William Tyler
Charles V: The Sun Never Set on His Empire
William Tyler - Charles V: The Sun Never Set on his Empire
- Thank you very much Judi, and welcome to everybody who’s Zoomed in for this evening. Let me go straight into this. Historical judgement is an interesting concept when you think about it because it has a lot in common with what ordinary people would call hindsight. And we all know hindsight is a wonderful thing. Historians are blessed with hindsight. If historians could only work in the present as the same way that they work in the past, they could make the world a much better place because they would make all the right decisions. But of course, as we know, it doesn’t work like that. And so historical judgement is a difficult thing. And when it comes to the subject of my talk today, that is to say, Charles V, the Emperor Charles V, then that becomes more difficult. We all know a little bit about Charles V, perhaps. We know he’s a colossus of European history, that he ruled an empire second only in the continent’s history to that of Rome or that of the European Union today. Yet with the gift of hindsight for historical judgement , he can be said to have failed, and many historians have written in that terminology. But what does failure mean and how long do you have to wait to be able to identify failure? Well, some historians say he failed because he failed to make the empire lasting. I’m not sure that argument holds, after all, the Holy Roman empire survived right until the age of Napoleon in the late 18th, early 19th century; and the Austria-Hungarian Empire survived right through to the end of the First World War in 1918. So could he be said to have failed to establish his empire long term? I’m not sure that that’s actually entirely true.
But as I always say, by the end of the talk, the judgement is not mine, the judgement is yours. You must decide for yourselves, whether you think Charles V was a success or a failure. And you may feel that you would like to read a little more about him. And I put the latest, one of the latest and really good biographies of Charles V on my blog so you can have a look for yourselves. And I thought, well, I’ll begin with what I’ve called bold facts. What are some of these bold facts I would like to talk to you about? Well, first of all and most importantly, a point laboured by me, I think, last Monday, the lands over which the Habsburg, and of course Charles V was a Habsburg, the lands over which the Hapsburgs ruled were never united into one country, or one empire, or one body politic. They remained throughout, right through to 1918, simply separate, geographically separate often, ethnically separate. In every possible way, the lands over which the Habsburg ruled were separate lands, individual states whose only common unifying factor was that their ruler was a Habsburg. So what we can say is, Charles V’s empire, like the succeeding Hapsburg empires, were personal empires rather than political empires. They owed everything and absolutely everything to the man or later indeed the woman who ruled all the Habsburg lands, but it was never a unified country as France became and England was. It simply wasn’t like that.
So then we come to the important issue, which countries did Charles V ruled over? And the first thing to say about the countries and lands over which Charles ruled is that they were not conquered lands. This is not an empire, as was the Roman or indeed the British, gained by force of arms. This was an empire inherited from family lands, and that is quite odd. Charles himself was born in Ghent, now Belgium, in 1500. His father died when he was age six. And at his father’s death, he inherited the Duchy of Burgundy. And some of you may remember from last week that the Habsburg gained Burgundy by the marriage of Emperor Maximilian with Mary of Burgundy, who was the heiress of Burgundy. And Maximilian and Mary were the grandfather and grandmother of Charles V. So when his father died in 1506, at age six, he technically became ruler, Duke of Burgundy. And then in 1516, 10 years later, at the age of 16, he inherited Spain. He inherited Spain through his maternal grandfather, Ferdinand, Ferdinand of Ferdinand and Isabella, because his father had married Joanna of Spain, who was known as poor woman, as Mad Joanna. She was very mentally disturbed, was Charles V’s grandmother. So at the age of 16, he’s Duke of Burgundy and King of Spain. Technically, at 16, he ruled Spain with his mother. But given that his mother was absolutely unable to rule, in effect, he was the ruler.
And then at 19, what ages we’re talking about, how young, in 1519, age 19, he succeeded his other grandfather, his Habsburg grandfather as Archduke of Austria. And then all he needed to add to all that was to become Holy Roman emperor. But you didn’t become Holy Roman emperor because your relative died and you inherited, as he had inherited Burgundy, Spain, and Austria because other members of the family who held them died and he was the heir. Well, the Holy Roman emperor was technically elected. Technically elected. But he was elected in 1519. So in 1519, he rules Burgundy, Spain, Austria, and the Holy Roman empire. Probably, easiest to think of the Holy Roman empire as Germany, but of course not a united Germany, but a very fracture. The Holy Roman empire made up of independent towns, independent bishoprics, independent princes, all only owing allegiance directly to the Holy Roman emperor, that is to say, after 1519, Charles V. But that was his empire in Europe. His empire outside of Europe stretched to Mexico and South America. And so it was the first empire upon which the sun never set because it is in both sides of the Atlantic. What an extraordinary empire to rule. Not like the Roman, which is contiguous land mass, or even really like the British, which was not a European empire but a global empire linked by the Royal Navy.
