The Grand Strategy of Philip II
Gordon Marsden reviews a book by Geoffrey Parker
Spain's Most Catholic King as the Bill Gates of sixteenth-century Europe? The Escorial, a great gloomy multiplex of church, monastery and palace inhabited by a Chairman of the Board poring over 'Rest of the World' markets, sustained by Hieronymite monks constantly chanting the Hours of the Divine Office? Not the least of the strengths of Geoffrey Parker's magisterial book is that he shows how the characteristics of modern multinational and Counter-Reformation imperium fold into each other.
The sweep of Philip II's grasp on territories in three continents - particularly as the spectacular wealth of the Indies began to come onstream properly and flow into his coffers after the 1550s - and the corresponding logistic challenges to what the book calls 'the first global empire in history' was well understood by Philip's opponents. Parker records Francis Drake's disgust on sacking the governor's palace in Santo Domingo and coming across the King's 1580s corporate logo - a coat of arms with the legend 'Non Sufficit Orbis' (The World is Not Enough).
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