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 294 CHARLES (GERMANY) ercised the greatest tyranny throughout the country, especially against the church ; and in 1368 the emperor, summoned to the pope's aid, marched into Italy with a considerable army, only to allow himself to he bribed by the usurpers, and to retire with immense sums of money. During the remaining ten years of his life he occupied himself chiefly, as he had done throughout his reign, with care for the interests of his family and of Bohemia. By treaties, purchases, and all the means in his Eower, he added lands to the possession of his ouse ; he had secured the right of inheritance to Brandenburg in 1863 ; in 1368 he had paid an immense sum for the possession of Silesia and Lower Lusatia; and in 1373 he annexed the margraviate of Brandenburg to Bohemia. By lavish gifts to the electors he secured the recognition of his son Wenceslas as his suc- cessor, and before his death devised to him also the crowns of Bohemia and Silesia. Such talents as Charles possessed were generally employed for purposes of deceit ; he was neither a warrior nor a statesman, but devoted himself to schemes for money-getting with something of the petty spirit of a miserly trader bar- gaining, overreaching, and employing the low- est means for gaining comparatively trifling sums. Such benefits as he conferred upon the empire were generally the indirect conse- quences rather than the direct objects of his plans ; and although he paid some attention to education, art, the embellishment of the great cities, and the advancement of trade, yet he neglected the interests of the empire as a whole, and left it a prey to feuds and lawless- ness. CHARLES A., emperor of Germany, and king of Spain under the title of Charles I., born at Ghent, Feb. 24, 1500, died at the monastery of Yuste, near Plasencia, Spain, Sept. 21, 1558. He was the eldest son of Philip of Burgundy, archduke of Austria, and Joanna, daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain. His pater- nal grandfather was the emperor Maximilian, Philip of Burgundy being the offspring of that emperor's marriage with the beautiful Mary, daughter of Charles the Bold and Isabella of Bourbon. By the death of his father in 1506 Charles became, when only six years old, heir presumptive to the entire possessions of the house of Hapsburg in Germany, in right of his grandfather Maximilian, and to the dukedom of Burgundy, as it was then called, afterward the Spanish Netherlands, in right of his grand- mother Mary. He was educated in this por- tion of his great possessions, under the care of William Croy, lord of Chievres, who had him thoroughly instructed in the learning and ac- complishments of the time ; he brought him up stern, cold, regular in his life, and some- what formal in manner ; the tendency of his education being to make him rather a German in spirit than a Spaniard. By the death of Ferdinand, his maternal grandfather, in 1516, he inherited the whole kingdom of Spain, the Castilian portions of which Ferdinand had governed since 1507 as regent, the kingdom of Naples, and the then literally boundless Spanish empire in America. In spite of his youth, he at once ascended the Spanish throne and took the conduct of affairs into- his own hands. He was now the most power- ful ruler in Europe. His boast that the sun never set on his dominions was justified by the greatness of his possessions. He bore on his escutcheon two globes, and had stamped upon his coin two pillars representing the pil- lars of Hercules (denoting the western limit of Europe), with the motto Plus ultra (" More beyond "). The armies at his command in his. various territories were enormous; and the revenues upon which he could draw seemed practically unlimited. Thus situated, it was natural that Charles should direct his first as- pirations toward the imperial power so long held by his grandfather. He was early looked upon as one of the leading candidates for the succession ; and on the election following Maxi- milian's death in 1519 he was chosen emperor (June 28), Francis I. of France being his only really dangerous competitor for the honor. He was crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle Oct. 23, 1520, after having signed an agreement (the WaJilca- pitulatiori) intended by the electors to restrain him in some degree in the arbitrary exercise of the immense power at his command. He entered upon his administration just as Luther had aroused Europe by those acts which formed the beginning of the reformation. The strong excitement now pervading Germany, and the multitude of unsettled questions besides this of the religious controversy, determined Charles to call a great diet for the discussion of affairs. It met at Worms in the winter of 1521 ; Lu- ther appeared before it and made his memora- ble defence on April 17 and 18. But the em- peror did not yet perceive the importance of the religious agitation which had arisen through- out the northern portion of his empire. His mind was still occupied with affairs in Spain, which were in a most unsettled state. He was also about to begin a war with France ; for although he and his jealous and disap- pointed competitor Francis had sworn that the result of the election should not disturb the peace between them, a pretext was not long wanting to give the two rivals an opportunity to try their strength. Charles's delay in ful- filling his promise to restore Navarre to Henri d'Albret formed the wished-for excuse ; it was. made a caus belli, and both monarchs pre- pared for the conflict. With his attention prin- cipally occupied by these plans, the emperor was more annoyed by than interested in the religious controversies of Germany ; he issued a decree of outlawry against Luther, hoping thus hurriedly to dispose of the matter in its be- ginning, and before the close of the year he left Germany for Spain by way of the Netherlands and England. His visit to the latter country was made for the purpose of gaining over Henry