Charles V

Ancestry

Charles of Austria was born on 24 February 1500 in the Prinsenhof of Ghent, a Flemish city of the Habsburg Netherlands, to Philip the Handsome and Joanna of Trastámara. 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 of Castile 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, part of the establishment of an Austro-Spanish alliance opposed to the Kingdom of France in the context of the Italian Wars.

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. Even though it is often implied by, among others, Erasmus of Rotterdam, 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), Maximilian and his descendants fought wars aplenty. Maximilian fought 27 wars during his four decades of ruling.

His general strategy was to combine his intricate systems of alliance, wars, military threats and offers of marriage to realise his expansionist ambitions. Ultimately, he succeeded in coercing Bohemia, Hungary and Poland into acquiescence in the Habsburgs' expansionist plan.

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 was unexpected.

The marriage contract between Philip and Joanna was signed in 1495, and celebrations were held in 1496. Philip was already Duke of Burgundy given Mary's death in 1482 (although the Duchy of Burgundy itself had been lost to the French crown). He was also heir apparent of Austria as an 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. 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.

Birth and childhood

Charles's mother went into labour at a ball in February 1500. He was named in honour of Charles the Bold of Burgundy, who had attempted to create a continuous Burgundian State stretching from the North Sea to Savoy. When Charles was born, a poet at the court reported that the people of Ghent "shouted Austria and Burgundy throughout the whole city for three hours" to celebrate his birth.

Given the dynastic situation, the newborn was originally heir apparent only of the Habsburg Netherlands, being given the honorary title Duke of Luxembourg. He was also second in line to the Austrian duchies, becoming known in his early years simply as "Charles of Ghent". He was baptised at the Church of Saint John by the Bishop of Tournai. The Burgundian nobles Charles I de Croÿ and John III of Glymes were his godfathers, and Margaret of York and Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Savoy, respectively, his step-great-grandmother and aunt, his godmothers. Charles's baptism gifts were a sword and a helmet, objects of Burgundian chivalric tradition representing, respectively, the instrument of war and the symbol of peace. The death in July 1500 of the young heir presumptive Miguel de Paz to the Iberian realms of his maternal grandparents meant baby Charles's future inheritance potentially expanded to include Castile, Aragon, and the overseas possessions in the Americas.

In 1501, his parents, Philip and Joanna, left Charles in the care of Philip's step-great-grandmother, Margaret of York, in Mechelen and went to Spain. The main goal of their Spanish mission was the recognition of Joanna as Princess of Asturias, following Prince Miguel's death a year earlier. They succeeded despite facing some opposition from the Castilian Cortes, which were reluctant to create the premises for Habsburg succession. In 1504, when her mother Isabella died, Joanna became Queen of Castile. Charles only met his father again in 1503 while his mother returned in 1504 (after giving birth to Ferdinand in Spain). The Spanish Ambassador Gutierre Gómez de Fuensalida reported that Philip often visited and they had lots of fun. The couple's unhappy marriage and Joanna's unstable mental state, however, created many difficulties, making it unsafe for the children to stay with the parents.

Philip was recognised as King of Castile in 1506. He died shortly after, an event that was said to drive the mentally unstable Joanna into complete insanity. She was retired in isolation to the Royal Palace of Tordesillas. Charles's grandfather Ferdinand took control of all the Spanish kingdoms, under the pretext of protecting Charles's rights, which in reality he wanted to elude. Ferdinand's new marriage with Germaine de Foix failed to produce a surviving Trastámara heir to the throne, so Charles remained the heir presumptive to the Iberian realms. With his father dead and his mother confined, Charles became Duke of Burgundy and was recognised as Prince of Asturias (heir presumptive of Castile) and honorific Archduke (heir apparent of Austria).

Inheritances

The Burgundian inheritance included the Habsburg Netherlands, which consisted of a large number of lordships in the Low Countries and covered modern-day Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg. It also included the Free County of Burgundy (the region of Franche-Comté) and the County of Charolais, but excluded the Duchy of Burgundy, annexed by France in 1477. At the death of Philip in 1506, Charles was recognised as Lord of the Netherlands and count of Burgundy and Charolais, also becoming the titular Duke of Burgundy, and thus being styled as Duke Charles II of Burgundy.

During his childhood and teen years, Charles lived in Mechelen together with his sisters Mary, Eleanor and Isabella at the court of his aunt Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Savoy. William de Croÿ (later prime minister) and Adrian of Utrecht (later Pope Adrian VI) served as his tutors. The culture and courtly life of the Low Countries played an important part in the development of Charles's beliefs. As a member of the Burgundian Order of the Golden Fleece in his infancy, and later its grandmaster, Charles was educated in the ideals of the medieval knights and the desire for Christian unity to fight the infidel. The Low Countries were very rich during his reign, both economically and culturally. Charles was very attached to his homeland and spent a large part of his life in Brussels and Flemish cities.

