'Charles V' (
24 February 1500 –
21 September 1558) was
Holy Roman Emperor from
1519 to his
abdication in
1556. He also ruled as 'Carlos I of Spain' from
1516 to
1556. As the heir of four of Europe's leading royal houses, he united in
personal union extensive realms including the
Holy Roman Empire,
Aragon,
Castile,
Naples,
Sicily, the
Burgundian Netherlands, and Spanish colonies in
America. Upon his retirement, he divided his realms between his son
Philip and his brother
Ferdinand.
He was the son of
Philip of Burgundy and
Joanna the Mad of Castile. His paternal grandparents were
Emperor Maximilian I and
Mary of Burgundy, whose daughter
Margarete of Austria raised him. His maternal grandparents were
Ferdinand II of Aragon and
Isabella I of Castile, whose marriage had first united their territories into what is now modern Spain, and whose daughter
Catherine of Aragon was Queen of England and first wife of Henry VIII. His cousin was
Mary I of England who married his son Philip.
Charles V's reign 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
Plus Oultre, Charles' personal motto on the gable of a Flemish house in Ghent, Charles V's birthplace.
Combining 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
Mechelen by his aunt
Margarete of Austria until
1517. The culture and courtly life of the Burgundian
Low Countries were an important influence in his early life. He spoke French as mother language and
Flemish from his childhood years, later adding an acceptable Spanish (which was required by the Castilian
Cortes as a condition for becoming king of Castile) and some German.
[1] Indeed, he claimed to speak "Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to my horse."
From his Burgundian ancestors, he inherited an ambiguous relationship with the
Kings of France. Charles shared with France his
mother tongue (together with Flemish) and many cultural forms. In his youth, he made frequent visits to
Paris, then the largest city of
Western Europe. In his words: "Paris is not a city, but a
universe" (''
Lutetia non urbs, sed orbis''). But Charles also inherited 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 like and was viewed as a foreign prince. He could not speak Spanish very well, as it was not his primary language. 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.
Marriage and children
On
March 10,
1526, Charles married his first cousin
Isabella of Portugal, sister of
John III of Portugal.
Their children included:
★
Philip II of Spain (
1527 -
1598), the only son to reach adulthood.
★
Maria of Spain (
1528 -
1603), who married her cousin
Maximilian II, Holy Roman Emperor.
★
Joan of Spain (
1535 -
1573)
Charles is also famous for his many mistresses. Two of them gave birth to two future
Governors of the Habsburg Netherlands:
★ Johanna Maria van der Gheynst bore
Margaret of Parma and
★
Barbara Blomberg bore
John of Austria.
Reign
Habsburgs possessions in 1547.
Burgundy and the Low Countries
In
1506, Charles inherited his father's Burgundian territories, most notably the Low Countries and
Franche-Comté, although, as he was 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 to be 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 grandfather Ferdinand II on
May 30 1516, Charles inherited his grandfather's realm, which included
Aragon,
Naples,
Sicily and
Sardinia. He also became joint ruler of
Castile with, and guardian of, his insane mother
Joanna. With the Castilian crown he also gained
Navarre,
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, and died before meeting the King.
[2]
Negotiations with the Castilian Cortes proved difficult, and in the end Charles was accepted under the following conditions: he would learn to speak
Castilian; 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. The Cortes paid homage to him in Valladolid in 1518. In 1519, he was crowned before the Cortes of Aragon in
Zaragoza, and the Corts 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 Habsburg empire, and would provide the bulk of the empire'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 caused the
Aztec and
Inca empires to fall in little more than a decade. Combined with the Magellan expedition's circumnavigation of the globe in
1522, these successes convinced Charles of his divine mission to become the leader of a
Christian world that still perceived a significant threat from
Islam. Of course, the conquests also helped solidify Charles' rule by providing the state treasury with enormous amounts of
bullion. As the conquistador
Bernal Diaz 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 paternal grandfather,
Maximilian, in 1519, he inherited the
Habsburg lands in
Austria. He was also the natural candidate to succeed of the
electors, but with the help of the wealthy
Fugger family Charles could oust Francis and was elected on
June 28,
1519. In
1530, he was crowned Holy Roman Emperor by
Pope Clement VII in
Bologna, the last Emperor to receive a papal coronation.
