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A royal route through three Spanish regions. The idea is to revive an important chapter in the history of Spain in the 16th century: The last trip that Charles I of Spain and V of Germany made before dying. The route covers approximately 550 kilometres, from the port of Laredo (Cantabria), in northern Spain, to the Monastery of Yuste (Extremadura).
In the person of Charles, the Habsburgs attained the status of a Great Power for the first time. Extending over several continents, his dominions were referred to by contemporaries as the empire ‘on which the sun never set’. The basis of his power was Spain: uniting in his person for the first time the crowns of Castile, Navarra and Aragón ...
Charles finally laid down his office in 1556, abdicating from the Spanish throne in favour of his son Philip and being succeeded as Holy Roman Emperor by his brother Ferdinand. Charles V was one of the most important European rulers of the early modern period. He entertained high ambitions, inherited massive territories, and had access to huge ...
- A Teen-Age Ruler
- A Young King, A Growing Empire
- Spain at War with France
- Emperor Confronts Reformer
- Hailed Hero of Christendom
- Patron and Retiree
- Conquistadors Expand Spanish Empire
- Charles's Legacy
- For More Information
Charles was born in Ghent, Netherlands, in 1500 to Philip I (the Handsome) (1478–1506), archduke of Austria,and Joanna (called the Mad; 1479–1555) of Castile—a province of Spain and seat of the empire. Charles was the heir to a glittering collection of European titles and lands. His maternal grandparents were King Ferdinand II (1452–1516; ruled 146...
When his other grandfather, Maximilian, died in 1519, Charles bid for the vacant throne of the Holy RomanEmpire, which his Habsburg ancestors had ruled for centuries. Although Francis I of France and Henry VIII of England were also vying for the position, Charles was able to count on vast sums in bribe money. A loan of 850,000 florins, or European ...
Charles's other problem was the Spanish war with France in Italy. Called the Italian Wars (1494–1559), this conflict involved a dispute between France and Spain over territory in Italy. Spain and France had a long history of warring with one another, most recently over the rich and divided Italian principalities. An early key battle came in 1499, w...
When Holy Roman Emperor Charles V was only seventeen, an obscure German monk named Martin Luther presented his Ninety-Five Theses at a Catholic church in Wittenberg, Germany. In a now-famous attack, Luther listed his grievances with Roman Catholicism and initiated the Protestant Reformation in Europe. Among other issues, Luther attacked the church ...
With their hostilities behind them, Clement VII officially crowned Charles as Holy Roman Emperor at Bologna, Italy, in 1530. Negotiations continued between the emperor and those of his subjects who had embraced the Protestant faith, but no headway was made. In 1535 Charles became the hero of all Christendom when he triumphantly captured a Turkish s...
Throughout his reign Charles was a great lover of the arts, especially music. He ruled at the height of the Renaissance, a cultural revolution that began in Italy in the mid-1300s. The Renaissance was initiated by scholars called humanists who promoted the human-centered values of ancient Greece and Rome. Humanist ideals were soon influencing the a...
As Charles was expanding his empire in Europe, Spanish explorers were extending his reach into the New World (the European term for the Americas). Spanish conquest had begun in 1492, during the reign of the Catholic monarchs—and Charles's grandparents—King Ferdinand II of Castile and Queen Isabella I of Aragon. Ferdinand and Isabella commissioned t...
Although some scholars have pointed to the events of his last years as signs of failure on Charles's part, such a position is hardly justifiable. He ruled vast and widespread territories for forty years, adding immensely to his possessions by unparalleled successes in the New World. He kept Spain at the pinnacle of world power, a position it did no...
Books
McGuigan, Dorothy Gies. The Habsburgs.Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966. Rady, Martyn. The Emperor Charles V. New York: Longman, 1988. Young Charles V, 1500–1531. Alain Saint-Saëns, editor. New Orleans: University Press of the South, 2000.
Web Sites
"Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor." The Columbia Encyclopedia. [Online] Available http://www.bartleby.com/65/ch/Charles5HRE.html, April 5, 2002.
CHARLES V, HOLY ROMAN EMPEROR. Reigned 1519 to 1558; b. Ghent, Flanders, Feb. 24, 1500; d. San Jer ó nimo de Yuste, Province of Estremadura, Spain, Sept. 21, 1558. As the son of Philip the Handsome, Duke of Burgundy, and Joanna, third child of Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile, he was heir presumptive to an empire vaster than Charlemagne's, and over which the "sun never set."
Feb 15, 2018 · And indeed, so much important territory came under the rule of one man through carefully planned dynastic marriages. The marriage of Emperor Charles V’s parents, the Habsburg Duke Philip of Burgundy and the Spanish Princess Juana of Castile, was particularly profitable. After Philip died and Juana went mad, their eldest son Charles became ...
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Spain and the Politics of Charles V/Carlos V (ruled 1516-56). When Isabella and Ferdinand, heirs respectively to the crowns of Castile and Aragon (which included Catalonia, the kingdom of Naples, Sicily, Sardinia), married in 1469, they laid the foundations of Spain’s Golden Age. They left a country politically united, imposed religious ...
