Spilling outside of Italy’s borders

The Italian Wars melded into more wars that spilled out into other parts of Europe

(see Chapter 13). Charles I, becoming co-ruler of Spain in 1517 (along with his

mother), won election as Emperor Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire two years

later. This political victory made the French nervous, because it meant they were in

the middle of a Hapsburg Empire sandwich.

The election of Charles wasn’t democratic, by the way. Just as the Holy Roman

Empire wasn’t Roman, it wasn’t really an empire, either. The Holy Roman Empire

was a conglomeration of states, some of which were practically kingdoms. The

electors were powerful princes of seven of those states, who enjoyed the

hereditary right to choose each new emperor. They elected Charles.

Being picked Holy Roman Emperor by the electors wasn’t always a vote of confidence.

Sometimes they chose rulers they thought they could manipulate. Charles, however,

had considerable success taking charge. He wrested Milan away from his French rival,

Francis I (successor to Louis VII). Charles’s Spanish troops even took Francis prisoner.

Charles also got Naples, and the other Italian states knew not to mess with him.

Yet that didn’t settle things. The Italian Wars melded into a long fight of Hapsburg

versus France that lasted until the middle of the eighteenth century.

Before he retired to a Spanish monastery in 1556, the embattled Charles found it

necessary to split his empire back into two parts — Spanish and Austrian — to

make it less unwieldy and easier to defend. If this reminds you of something that

the Roman emperors did more than 1,000 years before Charles’s time, good for

you. If not, you can read about that in Chapter 5.

By the time Charles called it quits, other things in Europe had changed profoundly,

partly as a result of the financial strains of prolonged wars. To start, taxes rose.

Princes were forced to borrow money, enriching new generations of bankers — and

sometimes bankrupting the bankers when the princes defaulted on loans. Then came

this big thing called the Protestant Reformation. (I devote Chapter 14 to the

Reformation.)