litary point of view, proved politically unfruitful (1470-1498).
CHARLES IX., second son of Henry II. and Catharine de' Medici,
became king of France in 1560; the civil wars of the Huguenots and
Catholics fill up this reign; the first war concluded by the peace of
Amboise, during which Francis of Guise was assassinated; the second
concluded by the peace of Longjumeau, during which Montmorency fell; the
third concluded by the peace of St. Germain, in which Conde and
Moncontour fell, which peace was broken by the massacre of St.
Bartholomew, into the perpetration of which Charles was inveigled by his
mother and the Guises; incensed at this outrage the Huguenots commenced a
fourth war, and were undertaking a fifth when Charles died, haunted by
remorse and in dread of the infinite terror (1550-1574).
CHARLES X., brother of Louis XVI. and Louis XVIII., the latter of
whom he succeeded on the throne of France in 1824; was unpopular in
France as Duc d'Artois in the time of the Revolution, and had to flee the
country at the outbreak of it, and stayed for some time as an exile in
Holyrood, Edinburgh; on his accession he became no less unpopular from
his adherence to the old regime; at an evil hour in 1830 he issued
ordinances in defiance of all freedom, and after an insurrection of three
days in the July of that year had again to flee; abdicating in favour of
his son, found refuge for a time again in Holyrood, and died at Goertz in
his eightieth year (1757-1837).
CHARLES V., (I. of Spain), emperor of Germany, son of Philip,
Archduke of Austria, born at Ghent; became king of Spain in 1516, on the
death of his maternal grandfather Ferdinand, and emperor of Germany in
1519 on the death of his paternal grandfather Maximilian I., being
crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1520; reigned during one of the most
important periods in the history of Europe; the events of the reign are
too numerous to detail; enough to mention his rivalry with Francis I. of
France, his contention as a Catholic with the Protestants of Germany, the
inroads of the Turks, revolts in Spain, and expeditions against the
pirates of the Mediterranean; the ambition of his life was the
suppression of the Protestant Reformation and the succession of his son
Philip to the Imperial crown; he failed in both; resigned in favour of
his son, and retired into the monastery of St. Yuste, in Estremadura,
near which he built a magnificent retreat, where, it is understood,
not
|