Holy Roman Emperor:

Charles V

Main Life Accomplishments:

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.

 

During Charles’s rule the Spanish Empire was tremendously expanded in the New World. In Italy, Spanish power had become paramount. Even England seemed about to fall to Spain through Philip’s marriage, and Charles’s own marriage with Isabella of Portugal brought the Portuguese crown to Philip in 1580. Yet Charles failed in his purpose to return the Protestants to the Roman Catholic Church, and the human and financial cost of constant warfare drained Spanish resources; moreover, Charles’s hopes for a universal empire were thwarted by the political realities of Western Europe. His integrity, strength of will, and sense of duty were conspicuous. His appearance has been made familiar by two portraits by Titian.

 

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.

 

Basics:

Born: February 24 1500 in Ghent, Netherlands

Died: September 21 1558 (58 years old) at San Jerónimo de Yuste, Spain

Nationality: Belgian

Religion: Lutheran Religion

Fields: Politics, Military

Main Accomplishments: 

 

Chronology of Life Events:

Feb 24 1500 

Birth of Charles V

 

Mar 10 1526

Charles married his first cousin Isabella of Portugal, sister of John III of Portugal

 

1506

Charles inherited his father’s Burgundian territories

 

1549

Charles issued a Pragmatic Sanction, declaring the Low Countries to be a unified entity of which his family would be the heirs.

 

May 30 1516

death of his grandfather Ferdinand II

 

1517

Charles arrived in his new kingdoms

 

1555

Death of his mother

 

1550

Charles convened a conference at Valladolid in order to consider the morality of the force used against the indigenous populations of Spanish America

 

1519
He inherited the Habsburg lands in Austria

 

1521 

He was crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Clement VII in Bologna, the last Emperor to receive a papal coronation.

 

1530

The first war with Charles's great nemesis Francis I of France

 

1535

Charles won an important victory at Tunis

 

1536

Francis I of France allied himself with Suleiman against Charles

1542

He again allied himself with the Ottomans

 

1543

Charles allied himself with Henry VIII and forced Francis to sign the Truce of Crepy-en-Laonnois

 

1544

He called Martin Luther to the Diet of Worms

 

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

 

1546

He also attacked the Schmalkaldic League

 

1548

He created a doctrinal compromise that he felt Catholics and Protestants alike might share

 

1556

Charles abdicated his various titles, giving his personal empire to his son, Philip II of Spain, and the Holy Empire to his brother, Ferdinand

 

Sep 21 1558 

Death of Charles V

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 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 initially spoke French and Flemish, later adding Spanish (which was required by the Castilian Cortes as a condition for becoming king of Castile) and some German. 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 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.

 

Wife Background:

 

Isabella was the second child and eldest daughter of Manuel I of Portugal and his second wife, Infanta Maria of Castile and Aragon. She was named after her maternal grandmother, Isabella I of Castile and her aunt Isabella, Princess of Asturias, who had been her father's first wife.

 

Through her father, she was a granddaughter of Infante Ferdinand, Duke of Viseu (the second son of king Edward of Portugal and brother of Afonso V of Portugal) and Infanta Beatrice, the daughter of John, Duke of Aveiro (brother of king Edward). Through her mother she was a granddaughter of Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon.

 

Isabella was second-in-line to the throne until the birth of her brother Louis in 1505. However, as the oldest daughter of Manuel I of Portugal, she was a rather attractive party. She married her first cousin, Charles, the son of Joan I of Spain and Philip of Habsburg, Duke of Burgundy and the heir to the crowns of Spain, Burgundy and the Holy Roman Empire.

 

Father Background:

 

Philip was born in Bruges, then in the County of Flanders (today in Belgium) and was named after his great-grandfather, Philip the Good. In 1482, upon the death of his mother Mary of Burgundy, daughter of Charles the Bold, he succeeded to her Burgundian possessions under the guardianship of his father. A period of turmoil ensued which witnessed sporadic hostilities between, principally, the large towns of Flanders (especially Ghent and Bruges) and the supporters of Maximilian. During this interregnum, the young Philip became caught up in events and was even briefly sequestered in Bruges as part of the larger Flemish campaign to support their claims of greater autonomy, which they had wrested from Mary of Burgundy in an agreement known as the Blijde Inkomst or Joyous Entry of 1477. By the early 1490s, the turmoil of the interregnum gave way to an uneasy stand-off, with neither French support for the cities of the Franc (Flanders), nor Imperial support from Maximilian's father Frederick III proving decisive. Both sides came to terms in the Peace of Senlis in 1493, which smoothed over the internal power struggle by agreeing to make the 15-year old Philip prince in the following year.

 

Mother Background:

Her birth caused a scandal in the Castilian court. Her mother was Joana, princess of Portugal, the consort queen of king Henry IV of Castile. The king had no other children from this or the previous marriages and rumour said he was impotent. Because of this and the fact that Joana of Portugal was having a notorious affair with Beltrán de La Cueva, a Castilian noble, Juana was never considered legitimate. Moreover, she was nicknamed the Beltraneja (a mocking reference to her assumed real father) from the cradle. Her mother was banished to Bishop Fonseca's castle where she fell in love with Fonseca's nephew and became pregnant. Henry divorced her.

Legitimate or not, Joanna remained the only child that could be remotely attributed to Henry IV of Castile. He even made the nobles of Castile swear alliance to her and promise that they would support her as queen. After a few unsettled arrangements, that included French and Burgundian princes, Joanna was promised in marriage to her uncle, King Afonso V of Portugal, who swore to defend her (and his own) rights to the crown of Castile. But when Henry died in 1474, nobody took Juana's cause seriously and the crown went to Isabella I of Castile, her aunt, initiating a four-year War of the Castilian Succession.

 When she was young, her relatives tried to marry her to the king of England (Henry VII or Henry VIII), the French king (Louis XII or Francois I) or with the Polish king (Sigismund I), but they could not, so they had to lower their intentions, finally marrying her to Portugal, where firstly her nephew the crown prince was the candidate but finally the king, Manuel I of Portugal. They married July 16, 1518. They had two children, the infante Carlos (who died as a child, born February 18, 1520) and the infanta Maria (born June 8, 1521, and who was later one of the richest princesses of Europe). She became a widow on December 13, 1521, when Manuel died of the plague.

Some time later as a widow, by the treaty called "La Paz de las Damas" (The Ladies' Peace) she was married to Francis I of France on July 4, 1530. They had no children.As the French queen she did not have any political power; however, she was used as a contact between France and the Holy Roman Empire.

 

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