His dominions in Europe included the Holy Roman Empire, extending from Germany to northern Italy with rule over the Austrian hereditary lands and Burgundian Low Countries, and Spain with its possessions of the southern Italian kingdoms of Naples, Sicily and Sardinia.

[27][28] Charles borrowed money from German and Italian bankers and, to repay them, relied on the wealth of the Low Countries and the flow of silver from New Spain and Peru, brought under his rule following the Spanish conquest of the Aztec and Inca empires, which caused widespread inflation.

The political marriage of Philip and Joanna was first conceived in a letter sent by Maximilian to Ferdinand to seal an Austro-Spanish alliance, established as part of the League of Venice directed against the Kingdom of France during the Italian Wars.

[34] From the moment he became King of the Romans in 1486, Charles's paternal grandfather Maximilian had carried a very financially risky policy of maximum expansionism, relying mostly on the resources of the Austrian hereditary lands.

[34] Given the dynastic situation, the newborn was originally heir apparent only of the Burgundian Low Countries as the honorific Duke of Luxembourg and second in line to the Austrian duchies, becoming known in his early years simply as "Charles of Ghent".

[46] The death in July 1500 of the young heir presumptive Miguel de Paz to the Iberian realms of his maternal grandparents meant baby Charles's future inheritance potentially expanded to include Castile, Aragon, and the overseas possessions in the Americas.

Castile and Aragon together formed the largest of Charles's personal possessions, and they also provided a great number of generals and tercios (the formidable Spanish infantry of the time), while Joanna remained confined in Tordesillas until her death.

Following these revolts, Charles placed Spanish counselors in a position of power and spent a significant part of his life in Castile, including his final years in a monastery.

Finally, when the Castilian regent Cardinal Jiménez de Cisneros accepted the fait accompli, he acceded to Charles's desire to be proclaimed king and imposed his instatement throughout the kingdom.

[67] In the end Charles was accepted under the following conditions: he would learn to speak Castilian; he would not appoint foreigners; he was prohibited from taking precious metals from Castile beyond the Quinto Real; and he would respect the rights of his mother, Queen Joanna.

In 1535, Francesco II Sforza died without heirs, and Charles V annexed the territory as a vacant Imperial state with the help of Massimiliano Stampa, one of the most influential courtiers of the late Duke.

Charles V abdicated as Archduke of Austria in 1522, and nine years after that he had the German princes elect Ferdinand as King of the Romans, who thus became his designated successor as emperor, a move that "had profound implications for state formation in south-eastern Europe".

Despite the conquest of Nice by a Franco-Ottoman fleet, the French could not advance toward Milan, while a joint Anglo-Imperial invasion of northern France, led by Charles himself, won some successes but was ultimately abandoned, leading to another peace and restoration of the status quo ante bellum in 1544.

He outlawed Luther and issued the Edict of Worms, declaring: You know that I am a descendant of the Most Christian Emperors of the great German people, of the Catholic Kings of Spain, of the Archdukes of Austria, and of the Dukes of Burgundy.

The standstill required the Protestants to continue to take part in the Imperial wars against the Turks and the French, and postponed religious affairs until an ecumenical council of the Catholic Church was called by the Pope to solve the issue.

I undertook to be a candidate for the Imperial crown, not to increase my possessions but rather to engage myself more vigorously in working for the welfare of Germany and my other realms ... and in the hopes of thereby bringing peace among the Christian peoples and uniting their fighting forces for the defense of the Catholic faith against the Ottomans...I had almost reached my goal, when the attack by the French king and some German princes called me once more to arms.

Some 30,000 masses were arranged for the soul of the Emperor and some 30,000 gold ducats that he had set aside for the ransom of prisoners, poor virgins, and paupers were distributed, but he owed huge debts from his constant warfare far beyond the funds on hand, which his heirs spent decades paying off.

[122] Under the organization and patronage of Maximilian I, Southern Germany had become the leading arms industry region of the 16th century, rivalled only by Northern Italy with the chief centers being Nuremberg, Augsburg, Milan, and Brescia.

His overwhelmingly German troops won the Battle of Pavia and captured the French king in 1525; two years later they sacked the city of Rome, murdering between six and twelve thousand residents and pillaging for eight months."

[156] In the 1530s, in the context of the conflict between the Habsburg empire and their greatest opponent, the Ottomans, an espionage network was built by Charles and Don Alfonso Granai Castriota, the marquis of Atripalda, who conducted its operations.

Gennaro Varriale writes that, "on the eve of the Tunis campaign, Emperor Charles V possessed a network of spies based in the Kingdom of Naples that watched over all the corners of the Ottoman Empire.

Peter Martyr d'Anghiera, an Italian historian at the service of Spain, wrote the first accounts of explorations in Central and South America in a series of letters and reports, grouped in the original Latin publications of 1511 to 1530 into sets of ten chapters called "decades".

"[163] The violent uprising necessitated a major military response, organized by Pedro de la Gasca, to whom Charles granted sweeping powers in order to re-establish royal authority.

Therefore, it was ordered to stop all military companies in the overseas domains until a board of wise men ruled on the fairest way to carry them out, seriously considering the total or partial abandonment of the New World until the imperial doubt was resolved, regarding how to avoid in the future the possibility of abusive discoveries, overwhelming conquests and predatory colonizations that were based on the oppressive exploitation of indigenous labor.

In 1550, Charles convened a conference at Valladolid in order to consider the morality of the force used against the indigenous populations of the New World, which included figures such as Bartolomé de las Casas,[173] from which conceptions of the human rights of the Indians would arise according to the Thomistic natural law, making the Hispanic Monarchy a pioneer, both in theory and in practice, on how to approach respect for the conquered.

"[171] Therefore, Spanish rule was maintained as Sepúlveda claimed, but it was recognized that the Indians were people with their own rights as de las Casas paid for and enshrined in the New Laws, together with the papal bull Sublimis Deus.

In 1521, on the advice of his Flemish counsellors, especially William de Croÿ, Charles became engaged to his other first cousin, Mary, daughter of his aunt, Catherine of Aragon, and King Henry VIII, in order to secure an alliance with England.

A marriage to Isabella was more beneficial for Charles, as she was closer to him in age, was fluent in Spanish and provided him with a very handsome dowry of 900,000 doblas de oro castellanas would help to solve the financial problems brought on by the Italian Wars.

[217][218][219][220] References to Charles in popular culture include a large number of legends and folk tales; literary renderings of historical events connected to his life and romantic adventures, his relationship to Flanders, and his abdication; and products marketed in his name.

An imperial resolution of Franz Joseph I of Austria, dated 28 February 1863, included Charles V in the list of the "most famous Austrian rulers and generals worthy of everlasting emulation", and honored him with a life-size statue, made by the Bohemian sculptor Emanuel Max, located at the Museum of Military History, Vienna.