Charles V and I (24 February 1500-21 September 1558) was the King of Spain (as Carlos I) from 23 January 1516 to 16 January 1556, succeeding Joanna of Castile/Ferdinand II of Aragon and preceding Philip II of Spain, and Holy Roman Emperor (as Karl V) from 28 June 1519 to 27 August 1556, succeeding Maximilian I of Germany and preceding Ferdinand I of Germany. Charles was the heir to the House of Valois-Burgundy through his paternal grandmother Mary of Burgundy, the House of Habsburg through his father, and the House of Trastamara through his mother, and the personal union of the Spanish Empire and the Holy Roman Empire under his rule was the closest Europe came to universal monarchy since the death of Louis the Pious in 840. His reign was dominated by war and three specific conflicts: the Italian Wars with France, the Ottoman-Habsburg Wars with the Ottoman Turks, and the Protestant Reformation; during his reign, Spain also conquered much of the New World. Owing to the vast size of his empire, he once quipped, "I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men and German to my horse." Charles presided over 40 years of energetic rule, and he abdicated in 1556, dividing his large Habsburg empire between his sons philip and Ferdinand. He spent the rest of his life in peace in a monastery in Yuste, Spain, where he died in 1558.
Biography[]
Charles V at the 1521 Diet of Worms
Charles of Habsburg was the son of King Philip I of Castile and Queen Juana I of Castile, born in 1500. His mother was the de jure Queen of Spain, but she was mentally-unstable, so his father (born the son of Emperor Maximilian I of the Holy Roman Empire and Duke of Burgundy) became the first Habsburg king of Spain. Upon the death of his mother in 1516, Charles became the King of Spain, and during his reign, he resisted the Kingdom of France's moves in Italy. In 1519 he gained the title of Holy Roman Emperor after the death of his grandfather Maximilian, uniting Spain and the Holy Roman Empire into a huge fusion of the two Habsburg monarchies.
This title was coveted by King Francis I of France, so this brought the Habsburgs and France into warfare. Charles invaded Italy in 1521, conquering Milan, and he won the Battle of Pavia in 1525, crushing France's Italian ambitions. Charles waged war against France for the rest of his life, thwarting Francis' ambitions in Italy. At the same time, he waged war against the Ottoman Empire, repulsing a siege of Vienna in 1527 and conquering Tunis in 1535. Karl V waged war for his whole life, and he abdicated in 1556, living in a monastery until his death two years later.
