Charles V

Charles V was the Habsburg ruler who was Holy Roman emperor and king of Spain. His vast territories drew him into wars with France, the Ottoman Empire and Protestant princes, while Spain’s American empire expanded during his reign.

Charles V also held the offices or ranks of Lord of the Netherlands, Rey de las Españas, King of Aragon, and King of Castile. Charles V belonged to the Spanish House of Habsburg; House of Habsburg and operated within Holy Roman Empire. Charles V was born in Ghent and died in Monastery of Yuste.

Georg Ebers’s Barbara Blomberg brings the young singer Barbara into Charles V’s court at Regensburg and makes their relationship the origin of his illegitimate son Don John of Austria, while the emperor’s religious and dynastic burdens remain constantly in view. Rozsa Gaston’s Anne and Louis: Rulers and Lovers shows Charles first as the Habsburg marriage prospect Anne of Brittany favours for her daughter Claude. Maid of Honour moves to Margaret of Austria’s Netherlands, where the future emperor is being prepared for rule amid humanist learning and Habsburg strategy, and Margaret of Austria presents Margaret directly as his guardian and political mentor. Roger Crowley’s Empires of the Sea then places Charles’s mature Habsburg power against Suleiman the Magnificent and Hayreddin Barbarossa in the struggle for the Mediterranean.