The Spanish inheritance, resulting from a dynastic union of the crowns of Castile and Aragon, included Spain and the Castilian possessions in the Americas (the Spanish West Indies and the Province of Tierra Firme) and the Aragonese kingdoms of Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia. Joanna inherited these territories in 1516 while confined, allegedly because she was mentally ill. Charles, therefore, claimed the crowns for himself jure matris, thus becoming co-monarch with Joanna with the title of Charles I of Castile and Aragon or Charles I of Spain.

Castile and Aragon together formed the largest of Charles's personal possessions. They provided a great number of generals and tercios, the formidable Spanish infantry of the time, while Joanna remained confined in Tordesillas until her death. Plus Ultra, the rendition from French into Latin of Charles's personal motto "Plus Oultre" (Further Beyond), later became the national motto of Spain and features on the country's flag as part of the Spanish coat of arms since the 18th century. However, at his accession to the Iberian thrones, Charles was viewed as a foreign prince.

Reign

Burgundy and the Low Countries

In 1506, Charles inherited all of his father's territories in the Low Countries, thus becoming the ruler of the Habsburg Netherlands. His inheritance also included the Free County of Burgundy (region of Franche-Comté) within the Holy Roman Empire, and the County of Charolais in the Kingdom of France. and, most notably, the Low Countries. His territories in the Low Countries mostly lay within the Holy Roman Empire, and partially within the French realm. Thus, Charles's birthplace, the city of Ghent, belonged to the County of Flanders, at that time still being the fief of the French crown. Since he was a minor, his aunt Margaret of Austria acted as regent, as appointed by Emperor Maximilian, until 1515. She soon found herself at war with France over Charles's requirement to pay homage to the French king for Flanders, Artois and Charolais, as his father had done. The outcome was that France relinquished its ancient claim on Flanders and Artois in 1528.

From 1515 to 1523, Charles's government in the Netherlands also had to contend with the rebellion of Frisian peasants (led by Pier Gerlofs Donia and Wijard Jelckama). The rebels were initially successful, but after a series of defeats, the remaining leaders were captured and executed in 1523.

Charles extended the Burgundian territory with the annexation of Tournai, Artois, Utrecht, Groningen, and Guelders. The Seventeen Provinces had been unified by Charles's Burgundian ancestors, but nominally were fiefs of either France or the Holy Roman Empire. Charles eventually won the Guelders Wars and united all provinces under his rule, the last one being the Duchy of Guelders. In 1549, Charles issued a Pragmatic Sanction, declaring the Habsburg Netherlands to be a unified entity of which his family would be the heirs.

The entire region of the Low Countries held an essential place in the Empire. For Charles V, they were his home, the region where he was born and spent his childhood. Because of trade and industry and the wealth of the region's cities, the Habsburg Netherlands also represented a significant income for Charles' treasury.

The Burgundian territories were generally loyal to Charles throughout his reign. The important city of Ghent rebelled in 1539 due to heavy tax payments demanded by Charles. The rebellion did not last long, however, as Charles's military response, with reinforcement from Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, 3rd Duke of Alba, was swift and humiliating to the rebels of Ghent.

Spanish kingdoms

In the Castilian Cortes of Valladolid in 1506 and of Madrid in 1510, Charles was sworn as the Prince of Asturias, heir-apparent to his mother Queen Joanna. On the other hand, in 1502, the Aragonese Corts gathered in Zaragoza and pledged an oath to Joanna as heiress-presumptive, but Alonso de Aragón, Archbishop of Zaragoza (an illegitimate son of King Ferdinand), expressed firmly that this oath could not establish jurisprudence, that is to say, modify the right of the succession, except by virtue of a formal agreement between the Corts and the King. So, upon the death of King Ferdinand II of Aragon, on 23 January 1516, Joanna inherited the Crown of Aragon, which consisted of Aragon, Mallorca, Catalonia, Valencia, Naples, Sicily and Sardinia, while Charles became governor general (regent). Nevertheless, the Flemish wished Charles to assume the royal title, and this was supported by Emperor Maximilian I and Pope Leo X. Consequently, after Ferdinand II's funeral on 14 March 1516, Charles I was proclaimed King of Castile and of Aragon jointly with his mother. Finally, the Castilian Regent, Cardinal Jiménez de Cisneros accepted the fait accompli, and the Castilian and Aragonese Cortes paid homage to him as King of Aragon jointly with his mother. Cisneros acceded to Charles's desire to be proclaimed king and imposed his instatement throughout the kingdom. Charles arrived in his new kingdoms in the autumn of 1517. Cisneros came to meet him but fell ill along the way, not without a suspicion of poison, and he died before reaching the King.