And this was nothing of a sort, this was a European empire made up a bit. And other people wanted to share it, particularly, of course, the French. Because that German French division is a long, long held one in European history, only resolved really with the foundation of the common market in the European Union, even if you think that is the end of the story. So then, Charles V is this extraordinary man who inherits this vast territory of land which he governs directly, and he’s in power at the age of 19 in 1519. It’s quite something, really. Now, in order to become Holy Roman emperor, as I said, you’ve got to get the votes of electors. Now, we are in a, well, I don’t know, I’ve never want to say that. I was going to say we’re in a different age in the present day where elections in Europe are open and not subject to any sort of fraud. It would be a foolish person to say that. But this was open to… They didn’t see it as fraud. They saw it as a means of becoming Holy Roman emperor, which was to pay for it. And so when at the age of 19, he’s one of two candidates to become Holy Roman emperor, the other one being Francis I of France, the German French division again. Between Charles V and Francis of France, his Habsburg aunt, Margaret of Austria, gave Charles some advice. And I’m using Geoffrey Parker’s monumental and fantastically good biography of Charles V, simply called “Emperor: A New Life of Charles V.” It’s on my blog.
And this is what Margaret said to this 19-year old boy, and it was reported at the time, so this is a direct quote, “We see only two ways for you to succeed in this election: one is through money, the second way is to use force. Either way, since in order to win, you intend to spare nothing, you must give discretion to our ambassadors to offer and to pay more than the sum’s already promised depending on how they find the situation without the need to refer to Your Majesty, without the need to refer to Your Majesty, because the long wait for your response may cause harm.” And she gave him good advice. He’s got no money. Where does he get the money from? “Ah,” she says, “listen to me, "I’ll give you an introduction to my bankers.” Oh, well splendid. So she does. And she recommends the bank that’s owned by the Fugger family, F-U-G-G-E-R. They’re based in Augsburg, near Munich in Germany. They were a Catholic family, and they remain Catholic even after the Protestant Reformation. And the Fugger family owned, well, they had a neomonopoly, for example, on European copper. They’d also inherited much of the assets and trade of the Italian Medici family, who some of you heard me talk about some months ago. The money had moved from Italy, the money markets have moved from Italy to Germany, and in particular to Augsburg. And the Fuggers were extraordinarily rich, they made a lot of money with their loans and with their other interests, as I mentioned, the monopoly on European copper market. They lent money to Charles, and they’re going to lend money to Charles throughout his reign. And you’ll say, “Well, why didn’t he have any money?”
Well, he did of course have money, but because of the nature of the empire, it was very difficult for him to collect that money. It just was not easy as it was in England for the king to collect taxes, much more difficult for him to do so. Moreover, he needed a lot of it. He needed a lot of it because he had a major problem, internally, to keep the peace, and he had a major problem dealing with external enemies as well, and he needed armies, he needed money. And so he borrowed up to the hill. And you might say, “Yeah, but hang on a moment. Hasn’t he got gold and silver arriving from South America?” Well, yes he did. But the difficulties with that is, it was all eaten up in paying back the loans he’d taken, paying back the interest on the loans. So he was always short of cash. The Fuggers were nevertheless ennoble by Charles. Well, if you think about it, that was one of the things he could do. He could ennoble them. For those who were listening who are in Britain, is this not exactly how our prime minister operates? Give him money and you’ll get a peerage. And that is exactly how Charles V operated. Lend me money and keep lending it, even if I have difficulties in paying back the interest, and I will make you, as he did with the Fugger family, a man called Jakob Fugger who is called Jakob the Rich, he made him into a noble of the Holy Roman empire. It’s said that this particular Fugger, Jakob, was worth over $400 billion in modern money, American dollars.
But at the time, approximately 2%, approximately 2% of the GDP of Europe. These are big influential people. But there was another family, again in Augsburg, what with a branch in Berg, who also financed Charles. And I can’t, ah, there we are. And this is the Welser family, W-E-L-S-E-R. They also, well, they did rather better because they got a woman in their family, the daughter of the chairman of the company, as we would say, married into the Habsburg family themselves, they also got a deal with Charles V. And their deal with Charles V was basically to take anything they wanted out of Venezuela and to run the slave trade. So these two families, the Welser family and the Fugger family, were the money bags behind Charles V that allowed him, well, allowed him to do what he did do, which is, throughout his life, to be able to preserve the lands he’d inherited against both internal and external enemies. Now, hang on a moment. There’s a really important point here. Despite the man being called Jakob Fugger, they are not Jewish, they are Catholic. Now, we would expect, and this is a really rather important point, we would expect capitalism, and we are in the early stages of capitalism, to be run either by Jewish financiers or by Protestant financiers, and not by Catholics. After all, Catholics were not expected to charge interest. But we found out when we looked at the Medicis, that all the rules of the Catholic church could be easily bend, particularly if you led the Pope.
