Charles of Habsburg or Charles V, born February 25, 1500 in Ghent in Belgium and died September 25, 1558 at the monastery of Yuste in Spain, was Emperor of the Holy Germanic Empire (1519-1555) under the name of Charles V of Germany, King of Spain and Spanish America as Charles I of Spain (or Carlos I), King of Sicily as Charles IV (1516-1558) and Duke of Brabant as Charles II of Brabant (1515-1558).
Charles V is the product of a series of alliances between many reigning families of Europe, which puts him at the head of the largest territorial entity in Europe by simple inheritance; he is the eldest son of Philip I the Handsome, Archduke of Austria and Queen of Spain Joan I of Spain, known as La Folle. His maternal grandparents Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile (known as the Catholic Monarchs) had united Spain by their marriage; he is the grandson by his father of the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I of Habsburg, whom he succeeded, and of the Duchess Marie de Bourgogne (heiress of the powerful Duke of Burgundy Charles the Bold) from whom he inherited the Burgundian Netherlands (current Benelux) and Franche-Comté.
The last Germanic emperor to nurture the medieval dream of universal monarchy, Charles V saw his ambition for European unity shattered by the long resistance to Habsburg hegemony, opposed by the kings of France François Ier and Henri II, but also by the irremediable religious tear caused by the Protestant Reformation from 1517. Discouraged, he abdicated his various crowns (1555-1556) and retired to the convent. The too disparate set of his possessions, which obliged him throughout his reign to exhausting journeys, was henceforth managed separately by the Habsburgs of Spain and the Habsburgs
Until 1517, he was raised in the Burgundian Netherlands where he was governed by Guillaume de Croÿ, lord of Chièvre and was educated by Adrian of Utrecht, the future Pope Adrian VI. In 1506, on the death of his father Philip I of Habsburg, King of Castile, Charles V inherited the Burgundian Netherlands (more or less the present-day Benelux) and Franche-Comté.
On the death of his maternal grandfather Ferdinand II of Aragon, in 1516, Charles became king of Castile, jointly with his mother and also inherited Aragon, Upper Navarre, Granada, Naples, Sicily, Sardinia , the Balearic Islands, Malta, and possessions of Spain in America.
In 1519, on the death of his grandfather, Maximilian I of the Holy Roman Empire, he inherited the Habsburg territories in Austria and was elected Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. He had had as a competitor the king of France François Ier. The two men were often rivals.
During his reign, Charles waged many wars against France. The first took place in northern Italy in 1521. In 1527, his troops sacked Rome and had Pope Clement VII imprisoned for a few months, which caused him some embarrassment but prevented the pope from annulling the marriage of Henry VIII of England and his aunt Catherine of Aragon who could not give an heir to England, which was the origin of the declaration of independence of the Anglican Church by Henry VIII of England in 1531
As Holy Roman Emperor, he invited Martin Luther, the originator of Catholic Protestantism, to the Diet of Worms in 1521, guaranteeing him freedom if he presented himself. That same year he condemned Martin Luther and his followers, but preoccupied with other issues he was unable to contain the emergence of Protestantism.
In 1525, during a war led by Henry VIII of England, Charles captured Francis I King of France at the Battle of Pavia, took him prisoner for a year in Madrid, Spain awaiting the payment of a ransom by France and the signing of the Treaty of Madrid in 1526 by which France renounced its claim to the County of Artois, the Duchy of Burgundy and the County of Flanders and to renounce its claims to northern Italy (in particular the Duchy of Milano). However, when he was released, François 1er repudiated the treaty:from there a new war (1526), which signaled the catch of Rome by the constable Charles III of Bourbon in 1527, and the forwarding of Lautrec in the kingdom of Naples in 1528.
In 1529, the Treaty of Cambrai, signed with France, put an end to this war, and the Peace of Barcelona, signed with Pope Clement VII, confirmed Charles V as Germanic Emperor and allowed him to keep the lands he had conquered in Italy.
For many years Charles fought against the Ottoman Empire and its sultan, Suleiman the Magnificent, which along the coasts of the Mediterranean threatened Habsburg possessions and peace in Western Europe.
Charles-Quint also made several expeditions to Africa:in 1535, Charles won an important battle in Tunis against Khayr ad-Din Barbarossa.
In 1536, Charles-Quint took up arms again, to help his ally the Duke of Savoy and Prince of Piedmont Charles III of Savoy attacked by François Ier who had allied himself with Soliman, came to besiege Marseille. Charles-Quint was forced to retire and concluded a 10-year truce in Nice in 1538.
While in 1538 Francis I was persuaded to sign a peace treaty, in 1542 he again allied himself with the Ottomans. In 1539, he obtained permission from the overconfident Francis I to cross France to put down the revolt of the Ghent people in Flanders and was received in Paris with magnificence. In 1541, he fails before Algiers. (Attack on Algiers by Charles V).
He nevertheless started the war with France again in 1542. Charles allied himself with Henry VIII of England, but his army was defeated at Cérisoles, which brought about the Truce of Crépy-en-Laonnois in 1544. Later , given the enormous costs generated by the wars, in order to have a little respite, Charles signed a humiliating treaty with the Ottomans.
In 1545, the opening of the Council of Trent marked the beginning of the Counter-Reformation and Charles won over some princes of the Holy Empire to the Catholic cause. In Germany, Charles made every effort to oppose the Reformation, he also attacked the league of Smalkade in 1546 and defeated John Frederick of Saxony and imprisoned Philip I of Hesse in 1547. He defeated at the Battle of Muehlberg the Confederate Protestants in 1547; at the Diet of Augsburg in 1547 he created a doctrinal compromise, which he hoped would suit both Catholics and Protestants. In 1548 he made the Seventeen Provinces of the Netherlands an entity separate from the Empire and from France.
He was nevertheless forced to sign the Peace of Passau in 1552, which guaranteed the Reformed freedom of conscience. In the same year, he again turned his arms against France, but he uselessly besieged Metz, which François de Guise defended (1552).
In 1556, weakened by old age and illness, embittered by setbacks, Charles V abdicated from his various functions. Already for several months, he had transmitted his non-Austrian possessions, including the Duchy of Burgundy-Franche Comté to his son Philip II of Spain, while the Austrian possessions and the dignity of Holy Roman Emperor went to his younger brother Ferdinand I of Habsburg after election of a new Emperor.
Suffering from a particularly disabling gout[2], and very marked by the disappearance in 1555 of his mother Jeanne Ière of Spain called Jeanne la Folle (despite their lack of emotional closeness), he retired in 1556 to his residential monastery palace. de Yuste near Madrid in Spain where he died two years later in 1558 at the age of 58, from an epidemic of malaria (endemic disease in the region until 1960). He rests in the Pantheon of the Kings of Spain 40km from Madrid in the Royal Site of Saint-Laurent-de-l'Escurial built by his son Philip II of Spain for the occasion and for all his descendants.
Marriage and descendants
He married the Infanta Isabella of Portugal (1503-1539), the sister of King John III of Portugal, himself married shortly before with Catherine of Austria, younger sister of Charles V, to consolidate his alliance with Spain and the Holy Roman Empire. They had one son:Philip II of Spain.