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Mention of 3 other wives in lede?
At present, the lead of this article does not mention Philip II's three other wives (aside of Bloody Mary), nor the fact that he outlived all four of them. Earlier today, I added the text, "In additional to Mary I, Philip was married three other times, being widowed on four occasions." However, I was reverted by User:Agricolae, who claims that it's "not lead material". Thoughts? p b  p  19:48, 23 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Support mention of other wives in lead
 * 1)  p  b  p  19:48, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
 * 2) A monarch's marriages should always be included in the Lede. Dimadick (talk) 20:31, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
 * 3) At least the number. Johnbod (talk) 00:21, 24 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Oppose mention of other wives in lead
 * 1) The first paragraph of the lead is for the big picture - why is this person noteworthy.  That he happened to have had four wives is not why anyone should care about Philip.  (And I don't agree that spouses should always be mentioned in the lead.  In some cases they are extremely noteworthy [examples: Ferdinand I of Leon, Stephen I of Hungary], in other cases they are entirely incidental [Fortun Iniguez, Alfred the Great], and in some cases, some spouses merit this kind of notice while others are sufficiently addressed by mention only in the body [AEthelred II, Alfonso VI].) Agricolae (talk) 21:59, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

"why is this person noteworthy" Which in the case of most monarchs is who they married and what kind of royal intermarriage took place. Dimadick (talk) 22:52, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Discussion
 * Seriously? The entire noteworthiness of a monarch comes down to whom they married? That is an awfully limited view of things. Monarchs are more, often much more, than a catalogue of their matrimonial intreagues. Agricolae (talk) 23:29, 23 July 2018 (UTC)
 * In the current, pretty short, lead it apparently comes down to his facial appearance and dress sense (last para). Johnbod (talk) 00:21, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Which is trivial in comparison to the diplomatic efforts behind his marriages. Dimadick (talk) 00:24, 24 July 2018 (UTC)
 * So take the dress sense and appearance out of the lead as well, rather than adding more fluff. We are talking about a statement that he was widowed four times, which doesn't tell you anything about diplomacy - it was presented as a simple curiosity. Agricolae (talk) 01:02, 24 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Enacted Three support mentioning Philip's wives, only one opposes. The discussion has been open for a week and stale for 6 days.   p  b  p  13:39, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
 * No. Not so fast.  The phrase that he had other wives is just a curiosity - it contains no useful information.  If this is supposed to be more than just trivia - if it is so necessary to tell us something about his political acumen, Then it needs to tell us something about them, not just celebrate the fact that he had four wives die on him. Agricolae (talk) 14:13, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Let me add that the whole way this was gone about is problematic. This is the type of thing that can be worked out by discussion - that is what Talk pages are for, after all - but instead, with no prior attempt at discussion, you immediately structure it as a formal vote. Then you never respond to the discussion.  Let's have an actual discussion about this, aimed at reaching consensus rather than winning a vote. Agricolae (talk) 14:36, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
 * There's nothing to be discussed anymore. Nobody else agreed with your position.  Frankly, I didn't respond to you because what you were saying struck me a jumping off the deep end.  I laid out my position above and there's really no need for me to re-iterate it, but to review: how many wives somebody had isn't trivia, and it's commonly mentioned in articles, and not infrequently in the ledes of articles.  And two people agree with me, so I will consider it edit-warring if you revert something three people said yes to and nobody but you said no to.  There is most assuredly NOT consensus for you removal of the information, so, yeah...  p  b  p  18:08, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Yes, there is something to be discussed. What I am seeing above is that it is worth mentioning his diplomatic acumen, as exhibited by his ability to negotiate four marriages.  The curiosity that you keep forcing into the article is not about that - it is about him having to have outlived four wives.  That is an entirely different thing.  Let's talk about how to express wht there is consensus on, not just force back in your unsatisfactory trivial curiosity. Agricolae (talk) 18:17, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Please stop referring to it as a "trivial curiosity". You are the only one who thinks that.  