Due to the irregularity of Charles assuming the royal title while his mother, the legitimate queen, was alive, the negotiations with the Castilian Cortes in Valladolid (1518) proved difficult. 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 beyond the Quinto Real; and he would respect the rights of his mother, Queen Joanna. The Cortes paid homage to him in Valladolid in February 1518. After this, Charles departed to the Crown of Aragon. He managed to overcome the resistance of the Aragonese Cortes and Catalan Corts, and he was recognized as King of Aragon and Count of Barcelona jointly with his mother, while his mother was kept confined and ruled in name only. The Kingdom of Navarre had been invaded by Ferdinand of Aragon jointly with Castile in 1512, but he pledged a formal oath to respect the kingdom. On Charles's accession to the Spanish thrones, the Parliament of Navarre (Cortes) required him to attend the coronation ceremony (to become Charles IV of Navarre). Still, this demand fell on deaf ears, and the parliament kept piling up grievances.

Italian states

The Crown of Aragon inherited by Charles included the Kingdom of Naples, the Kingdom of Sicily and the Kingdom of Sardinia. Additionally, as Holy Roman Emperor and King of Italy, Charles was the sovereign of several states of northern Italy. The Duchy of Milan, however, was under French control after its victory against Switzerland at the Battle of Marignano in 1515.

Imperial-Papal troops succeeded in re-installing Francesco II Sforza in Milan in 1521, in the context of an alliance between Charles V and Pope Leo X. A Franco-Swiss army was expelled from Lombardy at the Battle of Bicocca in 1522. In 1524, Francis I of France retook the initiative, crossing into Lombardy where Milan, along with several other cities, once again fell to his attack. Pavia alone held out, and on 24 February 1525 (Charles's twenty-fifth birthday), Charles's forces led by Charles de Lannoy captured Francis and crushed his army in the Battle of Pavia.

In 1535, Francesco II Sforza died without heirs, and Charles V annexed the territory as a vacant Imperial state with the help of Massimiliano Stampa, one of the most influential courtiers of the late Duke. Charles successfully held on to all of its Italian territories, though they were invaded again on multiple occasions during the Italian Wars.

In addition, Habsburg trade in the Mediterranean was consistently disrupted by the Ottoman Empire and its vassal Barbary pirates. In 1538, a Holy League consisting of all the Italian states and the Spanish kingdoms was formed to drive the Ottomans back, but it was defeated at the Battle of Preveza. Decisive naval victory eluded Charles; it would not be achieved until after his death, at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571.

Holy Roman Empire

After the death of his paternal grandfather, Maximilian, in 1519, Charles inherited the Habsburg monarchy. He was also the natural candidate of the electors to succeed his grandfather as Holy Roman Emperor. He defeated the candidacies of Frederick III of Saxony, Francis I of France, and Henry VIII of England in the 1519 Imperial election. According to some, Charles became emperor due to the fact that, by paying huge bribes to the electors, he was the highest bidder. He won the crown on 28 June 1519. On 23 October 1520, he was crowned in Germany and some ten years later, on 24 February 1530, he was crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Clement VII in Bologna, the last emperor to receive a papal coronation. Others point out that while the electors were paid, this was not the reason for the outcome, or at most played only a small part. The important factor that swayed the final decision was that Frederick refused the offer, and made a speech in support of Charles on the ground that they needed a strong leader against the Ottomans, Charles had the resources and was a prince of German extraction.

Although even at the beginning of his reign, his position was more powerful than that of any of his predecessors, the decentralised structure of the Empire proved resilient, not least because of the Reformation. It was exactly during this crucial period that Charles V and Ferdinand were too busy with non-German affairs to prevent Imperial Cities in Upper Germany from becoming estranged from Imperial power.

Due to Charles V's difficulties in coordinating between the Austrian, Hungarian fronts and his Mediterranean fronts in the face of the Ottoman threat, as well as in his German, Burgundian and Italian theatres of war against German Protestant Princes and France, the defence of central Europe, as well as many responsibilities involving the management of the Empire, was subcontracted to Ferdinand. Charles V abdicated as Archduke of Austria in 1522, and nine years after that, he had the German princes elect Ferdinand as King of the Romans, who thus became his designated successor as emperor, a move that "had profound implications for state formation in south-eastern Europe". Afterwards, Ferdinand managed to gain control of Bohemia, Croatia, and Hungary, with support from local nobles and his German vassals.

Charles abdicated as emperor in 1556 in favour of his brother Ferdinand; however, due to lengthy debate and bureaucratic procedure, the Imperial Diet did not accept the abdication (and thus make it legally valid) until 24 February 1558. Up to that date, Charles continued to use the title of emperor.

Abdications and death

Division of the Habsburgs

Between 1554 and 1556, Charles V gradually divided the Habsburg empire between a senior Spanish line and an Austrian branch of the House of Habsburg. His abdications all occurred at the Palace of Coudenberg in Brussels. First, he abdicated the thrones of Sicily and Naples, the latter a Papal fief, and the Imperial Duchy of Milan, in favour of his son Philip II of Spain on 25 July 1554. Philip was secretly invested with Milan already in 1540 and again in 1546, but only in 1554 did the Emperor make it public. Upon the abdications of Naples and Sicily, Philip was invested by Pope Julius III with the Kingdom of Naples on 2 October and with the Kingdom of Sicily on 18 November.

