ABSTRACT
The people of Spain were delighted that, unlike his father, Philip spent the whole of his reign, after 1559, in the Iberian peninsula, indeed mostly in Castile. He made three visits to Aragon (1563, 1585-86, 1591) and was in Portugal for two years from 1580, but then returned to Castile, despite haVing given the Portuguese to understand that he would make Lisbon his capital . Even Castilians saw comparatively little of him, however, since his preferred palaces were away from the big cities, and even when at the Alcazar in Madrid he disliked receiving petitioners, and his methods of work were solitary. At the same time, his court adopted the formal rituals of the Burgundian court.
