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Charles V: Spain Charles
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Charles V is in the eyes of many the very picture of a Catholic zealot. Popular opinion is probably mainly based upon the letters written from Yuste in 1558, when two hot-beds of heresy had been discovered in Spain herself, and on the contemporary codicil to his will. These were, perhaps, really in part responsible for the later persecution. Yet the circumstances were far from being typical of the emperor's career. Death was very near him; devotional exercises were his main occupation. The letters... were cries of warning, and not edicts.
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Born in Ghent on Feb. 24, 1500, Charles V was the oldest son of Philip the Fair of Hapsburg, Lord of the Netherlands, and Joanna the Mad of Aragon and Castile. When Philip died in 1506, Charles was in line for the rich inheritance of the Netherlands as well as Hapsburg Austria and possibly the office of emperor. Spain - the product of the rather recent union of Aragon and Castile under the Catholic Kings - fell to him because of a series of deaths in the Spanish family, which made his mother, Joanna, the legal successor to the Spanish throne.
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With the death of his maternal grandfather, Ferdinand II, the teen-age Charles V became the first ruler of a united Spain, bringing together Aragon and Castile. This united kingdom included the old kingdom of Navarre, bordering the western Pyrenees Mountains, the city of Granada, Naples, the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia, and all the Castilian territories in the New World. Though considered by many to be a foreigner, Charles spent most of his life in Spain after his succession to the Spanish throne.
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A descendant of the powerful House of Hapsburg, Charles V epitomizes the vitality of Roman Catholicism in sixteenth-century Spain. He was devout and desired the renewal of the Roman Catholic Church without seeking fundamental theological or institutional reform. He presided over Luther's hearing at the Diet of Worms in 1521. His attitude toward Protestantism varied with his political fortunes and his need of German support in international affairs. Charles resigned his crown in 1556 and spent the remainder of his life in the seclusion of a Spanish monastery.
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From October 1555 to January 1556, in the midst of another war with the French, Charles V abdicated his many crowns. He bequeathed the bankrupt states of the Netherlands and Spain to Philip and Austria and the empire to Ferdinand. He then left the Netherlands for Spain, where he lived near the monastery of Yuste until his death on Sept. 21, 1558. He had witnessed the total failure of his dream of a Catholic Europe united under his imperial rule. Charles's ideal was an anachronism... since Europe had become too complicated to be so governed. But the extraordinary willpower and dedication with which Charles pursued his impossible goal establish him as a man of impressive character.
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Now, at the age of 20, Charles the V was the most powerful ruler ever in Christendom. Charles ascended the throne at a time when Germany was agitated by Martin Luther. In an unsuccessful attempt to restore tranquility, a great Diet was held in 1521, before which Luther made a memorable defense of his doctrines. The Diet rejected Luther’s position, and Charles subsequently issued an edict condemning Luther. At this time struggles between Spain and France over the Italian lands and Burgundy forced Charles the V to take up arms against King Francis the I of France, the result being that Charles’ attention was drawn away from Germany’s internal affairs. The war between Francis and Charles ended disastrously for France.
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