Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor

Charles V (24 February 1500 – 21 September 1558) was Holy Roman Emperor, King of Aragon, Castile, Naples, and Sicily, and ruler of the Burgundian territories. In Spain, he ruled officially as Carlos I, though he is often referred to as Carlos V.

He was the son of Philip the Handsome and Joanna the Mad of Castile. His maternal grandparents were Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, whose marriage had first united Spain. His paternal grandparents were Emperor Maximilian I and Mary of Burgundy.

Charles V's reign also introduced the first documented use of the styles of His Majesty or His Imperial Majesty. Because of his far-reaching territories he was described as ruling an Empire "in which the sun does not set".

Heritage and early life

Combining in himself the heritage of the German Habsburgs, the House of Burgundy, and the Spanish heritage of his mother, Charles transcended ethnic and national boundaries.

Charles was born in the Flemish city of Ghent and brought up in the Low Countries until 1517. The culture and courtly life of the Burgundian Low Countries was the prime influence in his early life. He was brought up to speak French and Dutch, but soon added Spanish and some German . Indeed, he was said to speak "Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to his horse".

From his Burgundian ancestors, he inherited an ambiguous relationship with the Kings of France. Charles shared with France his mother tongue and many cultural forms. In his youth, he made frequent visits to Paris, then the largest city of Western Europe, which he thoroughly enjoyed. In his words: "Paris is not a city, but a universe" (Lutetia non urbs, sed orbis). But Charles was also born into the tradition of political and dynastical enmity between the Royal and the Burgundian lines of the Valois Dynasty.

This conflict was amplified by his accession to both the Holy Roman Empire and the kingdom of Spain. Though Spain was the core of his kingdom, he was never totally assimilated and especially in his earlier years felt and was viewed as a foreign prince. Nonetheless, he spent most of his life in Spain, including his final years in a Spanish monastery.

In his youth, Charles was tutored by Adrian of Utrecht, later Pope Adrian VI. His three most prominent subsequent advisors were Lord Chièvres, Jean Sauvage, and Mercurino Gattinara.

On March 10, 1526, he married the Infanta Isabella, sister of John III of Portugal, who had shortly before married Catherine, Charles' sister.

Reign

Burgundy and the Low Countries

In 1506, Charles inherited his father's Burgundian territories, most notably the Low Countries and Franche-Comté, although, as a minor, his aunt Margaret acted as regent until 1515.

Charles extended the Burgundian territory with the annexation of Tournai, Artois, Utrecht, Groningen and Guelders. The Seventeen Provinces had been unified by Charles' Burgundian ancestors, but nominally were fiefs of either France or the Holy Roman Empire. In 1549, Charles issued a Pragmatic Sanction, declaring the Low Countries as a unified entity of which his family would be the heirs..

The Low Countries held an important place in the Empire. For Charles personally, they were the region where he spent his childhood. Because of trade and industry and the rich cities, they were also important for the treasury.

Spain

With the death of his grand-father Ferdinand II, on May 30, 1516 Charles became the first king of a united SpainHe however never used the "King of Spain", as that term would have denoted rule over the entire Iberian Peninsula, including Portugal, which was a separate kingdom at that time. Charles inherited his grandfather's realm, which included Aragon, Navarre, Naples, Sicily and Sardinia, and also became joint-king of Castile and guardian of his insane mother Juana. With the Castilian crown he also gained Granada and the Spanish possessions in the New World.

For the first time the crowns of Castile and Aragon were united in one person. Ferdinand and Isabella had each been sovereign in one kingdom, but only consort in the other.

Charles arrived in his new kingdoms in autumn of 1517. His regent Jiménez de Cisneros came to meet him, but fell ill along the way, not without a suspicion of poison. Charles sent him a letter to thank him for his services, but Cisneros died before meeting the King.

Negotiations with the Castilian Cortes proved difficult, and in the end Charles was accepted under the following conditions: he would learn to speak Castillian; he would not appoint foreigners; he was prohibited from taking precious metals from Castile; and he would respect the rights of his mother, Queen Joanna. Tthe Cortes paid homage to him in Valladolid in 1518. In 1519 he was crowned before the Cortes of Aragon in Zaragoza, and the Cortes of Catalonia followed.

Charles was accepted as sovereign, even though the Spanish felt uneasy with the Imperial style; Spanish monarchs until then had been bound by the laws, the monarchy was a contract with the people. With Charles it would become more absolute, even though until his mother's death in 1555 Charles did not hold the full kingship of the country.

Soon resistance against the Emperor rose, because of the heavy taxation – funds that were used to fight wars abroad, wars most Castilians had no interest in – and because Charles tended to select Flemings for high offices in Spain and America, ignoring Castilian candidates. The resistance culminated in the Castilian War of the Communities, which was suppressed by Charles. After this, Castile became integrated into the Habsburgs' empire, and would provide the bulk of the Habsburg's military and financial resources.

America

During Charles' reign, the territories in New Spain were considerably extended by conquistadores like Hernán Cortés and Francisco Pizarro, who brought the Aztec and Inca empires to fall in little more than a decade. Combined with the circumnavigation of the globe in 1522, this gave to Charles a strong impression of his divine mission to become the leader of a christian world. The conquests also provided the state treasury with enormous amounts of bullion. The conquistador Bernal Diaz had already observed: "We came to serve God and our Majesty, ... and also to get rich." In 1550, Charles convened a conference at Valladolid in order to consider the morality of the force used against the indigenous populations of Spanish America.

