The Black Legend, as anti-English propaganda, began to emerge from mid-sixteenth century coincided with the rebellion of the Netherlands against the government of Felipe II. However, some authors provide background for this hostility toward the English mainly in Italy but also Germany and France.
The Italian history dating back to the thirteenth century when the kingdom of Aragon extended into the Mediterranean to Naples and Sicily. The commercial competition in the Catalan merchants and the subsequent imposition of 
taxes by the English administration arouse hatred among Italians. Unjustified hatred, then, on the one hand, it will continue loading Castile with the highest tax burden in the maintenance of the Empire, including Italian possessions, and, second, the defense of Italy against the Turkish threat depends basically on the English Empire . Also the English justice will encounter the privileges of the Italian aristocracy displaced. This, appealing to nationalist sentiments, finally get the Italian people also resent the English even though the English judicial system was generally benevolent and impartial at the grassroots level.
Italians not digest well, given his status as descendants of ancient Rome and refined, to be 
under the domination of a people they considered inferior culture. The English are portrayed as barbaric, irreligious and ignorant. They are also considered inferior from the point of view as racial, its history, are a mixture of Jews and Moors. For example, in the fifteenth century, the Borgia pope, Alexander VI, is described as "pig and circumcised" because of its English origin, and around him and his family will be formed also a particular black legend. Interestingly one of the most criticized English institutions by the Black Legend is the Inquisition, dedicated precisely to the elimination of Jewish and Muslim influences. Therefore, Spain is alternatively condemned as mixture of Jews and Moors and their intolerance towards them. Italian Hispanophobia based primarily on the hopelessness of hegemony of one country that is considered culturally and racially inferior.
The Sack of Rome (1527) by the troops of Charles I in his confrontation with Papal States did not help to assuage Italian criticism. The English charged 
all the blame despite representing less than one third of the troops. The other two thirds were formed by German mercenaries (lansquenetes) and Italian soldiers!
The German history of the Black Legend originates with the war that Charles V had with the Protestant princes Germans Smalcald League. The emperor defended Roman Catholicism against the Lutheran Reformation by taking match the league. Add to this the emerging German nationalism, anti-Judaism, already apparent in Luther, and the feeling of superiority Nordic toward racial Italian, English and Jewish, have all the ingredients necessary to understand the anti-Germanic anti-English.
In France, anti-English feelings are linked to the English imperial policy in Europe during the XV and XVI in which France was, first, frustrated in his ambitions for Italy and, secondly, enclosed in the English possessions in Europe.
All this Hispanophobia, the result of the economic rivalry of the English imperial policy in Europe, feelings nationalist and anti-Catholic and cultural and racial superiority, and of course, the discovery of the New World by Spain, crystallized from the mid-sixteenth century when the Dutch and British interests clash with the English Empire.
In the 60 sixteenth century, during the reign of Philip II, takes place the revolt of the Netherlands. In principle, there was a popular uprising but a conspiracy concocted by the local nobility by using techniques of propaganda against the English government, the Catholic Church and the Inquisition. Most of the population remained Catholic but certain Flemish nobles used the ideology of the Protestant Reformation as a national instrument to achieve independence from Spain. The English monarchy, in an attempt to maintain the imperial ortograma Catholic Europe, had to openly confront the Protestant area, the Netherlands and England, which is where it will rain fiercest criticism.
The revolt in the Netherlands began with the religious and military measures taken by Felipe II to suppress the Protestant heresy. The Duke of Alba, governor of the area to monitor the continuing transgressions imposed at least a thousand death sentences, including several Flemish nobles, and sharply increased military presence. The delay in the payment of salaries riots occurred among soldiers that culminated in the sacking of Antwerp in 1576, which killed several thousand Dutch. It exaggerated the supposed cruelty of politics and propaganda Duke loaded the ink on the most bloody and ruthless in order to discredit the English invaders. This view is strongly supported by England, from the throne of Elizabeth I (1558), confirms the split with the Church of Rome begun by Henry VIII.
The Prince William of Orange, a former governor (Stadtholder) of Philip II in the Netherlands, was one of the main leaders of the revolt and his work " Apology '(1580) became one of the more anti-English propaganda leaflets disseminated. According to Philip W. Hispanist Powell:
(...) the Apology of William was, above any other, the greatest impact libel, and became a cornerstone in the entire history of the Black Legend. Not only reiterated familiar themes, including some traditional in Italy and Germany, but who invented new pamphlets and gave new turn the existing ones. This booklet, translated into European languages \u200b\u200bfor wider dissemination, was widely distributed. (Philip W. Powell, The Black Legend, pg. 126).