It certainly wasn't trivial to Philip's four wives that they died.  There was consensus that it is OK to mention that he was widowed four times.  There is zero consensus for not mentioning the wives in some respects, so you should leave the mention in until we can think of something better.  p  b  p  18:46, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Or we could work out language that actually accomplishes something, then put it in. Why should I stop calling a trivial curiosity a trivial curiosity?  That is all that it is.  Details about those marriages might provide the kind of insight Dimadick thinks is important, but just saying he was married four times provides very little insight at all.  Maybe you could actually engage in discussion.  In your edit summary, you said "(I laid out my point of view a week ago on the talk page".  But this is patently false.  You only laid out the fact that you were reverted, which is not a point of view. Indeed, you sum total was to complain you had been reverted, and then to proclaim victory.  Agricolae (talk) 19:01, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Just to be clear, Dimadick stressed that the important information was: "who they married and what kind of royal intermarriage took place." How does the trivia that he was four-times widower address this in the slightest?  How is this support for your text? Agricolae (talk) 21:04, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
 * If he didn't support my text, why'd he throw in in the support column? And he clearly doesn't support your text a.k.a. no mention of additional marriages in the lede at all.  If, instead of removing my text, you had replaced it with something along those lines, I wouldn't have reverted you.  But you removed my text.  And Dimadick doesn't support that.  p  b  p  21:49, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
 * The question as posed was whether there should be "mention of other wives in lead", not whether your trivializing text should be in the lead. You say that if I had done something differently we wouldn't have ended up where we are.  Well, how about you?  If you had followed WP:BRD and started a discussion over why you thought your text should be in the lead, we perhaps could have come to a consensus.  Instead you bypassed any attempt to reach consensus and immediately called for a !vote.  You could have framed the !vote more accurately - you asked whether any mention of his marriage should appear, but you took all votes in favor of 'any mention' as support for your exact text.  You could have provided a rationale for your desired text when you proposed the vote, but your only rationale was 'the bastard reverted me, so vote him down'.  After you called for the vote, you could have joined in and tried to reach consensus through discussion, but none of that for you.  You could have taken the explicit mention by other discussers of the importance of naming the wives and indicating what this reveals about his diplomacy to mean that your trivial text was not going to accomplish that, and you could have then suggested an alternative - rather than letting the discussion grow stale,   you could have added something fresh.  But no, heaven forbid you should actually, AT ANY TIME IN THE WHOLE PROCESS participate in the slightest amount of discussion. 01:53, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Would you please stop incessantly claiming I didn't participate in a discussion...I started? That's just ridiculous.  The only person who agrees with your point of view in the slightest is somebody who came here to troll me.  p  b  p  04:29, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
 * All you did was whine that that you had been reverted and call for an immediate vote, then declare victory. You NEVER discussed ANYTHING. Agricolae (talk) 04:49, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Other people told you why you were wrong, so why do I in particular have to also explain it? Who your wife or husband is has pretty clearly been established, through a ton of precedent, that your wife or husband is a defining characteristic.  Hundreds, thousands of articles mention wives or husbands in their leads, so saying Phil's shouldn't is really coming out of left.  We wouldn't remove the wives from the lead of Phil's father-in law, so why would we remove it from Phil?   An admin told you you were wrong and you're still at it.  And now I got TRM trolling me.  So, yeah, I'm pretty pissed off at you.  p  b  p  05:13, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
 * His spouses are so vitally important that you dismiss them all, unnamed, with the simple statement that he outlived them. That is how vitally important they are. Agricolae (talk) 05:32, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Again, back to Phil's father-in-law. Phil's mother-in-law is mentioned by name in the lead of Hank's article, the other five wives (including QE1's mom and Ed's mom) are not.  We need to strike a balance between having some mention of wives and going too overblown.  We can save the detail for the infobox or lead.