Holy Roman Empire

After the death of his other grandfather, Maximilian, in 1519, he inherited Habsburg lands in Austria. Naturally, he also was the candidate for succeeding Maximilian as Emperor, but he had to face the competition of the French King Francis I, who also had the support of Pope Leo X. Francis used promises and bribes to win the favour of the electors, but with the help of the wealthy Fugger family, Charles could oust Francis and was elected on June 28, 1519.

Charles was Holy Roman Emperor over the German states, but his real power was limited by the princes. Protestantism gained a lot of support in Germany, and Charles was determined not to let this happen in the Netherlands. An inquisition was established as early as 1522. In 1550 the death penalty was introduced for all heresy. Political dissention was also firmly controlled, most notably in his place of birth: the Revolt of Ghent in 1539, which Charles personally suppressed.

Wars against France

Charles V fought many wars with France during his reign, first fighting against them in Northern Italy in 1521. Later in the Italian Wars, in 1527, his troops sacked Rome. His occupation of Rome and virtual imprisonment of Pope Clement VII allowed him to keep the Pope from annulling the marriage of Henry VIII of England and Catherine of Aragon, who was his aunt.

In a war supported by Henry VIII of England, in 1525, known as the battle of Pavia, Charles captured king François I of France, because one of the noblemen of his Empire, Cesare Hercolani, injured the horse of the French king. So Hercolani was named "the victor of the battle of Pavia" and Charles forced Francis to sign the Treaty of Madrid, in which France renounced her claims to northern Italy. When he was released, however, François I had the Parliament of Paris denounce the treaty, because it had been signed under duress. The 1529 Treaty of Cambrai (signed with France) and the Peace of Barcelona (with the Pope) confirmed Charles as Holy Roman Emperor and also allowed him to keep the lands he had acquired in Italy.

Wars against the Ottoman Empire

Charles had been fighting with the Ottoman Empire and its sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent, for a number of years. The expeditions of the Ottoman force along the Mediterranean coast posed a threat to Hapsburg lands and the peace of Western Europe. In Central Europe, the Turkish advance was halted at Vienna in 1529, which they besieged unsuccessfully. In 1535 Charles won an important victory at Tunis, but in 1536 Francis I of France allied himself with Suleiman against Charles. While Francis was persuaded to sign a peace treaty in 1538, he again allied himself with the Ottomans in 1542. In 1543 Charles allied himself with Henry VIII and forced Francis to sign the Truce of Crepy-en-Laonnois. Charles later signed a humiliating treaty with the Ottomans, to gain him some respite from the huge expenses of their war, although it wasn't over. However, the Protestant powers in the Holy Roman Empire Diet often voted against money for his Turkish wars, as many Protestants saw the Muslim advance as a counterweight to the Catholic powers. The great Hungarian defeat at the 1526 Battle of Mohacs was in some ways a moral defeat for the West as a whole.

Humanism and Reformation

As Holy Roman Emperor, he called Martin Luther to the Diet of Worms in 1521, promising him safe conduct if he would appear. He initially dismissed Luther's idea of reformation as, "An argument between monks". He later outlawed Luther and his followers in that same year but was tied up with other concerns and unable to try to stamp out Protestantism.

1524 to 1526 saw the Peasants' Revolt in Germany and the formation of the Lutheran Schmalkaldic League, and Charles delegated increasing responsibility for Germany to his brother Ferdinand while he concentrated on problems abroad.

In 1545 the opening of the Council of Trent began the Counter-Reformation, and Charles won to the Catholic cause some of the princes of the Holy Roman Empire. He also attacked the Schmalkaldic League in 1546 and defeated John Frederick, Elector of Saxony and imprisoned Philip of Hesse in 1547. At the Augsburg Interim in 1548 he created a doctrinal compromise that he felt Catholics and Protestants alike might share. A more permanent settlement followed with the 1555 Peace of Augsburg.

Abdication and later life

In 1556 Charles abdicated his various positions, giving his personal empire to his son, Philip II of Spain, and the Holy Empire to his brother, Ferdinand. Charles retired to the monastery of Yuste in Extremadura, but continued to correspond widely and kept an interest in the situation of the empire. In the last few years of his life he suffered from gout; he died on September 21, 1558. Twenty-six years later his remains were transferred to the Royal Pantheon of The Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial.

Trivia

He had an overshot lower jaw, the so-called Hapsburg lip which persisted for generations in European royalty.

References

Preceded by:
Ferdinand II King of Aragon, Majorca, Sicily and Valencia
Count of Barcelona
1516–1556 Succeeded by:
Philip II King of Naples
1516–1554 Preceded by:
Joanna King of Castile and Leon
1555–1556
(Guardian and Regent since 1516) Preceded by:
Philip the Handsome Duke of Brabant, Limburg, Lothier and Luxembourg
Count of Artois, Burgundy, Flanders, Hainaut, Holland, Namur, Zeeland and Zutphen
1506–1555

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