The Emperor Charles V: complete in 1 volume by Edward Armstrong

Author:Edward Armstrong [Armstrong, Edward]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: RenaissanceAlive.com
Published: 2016-11-25T00:00:00+00:00

FROM the conclusion of the Castilian and Valencian civil wars, until Charles sailed from Barcelona for his last war against Francis I, there was no striking event in internal Spanish history, with the possible exception of the Cortes of 1538. In Spain the years 1529-30, so important for Germany and Italy, form no dividing line. The regency of Philip in 1543 is the chief date of any definite importance, because with this new influences may almost be said to have set in.

Charles has too often been regarded as an absentee ruler, but from his accession to his departure in 1543 he spent practically half his time in Spain. In addition to this he was during the two North African expeditions engaged on a Spanish mission and surrounded by his Spanish nobility. His visit also to Sicily and Naples on his return from Tunis was a duty imposed upon him by the fact that the former was an old, the latter a more recent possession of the house of Aragon.

It is, nevertheless, difficult to trace with any precision the influence of the reign upon internal Spanish history, for its interest consists less in events than in tendencies, and a better view can be obtained if the somewhat scanty evidence be considered in its entirety rather than in short chronological sections. The problems were constitutional and economical, and they find their expression mainly in the king's relation to his Cortes. The numerous petitions of the frequent sessions are concerned with every department of national life, yet the inferences to be drawn therefrom must be accepted with some caution. It is noticeable that no small proportion of the petitions descends from previous, and is inherited by future reigns. The very frequency of their appearance attracts the historian's attention and leads him to believe that they must have been of peculiar importance. Yet the future student of English history would be mistaken were he to suppose that the Bills for the marriage of a Deceased Wife's Sister and for Female Suffrage were the most vital legislative needs of the present day. Persistency in the production of old programmes may have been partly the result of indolence, for it takes trouble to produce a living scheme or even to bury dead ones.01

The Cortes had technically no legislative authority, but their control over supply was so undoubted that they really had enough power to insist upon redress if they were much in earnest. It is the privilege of the representatives of taxpayers to grumble; the so-called petitions of the Castilian Cortes corresponded to the grievances (doléances) of the French Estates-General. Such bodies are necessarily pessimists; they dwell perforce on the dwindling resources, the diminishing population of their constituencies. In economic history the evidence of those whose duty it is to reduce or resist taxation is subject to an appreciable discount. It is true that the majority of town representatives were not personally affected by the direct taxation which they voted, but the rising of the Communes

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