 * Re-open discussion and oppose inclusion of marriages in lead, and much more importantly, provide links/invitations to a much wider forum, allow to run for a couple for a weeks, and enable an independent editor to close the discussion, particularly since it has already created so much acrimony. This talkpage receives an average of 2.5 hits per day.  Excluding the two days of active discussion, this talkpage receives an average of less than one hit per day.  I will also suggest that the inclusion of "number of marriages" is merely trivial and should not be mentioned in the lead.  What is even worse is that the entire "Family" section of the article is unreferenced, so to even consider repeating unreferenced trivia in the lead is still worse.  The Rambling Man (talk) 21:54, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I hate to call this as I see it, but TRM is just here to harass me. The only reason he voted oppose is because I voted support, and he's made it clear he's going to try and HOUND me into a block.  The solution he proposes is needlessly bureaucratic and wasn't necessary.  p  b  p  22:02, 30 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I hate to call this as I see it, but that's bollocks. I am well aware of this discussion via my watchlist (I bet you don't even know how many pages, including hundreds you regularly edit) I have on there.   You need to stop telling me why I'm doing things and focus on the key problems here.  The Rambling Man (talk) 04:48, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
 * You have hundreds of pages on your watchlist and the one you choose to edit is the one I've been editing. And not only that, you respond in a matter to directly criticize me when you could have very easily expressed the same opinion without bringing me up at all.  Right now, the "key problem" is that you're following me around places attempting to BAIT me into something you can start an ANI thread over.  p  b  p  04:52, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
 * No, you don't get it. I don't have "hundreds" of pages, you are so far off the mark.  Any further engagement with you will now take place at ANI.  But I suggest you focus on fixing this mess, and if you're so confident that you're "right", you'll happily re-open the discussion to a much wider forum and let someone uninvolved close the debate and implement any resulting consensus.  That way you won't end up in a similar mess.   Your choice of phrasing and continual harassment is, once again, noted.  The Rambling Man (talk) 05:05, 31 July 2018 (UTC)


 * I would suggest the two of you to re-read No personal attacks. The above exchange had very little to do with article content. Dimadick (talk) 05:26, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I would suggest that you stop offering such advice. I'm fully aware of NPA, and have made multiple requests of the other user to refrain and redact such.  The Rambling Man (talk) 11:28, 31 July 2018 (UTC)