The coronation of Charles as Holy Roman Emperor is presented in the third act of Verdi's opera
Ernani. Charles (Don Carlo in the opera) prays before the tomb of Charlemagne. With the announcement that that he is elected as Carlo Quinto he declares a amnesty including the eponymous bandit Ernani who had followed him there to murder him as a rival for the love of the soprano. The opera, based on the Victor Hugo play, portrays Charles as a callous and cynical adventurer whose character is transformed by the election into a responsible and clement ruler.
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 dissent was also firmly controlled, most notably in his place of birth, where Charles personally suppressed the
Revolt of Ghent in
1539.
Wars against France
Much of Charles's reign was taken up with wars with France, which found itself encircled by Charles's empire and still maintained ambitions in Italy. The
first war with Charles's great nemesis
Francis I of France began in
1521. Charles allied with England and
Pope Leo X against the French and the Venetians, and was highly successful, driving the French out of
Milan and defeating and capturing Francis at the
Battle of Pavia in
1525. To gain his freedom, the French king was forced to cede
Burgundy to Charles in the humiliating
Treaty of Madrid (1526).
When he was released, however, Francis had the Parlement of Paris denounce the treaty because it had been signed under
duress. France then joined the
League of Cognac that the
Pope had formed with
Henry VIII of England, the Venetians, the Florentines, and the Milanese to resist imperial domination of Italy. In the ensuing war, Charles's
sack of Rome (1527) and virtual imprisonment of
Pope Clement VII in 1527 prevented him from annulling the marriage of
Henry VIII of
England and Charles's aunt
Catherine of Aragon, with important consequences. In other respects, the war was inconclusive. In the
Treaty of Cambrai (1529), called the "Ladies' Peace" because it was negotiated between Charles's aunt and Francis's mother, Francis renounced his claims in Italy but retained control of Burgundy.
A
third war erupted in
1535, when, following the death of the last Sforza
Duke of Milan, Charles installed his own son,
Philip, in the duchy, despite Francis's claims on it. This war too was inconclusive. Francis failed to conquer Milan, but succeeded in conquering most of the lands of Charles's ally the
Duke of Savoy, including his capital,
Turin. A truce at
Nice in
1538 on the basis of ''
uti possidetis'' ended the war, but lasted only a short time.
War resumed in
1542, with Francis now allied with Ottoman Sultan
Suleiman I and Charles once again allied with
Henry VIII. Despite the conquest of
Nice by a Franco-Ottoman fleet, the French remained unable to advance into Milan, while a joint Anglo-Imperial invasion of northern France, led by Charles himself, won some successes but was ultimately abandoned, leading to another peace and restoration of the ''status quo ante'' in
1544.
A
final war erupted with Francis's son and successor,
Henry II, in
1551. This war saw early successes by Henry in
Lorraine, where he captured
Metz, but continued failure of French offensives in Italy. Charles abdicated midway through this conflict, leaving further conduct of the war to his son,
Philip II and his brother,
Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor.
Inner court of the Charles V Palace in Granada.
Wars against the Ottoman Empire
Charles fought continually 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 Habsburg lands and Christian monopolies on trade in the Mediterranean. In
Central Europe, the Turkish advance was halted at
Vienna in
1529. 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 Mohács 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 in
1531 the formation of the Lutheran
Schmalkaldic League. 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 at the
Battle of Mühlberg 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 titles, giving his Spanish empire (
Spain, the
Netherlands,
Naples and Spain's possessions in the Americas) to his son,
Philip II of Spain. He passed his dynastic Austrian lands and the Holy Roman 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. He suffered from severe
gout and some scholars think Charles V decided to abdicate after a gout attack in 1552 forced him to postpone an attempt to recapture the city of Metz, where he was later defeated.
[3].
Charles 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.
Charles V in literature and popular culture
There are few figures about whom as many traces have survived half a millennium, in both literature and living minds. Those traces comprise a large number of legends and folk tales that can often be attributed to phantasy, as well as the literary renderings of historical events connected to Charles' life and romantic adventures, his relationship to Flanders, and his abdication.
[4]
★ In ''De heerelycke ende vrolycke daeden van Keyser Carel den V'', published by Joan de Grieck in 1674, the short stories, anecdotes, citations attributed to the emperor, and legends about his encounters with famous and ordinary people, depict a noble Christian monarch with a perfect cosmopolitan personality and a strong sense of humour. The story on the spectacles in the coat of arms of
Oudenaarde is found back in
Charles De Coster's masterpiece ''
Thyl Ulenspiegel'' (1867), the one about a paysant of
Berchem in ''Het geuzenboek'' (1979) by
Louis Paul Boon, and Abraham Hans (1882–1939) included both tales in ''De liefdesavonturen van keizer Karel in Vlaanderen''.
