Will Phillips

When your parents make you and your siblings all take music lessons… and you all hate it. Or sports. Or summertime arts and crafts classes. Who else has been there? 😉 This piece is c. 1568 and attributed to the…

Caspar Coolhaes (1536–1615) lived through one of the most turbulent eras in European history: the Reformation and the rise of Protestantism. Protestantism was a movement that emerged in the 16th century as a response to perceived corruption within the Catholic…

As a number of my friends in the SCA head to an archery-focused event today, I thought it would be fun to share this archery-themed piece from the late 15th century. Sure, it’s somewhat outside the time range I focus…

On the 13th of September, 1598, King Philip II of Spain breathed his last in the vast halls of El Escorial, the massive monastery-palace he had built near Madrid. He was 71 years old and had been suffering for months,…

These lesser-known forts are remnants of the Eighty Years War: now surrounded by modern industry in Antwerp. After the Spanish Fury ransacked the powerful city of Antwerp in 1576, public sentiment changed. A Calvinist city government came to power, placing…

Need a quick momentary distraction from tonight’s US presidential debate? How about some cool lithographs? These are four sheets from a much larger collection of illustrations of historic costumes by Albert Kretschmer published in the early 1880s. The German edition…

#OTD in 1547: The Battle of Pinkie Cleugh was a key clash during the “Rough Wooing,” where England sought to force a marriage alliance with Scotland. It was the first pike-and-shot battle in the British Isles, marking a shift toward…

🗡️ This is Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma (1545-1592), who in the 1580s nearly squelched the Dutch rebellion. Son of Habsburg regent Margaret of Parma (half-sister to Philip II), Farnese used both military acumen and political savvy recover cities and…

☠️ On a summer morning in June 1568, Brussels’ Grand Place was shrouded in tense silence. The air was thick with dread as two of the most powerful noblemen in the land were marched through a wall of heavily armed…