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.