Request for comment
Should the lead of this article mention that Philip had four wives? Should it mention he was widowed four times? If so, using what verbiage? p b  p  05:16, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Support, with the text, " "In additional to Mary I, Philip was married three other times, being widowed on four occasions." For starters, on the question of mentioning wives in lead: YES.  Strong precedent for that as a defining characteristic.  Widowhood?  Not as clear a precedent but certainly notable to his dead wives.  I suppose you could have more elaborate verbiage focusing on the geopolitical aspects of his marriages, but I'd prefer leaving that to the body and having just 1-2 sentences in the lead.  I'd note that this is very similar to how Henry VIII's multiple wives situation is handled: only Catherine of Aragon is mentioned by name in the lead and greater detail is saved for the infobox and the body.  p  b  p  05:19, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Partial Support I am less interested in how many times he married, but more in the identities of the wives and the international impact. Maria Manuela, Princess of Portugal, former heiress to the Portuguese throne. According to the article on her father John III of Portugal, a number of intermarriages between the House of Aviz and the House of Habsburg "ensured peace in the Iberian Peninsula for a number of years". Mary I of England, queen regnant of the Kingdom of England. The marriage pact between the two Catholics was intended to produce an heir, "which would prevent the Protestant Elizabeth" from ever inheriting the throne. It caused fears that England would "be relegated to a dependency of the Habsburgs". Elisabeth of Valois, a princess of the Kingdom of France. The marriage pact was part of the negotiations to end the Italian War of 1551–1559, a prolonged confrontation between the House of Habsburg and the House of Valois. This was the last of the Italian Wars, 65 years of warfare over control of the Italian Peninsula. And the wars ended with Spain being the dominant power in the Peninsula. Anna of Austria, Queen of Spain. She was Philip's niece. The marriage pact was intended "to strengthen links between the Austrian and Spanish Habsburg families". Dimadick (talk) 05:55, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Partial Support per Dimadick, if the marriages are noteworthy, which these are, then naming the wives seems apt. Also, would not "all four wives pre-deceased/died before him" be clearer and simpler than being "widowed four times"? Pincrete (talk) 11:12, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Support, with text saying that he was widowed 4 times, and the various marriages were all politically/diplomatically significant. Johnbod (talk) 12:51, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Support per Johnbod. Carlstak (talk) 14:22, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Oppose at least until the lead is completely restructured. Mentioning Maria Manuela, to whom Philip was married for barely two years, without mentioning Emperor Charles V, Italian Wars, the Ottomans, or the French Wars of Religion, would make the lead even more unbalanced and silly. The lead is supposed to reflect the content of the article and prioritize information. Surtsicna (talk) 15:20, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Oppose The lede does a poor job of summarizing the career/impact of an important 16th-century European leader. Adding a count of wives doesn't add value without going into significant detail as to why each was important--too much to cover in a brief overview. I'd prefer to see all this energy go into a much-needed re-write of the introduction.Glendoremus (talk) 16:19, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
 * To clarify, your ideal lead would NOT contain mention of his marriages (save possibly Bloody Mary), but WOULD contain additional information not previously in the article? p  b  p  16:21, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
 * No, all the things I mentioned are already in the article. They are all much more prominent than Philip's marital history. My ideal lead would prioritize pieces of information according to their importance. The parent from whom one inherited a global empire is more prominent than a person to whom one was briefly married, for instance. Once these things are in the lead, a brief mention of the subject's marriages would be just fine. Surtsicna (talk) 16:35, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I'm confused then. It seems like whether or not Charles is mentioned in the lead is a separate issue from whether or not Phil's wives are.  Since nobody's expressed any opposition to Charles being in the lead, you could probably BOLDly add it.  Otherwise, I reckon addition (or removal) of other elements to the lead should be in a different sub-discussion, which I've started below and is ostensibly also part of the RfC.  p  b  p  16:52, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
 * It is not a separate issue because including the wives into the current lead would make it even less balanced. The issue is not Charles or wives but the overall composition of the lead. The lead should not contain minor details until major biographical information such as Italy, France, and the Ottomans is covered. Otherwise we give far too much prominence to genealogy, making it look like marrying and reproducing is something Philip is best known for. It is not. Surtsicna (talk) 17:54, 31 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Oppose the lead is supposed to be "a summary of its most important contents. It is not a news-style lead or "lede" paragraph". Until there's sufficient evidence provided that these various wedlocks and widower moments are "the most important" aspects of Philip II's life, work should be done to agree what is best, not what is an arbitrary solution to simply just mention something that happens to be factually accurate yet probably not among "the most important" aspects.  The Rambling Man (talk) 17:13, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
 * A topic doesn't have to be "THE most important", it has to be "one of the most important", and maybe not even that high a bar, because leads are allowed to have many different aspects of a person's life, often 15 or more in a 3-4 paragraph lead. Being married to Mary is clearly one of the 15 most important aspects of his life.  His other marriages had geopolitical consequences.  The marriages are worth mentioning briefly in the lead, and the geopolitical consequences in the body.  Marriages would be worth mentioning even if they didn't have geopolitical consequences; that's pretty clearly been hashed out in the affirmative through years of discussion about leads.  If you look at the leads of a lot of FAs and GAs, marriages are mentioned.  When the topic of an article is married to somebody else who has an article (as all four of Phil's wives do), the marriage/wife is nearly always mentioned in the lede. Why should this article be any different?  The only possible explanation for why TRM is against this is because I am for it.  Let me reaffirm my belief that TRM entered this topic to harass me, as he's been doing for months   p  b  p  17:40, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Boring non sequitur, the only possible explanation? Seriously?  I think you'll find I didn't say anything like what you're claiming I said.  Your hyperbolic claims do nothing but harm you and your position.  But hey, good job we had this RFC to get more eyes on the subject as it's not quite turning out to be as cut-and-dry as the "enacted" variant imposed by the COI instigator.  (Oh, and your link is really meaningless.  If you want to take this to ANI, be my guest, otherwise it's probably worth stop flogging the horse which died some time ago.  You were wrong then, and you're wrong now.) The Rambling Man (talk) 20:06, 31 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Oppose, per Surtsicna & The Rambling Man. A major re-write of the lead may end up including his marriages, but as it stands now, there are other more prominent subjects in the article that are not mentioned. --Kansas Bear (talk) 17:56, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Support. And I would go further and name each of the wives in that sentence that currently tags the end of the lead. The marriages of a sixteenth century monarch are not, as a general matter, trivial details, and each of Phillip's had substantial political and lineal consequences. Add in the fact that Phillip's apparent poor run of luck with wives has a certain degree of weight with sources, and this becomes a pretty obvious call, imo. As to those who are noting that there are other details which perhaps ought to be in the lead which are not, this is a clear false choice; nothing is preventing any editor from recommending further changes and if and when we arrive as a situation where the lead is overburdened with detail, we can weigh the value of disparate content at that time.  But honestly, one sentence to discuss the marriages of one of Europe's most powerful historical monarchs (which marriages affected the extent and stability of the unprecedented span of his empire) seems like a borderline inevitability to me. Snow let's rap 06:04, 10 August 2018 (UTC)

