The book by Kondraty Birkin (P.P. Karataev), an almost forgotten Russian writer, offers readers a rare opportunity to feel the atmosphere of palace secrets, intrigues and scandals in Russia, England, Italy, France and other states in the period of the 16th–18th centuries. Heir Charles V, his son by Elizabeth of Portugal, Philip II was born in Valladolid on May 21, 1527. Having more than thirty years of age, upon his accession to the throne, the king set himself the great thought that his reign would be a continuation of his father’s reign. It is only a pity that Philip II lost sight of the fact that the Austro-Spanish power, according to the immutable law of fate, had reached in its development those limits beyond which destruction begins for every huge and powerful state.