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.

In Rozsa Gaston’s Maid of Honour, Margaret’s Netherlands is also a centre of Habsburg strategy, humanist learning and preparation for the future rule of Charles V. Surrounded by ambitious attendants and influential scholars, Anne begins to understand how observation, self-command and reputation can become instruments of survival. In Rozsa Gaston’s Anne and Louis: Rulers and Lovers, Anne favours a Habsburg marriage between Claude and the future Charles V, hoping to protect Brittany, while the French court increasingly supports Francis of Angoulême as both Claude’s husband and Louis’s eventual successor. Other novels featuring Charles V include Rozsa Gaston’s Margaret of Austria, Manolo Palomares’s Mestizo, Margaret George’s The Autobiography of Henry VIII, and Rozsa Gaston’s Dreams of Gold.