But it gives the lie into the argument that the capitalist system emerged because of Protestantism to which we can link Judaism, because both religions place an emphasis upon the individual and have no hangups about lending money and all the rest. But the truth is, that the baton of financiers went from Catholic Italy to Catholic Augsburg. This is the last throw of the Catholic dice, after that, the money markets move to the Netherlands, and then indeed to England. But at this particular stage, it’s Catholic still. I find that really rather important because it destroys the earlier arguments about capitalism and Protestantism. I said a moment or two ago that Charles faced both internal and external enemies. And that is absolutely true, he did. If we look at external enemies, I’m sorry, if we look at internal enemies, we can look this way. Charles was to spend the whole of his reign, right through to 1556, so 30, 40 years, he has spend it defending the lands that had, I’ve written here on my notes, fallen into his lap. He’s defending them. And to defend them, he’s got the money backing from Germany, those two major firms, but other smaller ones as well. And he’s got a problem. His problems are travel. How do you travel from Spain to Germany, given you can’t go to France? How do you travel from Austria right across to Northern Germany. The difficulties of travel were enormous, but so likewise were the difficulties of communication. What do you do?
You write a letter. He wrote lots of letters, some of which he wrote himself rather than through an amanuensis. And how do you send those letters? By horse, by boat. That’s basically the only method you’ve got to send it. And again, it’s not like sending a message in 16th century England from Dover to Carlisle where you can change horses as you go up the country as it were, because you are crossing different countries. In this case, it’s much more difficult, much, much more difficult. And you can’t really use all the rivers easily. I mean, at least in England, you could sail around the coast, if necessary, from London to Newcastle, for example. When the cold came down to London, you could send letters back by boat. But he’s stuck. So he’s got problems, but there’s another problem, which is a huge problem; and it burst on the European scene in his reign, and that’s Protestantism, especially Lutheranism in Germany. And Charles himself saw himself as a champion of Catholicism. In fact, he said of Luther, in a rather simplistic way, “How can a single friar who goes counter to all Christianity for a thousand years, he must be wrong.”
Charles never saw Lutheranism and Protestantism other than the enemy. And of course, that is to be the case across Europe in the 16th and 17th centuries. Europe is to be divided between Catholic and Protestant. After all, in Germany, they fought a war for 30 years between 1618 and 1648, which we know as the 30 Years War. In England, we had a revolution over different views of Protestantism in the 1640s, and we chopped our king’s head off. In France, there’s the so-called wars of religion with Henry Coutras, Henry IV declaring that Paris was worth a mass. He was a Protestant, but when he thought he might lose power, he reconverted to Catholicism, we reconverted to Catholicism, And that tells us something else, that Protestant Catholic divide isn’t just a religious divide, it becomes a political divide. And in Germany, between northern Protestants and southern Catholics, a division that exists today in many ways, and a division which is going to be important in German history with Bismarck in the 1870s when Bismarck, the Prussian politician, dismisses the idea of a unified Germany to either Austria, the Habsburgs or through Bavaria, because they’re Catholic. And it’s Protestant pressure that unites Germany. And Charles V had to face Lutheranism for the first time. As I’ve just said, many converted in North Germany to Protestantism including the princes. And remember, Germany is made up of all these hundreds of little state belts.
And these Northern German princes convert to Protestantism. And they presented challenge to Charles V, which is just not religious, but political as well. And despite all Charles’s efforts, diplomatic and military, German Protestantism couldn’t be defeated. If you become a fact of life by the middle of the 16th century, that simply had to be lived with as we’re being told we’re going to have to live with COVID, so they had to live with Protestantism. And there was a very interesting attempt to deal with the problem of these North German Protestant princes within the Catholic Holy Roman empire, and it was signed at Augsburg in Germany in 1555. And the Peace of Augsburg, as it’s called, established the principle, which in Latin, and they used Latin, it was called, “Cuius regio, eius religio,” in other words, “whose realm, his religion.” So if I’m a law in north Germany and I’ve converted to Protestantism, then all my subjects convert to Protestantism, and I’m regarded, my little statement is regarded as Protestant. And likewise, if someone remained Catholic, their statement remained Catholic. So it was up to the local ruler to choose between Catholicism and Protestantism. Now, that obviously was not a solution that has any long-term legs on it. And that of course is the case when we come to the 30 Years War in 1618. There is, however, a further problem, and you might say that Charles had glossed over the problem. He didn’t like a solution like that, but it was the only one they finally came up with in 1555, and he had to live with it, because he could not defeat. He tried to militarily defeat the Protestants, but he couldn’t do that, and he certainly couldn’t extinguish them religiously. And so, that diplomatic solution was the only solution available.
But… But there was one other problem that he faced in his German lands in 1524-1525, and that’s the so-called German Peasants’ War. Now, we had had a peasants revolt here in 1381 in England. And one of the reasons for the peasants revolt in Germany in 1524 was the same reason as England had in 1381, and that was, following the Black Death in the middle of the 14th century, there was a labour shortage which went on for a century and more. And so the peasants now had some negotiating rights. “I demand more money from you as an employer, and you can’t say, ‘I’ll go down the road and find somebody else,’ because I’m the only one, I’m the only one on offer because the population has been so decimated.” And they begin to want more rights as they did in England. And there’s similar things in France with the Jacquerie. But here in Germany, it’s later, it’s 1524-1525. And it’s more serious. Why? Because they link with Lutheranism, with Protestantism. Because Protestantism talks about freedom, the freedom of the individual to make his own peace with God. But as in the England of the 1640s and the Civil War, freedom in religion soon became freedom in politics. Why should we, who can worship God as we wish, have to kowtow to the nobility of the king? We want freedom. The cry in England being a republic, the cry from these peasants in 1524, ‘25 Germany is for freedom. It’ll concede not… These are not intellectuals, these are mainly peasants with some lower gentry.
