Philip V of Spain: The King Who Reigned Twice [Hardcover]

Henry Kamen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2001

Philip V, who reluctantly assumed the Spanish throne in 1700, was the first of the Bourbon dynasty which continues to rule Spain today. His 46-year reign, briefly curtailed in 1724 when he abdicated in favour of his short-lived son, Louis I, was one of the most important in the country's history. This highly readable account is the first biography of Philip V in English. Previous writing on Philip has been largely negative, dismissing him as comic, stupid, and indolent. Henry Kamen demonstrates here, however, that the king initiated significant developments in politics, imperial policy, finance, government, and military affairs that laid the basis of the modern Spanish state. Philip also encouraged literature, the creative arts, and music in ways that brought Spanish culture closer in touch with the rest of Europe, and he dealt authoritatively with issues concerning the autonomy of the provinces of Spain and the role of the monarchy itself. Drawing on contemporary opinion and fresh archival sources, Kamen discusses Philip's character, decisions, and policies. He offers a new assessment of the king's illness (which led earlier historians to view Philip as mad) and evaluates positively the role of his two wives. Kamen's account of Philip as king provides an essential introduction to the study of early eighteenth-century Spain and the Bourbon monarchy.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Sometimes imagining himself a frog, and repeatedly believing himself to be dead, Philip V, the first Bourbon on the throne of Spain, has been a risible figure for many historians. For others, Philip, who ruled from 1700 to 1746, was a despicable absolutist who too briefly abdicated the throne in 1724, or a weak man easily dominated by his Italian-born second wife, Elizabeth Farnese. But Kamen, a historian of the early modern era with the Higher Council for Scientific Research in Barcelona, has made his career destroying established scholarship. In The Spanish Inquisition (1998), he undercut the "Black Legend" of Spanish brutality and intolerance, placing the holy tribunal in a more realistic historical context. Here, he argues that Philip in fact helped ensure the economic, political and cultural revival of his adopted country, that he was entirely uninterested in absolutist power and that the salacious accusations regarding his sexual appetite are without foundation. Although he postures this scholarly work as a personal biography of Philip V and not a historical review of the king's reign, Kamen's rehabilitation is sometimes excessive: for instance, his claim that, under Philip, "Spain awoke to adequate food supplies" is undermined by his own admission that royal policies aggravated the problem of poverty. Moreover, the author admits that the cultural advancements (with a Parisian influence) that the king encouraged had little effect beyond the court and that Philip's manic depression quite clearly had a crippling effect on his capacity to govern. Still, this remains a humane work, as well as a provocative one, notably in its treatment of Elizabeth, whose apparently authoritarian behavior was, Kamen suggests, simply the result of a loyal decision to act decisively on behalf of her beloved but incapacitated husband.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

The eighteenth-century reign of Philip V of Spain, the first Spanish king of the French Bourbon dynasty, which still rules in Spain today, was marked by the long conflict called the War of Spanish Succession. But Professor Kamen looks beyond those years of bloodshed and sees that Philip's long reign--of 46 years, in fact--spelled governmental, social, and cultural changes that, in effect, inaugurated Spain as a modern nation. Philip, the grandson of France's great king Louis XIV, came to Spain young and untried, but, as Kamen pictures here, in a scholarly, exacting, but certainly accessible account, he developed the acumen and agility to end his reign as a leader who made a difference. Brad Hooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press; First edition (May 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300087187
• ISBN-13: 978-0300087185
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,465,805 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4.0 out of 5 stars Philip V of Spain: The King who Reigned Twice, October 25, 2011

By 

Brian Van Hove (Alma, Michigan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Philip V of Spain: The King Who Reigned Twice (Hardcover)

Philip V of Spain: The King who Reigned Twice

Henry A.F. Kamen

New Haven and London: The Yale University Press, 2001

ISBN-10: 0300087187

ISBN-13: 978-0300087185

Review by Reverend Brian Van Hove, S.J.

Alma, Michigan

Published in the Josephinum Quarterly, vol. 10, no. 1 (Winter/Spring 2003): 158-160

Some years ago it was fashionable to write psycho-history, but that era has passed. Nonetheless Henry Kamen has given us today a well documented history which depends upon a specific psychological interpretation of Philip V, the French-born Bourbon King of Spain, who ruled there for forty-six years. The life of the king and the country was dominated by the bipolar disorder or manic depression from which the Philip suffered all his life. With the aging process, the monarch's behavior became only more bizarre and uncontrollable in the eighteenth century before our knowledge of contemporary medication. On page 190 we read, "For the better part of 1732, the king had not been governing Spain." Again on page 214, "In August that year (1738) Keene reported that when the king `retires to dinner, he sets up frightful howlings'." The illness was crippling for him and consequently for the affairs of state when Spain, still with the largest empire on earth, was entering into a period of gradual decline.

Were it not for his attentive wives--he was married twice--perhaps he might not have achieved anything at all. "Perhaps the most impressive achievement of Philip V's regime had been its efficiency in finding revenue to meet its needs. Government income had risen dramatically after the War of Succession [1704-1715], and the expeditions to Sardinia and Sicily had taken place without generating any financial crisis." (page 208) Some courtiers accused him of giving to much time to conjugal relations, though marital bliss seemed to help his spirits. For much of his reign only the care of his wife and the preparations for war seemed to lift the depression and bring him up into his hyperactive phase, but even then not consistently. During his first reign the War of the Spanish Succession occupied his youthful energies. He and his grandfather collaborated on strategy. The king loved both the war and his wife, Marie Louise, upon whom he depended for everything. But when the war was finally over not even his wife could keep him from sinking into deep depression.

