http://www.xs4all.nl/~monarchs/madmonarchs/carlos2/carlos2_bio.htm
http://www.nndb.com/people/877/000097586/
http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Philip_IV_(Spain).aspx
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_IV_of_Spain
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaspar_de_Guzm%C3%A1n,_Count-Duke_of_Olivares

Post From the World beyond

Looking down at my son I see that his power is extremely limited. He is powerless and unfit to rule. He also was extremely sickly and was poorly educated. I am disappointed. His mind is that of a child. Fortune had not favored him. His death started the War of the Spanish Succession.

Death

                                                                 Charles II


Today September 16 1665, I am in no doubt that my time is approaching. I the once Glorious Philip IV am now nothing more than then a frail old man on my death bed. I am leaving this country a poor exhausted mess. My desire for war and splendor was too great for my country to bear. My son Charles II will be succeeding me and I can only hope that God is on his side. I hope that he will be more fortunate and more conservative then I was.

Arts

During my rain I had a great interest in the arts. I held patronage of many artists including Diego Velazquez who is one of my favorite painters due is great talent, and our interests in dogs, horses and other forms of art. We formed an easy and relaxed relationship over the years. I also harbored other painters like Eugenio Caxes, Vicente Carduco, Gonzales and Nardi. My interest in arts cased me to collect a grand collection of over 4,000 paintings from across all of Europe especially Italy by my death. To house all this art I commissioned the build of the Buen Retiro palace. My idiocy in the obsession of art was quite obvious here. I had not been thinking of the cost and the time it would have taken to build this palace. I also failed to think of the economy. Spain was at war, funds were limited and the public was not very pleased with my decision to spend so much money when we already had to little. The protests that followed were considered by me to be a dark time of my regime.

                                                    drawing on the Bein Retiro Palace

War

Today in the year 1621, one of the first decisions my prime minister made was to renew the war with the Dutch. My friend has already authorized our fleet to attack the Dutch fleet and have employed a few embargos on Dutch products. For the next few years my advisor and I decided to stick with a Netherlands first strategy. His plan was to go capture the Netherlands then after we had done that we would use that as a staging ground to face any other threat that we would have to face in Europe. For the first fifteen years of the war, I have been informed by my trusted advisor that the war was a great success. I was extremely pleased when I was informed that we had recaptured the key city of Breda. Throughout the war Olivares had been a key figure in the war, he was often the only cause of the creation of fresh troops and other matters in the war. However our success drew the French into the war and caused our Netherlands first strategy to fail. He convinced me that now with the French in our way, we must go all out. We assembled the invasion force and were within miles of Paris before we were repelled. We know had no more funds to spend on this war and Olivares are urging me now to seek peace with the French. At this point my court has lost their faith in Olivares and I had no other choice to dismiss him from his position. I am left with a bankrupt and exhausted state.  

                                               above is the picture of our vistory at breda

Decison

I have made up my mind, my best friend Olivares will be my prime minister starting this year,1621. He will help me run things and substitute for me when I am gone. My friend here was born in 1587 in Rome and in 1599 he studied at the Salamanca University. When my father was still king he was appointed the position of heir apparent. Soon after him meet me and we became close friends and he also became my closest adviser. Now I am giving him this position even though he has no really experience in administration. Why? Well because I trust him. I have known him for years and I think he is ready. I have already given the order that all papers requiring my signature is to be presented to him first before it is presented to me. I think he will be a fine advisor and will help me and his country a lot.

WOOOOHOOOO!!!!!!!

Today March 31 1621 my father Philip II died.......AND IM GONNA BE KING!!!!!!! I am so excited man you have no idea. I’m going to be just like my father, follow his footsteps, being sixteen however I must declare a prime minister to help me rule. I already know who it will be. I believe my best friend Olivares will do nicely. I have much to consider for I have just inherited a large amount of land from my Father. I must think on how to maintain this land and how to glorify our people. I also have to think about the thirty year war and whether I should continue it or not. I will not let Spain down.

Hola,

Hello I am King Philip of Spain. I was born on April 8 1605 and became king when I was at the age of sixteen between 1621-1665 with control of land over Spain, and Portugal. I was the oldest son of Philip III and was married to Margret. When I became king at the age of sixteen I did not think myself capable of running this country so I hired my close friend Olivares which I meet at a when I was at young age as my prime minister to help me. He is the only capable man that I can think of that is suitable for that position even though he had no formal experience in the government. Personally however I think his are ideas, advices and policies are creative and seemed useful. When we first started to rule Spain, I believed that my advisor Prime Minister Olivares and I did pretty well at first with my patronage of artists like Diego Velázquez and our initial success in the thirty years war. However some people think that I did not do enough for my country. They claim that I lacked interest in the affairs of this state and that this country is mainly ruled by my friend Olivares. I say nonsense; I very much care about this country and that man, my advisor helps me to rule by giving me advice, make decisions that will benefit us all, and also executing my orders and policies and like I said earlier I believe that his advice are useful, logical and I personally believe that there is no one that can take the job better than him. A problem that is always seems to be bothering me however is that there always seemed to be less and less money in the treasury as the years past. Also other country seems to take Spain less seriously during my rule. Often to get my mind off of these problems I often go hunting and horseback riding which I enjoy greatly. Thinking back now, I believe that my involvement in the thirty year war might have been the blame. Unfortunately my attempts and desire to help out in the war were unsuccessful and cost us quite some money. In the end we lost a lot of land and to the French and Portugal started a rebellion to become independent from us due to the weakening of Spain. Maybe I should have thought twice before I decided to enter that war.