Charles V[d][e] (24 February 1500 – 21 September 1558) was Holy Roman Emperor and Archduke of Austria from 1519 to 1556, King of Spain from 1516 to 1556, and Lord of the Netherlands as titular Duke of Burgundy from 1506 to 1555. He was heir to and then head of the rising House of Habsburg. His dominions in Europe included the Holy Roman Empire, extending from Germany to northern Italy with rule over the Austrian hereditary lands and Burgundian Low Countries, and Spain with its possessions of the southern Italian kingdoms of Naples, Sicily and Sardinia. In the Americas, he oversaw the continuation of Spanish colonization and a short-lived German colonization. The personal union of the European and American territories he ruled was the first collection of realms labelled "the empire on which the sun never sets".[23]
Charles was born in Flanders to Habsburg Archduke Philip the Handsome, son of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor and Mary of Burgundy, and Joanna of Castile, younger child of Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, the Catholic Monarchs of Spain. Heir of his grandparents, Charles inherited his family dominions at a young age. After his father's death in 1506, he inherited the Low Countries.[24] In 1516 he became King of Spain as co-monarch of Castile and Aragon with his mother. Spain's possessions included the Castilian colonies of the West Indies and the Spanish Main, as well as Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia. At the death of his grandfather Maximilian in 1519, he inherited the Austrian hereditary lands and was elected as Holy Roman Emperor. He adopted the Imperial name of Charles V as his main title, and styled himself as a new Charlemagne.[25]
Charles revitalized the medieval concept of universal monarchy. With no fixed capital, he made 40 journeys through the different entities he ruled and spent a quarter of his reign travelling within his realms.[26] Although his empire came to him peacefully, he spent most of his life waging war, exhausting his revenues and leaving debts in his attempt to defend the integrity of the Holy Roman Empire from the Protestant Reformation, the expansion of the Ottoman Empire, and in wars with France.[27][28] Charles borrowed money from German and Italian bankers and, to repay them, relied on the wealth of the Low Countries and the flow of silver from New Spain and Peru, brought under his rule following the Spanish conquest of the Aztec and Inca empires, which caused widespread inflation.
Crowned King of Germany in Aachen, Charles sided with Pope Leo X and declared Martin Luther an outlaw at the Diet of Worms in 1521.[29] The same year, Francis I of France, surrounded by the Habsburg possessions, started a war in Italy that led to the Battle of Pavia (1525) which was a huge success for Charles, even capturing the king. In 1527, Rome was sacked by an army of Charles's mutinous soldiers. Charles then defended Vienna from the Turks and obtained coronations as King of Italy and Holy Roman Emperor from Pope Clement VII. In 1535, he took possession of Milan and captured Tunis. However, the loss of Buda during the struggle for Hungary and the Algiers expedition in the early 1540s frustrated his anti-Ottoman policies. After years of negotiations, Charles came to an agreement with Pope Paul III for the organization of the Council of Trent (1545). The refusal of the Lutheran Schmalkaldic League to recognize the council's validity led to a war, won by Charles. However, Henry II of France offered new support to the Lutheran cause and strengthened the Franco-Ottoman alliance with Suleiman the Magnificent.
Ultimately, Charles conceded the Peace of Augsburg and abandoned his multi-national project with abdications in 1556 that divided his hereditary and imperial domains between the Spanish Habsburgs, headed by his son Philip II of Spain, and Austrian Habsburgs, headed by his brother Ferdinand.[30][31][32] In 1557, Charles retired to the Monastery of Yuste in Extremadura and died there a year later.
The entrance gate to the
Prinsenhof,
Dutch for "Princes' Court", in
Ghent, where Charles V was born
Charles of Austria was born on 24 February 1500 in the Prinsenhof of Ghent, a Flemish city of the Habsburg Netherlands, to Philip of Austria and Joanna of Trastámara.[33] His father Philip, nicknamed Philip the Handsome, was the firstborn son of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, Archduke of Austria, and Mary of Burgundy, heiress to the Burgundian Netherlands. Charles's mother Joanna was a younger daughter of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, the Catholic Monarchs of Spain from the House of Trastámara. The political marriage of Philip and Joanna was first conceived in a letter sent by Maximilian to Ferdinand to seal an Austro-Spanish alliance, established as part of the League of Venice directed against the Kingdom of France during the Italian Wars.[34]
From the moment he became King of the Romans in 1486, Charles's paternal grandfather Maximilian had carried a very financially risky policy of maximum expansionism, relying mostly on the resources of the Austrian hereditary lands.[35] Even though it is often implied (among others, by Erasmus of Rotterdam[36]) that Charles V and the Habsburgs gained their vast empire through peaceful policies (exemplified by the saying Bella gerant aliī, tū fēlix Austria nūbe / Nam quae Mars aliīs, dat tibi regna Venus or "Let others wage war, but thou, O happy Austria, marry; for those kingdoms which Mars gives to others, Venus gives to thee.", reportedly spoken by Mathias Corvinus[37][38]), Maximilian and his descendants fought wars aplenty (Maximilian alone fought 27 wars during his four decades of ruling).[39][40] His general strategy was to combine his intricate systems of alliance, wars, military threats and offers of marriage to realize his expansionist ambitions. Ultimately he succeeded in coercing Bohemia, Hungary and Poland into acquiescence in the Habsburgs' expansionist plan.[40][41]
The fact that the marriages between the Habsburgs and the Trastámaras, originally conceived as a marital alliance against France, would bring the crowns of Castile and Aragon to Maximilian's male line, however, was unexpected.[43][44]
The marriage contract between Philip and Joanna was signed in 1495, and celebrations were held in 1496. Philip was already Duke of Burgundy (although the Duchy of Burgundy itself had been lost to the French crown), given Mary's death in 1482, and also heir apparent of Austria as honorific archduke. Joanna, in contrast, was only third in the Spanish line of succession, preceded by her older brother John, Prince of Asturias and older sister Isabella of Aragon. Both heirs to the crowns of Castile and Aragon John and Isabella died in 1498, and the Catholic Monarchs desired to keep the Spanish kingdoms in Iberian hands, so they designated their Portuguese grandson Miguel da Paz as heir presumptive of Spain by naming him Prince of Asturias; but he died as a baby in 1500.[45]
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