He suppressed a major rebellion of Spanish colonists in Peru in the 1540s.Ĭrowned King in Germany, Charles sided with Pope Leo X and declared Martin Luther an outlaw at the Diet of Worms (1521). In order to consolidate power early in his reign, Charles overcame two insurrections in Spain (the Comuneros' Revolt and Brotherhoods' Revolt) and two German rebellions (the Knights' Revolt and Great Peasants' Revolt). During his reign his realms expanded by the Spanish conquest of the Aztec and Inca empires by the Spanish conquistadores Hernán Cortés and Francisco Pizarro, as well as the establishment of Klein-Venedig by the German Welser family in search of the legendary El Dorado. Charles V borrowed money from German and Italian bankers and, in order to repay such loans, he relied on the proto-capitalist economy of the Low Countries and on the flow of precious metal, especially silver, from Mexico and Peru to Spain, which caused widespread inflation. The imperial wars were fought by German Landsknechte, Spanish tercios, Burgundian knights, and Italian condottieri. Although his empire came to him peacefully as inheritances from strategic marriages, he spent most of his life waging war, exhausting his own royal revenues and leaving debts to his successors in his attempt to defend the integrity of the Holy Roman Empire from the Protestant Reformation, the expansion of the Muslim realms of the Ottoman Empire, and in a series of wars with France. With no fixed capital city, he made 40 journeys through the different entities he ruled he spent a quarter of his reign travelling within his realms. Ĭharles V revitalized the medieval concept of universal monarchy. He adopted the Imperial name of Charles V as his main title, and styled himself as a new Charlemagne. At the death of his paternal grandfather Maximilian in 1519, he inherited Austria and was elected to succeed him as Holy Roman Emperor. Spain's possessions at his accession also included the Castilian colonies of the West Indies and the Spanish Main as well as the Aragonese kingdoms of Naples, Sicily and Sardinia. In 1516, inheriting the dynastic union formed by his maternal grandparents Isabella I and Ferdinand II, he became king of Spain as co-monarch of the Spanish kingdoms with his mother, who was deemed incapable of ruling due to mental illness. After the death of his father Philip in 1506, he inherited the Burgundian states, originally held by his paternal grandmother Mary. The heir of his four grandparents, Charles inherited all his family dominions at a young age. Ĭharles was born in Flanders to Habsburg prince Philip the Handsome, the son of Maximilian I of Habsburg 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. The personal union of the European and American territories of Charles V was the first collection of realms labelled " the empire on which the sun never sets". In the Americas, he oversaw both the continuation of the long-lasting Spanish colonization as well as a short-lived German colonization. His dominions in Europe included the Holy Roman Empire, extending from Germany to northern Italy with direct rule over the Austrian hereditary lands and the Burgundian Low Countries, and Spain with its possessions of the southern Italian kingdoms of Naples, Sicily and Sardinia. He was heir to and then head of the rising House of Habsburg during the first half of the 16th century. Charles V (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.
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