Philip II, King of England

jgenn

This coin caught my attention, when it came up for auction recently, and I checked on the type in CoinFacts wiki and read that the obverse legend for this daalder included Philip's title as King of England.

I sort of remembered this from the British Queens Bullet Book for Queen Mary, that @BillJones presented to us last year but I was unaware that any Spanish Empire coinage included that title.

Obverse: Armored bust of Philip II, legend PHS D G HISP ANG Z REX COMES FLAN 1558 (Philippus dei gratia Hispaniarum Angliae etc rex comes Flandriae -- Philip by the grace of God King of Spain and England, Count of Flanders)

Reverse: Crowned coat of arms of Philip II over the Burgundian cross, golden fleece below, between a pair of ?, legend DOMINVS MICHI ADIVTOR (dominus michi adivtor -- Lord my helper)

Sapyx

Well technically, he wasn't "King Philip II of England" - he was "King Philip of England" (no number), since England hadn't had a previous king named "Philip". He won't become "Philip I" until and unless England gets a "Philip II".

BillDugan1959

He was just a consort of the actual sovereign, Queen Mary. This coin overstates the reality of it.

Of course, with the one set of exceptions, only one person exercises the sovereign power/authority in England.

Nice coin, however.

SaorAlba

Of course Philip had a very inflated view of his position. He is alleged to have found Queen Mary quite repulsive and married her more for her country than her looks. He wasn't too miffed whence she croaked either, but having Queen Elizabeth - a heretical Protestant, on the throne was too much for a defender of the faith to fathom - so it all culminated over 30 years later with the attempted and disastrous invasion in 1588.

One of the what if's that comes to mind is if he had approached the Scots and French earlier on in Queen Elizabeth's reign he might have well succeeded in overturning the English crown.

jgenn

Act for the Marriage of Queen Mary to Philip of Spain