HISTORY OF THE REIGN OF THE EMPEROR CHARLES V. By WILLIAM ROBERTSON, D. D. PRINCIPAL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH, AND VOLUME II. The SIXTH EDITION, Corrected. LONDON: Printed for A. STRAHAN; T. CADELL, in the Strand; MDCCLXXXVII, THE HISTORY OF THE REIGN OF THE EMPEROR CHARLES V. BOOK. I HARLES V. was born at Ghent on the BOOK twenty-fourth day of February, in the Ctwenty-fourth Charles V. year one thousand five hundred. His fa- Birth of ther, Philip the Handsome, archduke of Austria, was the son of the emperor Maximilian, and of Mary, the only child of Charles the Bold, the last prince of the house of Burgundy. His mother, Joanna, was the fecond daughter of Ferdinand king of Aragon, and of Isabella queen of Caftile. nion, and by which A LONG train of fortunate events had opened His domithe way for this young prince to the inheritance the events of more extenfive dominions, than any European monarch, fince Charlemagne, had poffeffed. Each VOL. II. B of he acquired them. 1. BOOK of his ancestors had acquired kingdoms or provinces, towards which their profpect of fucceffion was extremely remote. The rich poffeffions of Mary of Burgundy had been deftined for another family, fhe having been contracted by her father to the only son of Louis XI. of France; but that capricious monarch, indulging his hatred to her family, chofe rather to strip her of part of her territories by force, than to fecure the whole by marriage; and by this misconduct, fatal to his pofterity, he threw all the Netherlands and Franche Comté into the hands of a rival. Ifabella, the daughter of John II. of Caftile, far from having any profpect of that noble inheritance which the tranfmitted to her grandfon, paffed the early part of her life in obfcurity and indigence. But the Caftilians, exasperated against her brother Henry IV. an ill-advised and vicious prince, publicly charged him with impotence, and his queen with adultery. Upon his demife, rejecting Joanna, whom Henry had uniformly, and even on his death-bed, owned to be his lawful daughter, and whom an affembly of the ftates had acknowledged to be the heir of his kingdom, they obliged her to retire into Portugal, and placed Ifabella on the throne of Caftile. Ferdinand owed the crown of Aragon to the unexpected death of his elder brother, and acquired the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily by violating the faith of treaties, and difregarding the ties of blood. To all thefe kingdoms, Chriftopher Columbus, by an effort of genius and of intrepidity, the boldest and most fuccefsful that is recorded 8 |