120 CHARLES V. OF GERMANY 



CHARLES X. OF SWEDEN 



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 gain- 

 ing 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 as un- 

 successful 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 con- 

 ducted 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 cariy out the policy he 

 had always had at heart with regard to Ger- 

 many. 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 Pro- 

 testants to arms, but two campaigns saw their 

 Kower broken, and two of their most important 

 jaders, 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 Protest- 

 ants, 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 



Kolicy Maurice contrived to gather round him a 

 irge 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 

 n 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), Pro- 

 testantism 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 Pro- 

 testant, 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 Eng- 

 land, and the empire to the electors (1556). Retir- 

 ing 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 re- 

 presentatives of its great conflicting principles. 

 The religious revolution, and the spirit of nation- 

 ality 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 conse- 

 quences to Germany. Charles's personal quali- 

 ties were such as to win him the affection of his 

 immediate dependents, and to render him popu- 

 lar with all classes of his subjects among all the 

 peoples under his sway. He was sincerely devoted 

 to the church, and religious motives greatly influ- 

 enced him in all his counsels. His private morals 

 bear a favourable comparison with those of contem- 

 porary princes. In person he was slight and grace- 

 ful, 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 Eobertson's Life of Charles V., and Prescott's con- 

 tinuation ; Ranke's History of the Reformation in Ger- 

 many ; Sir W. Stirling-Maxwell's Cloister Life of Charles 

 V. ; and Mignet's Charles-Quint. 



Charles X., or CHARLES-GUSTAVUS, king of 

 Sweden (1654-60), the son of John Casimir, 

 Count Palatine, and Catherine, sister of Gustavus- 

 Adolphus, was born at Nykoping, 8th Novembef 

 1622. After his studies at Upsala, he took part in 

 the Thirty Years' War under Torstensohn. On the 

 abdication of his eccentric cousin, Queen Christina, 

 whom he had wooed in vain, Charles succeeded as 

 next heir to the throne of a kingdom which the 

 folly and extravagance of the queen had reduced 

 to an almost bankrupt condition. Charles was- 

 the second of the three great warrior-monarchs of 

 Sweden, but unlike his uncle, who could plead 

 religious grounds, and his grandson, who was afc 