They’re not united. It’s in patchwork as Germany was patchwork, so as the war patchwork in different parts at different times. No unification. But they’ve got a message, “We’re done with the past.” And I suppose the most famous moment was in Muhlhausen where the serfs, there no serfs in England, by the way, in 1524, but the serfs in Germany tied to the land, refused, I mean this is almost unbelievable, but I promise you, it’s true, refused to collect snail shells for the lady of the manor to wind her thread on. Fancy being asked to do that. And so this breaks out into a full scale war. I suppose you could say, and you don’t need hindsight to say this even at the time, the peasants will lose. Why would they lose? They have no command structure. They’re democratic. They all turn up to make a decision. They have no cavalry, they have no artillery, they have no money, they have no military experience. And the aristocracy take to the field to defeat them with all the power of money and arms that they have. There’s no way that these peasants can ever win. And although we don’t know the true figures, it’s been estimated that the aristocracy and their troops sorted up to what? 100,000 to 300,000, we really don’t know. Armed peasants and farmers, a hundred to 300,000 in less than 12 months are butchered to death. Others were fined and there’s no freedom for them. In fact, in 1850, after the Europe Revolutions in Europe in 1848, Engels wrote a book on this war, this German peasant war, and he said, “We can’t afford to lose again. We lost,” we, being the people, “lost in 1525, we can’t lose in 1848 to 1850.” They did lose and the revolution doesn’t come. Oh, well, you could say the revolution came in France in 1789. Well, forget that. That doesn’t end up very democratic until modern times, mirroring the democracy in England, which arose gradually. Or you’d say, “Well, Russia? Well yes, thanks for that. Stalin? Putin?
Hardly democratic. So these peasant uprisings arguably never worked in Europe. In the final battle, when the final troops were brought into crush the last remaining army, the battle lasted only a few hours. 6,000 peasants were killed. They said the hills flowed with blood. Many were captured and simply executed. It was a disaster from a peasants point of view, but it was also a warning that the world was changing. The 16th century sees this change in all sorts of ways, and you can put people back in a box, but only for so long. And one of the struggles of the later Habsburg was come to terms with what we might describe as this democratic push in Europe in the 18th century, and in the 19th century, and in the 20th century. How did the Habsburgs respond? And the answer is not well. The emperor had to flee Vienna in the 1848 revolution and seek support from the Russians to regain his capital. They didn’t learn the lesson from 1524-1525. But then this is an absolute monarchy. You could say that in England, the politicians who are in power after 1688 and certainly after 1714, the politicians may, in England, act at one minute to midnight, but they always acted one minute to midnight, whichever political party was in power. And we didn’t see a revolution again after the horror of the 1640s in England because our political leadership, whether they liked it or not, came to terms with having to deal with demands for, well, very loosely democracy, whether in trade relations or social relations or whatever else. Whereas, the Habsburg largely turn their backs on it.
And we will see all of that as these talks progress. So although Luther could not stop Protestantism, he was able to stop one element of it, which is this peasants revolt. Incidentally, he was helped by Luther who was horrified that his preachings were being used to justify such an attack upon the status quo, upon the conservative order of society. That’s not what Luther wanted. What Luther just wanted reform of the Catholic church. He wasn’t looking for political reform and was horrified when his name was linked to the peasants in the peasants war. So Charles was able to crush that, but not crush Protestantism. But some of you may say, "Yeah, but you are giving a very negative view because he did stop Protestantism.” Coming over the border from France, the Huguenots in France, big number, large numbers of Protestants in France, particularly in the south, i.e. nearer the Toulouse, Spain. And he did crush it in Spain by use of of force. In the Netherlands, he tried to crush it by the inquisition, which was a total failure, causing Netherlands to become one of the strongest of Protestant countries, with the exception of the south around Maastricht. So he faced Lutheranism, but he never really came to a long-term solution. And the long-term solution has to be, well, to live with it, embrace it. But that isn’t the only problem he faced. He faced revolution of a similar sort, well, in some ways, in Spain, and this was called the revolution or the Revolt of the Comuneros. Comuneros was simply local city councils, so people belonging to local city councils.
