Philip I the Handsome of Castile 1478 - 1506 V2

Philip the Handsome[a] (22 July 1478 – 25 September 1506), also called the Fair, was titular Duke of Burgundy from 1482 to 1506 and the first Habsburg King of Castile (as Philip I) for a brief time in 1506.

The son of Holy Roman Emperor, Maximilian I and Mary of Burgundy, Philip was less than four years old when his mother died, and upon her death, he inherited the Burgundian Netherlands. In 1496, his father arranged for him to marry Joanna, the second daughter of Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon. Around the same time, Philip's sister Margaret was given in marriage to Joanna's brother John, Prince of Asturias, as part of an agreement between their fathers. After the deaths of her elder siblings John and Isabella and her infant nephew, Miguel da Paz, Prince of Portugal, Joanna became heir presumptive to the thrones of Castile and Aragon. She became Queen of Castile when her mother died in 1504. Philip was proclaimed King in 1506, but died a few months later, leaving his wife distraught with grief.

Philip was the first Habsburg monarch in Spain, and is the progenitor of every later monarch of Spain, even up to today. He died before his father, and therefore never inherited his father's territories or became Holy Roman Emperor. However, his son Emperor Charles V eventually united the Habsburg, Burgundian, Castilian, and Aragonese inheritances. Philip holds a special place in Habsburg history because he was the pivot around which the dynasty acquired a large portion of its extensive lands. By inheriting the Burgundian Netherlands and acquiring much of Spain and its possessions in the New World by marriage to Joanna, Philip was instrumental in vastly enhancing the territories of the Habsburgs, and his progeny would dominate European history for the next two centuries.