Charles V of Spain

Born: 1500-02-24

Died: 1558-09-21 Spain

Flourished: Spain

Charles V of Spain was the king of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor. Born in the Hapsburg Netherlands, Charles inherited Burgundy and the Netherlands in 1506 and became king of Spain in 1516 as Charles I. He won election as Holy Roman Emperor in 1519, ruling as Charles V. Charles V's tenure as Holy Roman Emperor was punctuated by religious conflict brought on by the Protestant Reformation. He called and presided over the Diet of Worms to deal with the teachings and writings of Martin Luther. This and the diet of Augsburg failed to settled the controversy, and Charles played a major role in convening the Council of Trent (1545-63) to reform and strengthen Catholicism. Charles V succeeded in gaining victory over Lutheran forces in the Schmalkaldic War (1546-47), but continued strife within the empire forced Charles to recognize the rights of Protestants in the Peace of Augsburg in 1555. Charles found greater success in wars against the Ottoman Empire, Rome, and France, and expanded Spanish power into the New World with the conquest of Mexico in 1513 and Peru in 1531-35. In 1554, he relinquished control of the Kingdom of Naples and the Netherlands to his son Philip, and gave up control of Spain and Spanish holdings in the New World to Philip in 1556. The imperial crown passed to his brother Ferdinand in 1556, and Charles retired to a monastery in 1557. He formally abdicated in 1558.

In 1526, he married Isabella of Portugal, with whom he had seven children, three of whom lived to adulthood.

Merriam-Webster’s Biographical Dictionary (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, 1995), 203; Geoffrey Parker, Emperor: A New Life of Charles V (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2019), 552, 563.