Spain (as King Philip II), the Habsburg
territories in Italy, and the Spanish colo-
nies in the Americas. On the death of Fer-
dinand I in 1564, the Habsburg domains
were divided among his three sons: Maxi-
milian II became Holy Roman Emperor,
and also ruled Bohemia and Austria.
Charles and Ferdinand shared Austria.
With an enormous sum in silver and
gold arriving from the Spanish colonies,
Philip set out on an ambitious campaign
to expand and defend his empire. He de-
feated the Ottoman navy at the Battle of
Lepanto in 1571, and mounted assaults on
the lairs of Mediterranean corsairs in
North Africa. Seeking to end English sup-
port for a revolt in the Netherlands, and
return England to the Catholic fold, he
sent a huge armada north in 1588. The ar-
mada was turned away, however, and this
defeat dealt a severe blow to Philip’s power
and prestige as a defender of the faith in
Europe.
Philip established new academies in
Spain, patronized leading artists, and built
the Escorial palace, the finest example of
Renaissance architecture in Spain. From
the time of his reign, the Habsburg dy-
nasty remained divided between an Aus-
trian and a Spanish branch, with each hav-
ing its own lines of succession. Philip was
succeeded by his son Philip III, and Ferdi-
nand by his son Maximilian II. Rudolf II,
Maximilian’s successor as Holy Roman
Emperor, made Prague a center of the new
astronomy, bringing Tycho Brahe and Jo-
hannes Kepler to his court in the capital
of Bohemia. His cousin Ferdinand II, who
succeeded him, was a staunch Catholic
whose attempts to enforce Habsburg au-
thority in Bohemia touched off the Thirty
Years’ War.
SEEALSO: Charles V; Holy Roman Empire;
Philip II; Reformation, Protestant
Hakluyt, Richard .............................
(1552–1616)
English explorer and author of two famous
volumes on the voyages of English naviga-
tors. Born in Hereford, Hakluyt was the
son of a skinner who showed promise as a
scholar and was admitted to Oxford Uni-
versity, where he took a deep interest in
geography and the history of exploration.
He became a lecturer on the subject and
in 1582 printedDivers Voyages Touching
the Discovery of Americathat inspired sev-
eral English voyages to the New World.
His work brought him to the attention of
Sir Edward Stafford, Queen Elizabeth’s am-
bassador to France, who asked Hakluyt to
accompany him to Paris as his chaplain
and secretary; in France Hakluyt also
worked as well as a spy whose task was to
discover the efforts of French companies
and explorers to claim land and resources
in Canada. Hakluyt’s pamphlet known as
A Particular Discourse Concerning Western
Discoverieswas read by the queen and her
ministers, who took to heart Hakluyt’s rec-
ommendation of setting English farmers
and artisans in new colonies along the
coasts of North America.
Hakluyt secured appointments as a
clergyman in the Church of England, while
he continued his work as a geographer and
historian. He met and interviewed naviga-
tors and sailors, and compiled hundreds of
diaries, letters, histories, and eyewitness
accounts. In 1589, he published this mas-
sive collection asThe Principal Naviga-
tions, Voyages and Discoveries of the English
Nation. He translated works of French and
Spanish historians of exploration in North
America and, after the turn of the seven-
teenth century, took part in organizing the
colony of Virginia, which he promoted
with an account of the voyages of Her-
nando de Soto inVirginia Richly Valued,Hakluyt, Richard