The most famous – and only public – abdication took place a year later, on 25 October 1555, when Charles announced to the States General of the Netherlands (reunited in the great hall where he was emancipated forty years before by Emperor Maximilian) his abdication of those territories in favour of his son Philip as well as his intention to step down from all of his positions and retire to a monastery. During the ceremony, the gout-afflicted Emperor Charles V leaned on the shoulder of his advisor William the Silent and, crying, pronounced his resignation speech:

When I was nineteen [...] I undertook to be a candidate for the Imperial crown, not to increase my possessions but rather to engage myself more vigorously in working for the welfare of Germany and my other realms [...] and in the hopes of thereby bringing peace among the Christian peoples and uniting their fighting forces for the defence of the Catholic faith against the Ottomans. [...] I had almost reached my goal when the attack by the French king and some German princes called me once more to arms. Against my enemies, I accomplished what I could, but success in war lies in the hands of God, who gives victory or takes it away, as He pleases. [...] I must, for my part, confess that I have often misled myself, either from youthful inexperience, from the pride of mature years, or from some other weakness of human nature. I nonetheless declare to you that I never knowingly or willingly acted unjustly. [...] If actions of this kind are nevertheless justly laid to my account, I formally assure you now that I did them unknowingly and against my own intention. I therefore beg those present today, whom I have offended in this respect, together with those who are absent, to forgive me.

He concluded the speech by mentioning his voyages: ten to the Low Countries, nine to Germany, seven to Spain, seven to Italy, four to France, two to England, and two to North Africa. His last public words were, "My life has been one long journey."

Retirement, death and burial

In September 1556, Charles left the Low Countries and sailed to Spain, accompanied by his sisters, Mary of Hungary and Eleanor of Austria. He arrived at the Monastery of Yuste of Extremadura in 1557. He continued to correspond widely and kept an interest in the situation of the empire, while suffering from severe gout. He lived alone in a secluded monastery, surrounded by paintings by Titian and with clocks lining every wall, which some historians believe were symbols of his reign and his lack of time. In August 1558, Charles was taken seriously ill, with what was diagnosed in the twenty-first century as malaria.

He died in the early hours of the morning on 21 September 1558, at the age of 58, holding in his hand the cross that his wife Isabella had been holding when she died. Following his death, there were a plethora of commemorations in his empire, including in Mexico and Peru. Some 30,000 masses were arranged for the soul of the Emperor. Some 30,000 gold ducats that he had set aside for the ransom of prisoners, poor virgins, and paupers were distributed. He still owed huge debts from his constant warfare far beyond the funds on hand, which his heirs spent decades paying off.

Charles was originally buried in the chapel of the Monastery of Yuste, but he left a codicil in his last will and testament asking for the establishment of a new religious foundation in which he would be reburied with Isabella. Following his return to Spain in 1559, their son Philip undertook the task of fulfilling his father's wish when he founded the Monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial. After the Monastery's Royal Crypt was completed in 1574, the bodies of Charles and Isabella were relocated and re-interred into a small vault directly underneath the altar of the Royal Chapel, in accordance with Charles's wishes to be buried "half-body under the altar and half-body under the priest's feet" side by side with Isabella.

They remained in the Royal Chapel while the famous Basilica of the Monastery and the Royal tombs were still under construction. In 1654, after the Basilica and Royal tombs were finally completed during the reign of their great-grandson Philip IV of Spain, the remains of Charles and Isabella were moved into the Royal Pantheon of Kings, which lies directly under the Basilica. On one side of the Basilica are bronze effigies of Charles and Isabella, with effigies of their daughter Maria of Austria and Charles's sisters Eleanor of Austria and Maria of Hungary behind them. Adjacent to them on the opposite side of the Basilica are effigies of their son Philip with three of his wives and their ill-fated grandson Carlos, Prince of Asturias.

Administration

Given the vast dominions of the House of Habsburg, Charles was often on the road and needed deputies to govern his realms for the times he was absent from his territories. His first Governor of the Habsburg Netherlands was Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Savoy, succeeded by his sister Mary of Hungary and Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy. His first Regent of Spain was Adrian of Utrecht (succeeded by Isabella of Portugal and Philip II of Spain). For the regency and governorship of the Austrian hereditary lands, Charles named his brother Ferdinand archduke in the Austrian lands under his authority at the Diet of Worms (1521).

Charles agreed to favour the election of Ferdinand as King of the Romans in Germany, which took place in 1531. By virtue of these agreements, Ferdinand became Holy Roman Emperor and obtained hereditary rights over Austria at the abdication of Charles in 1556. Charles de Lannoy, Carafa and Antonio Folc de Cardona y Enriquez were viceroys of the kingdoms of Naples, Sicily and Sardinia, respectively.