★
Lord Byron's ''Ode to
Napoleon Buonaparte'' refers to Charles:
The Spaniard, when the lust of sway
Had lost its quickening spell,
Cast crowns for rosaries away,
An empire for a cell;
A strict accountant of his beads,
A subtle disputant on creeds,
His dotage trifled well:
Yet better had he neither known
A bigot’s shrine, nor despot’s throne.
★
Ernst Krenek's
opera ''
Karl V'' (opus 73, 1930) examines the title character's career via flashbacks.
★ In
The Maltese Falcon, the title object is said to have been an intended gift to Charles V.
★ A wellknown
Flemish legend about Charles being served a beer at the village of
Olen, as well as the emperor's lifelong preference of beer above wine, led to the naming of several beer varieties in his honor. The ''Haacht'' Brewery of
Boortmeerbeek produces Charles Quint, while the ''Het Anker'' Brewery at
Mechelen produces Gouden Carolus.
[5]
★ In the episode of ''
The Simpsons'', ''
Margical History Tour'',
Homer Simpson portrays
Henry VIII who, wanting to end his marriage to
Catherine of Aragon said "I can't cut off her head because her dad's the King of Spain. This is a reference to why the real Henry VIII couldn't behead his first wife (note: Catherine was really Charles' Aunt, one of the episodes many historical blunders).
Trivia
★ He suffered from an enlarged lower jaw, a deformity which got considerably worse in later
Habsburg generations. He struggled to chew his food properly and consequently experienced bad indigestion for much of his life. As a result, he usually ate alone.
[6]
★ He suffered from joint pain, presumed to be
gout, according to his 16th century doctors.
[7] In his retirement, he was carried around the monastery of
St. Yuste in a
sedan chair. A ramp was specially constructed to allow him easy access to his rooms.
★ He was afraid of mice and spiders.
★ He was obsessed with clocks and instructed his servants to take them apart and reassemble them in his presence.
★ He passed his time fishing from his window on the first floor and enjoying the smell of incense drifting on the breeze from the abbey church.
Ancestors
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References
1. Spain, 1469–1714: a society of conflict, , Henry, Kamen, Pearson Education, 2005, 0-582-78464-6
2. ''Encyclopædia Britannica'', 1911 edition.
3. "The Severe Gout of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V", from the The New England Journal of Medicine, '355':516–520 August 3 2006
4.
Keizer Karel in de literatuur Heymans, Frans
5. Charles V ''(describing the tale of the "pot van Olen")''
★
Wisselbieren (section 'Anker Bok')
★
Charles Quint Golden Blond
★
Charles Quint Ruby Red
★
Beers by Het Anker ''(click on the beer names)'' Also an alternative name
★
Places to visit — Mechelen - Brussels - Ghent
6. Dr. Martyn Rady, University of London, lecture 2000.
7. "Tests confirm old emperor's gout diagnosis." The Record. August 4, 2006, Nation.
Bibliography
★ Norbert Conrads: ''Die Abdankung Kaiser Karls V.'' Abschiedsvorlesung, Universität Stuttgart, 2003 (
text)
★ Stephan Diller, Joachim Andraschke, Martin Brecht: ''Kaiser Karl V. und seine Zeit''. Ausstellungskatalog. Universitäts-Verlag, Bamberg 2000, ISBN 3-933463-06-8
★ Alfred Kohler: ''Karl V. 1500–1558. Eine Biographie''. C. H. Beck, München 2001, ISBN 3-406-45359-7
★ Alfred Kohler: ''Quellen zur Geschichte Karls V.'' Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1990, ISBN 3-534-04820-2
★ Alfred Kohler, Barbara Haider. Christine Ortner (Hrsg): ''Karl V. 1500–1558. Neue Perspektiven seiner Herrschaft in Europa und Übersee''. Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien 2002, ISBN 3-7001-3054-6
★ Ernst Schulin: ''Kaiser Karl V. Geschichte eines übergroßen Wirkungsbereichs''. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1999, ISBN 3-17-015695-0
★ Ferdinant Seibt: ''Karl V.'' Goldmann, München 1999, ISBN 3-442-75511-5
★ Manuel Fernández Álvarez: ''Imperator mundi: Karl V. – Kaiser des Heiligen Römischen Reiches Deutscher Nation.''. Stuttgart 1977, ISBN 3763011781
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