Short answers, pulled from the story.
At the height of his reign Philip II held the crowns of Spain, Portugal, Naples, Sicily, and (through his wife Mary I) England and Ireland. He also controlled the Seventeen Provinces of the Netherlands, the Duchy of Milan, and overseas territories in the Americas, Africa, and Asia, including the Philippines, which were named after him.
Philip inherited a debt of about 36 million ducats and an annual deficit of one million ducats from his father Charles V. He defaulted on loans in 1557, 1560, 1569, 1575, and 1596. The core problem was that he funded continuous warfare across Europe and the Mediterranean through borrowing, while his tax revenues were constitutionally limited by the separate assemblies of his various kingdoms and largely collected by local lords.
The Spanish Armada of 1588 failed to achieve its goal of invading England, largely due to storms and coordination failures. However, Philip's navy recovered and defeated the English counter-armada sent in 1589, which lost 40 ships and 15,000 men. Philip also sent two further armadas in 1596 and 1597. The Anglo-Spanish War continued for sixteen years after the 1588 defeat, ending only in 1604.
The Spanish Black Legend refers to a body of hostile propaganda depicting Philip II and Spain as uniquely cruel, fanatical, and despotic. Philip contributed to it indirectly by prohibiting biographical accounts of his life and ordering his private correspondence burned, which left the field open for enemies like his former secretary Antonio Pérez, who published damaging accounts that Philip never publicly refuted.
Philip appointed his half-sister Margaret of Parma as governor but insisted on direct control from Madrid, imposing religious persecution and heavy taxation. The Duke of Alba's brutal suppression in the late 1560s, including the execution of the Counts of Egmont and Horn and boasted killings of tens of thousands of people, escalated into the Eighty Years' War. The war ended in 1648 when the Dutch Republic was recognised as independent, at a cost of an estimated 600,000 to 700,000 lives.
Yes. Philip was educated by humanists and maintained a library at El Escorial of 40,000 volumes, including 1,800 Arabic titles and several thousand manuscripts. He was passionate about rare books and researched the histories of previous owners. The School of Salamanca flourished during his reign, and his court included notable artists such as Sofonisba Anguissola. He also issued conservation orders for Spanish forests in 1582.