Charles V travelled ten times to the Low Countries, nine to Germany, seven to Spain, seven to Italy, four to France, two to England, and two to North Africa. During all his travels, the Emperor left a documentary trail in almost every place he went, allowing historians to surmise that he spent 10,000 days in the Low Countries, 6,500 days in Spain, 3,000 days in Germany, and 1,000 days in Italy. He spent 195 days in France, 99 in North Africa and 44 days in England. For 260 days, his exact location is unrecorded, all of them being days spent at sea travelling between his dominions. As he put it in his last public speech: "my life has been one long journey".

Charles never travelled to his overseas possessions in the Americas, since a transatlantic crossing to a place not central to his political interests at the time was unthinkable.

The New World was an increasingly important part of the balance of power, but it was completely subordinate to European considerations. The Spanish colonial empire took up relatively little of Charles V's time. Its principal function was to provide resources to support his ambitions on the near side of the Atlantic: again and again, it was bullion from the Indies – a fifth of total revenue – which either funded campaigns against the French, Turks, and German princes directly or provided the security against which the Emperor could borrow the great banking Fugger family in Augsburg. For example, of nearly 2 million escudos' worth of treasury, the largest recipient was Germany, followed by the Low Countries. Charles's travels throughout his reign also show his priority quite clearly: he visited Italy on seven occasions, France on four, and England and Africa on two, and spent six long stays in Spain itself, but he travelled to Flanders and Germany on no fewer than nineteen occasions; he never visited the Americas. His imperial status stemmed from the Imperium Romanum, not the global sweep of his lands. In short, the Holy Roman Empire, not the emerging Spanish empire, provided the Imperial context in which the ambitions of Charles V played out.

Europe

Under the organisation and patronage of Maximilian I, Southern Germany had become the leading arms industry region of the 16th century, rivalled only by Northern Italy with the chief centers being Nuremberg, Augsburg, Milan, and Brescia. Charles V continued with the development of mass production and standardization of gun caliber, which greatly affected warfare.

The Helmschmied of Augsburg and the Filippo Negroli of Milan were among the foremost families of armourers of the time. Under Charles V, the Spanish arms industry was significantly expanded, with significant improvements of muskets.

The Landsknechte, originally recruited and organised by Maximilian and Georg von Frundsberg, formed the bulk of Charles V's army. They surpassed the Swiss mercenaries in quality and quantity as the "best and most easily available mercenaries in Europe". They were considered best fighting troops in the first half of the 16th century for their brutal and ruthless efficiency, with a French saying going "a Landsknecht thrown out heaven couldn't get in hell because he would frighten the devil".

Terrence McIntosh notes that Charles V, like his grandfather, "relied heavily on German military manpower, fearsome landsknechts, as well as redoubtable Swiss-German mercenaries. Maximilian invaded northern Italy in 1496, 1508, and repeatedly between 1509 and 1516. Soon after the Imperial election in 1519, Charles V was waging war there. His overwhelmingly German troops won the Battle of Pavia and captured the French king in 1525; two years later, they sacked the city of Rome, murdering between six and twelve thousand residents and pillaging for eight months."

His expansionist and aggressive policy, in combination with the brutal behaviours of the Landsknechte, which incidentally happened right at the formation of the early modern German nation, left an indelible mark on his neighbours' impression of the German polity, despite the fact that, in the long term, it was in general not belligerent.

Charles V also favoured German heavy cavalry, although costly. Many cavalrymen and noblemen fighting for Charles V were of Burgundian extraction, often part of the Order of the Golden Fleece. Italian condottieri were also recruited.

Americas

From his maternal grandmother, Isabella I of Castile, who had funded Christopher Columbus's first voyage in 1492, Charles inherited Castile's overseas territories in the Americas. Spanish colonization of the Americas began in 1493, but these permanent settlements in the Caribbean and Spanish Main were marginal to Charles's European empire and not the focus of his attention. Through the Treaty of Tordesillas (1494), Spain and Portugal had agreed on a division of overseas territories, so that with the exception of Brazil, which Portugal could claim, Charles could claim the rest of the New World.

The realm of his known possessions expanded with the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire (1519–1521) under conquistador Hernán Cortés and by Magellan's circumnavigation of the globe in 1522. These successes convinced Charles of his divine mission to become the leader of Christendom, which still perceived a significant threat from Islam. The conquest of central Mexico, bringing a high indigenous civilisation under Spanish rule, compelled Charles to grapple with creating structures of institutional rule in the Americas. Charles had begun creating councils to oversee aspects of his realms, first reorganising the existing Council of Castile, established by the Catholic Monarchs. Indicating the Americas' eventual importance, he founded the Council of the Indies in 1524 to deal with the complexities of Castile's overseas possessions.

