Charles V., emperor of Germany, by the extent of his dominions and by virtue of his own genius the greatest European potentate of the 16th century, was born at Ghent in 1500. From his father Philip, the son of the Emperor Maximilian and Mary of Burgundy, he inherited the dominion of the Low Countries, the county of Burgundy, and a strong claim to the imperial crown; from his mother, Joanna, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella, he also inherited the kingdoms of Spain and Naples, and the Spanish acquisitions in America. Charles's education was intrusted to Adrian of Utrecht, afterwards pope under the title of Adrian VI., and William de Croy, an experienced politician, who early initiated his pupil into the arts of government, and gained an ascendancy over him which determined Charles's policy during the early years of his rule. To Adrian Charles owed little, and to the end his scholastic acquirements were but meagre. His grandfather, Ferdinand, died in 1516, and the next year Charles left the Netherlands for Spain, where he was acknowledged joint ruler with his mother Joanna, who was incurably insane. On the death of his grandfather, Maximilian, in 1519, he was elected to the imperial crown from a number of competitors, little, however, to the satisfaction of his Spanish subjects, who saw in this honour a blow at their own interests and importance. The following year Charles was crowned emperor at Aix-la-Chapelle, and a few months later (1521) presided at the famous Diet of Worms. The main question he had here to settle, the question of the respective claims of the Catholics and the followers of Luther, was to the end of his reign the great problem which Charles had to settle in Germany. At this his first diet, he displayed the policy which, whenever it was in his power, he ever afterwards pursued—the restoration of Germany to the papal see. The finding of this diet was an edict against Luther and his opinions, and by this edict Charles, at the outset of his reign, leagued himself with Rome against the national sentiment of Germany.
The history of Western Europe during the next quarter of the century is in large degree the history of the rivalry of Charles and Francis I. of France. According to their respective interests, Henry VIII. of England and the successive popes now favoured the one, and now the other; and the result of the conflicting interests of all these potentates was almost continuous war during the whole of that period. The Treaty of Madrid (1526), the Ladies' Peace of Cambrai (1529), and the Peace of Crespy (1544) may be regarded as marking the successive steps in the struggle. The points in dispute between Charles and Francis were these: Charles laid claim to the duchy of Burgundy as having been unjustly appropriated by Louis XI., and also to the duchy of Milan as a fief of the empire. Francis, on his part, maintained his right to these territories, demanded homage of Charles for Flanders and Artois, and made it a ground of offence that Spain had dispossessed Jean d'Albret of his kingdom of Navarre. It was in Italy that the war between the two monarchs was carried on most vigorously; and during the first period the result was altogether in Charles's favour. Mainly at the instance of Wolsey, Henry VIII. actively aided the emperor, who was still further strengthened by Francis' quarrel with his greatest subject, the Constable Bourbon, who formed a league with Charles and Henry VIII. for the complete subjugation of France. In 1524 the troops of Charles drove the French out of Italy, invaded Provence, and unsuccessfully besieged Marseilles. Next year Francis, in the endeavour to recover the duchy of Milan, was defeated and taken prisoner at Pavia, and afterwards conveyed to Madrid. In 1526 he was released after signing a treaty in which he yielded to Charles on all the points at dispute between them. In this year Charles married Isabella, sister of John III. of Portugal, to whom he was much devoted. Meanwhile, there was a growing alarm at the successes of Charles, and the Holy League was formed against him by Pope Clement VII., Henry VIII., Francis, and the Venetians. In 1527 a motley army of Spaniards, Italians, and Germans, led by Bourbon, who fell in the assault, sacked Rome, and imprisoned the pope, to the horror of all Christendom. Charles was denounced as the author of the sacrilege, and cartels of defiance were sent to him by Henry and Francis. He disclaimed all part in the affair; yet it was altogether in his interest that it should have happened, as the pope was then the most active of his enemies. The failure of Francis to seize the kingdom of Naples led to the Peace of Cambrai (1529), by which Charles was left master of Italy, and was relieved from his homage for Flanders and Artois.
During all these years Charles had been resident in Spain, where, on his arrival from Germany, he had found things in an extremely unsettled state owing to certain encroachments lately made on the privileges of the great cities. A general insurrection had taken place during his absence, which only after a protracted struggle had been quelled by the help of the nobles. Charles, by his tact and policy, succeeded in completely putting down the sedition; and, while largely increasing the power of the crown, contrived to render himself highly popular throughout the country. All through his reign, however, he had great difficulty in extorting from the Spanish Cortes the funds necessary to carry on his foreign schemes. In 1529 Charles proceeded to Italy, and at Bologna was crowned by the pope king of Lombardy and emperor of the Romans. As he was on his way to Germany, where the religious difficulty was still the burning question, he urged the pope, though unavailingly, to call a general council which should settle once for all the points at issue. At the Diet of Augsburg (1530) Charles confirmed the Edict of Worms, and the Protestants (now first so called), in self-defence, formed the League of Schmalkald. The threat of an invasion by the Turkish sultan, however, forced Charles to make important concessions, and with the support of the appeased Protestants he was enabled to take the field against the Turks. No battle ensued, but the sultan was forced to retire; and Charles was again at liberty to return to Spain by way of Italy, where once more he earnestly urged on the pope the necessity of a general council. In 1535 Charles achieved in person the most brilliant of all his exploits—the destruction of the power of the great corsair Barbarossa, and the capture of Tunis. Meanwhile, Francis was still in active hostility against him; and in 1536 Charles himself once more proceeded to Italy and invaded Provence with a large army. By making the country a desert, Francis forced his enemy to retire without effecting any actual conquest. As another expedition into Picardy had also miscarried at the same time, this was the most disastrous year that Charles had yet experienced. War, however, still proceeded; and Francis, in desperation, and to the disgust of Christian Europe, called in the aid of the Turk. In 1538, both parties being now exhausted, the pope (Paul III.), Francis, and Charles met at Nice, and agreed to a ten years' truce on the condition that they should retain the possessions then in their hands.
