His Most Catholic Majesty Philip II, by the grace of God, King of All Spain, of England, of France, of the Two Sicilies, of Ireland, and of Jerusalem; defender of the Faith; Archduke of Austria; Duke of Burgundy and of Milan; Lord of the Netherlands; etc., etc., was renowned as a serious, almost dour man. He had little time for levity or revelry in his life, being wholly devoted to God, to his family, and to his realms, strictly in that order. It was that first, most sacred devotion, to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, which prompted his very few moments of relaxation, and, dare we say, fun, each year, for on certain holy days God Himself demanded that His faithful partake in merriment and rest.

So it was on the Great and Holy Sunday of the Resurrection, on Easter, that Philip II, sailed from his Spanish Netherlands, after a meeting with his old and good friend and counsellor William the Silent, Prince of Orange, to his wife's realm of England, to partake in the traditional Easter celebrations of the English court. It was during these celebrations that a mostly-sober Philip II named Richard Owen Theodore, one of his newer friends and one of his few fellow Catholics in the English court, lawful heir to the titles and lands attainted from his late father-in-law, the Duke of Suffolk, who had been executed for treason some years earlier. Philip II, intending for Richard Owen Theodore to serve as the head of his royal administration during the frequent times he was away from England, as his wife Mary I, being a woman, could hardly be expected to govern a nation on her own, also named him of the Privy Council and made him Lord President of that body, and furthermore appointed him to a revived office of Lord High Constable and to the post of Lord Steward of the Royal Household.

At the end of a long day of what passed for partying in England, Philip II awoke early the next day, seemingly just slightly more irritable than normal, as if he had gotten himself a hangover, and returned to the business of running his intercontinental empire.