Unlike his European possessions, which were not consolidated geographically but were all relatively near each other, ruling the Americas required taking into account the Atlantic Ocean. Prior to the creation of the viceroyalties, he established a high court audiencia to administer justice. He formalised the conversion of indigenous populations to Christianity, the so-called "spiritual conquest", by sending Franciscan, Dominican, and Augustinian friars starting in the mid-1520s. With the discovery of large deposits of silver in northern Mexico in the 1540s and in 1545 in Peru at Potosí, Charles's advisors urged regulation of mining to ensure that bullion was directed to crown coffers.

Ad hoc administrative solutions of the early conquest period gave way to Charles's establishment of the Viceroyalty of New Spain in Mexico City (1535), the Spanish capital founded on the ruins of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan. After the Spanish conquest of the Inca Empire in the 1530s, Charles established the Viceroyalty of Peru in the newly founded Spanish capital of Lima (1544). As it became clear that establishing royal control was important, Charles sought to undermine the growing power of the group of conquistadors in Mexico and Peru, awarded personal grants of indigenous labour in perpetuity, by issuing the New Laws of 1542, ending grant holders' rights in perpetuity.

Dynasty and private life

Education

His father's sister, Margaret, was the mother figure in his life. She had a huge influence on Charles. A canny, learned, and artistic woman, with a court that included artists Bernard van Orley and Albrecht Dürer and master tapestry-maker Pieter van Aelst, she taught her nephew "above all that a court could be a salon." She saw to his education, securing as his tutor Adrian of Utrecht, a member of the Brethren of the Common Life, which advocated simplicity and promoted a cult of indigence and deprivation. Adrian later became Pope Adrian VI. The Brethren had many important members, including Thomas à Kempis. A third major influence on Charles during his early years was William de Croÿ, Sieur de Chièves, who became his "governor and grand chamberlain", giving Charles a chivalrous education. He was a tough taskmaster, and when questioned about it, he said, "Cousin, I am the defender and guardian of his youth. I do not want him to be incapable because he has not understood affairs nor been trained to work."

Languages

Charles spoke several languages from political necessity, though he does not seem to have been a very natural linguist. He was raised speaking French, which remained his most natural language, and is used in most surviving letters handwritten by him. He learned some Dutch, being given lessons from the age of thirteen. He later added an acceptable Castilian Spanish, which he was required to learn by the Castilian Cortes Generales. He could also speak some Basque, acquired by the influence of the Basque secretaries serving in the royal court. He gained a decent command of German following the Imperial election, though he never spoke it as well as French.

By 1532, Charles was proficient in Portuguese and spoke Latin. A witticism sometimes attributed to Charles is: "I speak Spanish/Latin (depending on the source) to God, Italian to women, French to men and German to my horse." A variant of the quote is attributed to him by Jonathan Swift in his 1726 Gulliver's Travels, but there are no contemporary accounts referencing the quotation, which has many other variants and it is often attributed instead to Frederick the Great.

Appearance and health

Charles suffered from an enlarged lower jaw (mandibular prognathism), a congenital deformity that became considerably worse in later Habsburg generations, giving rise to the term Habsburg jaw. This deformity may have been caused by the family's long history of repeated intermarriages between close family members, as commonly practised in royal families of that era to maintain dynastic control of territory.

Some advisors considered him physically weak and used that as a reason for him to delay his marriage to Mary Tudor. A diplomat in Charles's court described him as "not much of a womaniser" and did not have out of wedlock children during his marriage. He suffered from fainting spells, which might have been epilepsy. He was seriously afflicted with gout, presumably caused by a diet consisting mainly of red meat.

As he aged, his gout progressed from painful to crippling. In his retirement, he was carried around the Monastery of Yuste in a sedan chair. A ramp was specially constructed to allow him easy access to his rooms.

Marriage

On 21 December 1507, Charles was betrothed to 11-year-old Mary Tudor, Queen of France, the daughter of King Henry VII of England and younger sister to the future King Henry VIII of England, who was to take the throne in two years. The engagement was called off in 1513, on the advice of Cardinal Thomas Wolsey. Mary was instead married to King Louis XII of France in 1514.

After his ascension to the Spanish thrones of Castile and Aragon, negotiations for Charles's marriage began shortly after his arrival in Castile, with the Castilian nobles expressing their wishes for him to marry his first cousin Isabella of Portugal, the daughter of King Manuel I of Portugal and Charles's aunt Maria of Aragon. The nobles desired Charles's marriage to a princess of Castilian blood, and a marriage to Isabella would have secured an alliance between Castile and Portugal. The 18-year-old King was in no hurry to marry and ignored the nobles' advice, exploring other marriage options. Instead of marrying Isabella, he sent his sister Eleanor to marry Isabella's widowed father, King Manuel, in 1518.