Guillermo eludes direct political attacks the king and responsible for the bad government to his ministers: the 
English governors of the Netherlands, especially the Duke of Alba, are puppets of the Pope and Philip II is a slave of the Inquisition. Echoing accusations of Fray Bartolome de las Casas highlights the natural cruelty of the English patent in the massacres of Indians in the New World. It is also the first to post Philip II ordered the death of his son Don Carlos and other personal accusations to the king. Assassinated in 1584, shortly after the publication of the Apology, William of Orange became the martyr of Dutch independence, and even today, is mentioned in the national anthem.
The Hispanophobia also served the Dutch as a justification to try to win lusas overseas possessions when they became part of English Empire (1580-1640) to Philip II inherited the throne of Portugal, and and begin to develop their own empire.
Spain's relations with England were relatively good in the first half of the sixteenth century, during the marriage of Philip II to the Catholic Queen Mary Tudor, but became highly conflictive definitely strengthened Protestantism during the reign of Elizabeth I. England encouraged the rebellion of the Netherlands Protestant solidarity not only against the Catholic English Empire, but by the threat posed by having so few English dominions off its shores. Moreover, the confrontation also raised in the economic and political fields due to the stratagems English to participate at all costs American earnings.
Unlike the Dutch, whose criticism of Spain they were going to bad government, the British anti-English propaganda focused particularly on the American theme as their interests were in the sense of creating their own empire in the New World. The Black Legend was used to justify piracy ships and possessions 
English American. When Sir Francis Drake, who attacked Santo Domingo and Cartagena, was given even the title of Sir.
Finally, in 1588, Philip II was forced to send the "Great and Felicissimo Armada "to invade England. Its failure, due more to bad weather that the British military merit, was used by them to both ridicule which ironically called "Invincible" as the English monarchy.
Much of the anti-English propaganda taken as a source of criticism by English authors such as Antonio Pérez, Reginaldo González Montano and Bartolome de las Casas. These criticisms are exaggerated and expanded later abroad becoming propaganda against the English Empire.
As secretary of state of Philip II, Antonio Perez participated in a series of intrigues that 
finally do fall from grace. Is forced to flee and seek refuge first in Zaragoza, claiming the privileges of the kingdom of Aragon, and later in England. Here, under the pseudonym of Rafael Peregrino, publishes a series of libels against Philip II under the title "Foreign " (1594). Antonio Perez accused the monarch of adulterous relations with the Princess of Eboli and ordering the death of his eldest son Don Carlos. Historiography has failed to establish the responsibility of the king in that death, so probably after those charges were hidden personal and political motives. In fact, Perez's accusations were used as propaganda against Philip II by the Dutch in their struggle for independence. William of Orange added, meanwhile, new accusations of bigamy, incest, adultery and ordering the death of his wife Elizabeth of Valois. The grim image built around the emperor will be known in the Protestant as the "demon of noon."
Accusations Reginaldo González Montano, exiled English Protestants in London, focusing instead on the English Inquisition. Montano constructs a terrifying story about torture and torture employed by such institution. His work, " exhibition of some tricks of the English Inquisition " (1567), was widely translated and reprinted in France and in Protestant countries.
A major part of the Black Legend builds up especially with the English Inquisition, one of the tools for carrying out the imperial policy of Philip II in Europe. The English Inquisition was a recurring theme among intellectuals Europeans, who saw the Holy Office a simple machine to practice the most horrendous torture. And in particular, was one of the great obsessions of the Dutch. In this sense, all the works of the time trying to describe the maximum possible bloody morbid inquisitorial proceedings.
The modern Inquisition was established by the Catholic Monarchs by a bull of Pope Sixtus IV in 1478. But long before the call and medieval Inquisition functioned in countries like France or Germany where he was responsible for persecuting heretics, as the French Albigenses. Moreover, the Protestant countries, once free of the control Rome, created their own inquisitions, much more cruel than the English. Thus, in its three and half centuries of existence, the English Inquisition ordered the execution of four thousand people (the vast majority Judaizers), whereas in a much shorter period of two hundred thousand witches were burned in Northern Europe or executed also hundreds of thousands of Catholics in England of Elizabeth I.