And in 1520, whilst Charles was in Germany, his representative, his regent, if you like, in Spain was a clergyman, Cardinal Adrian of Utrecht. And in Castile, the cities and towns of Castile revolted against Charles’s rule. After all, they don’t see him as Spanish. I mean, he spoke Spanish, yes, his mother was Spanish, but they don’t see him as Spanish. And that revolution took on the same anti-feudal views as that in Germany, although these are Catholics and not Protestants. It became radical. And again, in this case, Adrian of Utrecht took up arms and crushed it with force. The final battle was at a place called Villalar in southern Spain not far from Torremolinos. Now, here, they were defeated, finally, but, that resistance to central government rule in Spain… Remember, Spain had only been united once the Muslims had been finally thrown out by Ferdinand and Isabella in the end of the previous century. Spain is a new concept, in a sense, hadn’t been united since Roman times, Hispanic. Spain has this revolt against authority. And you could write a history of Spain which bases it simply on that precept, the Spanish Civil War being an example. The trouble that the Madrid government has at the moment with Catalonia, with Barcelona, there’s all sorts of problems in Spain. And in a sense, Spain is still disunited, and Spain is potentially, with Catalonia, potentially open to fragmentation before we even get to talking about the Basques.
And this resistance to authority, nothing to do with Protestantism, but to do with a emphasis upon local communities, this is the revolt of the communities against Charles V. A view of the communities against central government, if you like. And there are many commentators today who think that the central government monarchy of the Bourbons in Madrid today is indeed under threat. And of course, as we all know, in Spain, politics go from the far left to the far right, and then are confused, again, by the divisions which are linguistic and ethnic in some cases and with Catalonia, Catalan. Hugely important differences. So Charles kept the lid on. He kept the lid on in the Netherlands by brute force. He kept the lid on in northern Germany, and he kept the lid on in Spain. But did he actually resolve it? No, he didn’t. And of course one of the reasons he didn’t is because he can’t be in all those places at once. And he’s a personal ruler, it depends upon him. Okay, he has regency delegates, but that’s not the same thing as having a structure across the entire land as in England. There might be a king at the top, or a Cornwall at the top, but beneath them is a structure, an infrastructure of government, which is the same whether in you are in Cornwall or in Northumberland. The structure of government, the structure of law, the structure of weights and measures, the money system, everything is the same. But not in the lands of the Habsburg, of Charles V. It depends on one man. And one of the problems, one of the problems… I don’t know, I mean, I’ve never been asked to run vast areas of land, but one thing that history has taught me, if I was ever asked to be, you know, the supreme president of the EU, is you cannot micromanage.
And he tried to micromanage. History is littered with the names of people who try to micromanage. Maybe some of you have even worked for someone in a big organisation who tried to micromanage, that doesn’t trust people to get on and do it themselves. Charles V attempted to micromanage, and he could not, no one. No one on earth could manage all these disparate lands. How could they? The Habsburg never learned that lesson. When we get to Franz Joseph from the 19th and into the 20th century, at degradative advanced age, he’s still, in his 80s, micromanaging, reading every letter, answering himself. And he can’t. He just can’t. And we will come to that. Did he not know, one of the reasons that Charles V failed was because he tried to micromanage and he couldn’t? Oh, you could also make a case that Napoleon attempted to micromanage as well. That’s another story for another day. But you can’t, no one can micromanage. It doesn’t work, or at least it doesn’t work long term. So Charles is faced with these internal threats. And I’ve given you two examples, there are others, but I’ve given you the two examples which seem to me to have the most relevance to later history, Protestantism and the divisions in Spain. But Charles also faced external threats to his rule. The most serious of the external threats came from the east, from the Ottoman Empire, which in 1453 had conquered Constantinople and finally destroyed the empire of Greece, the empire of Rome. The Ottomans then spread into Western Europe. Okay, they’ve been partly in Western Europe before 1453, but now they make serious attempts.
On Hungary, they take Budapest. I remember going on a conference in Slovakia, and we were staying in the countryside, and the Slovak adult educator, whom I knew quite well, said, knew I was interested in history, said, “Come up onto the top and onto the roof and I’ll show you something.” And he said, “Do you see that hill there?” “Yeah.” He said, “That’s as far as the Ottoman’s got.” It’s very living history. My wife and I had a wonderful holiday in Hungary in an Ottoman city called Eger, E-G-E-R, north of the Hungarian plain. Really, a very interesting place. And in 1529, the army of Solomon the Magnificent, stood outside the gates of Vienna itself. For just over two weeks, with this huge army, it’s said there’d been over a hundred thousand strong, well, many were sick, threatened not just Vienna, but had Vienna fold and the whole of Western Europe. That’s a sobering thought, and no good saying if you are British. Well, of course, on this island, we’re to be, come on, as Elizabeth I said, “If the coast of France is in the hands of the enemy, England will be next.” How right that is? The Ottomans could have spread Islam across the whole of Western Europe, they were repelled by largely a German mercenary army, much smaller in size than the Ottomans but of course they had the advantage of being well fed, and had not crossed from Constantinople all the way to Vienna, and they had good artillery, and so on and so forth. And they managed to force the Ottomans back. Winter was setting and snow was falling. This was mid to late September. Now, in 1529, the Ottomans withdrew.
