Charles V - Success or failure?

The reign of Charles V is one of the most fascinating reigns of the Early Modern Period - hopefully that is something we can all agree on. But what of its achievements?
Can we call the reign of Charles V one of success, or failure?

He stands in the memory as grand inheritor of all the habsburg territories at their greatest extent for the first - and last - time. As the last emperor to be crowned by the Pope, he stands in the Charlemagne tradition of his forebears.

Romantic, chivalrous, medieval and yet in many ways the most modern of monarchs, many thought him the embodiment of Erasmus' Renaissance prince.

His reign saw the capture of the King of France, the retreat before his army of the Grand Turk, the pacification of Italy, and a European hegemony that encompassed land from the Americas to Spain, Italy to the Low Countries, Germany to Hungary - victories at Pavia, Tunis and Muhlberg.

And yet his reign was one of almost continuous warfare. If Muhlberg was his greatest triumph, Metz was his grandest failure. By the time of his abdication in 1555, the territories of his empire were utterly exhausted and on the brink of bankruptcy. France had been beaten, but not contained as Henri II's capture of the Imperial Free Cities showed, the Grand Turk could not be stopped as the second siege of Vienna showed and the constant ravaging of Christian coasts was testimony to the crusading failure. Despite the reduction of the Elector of Saxony and Margrave of Hesse, the Augsburg Interim could not be implemented and Protestantism beaten in the field but not eradicated from Germany.
But ultimately, Charles failed to keep his Habsburg territories united, and the breakdown of the succession with the desertion of Ferdinand and his son, Maximillian, signalled the end of Charles' World Monarchia.

So, do we judge Charles V on his successes, or his ultimate failures?

Charles V main sucess was in conquering the mainland Americas. In comparison, the failures in Europe are less important. At least one has an eurocentric view of the world, of course.

This is another of the subjects I am not terribly knowledgable in but:   I would say Charles V failed overall.  Though from what I can see it was because he "bit off more than he could chew", that being the case he simply failed more spectacularly.  It seems he did win most of his military conflicts but that those successes didn't necessarily translate into his strategic goals.  Like the rooting out of protestantism. 

I think he simply wasn't able to properly unify his incredibly diverse holdings enough to allow him to take full advantage of his very considerable resources.

Edited by Justinian - 21-Oct-2007 at 03:58

True, but there are other reasons how Charly made Spain more powerful. Yes he did make the Cortes (Spanish Parliment if you will) weaker by putting unambitious persons who only follow his commands, and through his reign he did not put up tariffs on foreign goods going into Spain thus lesser quality merchandise were in higher in demand than domestic goods which ruined the economy. But Charles was overall a good politician and made Spain look fantastic. That is until his heir Philip II showed up.

But Charles was overall a good politician and made Spain look fantastic. That is until his heir Philip II showed up.

That was rather a limp post I guess, so I'll make a couple of comments on the effect of Charles' reign and the succession, leaving out whether it represents success, failure, or mere happenstance.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

How dare you saying anything bad about my beloved Carlos?

Now realistically, he did achieve at least three major things: 1) Kept his realm intact 2) Took control of Italy (and the pope) 3) Resisted the Ottomans at their mightiest 4) Invented modern government debt (he was badly indebted but then again they all were). So that's surely good stuff.

But obviously, on the other hand there were some probs: 1) the development of protestantism in the German territories (but successfully avoided it in Spain and Italy) 2) Started to rely heavily on Castille for its budget 3) Proved unable to seize major territories in the old world (France, England, Africa) 4) Had the worst arrangement made for his succession 5) Proved incapable to develop Spain economically.

But as remarked earlier what matters was the fact that he fulfilled his mission: he gave to his heir a realm more or less untouched as compared to the one he had received. So it is surely not a 100% success but as opposed to other kings of the period (Francis I Elizabeth I, etc) his realm was not to break appart soon after his death in a mindless civil war.
So I'd say he did rather well politically, very well militarily, excellent in terms of culture but poorly when it comes to the economy.

Yes but arguably the king has little to do with his country's economy.

