With these diminutions, Philip had now received all the dominions of his father.

He was King of all the Spanish kingdoms and of both the Sicilies.

He was titular King of England, France, and Jerusalem.

He was "Absolute Dominator" in Asia, Africa, and America; he was Duke of Milan and of both Burgundies, and Hereditary Sovereign of the seventeen Netherlands.
Thus the provinces had received a new master.

A man of foreign birth and breeding, not speaking a word of their language, nor of any language which the mass of the inhabitants understood, was now placed in supreme authority over them, because he represented, through the females, the "good" Philip of Burgundy, who a century before had possessed himself by inheritance, purchase, force, or fraud, of the sovereignty in most of those provinces.