The American Black Legend is mostly based on allegations made by Fray Bartolome de las Casas and embodied in its " Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies " (1552). The 
book is a relationship, exaggerated tendency of the excesses that accompanied the discovery. So, Las Casas speaks of 30 to 50 million Indians died in the island of English where people are probably not even reached the 14 million people (current population). However, his complaints led to the adoption of laws to protect the Indians as the " New Laws" (1542) , by the Emperor Charles I. It came even to stop the conquest (1550) until a board of experts in theology and laws do not determine whether there was working properly. In this context takes place "Controversy Valladolid 'between Gines de Sepulveda, who defends the just war against the Indians, Bartolomé de las Casas who opposes.
The work of Bartolome de las Casas was quickly and widely published by Protestant printers while ignoring the work of Bernal Diaz del Castillo, conducive to the work of the English conquest. The Dutch engraver and publisher Theodor de Bry (Frankfurt) was responsible for adding to the work of Las Casas illustrations accurately depicting the story that the Dominican was the alleged atrocities carried out by the English in America.
Keep in mind that advertising is the key element of the Black Legend broadcast and print, developed precisely in Protestant lands, the invention makes it possible, in the form of books or, more often in the form of leaflets and pamphlets cheap and easy to distribute. Since most people can not read these works are richly illustrated with pictures and engravings in the morbidly described the alleged torture of the English Inquisition or massacres fanciful English Indians who performed in America.
We have given some notes on the exaggerations and falsehoods based on the stories that make up the Black Legend. There is about an increasingly abundant literature that points out the accusations against Spain. However, what concerns us here, from the point of view of philosophy of history of philosophical materialism, the Black Legend is counterattack from the philosophical idea of \u200b\u200bEmpire.
We have seen how the origins of the Black Legend are linked to the establishment of Spain as cash Empire. Although Philip II never titled Emperor, called Monarchy Hispanic spread over 40 million km 2 (the largest empire to date), a territory that far eclipsed the official rule, the Holy Roman Empire inherited by Ferdinand I of Habsburg brother the Emperor Charles V. And, with the accidental discovery of America (as a result of ortograma imperialist legacy of the first Christian kingdoms in an attempt to cover the Muslim invaders) Spain became a Universal Empire and began to be feared and hated.
the English Empire's enemies are other empires. While emerging empires such as England and Holland empires well underway, as the Turkish Empire or the Aztec and Inca empires, or aspiring to become eternal empire, like France. The English Empire is the leading voice in the sense of keeping the "world order" against Islam and Protestantism. The Hispanic Pax achieve mutually coordinated a series of kingdoms and viceroys and remain more or less stable for four centuries until the Napoleonic invasion.
is in this dialectic of States (or empires) which, as a strategy to undermine the power of the English Empire, emerged in the Protestant all anti-English propaganda machine of the Black Legend, as already noted, will be directed both to the person of the monarch, Philip II, and its imperial policies (to the extent that hinders the deployment of other empires), as institutions through which this policy is put into practice (such as the Inquisition or the Royal Patronage of the Indies) or ultimately, the English themselves.
The English monarchy was sustained philosophically as Gustavo Bueno Idea called "meta " of empire, namely that for the Hispanic Empire Universal and would thus be required generator based on a meta-idea, ie an idea that was in excess of mere political interest predators. This Idea is the Idea meta Christianity.
