Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 04.djvu/588

CHARLES IV. 508 CHARLES V. IV. was crowned Kmperor at Rome. Tn 1350 he issued the Golilen Bull (q.v.), establishinfj a new rule for the election of the King of the Konians. (In June 13, 13C5. he was crowned Kinf: of .rles. In 137t) he had his son. Wcneeslaus, elected Eni- ])er()r, to succeed him after his death, and secured the Pope's confirmation of the election, in spite of the provisions of the Golden Hull. He died at Prague. Xoveniher 2!l. 1378. Charles was an artful politician, and directed his eH'ort.s nuiinly to securing power for his own family and for his hereditary kingdom of Bohemia, which was very llourishing under his reign. He, with the -Vreh- bishop of Prague, founded the University of Prague, on the model of that of Paris, in 1348. For his early years, till 1346, we have an auto- biography, "Vita Caroli IV. ab ipso conscripta," in Boehmer, I-'mitcs renim Germanicarnin, Vol. L (Stuttgart. 1S43). CHARLES V. (l.'iOO-.iS). Holy Roman Em- pcrnr, and. luulcr the title of Charles 1., King of .Spain, lie was horn at Glient, February 24, 1500, and was the eldest son of Philip, .rchduke of Austria, and of Joanna, the daugliter of Fer- dinand and Isabella of Sjjain. Philip's parents were the Emperor ^laximilian and Mary, daugh- ter and heiress of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. On the death of his father in 1506, Charles, at the age of si.x, inherited the Burgun- dian realm, consisting in the main of the rich and populous provinces of the Xetherlands, then at the lieiglit of their prosperity. On the death of liis grandfallicr, Fenliiiand, in 1516, he became King of Spain, as his mother, Joanna, was of disordered intellect and incapable of reigning. To the Spanish Crown belonged Xaples, Sicily, and Sardinia: the Spaniards were just entering upon their gieat career of conquest in the New World. Charles was not very favorably received by the Spanish nobles, who were doubtful of his rights and jealous of the followers wliom he brought from Flanders, where he had been educated. The repression of the liberties of the people, which had already gone far luider his grandfather, and which his son was to reduce to a system, contin- ued unchecked under Charles, in spite of the ap- peals of the Cortes. All the abilities of his famous minister. Cardinal Ximenes, were requi- site to prevent an open rupture. In the early part of his reign (1520) the towns of Castile were driven to revolt for the maintenance of their ancient liberties. It was with difficulty that the insurrection was put down (1521). (See P.mL- I.A, .II AN DE.) On the death of his grandfather, Maxiinilian, in 1510. Charles conjointly with his younger brother, Ferdinand, succeeded to the pos- session of the hereditary dominions of the House of llapsburg (House of Austria). On June 28, 151!l, lie was raised to the imperial throne of ticrnumy by the choice of the electors, the rival candidates being Francis I. of France and Henry VIII. of England, and was crowned at Aix-la- Chapelle, October 23, 1520. Owing to the jeal- ousy of his Spanisli connections, he was required to sign an election agreement {Wahlkapituhition) gliarante<?ing certain rights to the German na- tion, a ])ractice followed by his successors in the imperial office. Charles was now by far the most powerful sovereign in Christendom. In his earlier years he had been frivolous and dissolute, but he now became mindful of the duties and dignity of his high position. He ascended the imperial throne at a time when Germany was in a state of unprecedented agitation, because of the movement set on foot by Luther (q.v.). Ta restore tranquillity, a great diet was held at Worms in 1.521, before which Luther made the memorable defense of his doctrines. Just at this moment the great struggle between France and Spain broke out afresh, Francis L taking up arms against his rival, whose attention was drawn away from the internal alTairs of tier- many. Thus, instead of vigorously assailing the Protestant movement when it might still have been in his power to ipiell it, Charles, who was not alive to its signiticance, i>ermitted it to take deep root. The war between Charles and Francis, in which the former had Henry VIII. of England as an ally, and was strengthened by the defection of the powerful Charles of Bourbon (q.v.), proved disas(rois to France. The Frencli were swept out of Lombardy, and in an attcmjit to regain pos- session of it, Francis was defeated before the walls of Pavia, February 24, 1525, and taken prisoner. He was forced to sign a humiliating treaty at Madrid, January, 1526; but hardly had he been set at liberty, when he prepared to renew the struggle, w'ith Henry VIII. now on his side and with the support of Po|)c Clement VII., of the House of Medici, who. alarmed at the vic- tories of Charles, was anxious to rid Italy of the Imperialists, and induced some of the Italian States to join him. The Emperor's forces, tinder Frundsberg and Charles of P.ourbon, took Rome itself by storm (1527), plundered it, and nuide the Pope a prisoner. Charles pretended great regret, went into nanirning with all his Court, and caused prayers to be said for the Pope's liberation, while, b.v his own direction, the Pope was kept for seven months a captive. The Peace of Cambrai, between Charles and Francis, in 1520, deprived France of Lombardy, for the pos- session of which she had fought so furiously. In 1530 Clement VII., into whose scheme for the restoration of the Medici in Florence Charles had entered, crowned the victorious monarch at Bo- logna as King of Lombanly and Enipenu- of the liomans (the last coronation of a (Jernum Em- peror by the Pope). Simultaneously with these events, a great drama was being enacted in the basin of the Danube, which brought a still greater concentration of power in the hands of the Haps- burg dynasty. In 1520 the Ottoman Sultan, Soly- man the Magnificent, laid low the jiower of Hun- gary in the battle of Jlohiics. The Hungarian monarch. Louis II.. who was also King of Bo- luMuia, did not survive the defeat, and Ferdinand of llapsburg, his brother-in-law, was chosen his succcssiir ill Bohemia, wliile sonic of the nobles in Hungary also conferred u))on him the royal crown. Thus were laid the foundations of the modern llapsburg monarchy of .ustria-Hungary. Previous to this, in 1521-22, Charles had relin- (luished to Ferdinand the sole sovereignty over the |)rinci])al jiortion of the old hereditary .ustrian dominions. Having made jieace with his formidable rival. Charles now thought to put an end to the religious dilTcrences in Ger- many, and to repel the Turks, who had over- run Hungary and laid siege to Vienna. But the diet at Augsburg, in 1530, juoved how vain «as the hope of restoring the former state of things in Germany; and when the F.iiiperor re- fused to recognize the confession of the Protest- ants (see AucsiiiiRo Coxfe.ssion), they refused