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Charles V Von Habsburg
A man crushed by the weight of his own ambition
Emperor Charles V ruled over a vast composite state, yet despite his greatest efforts and willingness to shoulder the burden of rulership, he has ultimately come to be viewed as a failure in this remit. A composite state which allows for more than one country to be ruled by the same sovereign takes one of two forms; a set of nations ruled by the same monarch divided by distance, natural barriers, or the sea or one which is of a more clustered contiguous form.
Charles’ Empire of sorts took on the former’s composition consisting of wide-ranging territories such as New Spain in the West and Hungary in the East. This created a state, the likes of which had not been seen since the days of Rome or at the latest, that of Justinian the Great. Yet, he would come to learn through failed ambition, toil, and exhaustion that such a state was simply indefensible and ultimately doomed to fail.
The early years of Charles’ reign provide in microcosm the issues inherent in managing a composite state of such a scale, which even a man of Charles’ immense energy — which he displayed throughout his rulership — could not combat. In particular, that of being accepted by numerous nationalities as sovereign and the travel required would ultimately cause a level of royal absenteeism which was plainly…