Necessarily, Spain, Empire generator, can not be drawn on or heretics barbarian kingdoms, which implies a necessary uniformity Christian. His condition generator Empire (civil ) and no predator ( heril ) requires it to establish itself as a Christian Empire (Roman Catholic):
(...) Civil Universal Empire (not "heril) Empire can only be a Christian kingdoms formed on existing or new, can not be an empire made up of barbarian societies or idolaters, nor an empire to dominate schismatic people (Muslims and perhaps also Protestant). Accordingly, if the empire should be Christian is not so much as a means of achieving the fullest political unification (it is the ordinary interpretation), but as the only way to achieve the same political unification of the peoples of a non predator or tyrannical. (...) It is not, therefore, to extend more and more inland empire of domination of predation or tyranny. An Empire Generator can only grow on the Christian peoples (or tell others, "on civilized people), not to take away the land, the laws or jurisdictions, but to maintain peace between the kings and princes sovereign and independent. (Gustavo Bueno, Spain compared to Europe, pg. 342)
But that does not mean that Philip II is a puppet of the Pope or the Inquisition, as noted by some critics charging the blame on the Church. It is a misconception that the English Empire is subject to Catholic theology and the "spiritual power" the Pope who use it for evangelists to make more Christians. This is not Spain, outside of modernity, is still prey to the medieval heritage manifested in formula "for the rule to God" . Rather the opposite:
Just because it was acting on behalf of God (Christian God) the Empire could be universal: "for God to Empire 'could be the formula of the English Empire ( ...). (Gustavo Bueno, op. Cit. Pg. 347)
was therefore Philip II himself is worth the spiritual power, represented in Catholic Christianity, to carry out its imperial policy:
Catholic dogma, as formulated at Trent, was equivalent to Felipe II (...) what the 
'Universal Declaration of Human Rights "in 1948 now accounts for empires and modern states: the fundamental normative frame from which you can begin to be implemented effective policy. In this sense, the Ecumenical Council of Trent could be interpreted as an operation in the service of policy of Philip II (in the same way as the Assembly 'Ecumenical' of the UN, which proclaimed the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" can be seen as an operation to serve the capitalist powers victorious World War II. (Gustavo Bueno, op. cit. pg. 351)
Indeed, much of the Black Legend is based on accusations against two institutions, the English Inquisition and the Royal Patronage of the Indies, born as privileges that the papacy had granted the Catholic kings to support the evangelization and the establishment of the Church Catholic in America. However, far from being medieval institutions serving Rome will, in practice, instruments at the service of the English Empire for four centuries (fifteenth to the nineteenth century), and:
(...) represent the "overflow of the role of the Catholic Church by the imperial enterprise as a distributor of the" law of God ", since this distribution addressed to" all men "is performed throughout the Empire, and carried out to where the Empire can (as far as you let other political powers, not political). (Atilano Pedro Guerrero & Insua, Spain and the "theological investment", El Catoblepas No. 20, pg. 19)
Both the English Inquisition policy as the policy of conquest of the New World are shown as examples of intolerance, bigotry, cruelty and depredation. However, it is completely anachronistic cross inquisitorial bigoted policy of Philip II by his laws prohibiting printing or introduce heretical books or go to study or teach at universities in Protestant countries. Tolerance only began to be regarded as a virtue from the eighteenth century, when it became a mere balance of power between the Church of Rome and the Protestant Churches. Not only Spain, nor the other countries at this time, and preached tolerance. Precisely the survival depended on political intolerance of the various states and empires that were deployed simultaneously to the English Empire. Moreover, the Reformed Churches were not exactly a beacon of modernity against the obscurantism of the Catholic Church:
(...) as if Luther fideism not represent the spirit more medieval friars and archaic, including hatred of Jews, a hatred that was, incidentally, reused in the Nazi era. (...) The laws of Felipe II in 1518 and 1519 ("Act Aranjuez") prohibiting printing, inserting or sell books or banning heretical scholars to study or teach at universities in Protestant countries therefore had a political impact comparable to that of our current laws banning Nazi edit or selling books that uphold the "holocaust" or even deny their existence, or other laws prohibiting go to study or teach the so-called destructive sects " (Gustavo Bueno , op. cit. pg. 349)
As for the conquest of America, it is clear that initially were many outrages, atrocities and criminal acts, many of them unavoidable and other totally free. However, the intention of the Empire ( finis operis ) that was not then, and as early as 1512, the Catholic Monarchs Burgos Laws enacted to safeguard the rights of the Indians, especially with regard to that could not be enslaved. The Empire had a clear character generator. But achieving these objectives ( finis operantis ) makes inevitable a degree of predation by individuals who practice the generators for Empire. As noted by Gustavo Bueno, is not that the Empire has a good and a bad side, a front and back ( the cross and the sword ). It all depends on the scale with which we observe reality. If we move to small-scale, ie at 'molecular' observe the more or less predatory activities of particular individuals, whereas if we move to large scale, ie on a scale "molar" maybe we can envision that the narrow end of the molecular elements are used by the Empire, above them, run their entire civilization and generating activity:
The English did not undertake expeditions, with the terrible sacrifices they behave, to go to the jungles or beaches in America to recite the Beatus ille, although many of our contemporaries from pure ethical and ecological conscience tell us, in his regrets, given the history of empires, that is exactly what should be done. In general, one might say that the power of a State and, in particular, that of an empire, is not measured by both the degree of identification or "surrender" their plans and programs that can be citizens or groups of citizens who compose it, each group, as every citizen, moves according to their particular purposes ("molecular") and how important is that the State or the Empire, was able to weave a network ("molar") capable of channeling the "mass effect" resulting from the combination of particular groups, and the surplus thus obtained, to apply to the realization of their own general projects. (Gustavo Bueno, op. Cit. Pg. 354)
