King Philip II of Spain was murdered, but by who? With a sum of at least 20 suspects that would have strong reasoning to kill him, who did it? He was found poisoned in bed early one morning, his murderer escaped his castle never to be found. However, upon further investigation, 10 highly interesting clues were found in a burlap sack stuffed behind a statue of the Virgin and Child. Those clues consisted of: A map from Orelius’ Typus Orbus Terrarum, keys to manacles, silver coins, potatoes, Las Casas’ Apologetic History, Elizabeth I’s speech at Tilbury, a Holy Bible in Dutch, Columbus’ Journal, Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises, and a note saying, “It’s working, my friends…”.
Separately those clues can each be linked individually to someone suspected for his murder. Columbus’ Journal is linked with Christopher Columbus who lost his title of governor and was arrested by King Ferdinand. Elizabeth I’s speech at Tilbury, which is the speech that Queen Elizabeth of England gave to her troops before they defeated the Spanish Armada which was organized by King Philip II himself. Las Casas’ Apologetic History is a book that Bartolome de las Casas wrote while having been the “Protector of the Indians”, of which King Philip would not let him reveal to the public about the horrors that were being brought upon the Indians by the Spanish explorers. There was also a Holy Bible in Dutch, which could have held the map from Orelius’ Typus Orbus Terrarum. The keys to manacles could represent anyone who was falsely imprisoned by King Philip II or his predecessors. Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises were to help someone improve their Catholic faith for their daily lives, thus being able to be linked to anyone who was ordered to become Catholic by the Spanish royalty. The potato originated near the South America civilizations which could perhaps be from Atahualpa who was killed by Francisco Pizarro, who was ultimately able to explore because of King Philip’s permission.
The silver coins have a possibility of being Spanish coins, which might just mean that King Philip II was murdered by someone on the inside. And the most mysterious clue of them all, is the note saying “It’s working, my friends…”. Who wrote that note? Who are the “friends” this person is mentioning? With so many clues and so many suspects, it might just be possibly that someone organized a group to plan the assassination of King Philip. Some of the suspects were either protestant, or fighting alongside them against the Catholics. Some of the other suspects had been falsely imprisoned by King Philip or lost some sort of title or reputation in Spain due to King Philip II or his predecessors. Another theory for his death would be that he committed suicide.
He had a lot on his mind that night he went to sleep. The Holy Church was being threatened, Elizabeth publicly humiliated his ambassadors, the Inquisition had serious failures of judgment, and he was not sure on if he was going to be able to sustain the wealth of one-fifth of all gold and silver from the new world. What if King Philip was tired of feeling like only he was the one who could rule the world properly? Maybe he wanted to be forgiven for all of his harsh acts against his enemies; maybe he was the one who wrote the note. He placed all of those items each representing different people or individuals of which he sought to be forgiven by. What if “it” meant karma? As in karma is coming back at him for all of the bad deeds he has done to those people. And by wanting to be forgiven he mentioned those people as his friends.
The theories of who killed King Philip II are endless. The two theories above can be both possible and highly questioned. Though the world may never truly know what really happened or who actually killed King Philip, or if he did the deed himself, it must be accepted that he did die. Perhaps all of these conspiracy theories are nonsense and the King simply died of natural causes that were unheard of before the medicine of that time. Either way, the past is the past, history is history, and the unknown will remain unknown.