But of course, you all know that that isn’t the last time that Vienna is threatened 'cause in the next century, an Ottoman army also is at the gates of Vienna. The relationship between Habsburg and Ottoman is an important one. The relations between Western Europe and Ottoman Eastern Europe and the Ottoman Empire as a whole is a most important one to understand. To understand, because it gives us an insight into the world of today. Remember that Islamic extremists, Islamists, believe that if a country has ever, for however smaller piece of time, been Islamic, then it’s Islamic forever. And that of course includes Spain and parts of Southern France, Western Europe, and Eastern Europe. Well, many of the countries in Eastern Europe came under the yoke of the Ottoman Empire. So in 1529, by the grace of God, as Charles himself might have said, Vienna remained outside of Ottoman control. But he hadn’t defeated the Ottomans. They are to come back, as I said, in the next century, and again, besiege Vienna. But there’s not only the enemy to the east, he’s got the enemy to the West, France. One historian of the Habsburgs has written, “Habsburg versus France: a bloody conflict between Christian rulers.”
It began around 1500, the date of Charles at his birth, and lasted for centuries. Well, lasted until the Hapsburg empire fell as Germany fell to the Allies, including France, in 1918. I’ve been looking up some of the very latest of the Hapsburg histories in around the First World War, and there were stamps issued in parts of the Habsburg Empire in the 1920s where they’re still using the stamps of Franz Joseph or Emperor Charles, which are stamped on top French occupation. So 1500 to 1918, there is this French Habsburg spat. And what is at the base of it is who controls Italy. And in 1525, Charles V defeated his rival Francis I at the Battle of Pavia, just outside, P-A-V-I-A, just outside of Milan. And Charles himself had said, this is a quotation from Charles, “My cousin, Francis, and I are in perfect accord. He wants Milan and so do I.” And if we fast forward to the latter part of the 19th century, it’s Napoleon III, France, that backs Piedmont against the Austrians as Italy begins to edge its way towards full independence of outside powers and unification, and France is backing that. Oh, PS, France manages to negotiate Nice to join France and not Italy. So no easy answers for Charles with external enemies as there was no easy answer for Charles with internal enemies. In fact, peace with France, even if it’s only over a small period of time, isn’t finally settled until the year after Charles’ death in 1559 by his brother, then Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand, who negotiates a peace in 1559.
But of course the peace isn’t a whole, and if you fast forward into the latter part of the 18th and early 19th century, then you all remember the clash between Habsburg and Napoleon, the Battle of Leipzig in 1813, so on and so forth, which we will indeed come to, I hope, at some future point. Now I’ve got just a few minutes left, and the final part of our story is really quite an astonishing one for the 16th century. Charles decided to abdicate. Well, you might say, “Well, that’s not that odd.” Well, it is odd because no one asked him to. He didn’t abdicate through pressure of family or enemies. He began to abdicate his lands in 1556 and fully abdicated subsequently. He gave his son Philip, that’s his only son, Philip, Philip or Philip II of the Armada and the husband of Mary Tudor. Philip gained Spain, The Netherlands, I’ll call it The Netherlands because it’s easier at this stage, and the American territories of Spain. Philip gained Netherlands, Spain and the American territories. He gave his brother, Ferdinand, Austria, and then negotiated, inverted commas, ‘more money,’ negotiated for Ferdinand to be elected Holy Roman emperor. So he divided the lands into two. So it made more sense. Well, it made more sense in one way that Ferdinand has Austria and Germany.
So that does make sense. The Spanish had Spain and the Netherlands, which didn’t make so much sense. In fact, Charles himself went off to a monastery in retirement and died in 1558, on the aged, of course, 58. He’s, I always think he’s a broken man, health broken and broken in terms of his dreams. Philip in Spain had a real problem. Within a year of his father’s death, he goes bankrupt for the first but not the last time. He’s also, of course, to find himself fighting Protestantism in The Netherlands and Protestantism in England. And he’s also fighting the English over the gold and silver ships that are being brought back across the Atlantic, where the Dutch and English intercept those gold and silver treasure ships and treasure fleets and bring the gold and silver to England and the Netherlands rather than it going to Spain. So Philip inherits problems for which there’s no answer. And you can argue that in terms of Spanish history, Spain is bankrupt basically from the time of Charles V until it enters the common market, until it enters the EU. That’s been the saving grace of Spain. And his brother, Ferdinand, well, he still inherits a totally divided Germany. Totally divided Germany. Now, how do we sum up Charles’s legacy? Let’s take a positive view. A positive view is that Spain remained Hapsburg until the last Hapsburg died without an heir in 1700. The Netherlands remained in Hapsburg hands first Spanish, then Austrian, until 1797, French Revolution and all that.
