been a possibility for Philip to inherit the thrones of both France and Spain and become a sort of new Charles V, but this option was eventually ruled out during the peace treaties of the War of Succession — and it turned out for the better that Philip didn't have such weight on his shoulders, as the new king couldn't endure the pressure of sitting on a single throne. Afflicted by the beginning of what modern experts consider a lifelong clinical depression, or perhaps bipolar disorder, he couldn't stand his royal chores mere months after his crowning, often breaking down crying in midst of councils or skipping them altogether. Only going away to fight in the war and being with Maria Luisa seemed to keep him happy and balanced at first, but both things would be fated to end, and the end of the war coincided with the queen's premature death from tuberculosis.
The subsequent peace and the new queen, the domineering Elisabeth Farnese of Parma, were the sign things weren't going to improve for him. Maria Luisa had been an incredibly popular, brave, determined, sweet and hardworking young woman, who received the reins of the country at just 14 while Philip was away warring and still did it absolutely fine. In turn, Philip, a very romantic and religious man who never felt comfortable in the debauchery and whoring of Versailles, had loved her to the point they even slept on the same bed, something unheard of among royal pairings at the time. In contrast, while Farnese descended from the renowned Alexander Farnese and was certainly an impressive woman of many talents, she didn't do her heroic ancestor much more honors due to her authoritarian and manipulative nature, as well as her lack of finesse with the people. The Spaniards openly hated Elisabeth, considering her a glorified parasite (also a ugly one due to her smallpox marks), and although Philip actually came to love her, even becoming a Henpecked Husband to her without much complaint, they were right in that she would be a source of problems for the empire, which became the coup de grace for Philip's mental health.
There years later, in 1717, the king suffered his first bout of insanity, believing the sun was attacking him while he rode his horse (Makes Just as Much Sense in Context), and his physical health went down too after this. He started suffering hypocondria and hallucinations in public, became obssessed with guarding off the devil through blessed clothes, and tried to fight off ghosts with his sword. In this state, Philip was convinced by Elisabeth, who was Italian, to launch a campaign to recapture the Italian territories of the Spanish Empire lost during the dynastic transition. The move couldn't have a worse timing, as Spain was not ready still for the challenge, and even if it did, their enemies would be a whopping alliance: Great Britain, the Holy Roman Empire, the Dutch Republic and France, their house's very motherland, whose regent the Duke of Orléans was angry at the Elisabeth's inner circle for an unrelated conspiracy to try to take over the country. This diplomatic disaster was unwinnable, eventually forcing Philip to abandon his, or rather her, unbridled aspirations. Elisabeth only managed to avoid the karma by promptly scapegoating her advisor, Cardinal Giulio Alberoni.
The king only worsened in his state, and this time nauseatingly so. He came to believe his enemies were trying to poison him with black magic, and refused to bathe, get out of his bed even to use the bathroom, or merely cut his nails on the fear they could be used for spells, with the result they got so long he couldn't walk or grab things. He had always depended heavily on the advice of his ministers and wives, but this state rendered him only barely able to reign. A Hope Spot for him came with the death of the regent of France in 1724, as Philip got lucid enough to clean up a bit and then suddenly abdicated on his underage son Louis, putting up the purported goal of "meditate about death". Some speculate he was trying to return to France and capture the vacated throne of his cherished motherland, others believe he was trying to run away from everything, and others think he was just, well, insane. In any case, however, Louis died just as suddenly, and Philip found himself pressed by Elisabeth into returning to the throne, as the next prince in line would have been the son of Philip's previous wife.
Devastated, heartbroken and trapped, the king never recovered, but returned to his old ways and entered what was effectively the worst stage of his madness. Adding to all of his previous symptoms, he became hyper-sensitive, depressive and just every possible undesirable state of mind. He sometimes believed to be dead and spent entire weeks screaming this belief, attacked people, received ambassadors while half-dressed, could only sleep after having the famed castrato singer Farinelli sing for hours, and sometimes believed to be a frog and leaped around croaking, which came to be the source of many modern jokes. Although he somehow remained functional enough for people not to give up on him, by this point it was Elisabeth the one doing all the reigning, which has earned her some sympathy from modern historians on the basis that, self-interested or not, she was still taking care of her disabled husband the best way possible and keeping things running.
Ironically, this second stage of his reign saw a notable resurgence of the empire's military relevance, which seemed lost to history after the famed tercios, now renamed regimientos, had ceased stomping around in Europe (Spain certainly never got so buff again, although that was an insanely high standard, frankly speaking). Most other European armies had caught up with Habsburg Spain in military technique, while Spain in turn had lost so many resources and thinking heads in its last wars that it failed to achieve any other breakthrough, but the Bourbons ensured they would at least not fall behind the other European powers. The Spanish navy, which was ruined almost to the point of inexistence by the end of the War of Succession, had been the first target of reforms at the beginning of Philip's reign, and by this time had managed to re-grow and modernize itself to miraculous levels. The old galleon system was phased out in favor of new ships of line designed by engineer Antonio de Gaztañeta, whose methods would be copied by the British and Dutch (although the British surpassed them again, leading fellow Spanish engineer Jorge Juan to copy them in turn - what goes around comes around, they say).
There would soon be chances to test the new toys, probably to the delight of a king who used to love this stuff. With the signing of the Treaty of Vienna, an improbable if uneasy alliance between the Bourbon Spain and Habsburg Holy Roman Empire, the Spaniards entered a brief war against Great Britain, which, even if it ultimately stalemated — hardly a small feat — it left an impression thanks to the Spanish privateers Miguel Enríquez and Amaro Pargo, two NGO Superpowers of the Atlantic who sacked enough ships that the very homeland of piracy cried not fair. Although the Spaniards failed to recover Gibraltar, the conflict gave them enough leverage to revitalize Elisabeth's Italian aspirations: as soon as their grand general, José Carrillo, Duke of Montemar, had his hands free after recapturing two lost plazas fuertes in Africa from from the Ottoman Empire, he and Prince Charles snuck into the War of the Polish Succession and capitalized on the ruckus to recapture Naples and Sicily, which became a kingdom in dynastic union with Spain.
War returned a few years later when the viceroyal forces spearheaded by the trusty navy commander Blas de Lezo successfully repealed the British again during the War of Jenkins' Ear, which merged into the War of the Austrian Succession for a new chance to recover more ancestral territories in Italy. This time the results weren't as spectacular, with Montemar becoming an Ignored Expert and being replaced by the less skilled Jean Thierry, Count of Gages, but Elisabeth still managed to recover her homeland, the Duchy of Parma, along with some others, even if not all of them. Philip himself did not live to see the end of the war, though; he had spent his last years with his palace as his personal madhouse, with guards placed to prevent him from escaping, before finally welcoming death in 1746. He passed his seat and his demons to his son Ferdinand VI, who went to have a slightly happier life before becoming yet another victim of the Spanish throne.
In fiction
Film:
- Farinelli (1994). The eponymous Italian castrato sings at his court at the beginning, and a ahistorical eclipse occurs. He's portrayed by French actor Jacques Boudet.
Live-Action TV
- He appears in The Ministry of Time played by actor and comedian Fernando Conde. Notably, while his ridiculous madness is a big draw of the episode, the latter still shows his tragical side by having Philip admit openly how overwhelmed and broken he is.
