Philip II of Spain has inspired artistic and cultural works for over four centuries, as the most powerful ruler in the Europe of his day, and subsequently a central figure in the "Black Legend" of Spanish power. The following list covers representations of him in drama, opera, film, novels, and verse. A small selection of the many artistic portrayals of Philip is shown in gallery form.

Literature The Belgian Charles De Coster's 1867 novel The Legend of Thyl Ulenspiegel and Lamme Goedzak depicts Philip II in a highly unsympathetic light, as a misanthropic moron given to petty cruelties. The narrative recounts the adventures of the Geuzen, or Sea Beggars, who fought against the Spanish occupation of the Southern Netherlands, and imagines the legendary figure of Thyl Ulenspiegel fighting on their side.Michel de Ghelderode and David Willinger, Ghelderode: The Siege of Ostend, the Actor Makes His Exit, Transfiguration in the Circus, Ponciá Vicencio, 1990, , p. 18. Critic Jonathan Nield describes the work as "of unmistakable power, if somewhat coarse in tone".Jonathan Nield, A Guide to the Best Historical Novels and Tales, Ayer Publishing, 1968, , p. 82. In the Palace of the King (1900) by F. Marion Crawford is a novel about Philip's life.Nield, Jonathan (1925). A Guide to the Best Historical Novels and Tales. G. P. Putnam's sons. (pp. 51,241.) House of Torment (1910) by C. Ranger Gull follows Philip and Mary's rule of England, and depicts the persecution of Protestants during their reign.Nield, Jonathan. A Guide to the Best Historical Novels and Tales (Fourth Edition).London, Elkin Mathews: 1911. (p. 462) A Knight of Spain (1913) by Marjorie Bowen depicts the relationship between Philip and his half-brother, Don John of Austria.Kaye, James Ross. Historical Fiction Chronologically and Historically Related. Chicago: Snowden Publishing Company, 1920. (p.642) Margaret Irwin wrote Elizabeth and the Prince of Spain (1953), a historical novel about Princess Elizabeth's imprisonment and survival during the uneasy marriage between Philip and Queen Mary I. The novel was the third in Irwin's "Young Bess" trilogy.Margaret Irwin, Elizabeth and the Prince of Spain, New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1953, OCLC 320864. Jean Plaidy wrote Spanish Bridegroom (1954), a historical novel about Philip's first three marriages.Lynda G. Adamson, World Historical Fiction: An Annotated Guide to Novels for Adults and Young Adults, Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1999, , p. 54; Jean Plaidy, Spanish Bridegroom, Philadelphia: Macrae Smith, 1956, . The plot of Carlos Fuentes's novel Terra Nostra (Mexico, 1975) revolves around the construction of Philip II's combined monastery and palace of San Lorenzo de El Escorial in the Sierra de Guadarrama near Madrid. Critic Raymond L. Williams has explained that Fuentes modelled the tripartite structure of Terra Nostra on that of the Escorial, where Philip consciously set out to create a world apart. The novel makes the architecture a metaphor for Spain's imperial stance towards the New World.Raymond L. Williams, The Writings of Carlos Fuentes, Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996, , pp. 78–79; Carlos Fuentes, Terra Nostra, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1976, . Harry Turtledove's alternate history novel Ruled Britannia (2002) imagines a world in which the Spanish Armada succeeded and King Philip conquered England, a theme anticipated, suggests literary scholar Anne J. Cruz, by the Spanish novelist Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616).Anne J. Cruz, Material and Symbolic Circulation Between Spain and England, 1554–1604, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008, , p. 94. Among other things, Shakespeare is made to write a play praising King Philip, of which Turtledove provides some excerpts. In Philippa Gregory's novel The Queen's Fool (2004), set in the court of Queen Mary I of England, Princess Elizabeth flirts with Mary's husband King Philip. The plot, observes reviewer Emma Hagestadt, "burns with passions with which Freud—let alone the Church—would have a field day".Emma Hagestadt, The Queen's Fool, The Independent, 8 December 2003, retrieved on 13 September 2008; Philippa Gregory, The Queen's Fool, London: HarperCollins, 2003, . Harry Kelsey's biographical novel Philip of Spain, King of England: The Forgotten Sovereign (2011) takes place during his marriage to Mary I and his role as king-consort in a foreign country. Winston Graham's The Grove Of Eagles focuses on Philip II's second and less well-known attempt to invade England, in 1596, which the author argues was better organized than the Armada of 1588 and had a better chance of success, but for having encountered a major storm en route. In one scene, the book's protagonist – a young Englishman who through mischance finds himself involved in the Spanish invasion fleet – is taken to the Royal Palace in Madrid and meets with a man sitting writing at a modest desk. First considering him a minor clerk, the protagonist discovers that he is in the presence of the hard-working, frugal King in person.

