Philip V of Spain - Legacy

Legacy

• Historians have not been kind to the king. Lynch says Philip V advanced the government only marginally over that of his predecessors and was more of a liability than the incapacitated Charles II. When a conflict came up between the interests of Spain and France, he usually favored France. However Philip did make some reforms in government, and strengthened the central authorities relative to the provinces. Merit became more important, although most senior positions still went to the landed aristocracy. Below the elite level inefficiency and corruption was as widespread as ever. The reforms started by Philip V culminated in much more important reforms of Charles III. The economy, on the whole, improved over the previous half-centuries, with greater productivity, and fewer famines and epidemics.

• To commemorate the indignities the city of Xàtiva suffered after Philip's victory in the Battle of Almansa in the War of the Spanish Succession, in which he ordered the city to be burned and renamed San Felipe, the portrait of the monarch hangs upside down in the local museum of L'Almodí.
• All agnatic descendants of Louis XIV alive today are descended from Philip V.