The year 1539 was for Spain one of the most important during Charles's rule. To meet his extraordinary expenditure, Charles held in that year a meeting of Cortes with the view of gaining its consent to the imposition of new taxes. As at this meeting the nobles were especially refractory, they were thenceforward excluded from the Cortes; and from this time dates the decline of their power in the state. In the same year, by the romantic courtesy of Francis, Charles travelled through France to the Low Countries, where the insurrection of Ghent, on account of a certain illegal tax, called for his presence. After having quelled this insurrection with the utmost severity, and stripped the town of all its ancient privileges, Charles proceeded to Germany, where another diet held to settle the religious differences was unsuccessful as its predecessors. During this journey also Charles engaged in the most disastrous of all his enterprises. In the autumn of 1541, against the advice of his most experienced seamen, he conducted from Italy a fleet against Algiers, whose piracies had been the terror of the south of Europe. A succession of storms completely destroyed the fleet, and Charles himself with difficulty reached the coast of Spain. A new quarrel having arisen between Charles and Francis regarding the duchy of Milan, the ten years' truce fell through, and war again went on for the next three years. The most notable event of the war was the wintering of the Turkish fleet at Toulon, by arrangement with the French king, at which Henry VIII. was so indignant that he concerted with Charles an invasion of France, when the emperor actually came within two days' march of Paris. By this double invasion Francis was again forced to make an unfavourable peace—that of Crespy (1544), by which he once more renounced all claims to Italian territory, and agreed in conjunction with Charles to make war on the Turks.
Having thus triumphed over Francis, whose death in 1547 left his hands freer than they had ever been since the beginning of his reign, Charles now sought to carry out the policy he had always had at heart with regard to Germany. In this policy he had two objects—the suppression of Protestantism and the succession of his son Philip to the imperial crown. The news that Charles had made a league with the pope for the extinction of heresy drove the Protestants to arms, but two campaigns saw their power broken, and two of their most important leaders, the Landgrave of Hesse and the Elector of Saxony, taken prisoners. The Augsburg Interim (1548) followed as a temporary arrangement till a general religious council should settle all difficulties. This arrangement did not satisfy the Catholics, but it was especially objectionable to the Protestants, upon whom it was forced with great violence. Charles's severe enforcement of the Interim, his cruel treatment of the Landgrave of Hesse and the Elector of Saxony, and his evident design to make himself absolute master of Germany, led to the overthrow of all his plans. Maurice of Saxony, a young man of extraordinary talents and great ambition, who, although a Protestant, had hitherto seemed to support Charles in all his schemes, saw that the emperor's power rested in reality on a most insecure foundation. By a subtle line of policy Maurice contrived to gather round him a large army, while Charles, still trusting in his fidelity, had dismissed the troops by whose aid he had lately had Germany at his feet. The emperor all but fell into the hands of Maurice, who was now in a position to command the most favourable con- ditions for the Protestants. Accordingly, by the Treaty of Passau (1552), and, after the death of Maurice, by the Peace of Augsburg (1555), Protestantism received legal recognition, and Charles saw his life's schemes finally baffled. In his other object he was equally unsuccessful. He had tried in vain to persuade his brother Ferdinand to waive his claims to the empire in favour of Philip, and the princes of Germany, Catholic as well as Protestant, refused to entertain Charles's suggestion. Thus disappointed in his dearest hopes, and broken in health by repeated attacks of the gout, to which he had been subject since his 29th year, Charles resigned his kingdoms to his son (1555-56), whom he had married the previous year to Mary of England, and the empire to the electors (1556). Retiring to the monastery of Yuste in Estremadura, he spent the rest of his life in complete seclusion; but he never ceased, almost till his death on 21st September 1558, to take the keenest interest in affairs of state, and his advice, still given in emergencies, was received by his son with the greatest respect.
Charles V. and Luther, the two most prominent figures of the 16th century, are also the best representatives of its great conflicting principles. The religious revolution, and the spirit of nationality which that revolution evoked wherever it was realised, are the ideas associated with the name of Luther. The aim of Charles was a great empire in Western Europe, of which the pope should be the spiritual, the House of Austria the temporal, head. In opposing this aim, and thus preserving the balance of power as well as the individuality of the Western nations, Francis, according to Ranke, was justified in calling in the Turks. Charles had a mind and heart equal to great undertakings; yet he not only failed to achieve his purpose during his life, but bequeathed to his son a policy attended by the most disastrous results. It was in carrying out this policy that Philip lost the Netherlands to Spain, and that he arrested Spain itself in its national development. The position also in which Charles left the religious question by the Peace of Augsburg inevitably led to the Thirty Years' War, with all its frightful consequences to Germany. Charles's personal qualities were such as to win him the affection of his immediate dependents, and to render him popular with all classes of his subjects among all the peoples under his sway. He was sincerely devoted to the church, and religious motives greatly influenced him in all his counsels. His private morals bear a favourable comparison with those of contemporary princes. In person he was slight and graceful, and his manners were marked by singular refinement and dignity; but throughout all his life he was haunted by the dread of his mother's mental affliction. Don John (q.v.) of Austria was an illegitimate son of Charles V.
See Robertson's Life of Charles V., and Prescott's continuation; Ranke's History of the Reformation in Germany; Sir W. Stirling-Maxwell's Cloister Life of Charles V.; and Mignet's Charles-Quint.