Film and television Sam De Grasse in In the Palace of the King (1923) Raymond Massey in Fire Over England (1937); Breaking with British artistic tradition, the portrayal of the former English co-monarch jure uxorisIn January 1556 Philip II was married to the English Queen Mary I (Mary Tudor) and became co-monarch jure uxoris until Mary I's death in November 1558. Through a marriage agreement Philip II was to be considered King of England only during Mary I's lifetime. is not entirely unsympathetic. He is shown as a very hard working, intelligent, religious, somewhat paranoid ruler whose prime concern is his country. As he orders the Armada to sail to its doom, he admits to having no understanding of the English. Montagu Love in The Sea Hawk (1940) Paul Scofield in That Lady (1955) Günther Ballier in The Mayor of Zalamea (1956) Umberto Raho in Seven Seas to Calais (1962); ignoring the historical union of Philip and Mary, depicts the king establishing plausible deniability while his agents attempt to free Mary from imprisonment and use her to depose Elizabeth. Fernando Rey in El Greco (1966) and Cervantes (1967) Peter Jeffrey in Elizabeth R (1971) George Yiasoumi in Elizabeth (1998) Jordi Mollà in Elizabeth: The Golden Age (2007) Juanjo Puigcorbé in La conjura de El Escorial (2008) Mathew Baynton in Horrible Histories (2011–12) Ben Willbond in Bill (2015) Marcel Borràs and Pablo Arbués in Carlos, rey emperador (2015–16) Carlos Hipólito in El ministerio del tiempo (2016)

Theater Philip's marriage to his third wife Elisabeth of Valois, and problems with his first son Carlos, Prince of Asturias, may be alluded to in Lope de Vega's 1631 drama Castigo sin venganza (Punishment without Revenge). In the view of the play's translator and editor Gwynne Edwards: "The relationship in the play between Casandra, the Duke's wife, and his son Federico was not unlike that between Prince Carlos, son of Philip II, and Isabel [Elisabeth] who became Philip's wife and Carlos's stepmother"; Edwards argues that these events were recent enough to have embarrassed the court of Philip IV and may have been a reason for the play's withdrawal after one performance.Gwynne Edwards, Introduction to Three Major Plays by Lope de Vega, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008, , pp. xxv–vi. Vittorio Alfieri's Filippo. Pazzini Carli, 1783. Philip II is a central character in Friedrich Schiller's 1787 play Don Carlos. Schiller drew his material from the 17th-century novel Dom Carlos by Abbé César Vichard de Saint-Réal The plot follows the relationship between a King Philip obsessed with the Spanish Netherlands and his first son, Prince Carlos.Scott L. Balthazar, The Cambridge Companion to Verdi, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004, , p. 210. The English Poet Laureate John Masefield wrote a verse play, Philip the King, about Philip receiving news of the defeat of the Armada. It was featured as part of a collection of poems called Philip the King and Other Poems (1916).

Opera Giuseppe Verdi's 1867 operatic adaptation of the play, Don Carlos, has been called "one of his most human operas".James Jolly (ed.), The Gramaphone Classical Good CD, DVD, and Download Guide, Teddington, UK: Haymarket, 2006, , p. 1078. It portrays the King as an anxious, jealous, loveless hypocrite who rationalizes his bloody atrocities, pretends to be powerful but is controlled by the Inquisition, and is dangerous to his family, his friends, and almost everyone else.

Poem In his 1915 poem Lepanto, the Catholic G. K. Chesterton commemorated the response of Philip and his brother Don John of Austria to the Ottoman Turks, which climaxed in the Christian victory at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. Chesterton's poem was conceived as "a call to Christians to take action against the modern forces of unbelief".Arnold Sparr, To Promote, Defend, and Redeem: The Catholic Literary Revival and the Cultural Transformation of American Catholicism, 1920–1960, Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1990, , p. 75. It contrasts King Philip, occupied with alchemy in his chamber at home in Spain, with Don John's activities at sea:

King Philip's in his closet with the Fleece about his neck (Don John of Austria is armed upon the deck.) The walls are hung with velvet that is black and soft as sin, And little dwarfs creep out of it and little dwarfs creep in. He holds a crystal phial that has colours like the moon, He touches, and it tingles, and he trembles very soon, And his face is as a fungus of a leprous white and grey Like plants in the high houses that are shuttered from the day, And death is in the phial, and the end of noble work, But Don John of Austria has fired upon the Turk.G.K. Chesterton, Lepanto, edited by Dale Ahlquist, Fort Collins, CO: Ignatius Press, , p. 80.

Art Portraits

In this portrait, Philip is wearing the collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece and dressed in black armour similar to that made for him by Desiderius Colman of Augsburg, with gold damask work by Jorg Sigman, now in the Real Armería de Madrid. The Valencian Alonso Sánchez Coello (1531/2–1588) was a pupil of Antonis Mor (1517–1574) and a favourite painter of Philip.M. J. Rodríguez-Salgado, Armada: 1599–1988, London: Penguin/National Maritime Museum, 1988, , pp. 88–90. This bronze is believed to have first been cast in 1551. Giorgio Vasari notes that the Milan-based Leone Leoni (1509–1590) also made heads of Philip and of Charles V.Rodríguez-Salgado, p. 47. His son Pompeo Leoni (c. 1533–1608) produced a bust of Philip, c. 1556, painted silver,Stefano Zuffi, European Art of the Sixteenth Century, Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2006, , p. 171. and later worked on the royal chapel at Philip's palace of El Escorial.Anne Sutherland Harris, Seventeenth-century Art and Architecture, London: Laurence King, 2005, , p. 197. As he grew into middle age, the pious Philip favoured an austere style of dress for himself and his court. He is depicted here, as usual, wearing the collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece, and he holds a rosary. The painting has traditionally been identified as by Sánchez Coello because of the stylistic similarity with his portrait of Anne of Austria. More recently, however, it has been attributed to Sofonisba Anguissola, the artist from Cremona who served as lady-in-waiting to Philip's third wife, Elisabeth of Valois, and painted the royal family, often working closely with Sánchez Coello.Rodríguez-Salgado, p. 92.