Decline, decadence, crisis, stagnation, and adversity are terms powerfully associated with the reign of Spain’s Planet King; sombre tones that contrast sharply with the glittering cultural and artistic achievements (enhanced by his patronage) that led the period to be dubbed ‘the’ Golden Age, a label consciously competing with France’s later Grand Siècle. Much work still needs to be done to bring Philip IV into focus and from beneath the shadow of his great favourite [privado], the Count-Duke of Olivares and the picaresque overtones apparent in contemporary representations of the Planet King that reflect the persistence of ideas rooted in the Black Legend about a frivolous, lascivious monarch hemmed in by superstitious religiosity. But how fair are these ideas and did in fact Spain decline irremediably in the 17th century?