In 1521, on the advice of his Flemish counsellors, especially William de Croÿ, Charles became engaged to his other first cousin, Mary, daughter of his aunt, Catherine of Aragon, and King Henry VIII, in order to secure an alliance with England. However, this engagement was very problematic because Mary was only six years old at the time, sixteen years Charles's junior, which meant that he would have to wait for her to be old enough to marry.

By 1525, Charles could not wait any longer to marry and have legitimate children as heirs. He had abandoned the idea of an English alliance, cancelled his engagement to Mary and decided to marry Isabella and form an alliance with Portugal. He wrote to Isabella's brother, King John III of Portugal, making a double marriage contract – Charles would marry Isabella and John would marry Charles's youngest sister, Catherine.

A marriage to Isabella was more beneficial for Charles, as she was closer to him in age, was fluent in Spanish and provided him with a very handsome dowry of 900,000 doblas de oro castellanas, which would help to solve the financial problems brought on by the Italian Wars. The marriage brought him the additional titles as "monarch of the Canaries [Canary Islands] and of the [Portuguese] Indies, the isles of mainland, and the Ocean Sea." Marrying Isabella would allow Charles to have her serve as regent in Spain whenever he left. Ultimately, this union would result in their son Philip having the strongest claim to the Portuguese throne when the House of Aviz died out in 1580, resulting in the Iberian Union.

Issue

Charles and Isabella had seven legitimate children, but only three of them survived to adulthood. Charles also had natural children before he married and after he was widowed:

Due to Philip II being a grandson of Manuel I of Portugal through his mother, he was in the line of succession to the throne of Portugal, and claimed it after his uncle's death, Henry, the Cardinal-King, in 1580, establishing the personal union between Spain and Portugal.

Charles also had six children out of wedlock:

Infanta Isabella of Castile (20 August 1518 – 1537), perhaps daughter of Charles's maternal step-grandmother, Germaine of Foix, but strongly disputed by biographer Geoffrey Parker. Isabella died at the age of 19, never married, and had no issue.

Margaret of Austria (1522–1586), daughter of Johanna van der Gheynst, a servant of Charles I de Lalaing, Seigneur de Montigny, daughter of Gilles Johann van der Gheynst and wife Johanna van der Caye van Cocamby. Married firstly with Alessandro de' Medici, Duke of Florence, and secondly with Ottavio Farnese, Duke of Parma.

Joanna of Austria (1522–1530), daughter of Catalina de Rebolledo (or de Xériga), a lady-in-waiting of Queen Joanna I of Castile or attached to the household of Henry of Nassau. She was brought up in an Augustinian convent in Madrigal de las Altas Torres.

Tadea of Austria (1523 – c. 1562), daughter of Orsolina della Penna. Married to Sinibaldo di Copeschi.

Cornelis de Hooghe (1541–1583), Dutch cartographer

John of Austria (1547–1578), victor of the Battle of Lepanto, son of Barbara Blomberg.

Titles and coat of arms

Charles V styled himself as Holy Roman Emperor after his election, according to a Papal dispensation conferred to the Habsburg family by Pope Julius II in 1508 and confirmed in 1519 to the prince-electors by the legates of Pope Leo X. Although Papal coronation was no longer necessary to confirm the Imperial title, Charles V was crowned in the city of Bologna by Pope Clement VII in the medieval fashion.

Charles V accumulated a large number of titles due to his vast inheritance of Burgundian, Spanish, and Austrian realms. Following the Pacts of Worms (21 April 1521) and Brussels (7 February 1522), he secretly gave the Austrian lands to his younger brother Ferdinand and elevated him to the status of archduke. Nevertheless, according to the agreements, Charles continued to style himself as archduke of Austria and maintained that Ferdinand acted as his vassal and vicar. The pacts of 1521–1522 imposed restrictions on the governorship and regency of Ferdinand. For example, all of Ferdinand's letters to Charles V were signed "your obedient brother and servant". Nonetheless, the same agreements promised Ferdinand the designation as future emperor and the transfer of hereditary rights over Austria at the imperial succession.

Following the death of Louis II, King of Hungary and Bohemia, at the Battle of Mohacs in 1526, Charles V favoured the election of Ferdinand as king of Hungary (and Croatia) and Bohemia. Despite this, Charles also styled himself as king of Hungary and Bohemia and retained this titular use in official acts (such as his testament) as in the case of the Austrian lands. As a consequence, cartographers and historians have described those kingdoms both as realms of Charles V and as possessions of Ferdinand, not without confusion. Others, such as the Venetian envoys, reported that the states of Ferdinand were "all held in common with the Emperor".

Therefore, although he had agreed on the future division of the dynasty between Ferdinand and Philip II of Spain, during his own reign, Charles V conceived the existence of a single "House of Austria" of which he was the sole head. In the abdications of 1554–1556, Charles left his personal possessions to Philip II and the Imperial title to Ferdinand. The titles of king of Hungary, Croatia, etc., were also nominally left to the Spanish line (in particular to Carlos, Prince of Asturias and son of Philip II). However, Charles's Imperial abdication marked the beginning of Ferdinand's suo jure rule in Austria and his other lands: despite the claims of Philip and his descendants, Hungary and Bohemia were left under the nominal and substantial rule of Ferdinand and his successors. Formal disputes between the two lines over Hungary and Bohemia were to be solved with the Onate treaty of 1617.

