The First Consort: Philip of Spain
Thomas Penn, 5 April 2012
It always comes as something of a surprise to remember that thirty years before the Armada, Philip of Spain was king of the country he later attempted to invade. What was more, he had been a new kind of king, the consort of England’s first ruling queen, and one to whom England had violently objected before he had even set foot there.
In 1553, Mary Tudor, Henry VIII’s first-born...