A sense of responsibility inspired his offer of marriage to her in 1559 - a gesture strongly opposed in Spain - and lasted for the rest of his life. Backing Elizabeth was not a comfortable decision, for he harboured few illusions about her religious allegiances and he appreciated that he was probably abandoning English Catholics to their fate. This assistance she refused to acknowledge. It was at this point that his doubts about Mary's ability to conceive were confirmed by her hysterical pregnancy, and in the absence of an heir of their bodies he gave his support to Elizabeth's ultimately uncontested accession in 1558. He claimed the credit for bringing Elizabeth back to court and arranging a reconciliation with her half-sister (according to one account he observed the meeting between them from hiding).

Neither has left any personal recollections of the meeting, but from the wariness with which they treated each other thereafter no great rapport seems to have been established.īut Philip did harbour a grievance. This occurred in May 1555 while Philip was king consort of England and when Elizabeth was brought to Hampton Court after her imprisonment at Woodstock.

Quite unusually for reigning monarchs of that period, they actually met.

Between them 'el rey prudente' (the prudent king) and the virgin queen dominated the second half of the sixteenth century. Philip II was born six years before Elizabeth I in 1527 and died five years before her in 1598.

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