The Holy Roman empire remained in Habsburg hands until Napoleon got rid of it in 1806. And the Hapsburg Austro-Hungarian empire survived until defeat in World War I in 1918. Now, that’s a long time before failure bites in, and you could look at that as positive. But in terms of what Charles was trying to do, it was failure. There was no success in trying to bring these lands together as one, even in disparate units, one law, and all the rest of it. They failed to do that. They failed to create, in any sense, a unified state, even a fractured geographically unified state. And they failed to deal with the issue of money. So two things in conclusion, I’m going to read. First of all, this is a piece on Charles I, which was written for A level students. It’s on the net. And I thought this was quite interesting. Charles’s real failure as a ruler lay in the legacy he left to his successors. Warfare was an almost constant backdrop to his reign, distorted the economies of Spain and The Netherlands, and in the latter, cause serious unrest, leading to the Dutch revolt against Spain. Charles was also unable to gain a long-term peace agreement with France, and arguably had failed to destroy the Ottoman threat. Well, true. In Germany, the imperial title was preserved, but only with the failure to gain real power and the effective fragmentation of the empire. He never gained real power in Germany at all. And then I’ve got one more thing that I wanted to share, if I may. This is from the rough guide “History of Spain.” It’s only a little piece, but I thought it was a good little summary, really.
And it goes like this. “Charles strove diligently to understand the different aspirations of his separate subjects, was not afraid to appear on the battlefield when necessary, and spent much of his waking hours travelling from one kingdom to another. He’s reported to have said,” probably not true, “‘I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to my horse.’ Behind such lightheartedness lay an apprehension that his task was an impossible one. And perhaps his greatest act of policy was to abdicate, dividing his inheritance between two heirs, his brother, Ferdinand, and his son, Philip.” And that division arguably maintained the Habsburg in power in Spain until 1700 and the Habsburg in Austria-Hungary in power until 1918. As you could argue. You see, the judgement of history with Charles V is a difficult one to make. It’s a difficult one to make. And I think he probably, personally, I think he probably died a man who felt that he had not succeeded. I’d love to be able to ask him, did you feel you had succeeded in your life or failed? I’m pretty sure if he was honest, he’d say, “Well, I think I failed. I failed to halt the spread of Protestantism. I failed, really, to unite Spain. I definitely failed to impose single rule across Germany,” which has got to wait ‘til 1870 of Bismarck. “I didn’t really follow up the defeat of the Ottoman outside Vienna with a total defeat of the Ottomans in Europe, and I never put the French to bed.” So the judgement is yours, and I’ve stopped there. It’s just gone six, okay. Let me see if people have got questions.
Q&A and Comments:
I’m sorry to the person that said, “We like to see your face and not the questions.” I’m sorry, I can’t do that. Not unless I sort to do that, but I’m not going to.
Somebody’s just commented about Wendy and me. Oh, that’s very… Lots of nice… Now, the Duchy of Burgundy really included modern day, it’s easiest to think of it as Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg, roughly speaking. You dip into France a bit and so on, but it’s easier to think like that. And so Ghent bits in because Ghent is in Belgium. It’s all those textile towns, Leon in France, and Ghent and Bruges and so on.
“There is a theory that Jean’s mother was not mad.” Oh, there’s always these. This is the judgement of history. If you want to do a PhD, take something controversial and argue the opposite. She may indeed have benefited from medicine, we simply don’t know.
“Name of the book and author, please.” If you are referring to one on Charles V, it’s on my blog of Habsburg books, it’s simply called “Emperor,” and it’s by Geoffrey, with a G, Parker, P-A-R-K-E-R. “Emperor” by Geoffrey Parker, and it is in paperback. And it’s cheap, if you go, well, cheapish, if you go onto Amazon. Isn’t it in, oh, who’s this? Sorry, I’ve missed your name.
Q: Betty. “Isn’t it sad and ironic that when Jews lend money to monarch and charge interest, they were vilify. Then when it came to paying it back, the Jews were often then banished and never paid back.”
A: Absolutely. No one likes paying back.
Q: Oh, Sandy, what a lovely quotation. Thank you so much. A Mexican quotation, says Sandy, “If death came from Spain, we should all be immortal.” Oh, yeah. “What was Charles’s source of revenue?”
A: Yes, well, it’s the silver and gold. And that was the same with Philip of Spain. They used it to pay the interest on their loans, basically. There is taxation, but as I explained, it isn’t really straightforward. Taxation is quite sophisticated in Tudor England, for example.
Q: “Where did he mostly reside?”
A: Well, he’s usually on the move to be honest. But basically, if he had a choice, where he was born, up in Burgundy.
Q: “If so many peasants were killed, what happened to the problem of getting people to work the land?”
A: Well, it was a problem. That’s true. And the 30 Years War makes it worse. But there is the beginnings of an industrialization urban community as there was in England. The peasants wrote… Well, yes, exactly. If the nobility killed them, doesn’t the problem just continue? Yes, and you have two choices. Either you become… Oh, I don’t like using the word in this context, but the only word that comes to mind quickly is liberal. If you begin to bend a little bit, as in Britain, as in England, then you can get away with it. Or, you are heavy handed, which is what happened in Germany and particular with the 30 Years War. But remember, at the end of Elizabeth’s reign, we have a poor law which is in place. So there are early attempts in England to deal with the problem.
Yes, you are absolutely right, it is. Somebody said, “Self-defeating economically to kill them.” Yes, that’s right.