Sub-discussion: What, if anything, do we do about the rest of the lead?
Above, it's been mentioned that other editors would like to see other elements added to the lead, in particular a mention of Charles V (Phil's dad) and more about geopolitics. Thoughts? p b  p  16:52, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I don't see why someone among the complainants doesn't boldly add information about Charles V (please don't call him "Phil's dad"; it hurts my ears) and the politics of Philip II's reign to the lede. They could address the problem of balance, at least until someone does a complete rewrite (if such should come to pass). It wouldn't be that much work; I'd do it myself right now but I'm working on another article. Carlstak (talk) 18:32, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I, for one, agree and am fine with, or you adding mentions of additional information to the article.  I think there's a solid consensus forming to add something about Charles.  p  b  p  18:36, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I think it would be completely absurd to start modifying the lead wholesale while this RFC about the lead is underway. It will, at the very least, generate yet more bad faith.  I suggest we just chill out and let the RFC run its course, perhaps three or four weeks, and allow an independent admin to close it at an appropriate juncture.  Right now it will just descend back to edit warring and we can avoid that by allowing due process to take place.  The Rambling Man (talk) 20:04, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
 * I disagree; that shouldn't be a problem at all if a few sentences referring to material already present in the body of the article about Charles V and the politics of Philip II's reign were added to the lede. Those are uncontroversial. Carlstak (talk) 21:10, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Given the fervour around this article, it would be better to address one issue at a time. It is absurd to try to conflate other minor changes with this current RFC.  The Rambling Man (talk) 21:12, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
 * The lead needs to be rewritten. A properly composed lead would be a significant improvement. We all agree on that. If anyone wishes to do it, he or she should be welcome. Surtsicna (talk) 21:45, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Indeed. But one step at a time.  Pointless to re-write a lead when an essential component of the lead is already subject to RFC.  Patience.  There is no deadline.  After all, this talk page was getting fewer than one page view per day until recently, so it's not exactly pressing.  The Rambling Man (talk) 21:49, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Surprisingly, I agree with TRM. Right now, it looks like the RfC will end in either a) a consensus to add something similar to what I wanted, or b) a consensus to "rewrite the lead".  What the hell does that mean?  It would be much more useful if the people who want to rewrite the lead proposed actual verbiage, or at the very least, examples of information that need to be included.  p  b  p  21:59, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
 * Disregarding the verbiage below, I've made a bold edit to add information to the lede certainly more important than ambassador Paolo Fagolo's description of Philip's personal appearance. Carlstak (talk) 04:50, 1 August 2018 (UTC)

I'd note that the edit leaves in place the verbiage I wanted about the wives/widowhood and I support your changes. p b  p  04:54, 1 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Well now you can stop forum shopping and making fake claims about me. I'm still waiting for you to redact your personal attacks.  I'm happy either way though because if you don't, I'll see you at ANI for a serious breach of NPA and we know where that goes.  The Rambling Man (talk) 22:02, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
 * What does that have to do with creating additional sections about additional aspects of the lead? You're doing a great job of convincing me you're here to improve this article and not to settle a score with me, TRM.  As for "where does ANI go?", generally it ends in a bunch of people shouting past each other and no action taken.  p  b  p  22:23, 31 July 2018 (UTC)
 * No, often it ends with permanent bans. I've made my point very clear above.  Your descent into shopping around to Arbcom members to ask for a ban etc is telling.  I don't understand why you haven't redacted your personal attacks yet.  Your unverified, personal, hurtful, deceitful, hateful, attacks.  P.S. I don't need to convince you of anything.  In fact, what's more important than all that jazz is that other editors have weighed in and (shock) some of them have agreed with me.  Ouch.  The Rambling Man (talk) 22:28, 31 July 2018 (UTC)


 * Well, the request for comment is over. Almost everybody either supported the language I wanted, or wanted re-writes elsewhere in the lead.  A small minority supported the "status quo ante" advocated by User:Agricolae.  The lead has been re-written and the language about wives retained, so hopefully this will satisfy all parties.  p  b  p  13:56, 30 August 2018 (UTC)

King of France
Would he not, as King of England and Ireland also hold the title King of France? Do we not included claimed titles?
 * No. By this time, England was desperately trying to maintain its toehold in Calais. The days of the Norman archduchy were long over.50.111.19.178 (talk) 22:55, 17 October 2018 (UTC)

the construction of the Empire
Perhaps it would be good idea to enhance one of Philip II 's most important tasks: the construction of the Spanish Empire. ---80.28.231.217 (talk) 20:09, 13 January 2019 (UTC)

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