After 1737 the king did finally find an effective therapy in the beautiful singing voice of the Italian castrato Carlo Broschi, known as Farinelli, who was even incorporated into the royal household. Unfortunately this took place toward the end of Philip's life which came suddenly at two in the afternoon on July 9, 1746, when he was just sixty-two years old.

Kamen wrote this biography to correct the record. Previous authors had portrayed the king in a negative way, making of him a kind of fool and failure at the beginning of the Age of Reason. Instead, we now learn from the best sources which have survived that Philip V was both lucid and intellectually coherent, though a very sick man who spent weeks and even months in bed. The charge that he was under the control of his wives is demonstrated to be false when we understand that they were doing their duty to "cover" for him when he was too dysfunctional to speak for himself. "When he was seriously indisposed, she forbade any access to him, which inevitably irritated both diplomats and members of the government." (page 206) Though after 1727 Elizabeth Farnese had the powers of governor and even directed foreign policy, she never made major decisions independently of her royal husband (page 162). Generally, Philip's wives promoted only his policies, not their own, as did also his faithful ministers whom Kamen goes to some length to introduce to us. Sadly, the fire in the Alcázar of Madrid on December 24, 1734, destroyed a great deal of what might have been quite useful for the present study.

As a very young man Philip, then the duke of Anjou, was required to renounce his claim to the throne of France if he were to rule Spain. He had a Spanish grandmother and a French grandfather, though he always felt French by culture. For political reasons this grandfather, the Sun King Louis XIV who had married the daughter of Philip IV of Spain in 1660, fully concurred in this decision for the felicity and peace of Europe (page 5). The last Habsburg king of Spain had died on November 1, 1700, and so after some negotiations Philip accepted the throne of Spain. Yet the dream of returning to rule France never completely left Philip. At times he also supported the claim of his son to succeed to the throne of France.

To complicate the story, Philip abdicated the Spanish monarchy to pursue with his wife the eternal salvation of their souls. Probably this religious zeal was in response to his illness or a pious front to hide the real reason. But even before and after that decision he had tried several times in the midst of serious depression to abdicate secretly though in an irrational and disorderly way. Government must be rational, and a variety of factors must be recognized for a peaceful transition to take place. Therefore his illness was not to be allowed to control the succession in Spain. Once he was barely stopped by the intervention of his second wife Elizabeth who in 1728 managed to have a nobleman seize a document of abdication and destroy it. While in major depression he kept trying to abdicate in such a frantic manner over a period of years.

Kamen's subtitle, "The King who Reigned Twice", refers to the formal and legal abdication which was at last approved through the proper organs of government and international diplomacy. Philip's son Ferdinand, the prince of Asturias, became King Luis I of Spain on February 9, 1724. This was a relief for some who had always desired a Spanish-born ruler. However, the young successor to Philip unexpectedly died on August 31, 1724, having named his father his universal heir. Philip therefore reascended the Spanish throne, again with the understanding he would not try to take two crowns by claiming his rightful dynastic succession in France. This explains how it happened that Philip "reigned twice". Despite his illness Philip V was a patron of the arts and a pious man who sincerely sought the best interests of his adoptive empire.

This book is a delight for readers of Henry Kamen's earlier studies, such as his biography of Philip II, Philip of Spain. Any student of Spanish history, or the history of the early eighteenth century in Europe, would greatly profit from reading the clear and bright English of Kamen's work on Philip V.

3 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A new biography for a neglected king, May 20, 2002

By 

M. A Newman (Alexandria, VA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Philip V of Spain: The King Who Reigned Twice (Hardcover)

Philip V is a king who is more often talked about than subjected to scholarly inquiry. His role in the war of Spanish Succession and his subsequent career on the throne and his second marriage have been the subject of numerous rumors and speculation. Henry Kamen's book rights a great wrong and restores Philip to the modern reader by subjecting his career and mental history to a modern sensibility. Philip's probable bi-polar disorder expalins a great deal about Philip's behavior Kamen's book is not only useful to the reader interested in Spain, but in 17th century European history in general.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Was the King Crazy?, February 22, 2002

By 

lvkleydorff - See all my reviews

This review is from: Philip V of Spain: The King Who Reigned Twice (Hardcover)

Was the King Crazy?

Mr. Kamen's book is not really a biography of the Spanish king. Rather, it is a diatribe against other historians who described Philip V as weak, mentally disturbed and a disaster for this country. The author does not see it that way.

Mr. Kamen explains that Philip suffered from manic depression and bipolar disorder. Could that be another expression for mentally unfit? While the king spent days and weeks in bed, screaming loud and messing up himself and his surroundings, the author claims that he was still of a composed mind and absolutely lucid. Philip's second wife, Elizabeth Farnese, took over the command of the kingdom, saying that she only acted on the instructions of her husband. Do we want to believe her? What we can believe is that, during Philip?s first marriage to Marie Louise of Savoy and even beyond, the affairs of Spain were run by the king's grandfather, King Louis XIV of France. Under Elizabeth Farnese, the French influence lessened and was supplanted by an Italian hegemony.

Given this very strong foreign influence, and the considerable power still exercised by the Spanish grandees, one could question whether or not it really mattered that much if Philip was always lucid or bipolar. Mr. Kamen may have lost the basis for his argument.