Q: “Was Charles unique in his good fortune in inheriting so many countries by the bequest a family?”
A: Good question. I don’t think anybody.
Q: “So who can should he be measured against?”
A: Well, that’s a difficult question to answer. If I was Austrian, or more particularly, if I was Hungarian, perhaps, I would answer the European Union because that’s the next empire of such a size. I’m not forgetting Napoleon. It’s short-lived, and it’s at war all the time. I wouldn’t put Napoleon up against him. What he was trying to achieve was the Roman empire of the past, hence, Holy Roman Empire, Ancient Rome. And that is exactly what the Treaty of Rome of the EU is attempting to do. Even Germany-
William?
Yes?
Sorry. Sorry, Willam. This could just be our last question because I just wanted to say that, I’m sorry everybody, but we just need to prepare for our next lecture, which is going to be the “Hare with the Amber Eyes.”
Right, there’s two judging… Two together.
Okay, okay, go on.
“I hope you sampled the wonderful wines in Eiger.” No, I didn’t, because I’m actually teetotaler, but my wife did.
“In Vienna, the coffee house culture is said to originate with the Ottoman.” Yes, it did, but not in the siege in the 16th century. The siege in the 17th century is where coffee came in. They found ground coffee, so say, in the camp of the Ottomans when they sacked in. And then, Wendy, I’ll stop there then.
I’m very, very sorry. But just to say to all our participants, actually, just to mention that there’s slight change to our programme tomorrow, and that Jeremy, we’ve decided to have a little bit of a different track, which I feel it’s very important that we have challenging conversations because I’ve got a lot of kickback from things that people have said that I’ve said. And I think that it’s important that we do have difficult conversations or challenging conversations on Lockdown University. We are a family now. We have been together for 18 months. I think we’ve created an environment which is safe and loyal. And it’s important that we have different opinions. And also I want to examine, I want to examine social media. And William, we’ve actually spoken about this as well. I saw very interesting presentation last night, which I would recommend that everybody watches, by Fareed Zakaria on what’s happening in America and with democracy. So, I’m sorry, William, I’ve jumped off what you’re talking about, but you and I have been having these conversations.
Yes, it’s fantastic.
We’ve been having this conversation… Well, it’s so great.
And I think, you and I are going to be talking about wokeism.
Exactly.
I’m so interested in that, and I’ve been doing some work on it, and I can’t believe some of the things I’ve found. It’s horrifying.
So I’ve been catching so many arrows, catching them like this, and then suddenly, and everybody’s giving it, and I’ve decided, no, I’m putting these arrows down. Actually, we need to address them. And we need to address them as a community, and I want everybody… My wish is that after the presentations, that everybody will go out and discuss it with their children, with their friends, with their grandchildren, they have different opinions. Because we need to start talking about these issues if we are all far too polarise and stuck in our ideas and our opinions and listening to false information and bites of it. And really, when people touch a feeling that we associate ourselves with, then it becomes, you know, it’s a line to belief system, and it’s often incorrect. So these are the things. So tomorrow, we’re starting our first with Jeremy Rosen. He’s going to be talking about what’s going on in the Haredi community right now. So I would urge you all to listen to tomorrow night, and then in just 45 minutes, that’s why I wanted to jump off now 'cause I want to give Judi an opportunity just to set up, we are visiting a very interesting exhibition at the Jewish Museum called “The Hare With the Amber Eyes.” Edmund De Waal actually wrote the book, and he’s going to be presenting it together with Liz Diller, who’s a very, very famous architect and a brilliant architect, wonderful woman who actually co-curated the show. And we’ve got an exciting programme. We started off with the master, William, that’s you. So thank you, William. We had you first and we’ve got a great day today, and, you know, fabulous programme this week. So many, many thanks. And you know what, we can continue with the questions and we can continue with the lecture next week. Up to you. William?
Well, I’m still sticking with the Habsburg. What I could do is do slightly shorter talk to give longer time for people to ask questions, if that’s what people would like me to do.
Not necessarily. I think what we could do quickly is just if you just run through the questions, 'cause I ran through them quickly, you know, before I jumped in, and there’s just like one or two, you know, there’s just a couple there.
I dunno how to save them.
Well, I’ll ask Judi if she’ll just make a note of them. Just take a picture-
Could you do that?
[Judi] We can save them, Wendy, we can save it. I’ll get Lauren to download them and we’ll send a copy over to you, William, as soon as they’re ready.
Yeah.
Okay, that’s great.
Yeah, then you can just summarise it, William. There could be a lot of repetition.
Only two things. Yeah, I’ll do that at the beginning next week.
I’m sure you’re ready for a drink so I want to let you go. So you can go and have a relax… Well, it can be a cup of tea 'cause I also don’t drink, but I’m ready for my cup of tea. I heard that. Alright everybody, thanks for joining us.
Bye! Bye-bye!
Take care. Thanks, everyone. Ciao.
Bye-bye.
Bye now. Thanks, Juds, bye
Bye.