AN ITALIAN ESTIMATE OF THE ABDICATION OF CHARLES V
It has never been doubted that the ambition of Charles V was great and insatiable, and that this alone was his dominant passion. It was therefore a greater marvel that he should voluntarily despoil himself of all authority and dignity. But a close examination of the question will show that his action had its origin in that very ambition. After thirty years of continual warfare, journeys, negotiations, and perils, he realised that he was no happier than before, and perhaps higher motives prompted him to think upon the vanity and frailty of human greatness; or satiety and weariness having disgusted him with kingship and power, he thought to win the praise of men by other means, and to seek tranquillity and repose in private life.
But it is most probable that after his reverses in Germany Charles recognised the impossibility of attaining to that absolute monarchy which he longed for, and experienced in himself that change of feeling to which the human heart is naturally inclined; and that the excessive longing for sovereignty over the whole world was succeeded by total lethargy and a longing for quiet and inaction, more especially as he was suffering from ill health and was beginning to feel the weight of years. The care which he had taken to accustom Prince Philip, his only son, to the cares of government, sending him to Italy and investing him with the duchy of Milan in 1540, might lead one to believe that he had long since conceived and matured the design of renouncing his authority before he died; and that he would have done so much sooner if matters had been in such a state that he could have withdrawn with dignity, and without laying himself open to a charge of weakness.
In the meanwhile Henry II, no more resolved to keep peace with Charles V than firmly persuaded that this was the sincere desire of the latter, had leagued himself with the German princes, the enemies of the emperor, and hostilities were begun on both sides without any formal declaration of war. Thus while the French attacked Toul, Verdun, and Metz in Lower Germany, the German allies, whose chief leaders were Maurice, duke and elector of Saxony, Duke Albert of Mecklenburg, and Albert of Brandenburg, markgraf of Kulmbach and Bayreuth, showed such spirit in their encounter with the imperial army in the direction of the Tyrol that the emperor himself, surprised at Innsbruck, withdrew hastily into Dalmatia to the lands of his brother Ferdinand, leaving all his baggage as spoil to the enemy. This fresh blow further confirmed him in his resolution to withdraw from the world. After the flight from Innsbruck it was observed that he suffered from a melancholy humour, and in Villach in Carinthia shut himself in his room for several days, giving no audiences and despatching no business. Having recruited his army he marched towards Flanders, where he vainly attempted to besiege Metz, which was occupied by the king of France. Still further saddened by this proof of his altered fortune, he almost entirely abandoned the administration of his dominions, partly to Prince Philip and partly to his favourite the bishop of Arras, and his sister the widowed queen of Hungary.
[1555-1556 A.D.]
In order to evade the cares of government, which had now become distasteful to him, he reduced himself to a private house in Brussels, where, says Segin,
g “he took great interest in clock-making, delighting in such machinery and in talking with the workmen and watching their work.” He began the formal abdication of his crown by making over the kingdom of Naples to his son (1554). Julius III approved this abdication, and received in the name of King Philip the homage paid to him by the kings of Naples as feudatories of the holy see. Thus the states of Milan and Naples changed their ruler somewhat earlier than Spain. But this separation of the kingdom of Naples and duchy of Milan from Spain, to which they were justly united, the former because of the ancient right of the king of Aragon, and the latter because of the will of Charles, who bestowed it upon the heir presumptive of the throne of Spain, was only temporary, for the next year (1555) Charles further bestowed the Low Countries upon his son, and a little later (1556) the kingdom of Spain and the dominions of the new world.[f]