Historiography, commemoration, and popular culture

Charles V has traditionally attracted considerable scholarly attention. There are differences among historians regarding his character, his rule and achievements (or failures) in the countries in his personal empire, as well as various social movements and wider problems associated with his reign. Historically seen as a great ruler by some or a tragic failure of a politician by others, he is generally seen by modern historians as both a capable politician and a brave and effective military leader, although his political vision and financial management tend to be questioned. References to Charles in popular culture include a large number of legends and folk tales; literary renderings of historical events connected to his life and romantic adventures, his relationship to Flanders, and his abdication; and products marketed in his name.

Charles V, as a ruler, has been commemorated over time in many parts of Europe. An imperial resolution of Franz Joseph I of Austria, dated 28 February 1863, included Charles V in the list of the "most famous Austrian rulers and generals worthy of everlasting emulation", and honoured him with a life-size statue, made by the Bohemian sculptor Emanuel Max, located at the Museum of Military History, Vienna. The 400th anniversary of his death, celebrated in 1958 in Francoist Spain, brought together the local National Catholic intelligentsia and a number of European (Catholic) conservative figures, underpinning an imperial nostalgia for Charles V's Europe and the Universitas Christiana, also propelling a peculiar brand of europeanism. In 2000, celebrations for the 500th anniversary of Charles's birth took place in Belgium.

Public monuments

Unusually among major European monarchs, Charles V discouraged monumental depictions of himself during his lifetime.

The Charles V Monument in Palermo was erected in 1631 and depicts him triumphant following the Conquest of Tunis.

Among other posthumous depictions, there are statues of Charles on the façade of the Ghent City Hall and the Royal Palace of Caserta.

A statue of Charles, donated by the city of Toledo, was erected in 1966 in the Prinsenhof in Ghent where he was born.

The Plaza del Emperador Carlos V is a square in the city of Madrid that is named after Charles V.

A bust of Charles V is located at the Walhalla (memorial) in Germany.

Literature

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. Conversely, in Charles De Coster's masterpiece Thyl Ulenspiegel (1867), after his death, Charles V is consigned to Hell as punishment for the acts of the Inquisition under his rule, his punishment being that he would feel the pain of anyone tortured by the Inquisition. De Coster's book also mentions the story of the spectacles in the coat of arms of Oudenaarde, the one about a paysant of Berchem in Het geuzenboek (1979) by Louis Paul Boon, while 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 as "The Spaniard";

Charles V is a notable character in Simone de Beauvoir's All Men Are Mortal.

"Cervantes partly modelled the wandering Don Quixote on Charles V."

Plays

Charles V appears as a character in the play Doctor Faustus by the Elizabethan playwright Christopher Marlowe. In Act 4, Scene 1 of the A Text, Faustus attends Court by the Emperor's request and with the assistance of Mephistopheles, conjures up spirits representing Alexander the Great and his paramour as a demonstration of his magical powers.

Opera

Ernst Krenek's opera Karl V (opus 73, 1930) examines the title character's career via flashbacks;

In the third act of Giuseppe Verdi's opera Ernani, the election of Charles as Holy Roman Emperor is presented. Charles (Don Carlo in the opera) prays before the tomb of Charlemagne. With the announcement that he has been elected as Carlo Quinto, he declares an amnesty, including the eponymous bandit Ernani, who had followed him there to murder him as a rival for the love of Elvira. The opera, based on the Victor Hugo play Hernani, portrays Charles as a callous and cynical adventurer whose character is transformed by the election into a responsible and clement ruler;

In another Verdi opera, Don Carlo, the final scene implies that it is Charles V, now living the last years of his life as a hermit, who rescues his grandson, Don Carlo, from his father Philip II of Spain and the Inquisition, by taking Carlo with him to his hermitage at the monastery in Yuste.

Television and film

Charles V is portrayed by Hans Lefebre and is featured prominently in the 1953 film Martin Luther, covering Luther's years from 1505 to 1530;

Charles V is portrayed by Torben Liebrecht and is figured prominently in the 2003 film Luther covering the life of Martin Luther up until the Diet of Augsburg;

Charles V is portrayed by Sebastian Armesto in one episode of the Showtime series The Tudors;

Charles V is the main subject of the TVE series Carlos, Rey Emperador and is portrayed by Álvaro Cervantes;

Charles V is portrayed by Sam John in two episodes of the STARZ series The Spanish Princess;

Charles V is played by Adrien Brody in the upcoming movie Emperor;

Charles V is portrayed by Rupert Everett in The Serpent Queen.