The problem was that Castille was underpopulated and directed by outdated ideals. Charles could to nothing (I mean a modern economist would disagree but the point is that at that time there was none). He did as well as he could, using efficient delegates (any one from Cortes to Doria) and having a subtle understnading of new ideas such as independent entreprise. It is interesting to compare him with Francis I of France, the latter never really understood that a sovereign did not legally own whatever possession his subjects enjoyed.

I think over all he was humble. When he lost he could understand it and retreat (only to come back stronger later) and he trusted his delegates completely which was of course essential when one had such a massive empire. He could send years without going to a kingdom of his. He also was a fine psychologist which was important at a time when men were so proud and money so short.

It could be theorized that it was actually Charles fault all along in the economic stagnation of the country. Douglass North, an economist at Washington University in St. Louis argued that in England the industrial revolution was able to take place because after the Glorious Revolution in 1688 Parliment seized power from the King. Thus they were able to protect private property rights, protecting wealth, and eliminating arbitrary increases in taxes. With these changes in place, entrepreneurs recieved the incentive to make investments which in turn spurnned technological advancement.

There was a civil war in Spain soon after Charles took the throne, and if the rebels have won they would have elected a king from Spain, but the Cortes could have grown stronger after initiating the war, thus having more power than the king and maybe would have had their own industrial revolution

Edited by Ponce de Leon - 24-Oct-2007 at 23:50

Originally posted by Ponce de Leon It could be theorized that it was actually Charles fault all along in the economic stagnation of the country. Douglass North, an economist at Washington University in St. Louis argued that in England the industrial revolution was able to take place because after the Glorious Revolution in 1688 Parliment seized power from the King. Thus they were able to protect private property rights, protecting wealth, and eliminating arbitrary increases in taxes. With these changes in place, entrepreneurs recieved the incentive to make investments which in turn spurnned technological advancement. There was a civil war in Spain soon after Charles took the throne, and if the rebels have won they would have elected a king from Spain, but the Cortes could have grown stronger after initiating the war, thus having more power than the king and maybe would have had their own industrial revolution

Bravo Ponce I'm impressed. Unfortunately Doug North (Nobel Prize of Economics) was certainly wrong in his description of the effects of the 1688 revolution (nothing to do with the industrial revolution he is interested in England's commercial domination of the 18th century, this "democratic" government was supposed to create an healthy financial ground allowing cheaper public borrowing). He was certainly wrong for two reasons: non-constitutional kingdoms on the continent had lower interest rates than England even after 1688 and better public borrowing has little to do with private investment specially on a rather poorly integrated market.

Interestingly the "what if Charles had lost the war of the Communeros" you mentioned can simply be observed by comparing Catalugna (where the Cortes kept their might) and Castille (where they pretty much lost most of it). Turns out that yes Cataluna did (slightly) better than Castille economically during the early modern period, but was it because of a larger freedom or because of its port town and its natural riches? The Naples kingdom was relatively free too but was far from being a center of innovation.

The question here is: what is the influence of the constitutional form on a nation's economic success? Besides (specially for the 16th century) how aware were the rulers of the political events' influence on their realm's economic development?

So where were Charles' mistakes?
- Creating a huge debt. True. But they all did. Of course, had he  been perfectly peaceful, he might have saved a lot of money; similarly by dismembering his realm he would have saved a lot of his subjects' money. But, for a good monetarist economist it is difficult not to prefer Charles to Francis I. The latter not the Emperor created a lot of taxes to support a standing army and never hesitated to expropriate his subjects from their rightful wealth. On the other hand Charles relied heavily on the market to bring him fresh cash and military might. Theoretically thus Charles was maybe not correct but he was at least less wrong than his counterparts.
- Accepting the wealth from the Americas. He inoculated his realm with the Dutch disease but who could have resisted? Then again he was not only king of Spain but lord of the Netherlands which were doing very well in that period.

I guess I could add a few but here is the point: the ruler doesn't rule the economy. Charles had next to none mean to influence it. They knew only vaguely economic principles that seem self evident now. Granted Charles was not a 16th century Alan Greenspan but under his reign some of the most successful entrepreneurial adventures of all times took place: the rise of the Netherlands, the Genoan and the Bavarian bankers, the first globalization, etc.

Charles didn't impeded these (as Louis XIV later would) he occasionally used it but managed not to break it. Spain's problems came from deeper. He didn't made them worse and certainly did not cause them.