Why did Charles V divide his holdings as he did?
score:8
After some reading up I have the beginnings of an answer here, I think.
- The partition of the Habsburg lands actually took place in 1521 (The pact of Worms) and 1522 (The pact of Brussels), way before Philip II was even born. By the Worms and Brussels agreements, which were actually family documents and not diplomatic instruments, Charles's brother Ferdinand became the ruler of the Austrian Habsburg lands, serving in fact as Charles's steward or viceroy. Charles reserved to himself the paramount authority as both emperor and head of the Habsburg house.
Since Ferdinand proved to be an able and successful ruler, it was quite obvious that he should retain the control of his territories upon Charles's retirement. In other words, the retirement just finalized and legalized the effective partition made ~35 years before it.
(So far my answer is based on pp. 26-45 of the book A History of the Habsburg Empire, 1526-1918) by Kahn.
- However, what is not quite obvious to me from the previous explanation, is why Ferdinand rather than Philip succeeded to the Imperial title. My guess, based on the above source, but not quite stated there in so many words is that Ferdinand had become King of Bohemia in 1526 (the previous king, the hapless Louis II, was killed in the battle of Mohács and left no legitimate children, so Ferdinand who was Louis's brother-in-law succeeded to the Bohemian throne). This made him an elector of the HRE and a much more obvious candidate for the throne than the distant King of Spain.
But like I said, that's just my guess, not Kahn's (I got the Mohács connection from him, though).
- As for the Netherlands, I'd really go out on a limb and hazard a guess that for Charles this was less an issue of German/Spanish identity of the territory, but rather of his own emotional attachment to it. Charles himself grew up there and was raised as a Flemish prince (when he first took up his duties as King of Spain, he barely knew Spanish and was surrounded by Flemish advisors, which the Spaniards rather disliked). So it makes sense for him to have wanted to leave his "ancestral land" to his son, whether this was politically sound or not.
This is really just a guess, though.
Upvote:3
Various details of the partition in the 1550s were more or less negotiable and no doubt were negotiated quite intensely. But at least one detail was not negotiable.
Why did Ferdinand become emperor after Charles V?
Charles V was elected emperor on 28 June 1519 and crowned King of the Romans on 26 October 1520. He was crowned King of Italy on 22 February 1530 and crowned Emperor of the Romans on 24 February 1530.
For various reasons the seven electors met and agreed to make Ferdinand the next emperor. He was elected King of the Romans and future emperor on 5 January 1531. This made it inevitable that he would be the next emperor (barring revolution of some type or premature death). He was crowned King of the Romans at Aachen on 11 February 1531.
In September 1556 Charles V abdicated as Holy Roman Emperor in favor of Ferdinand, King of the Romans. On 24 February 1558 the electors met and formally accepted the abdication, thus making Ferdinand the emperor with full imperial powers. Ferdinand was crowned Emperor elect of the Romans at Frankfurt on 14 march 1558.
So the main question why Ferdinand became Emperor of the Romans in 1558 was why the electors considered the advantages of electing him King of the Romans in 1531 out weighed any disadvantages they might have seen in the process. Once Ferdinand was elected King of the Romans in 1531 he was legally the next emperor and only some sort of revolution, or predeceasing Charles V, could have prevented him from being the next emperor.
Ferdinand becoming emperor was not decided in any family meetings to divide the Habsburg lands in the 1550s. It had already been decided by the seven electors in 1531 that Ferdinand would automatically become the next emperor when Charles V ceased to reign as emperor.
The Habsburgs could have decided to divide up their various kingdoms and duchies and other lands in any of an almost infinite number of ways in the 1550s, and in my opinion it would have been better to give more lands to the next emperor - for example by giving the Netherlands, Milan, and the kingdoms of the Crown of Aragon to whichever member of the family would be the next emperor. But the question of who would be the next emperor was a matter that had already been decided 2 decades earlier in a meeting of the electors.
More post
- 📝 Researching a Spanish document from the ~XV century
- 📝 The manuscript Summa Logicae (William of Ockham)
- 📝 How did Maximilien de Robespierre lose control of his Reign of Terror and die by the guillotine?
- 📝 Can someone identify this banknote?
- 📝 How many languages did Zhang Shenfu speak?
- 📝 Is the Krishna (a god within Hinduism), an appropriated historical figure?
- 📝 What did the Edo samurai bureaucracy actually look like?
- 📝 Why has the Congo ended up French-speaking but not Flemish-speaking?
- 📝 Did Hitler and Nazi officials give interviews and cooperate with the Weimar republic general press?
- 📝 How much did the western world know about the Soviet Union pre-WWII?
- 📝 What taxes were assessed on people in Alta California?
- 📝 How did the Romans build their armies for the First Punic War?
- 📝 Were freedmen part of the "familia"?
- 📝 What does the forward "Bullnose" of a Bailey Bridge that is under construction look like?
- 📝 Can the Cassini maps of France be found online?
- 📝 Is there evidence to suggest the "war on drugs" was a cover for class warfare?
- 📝 Have Germans expelled from Eastern Europe been re-enfranchised?
- 📝 How has mother/ child mortality evolved from pre industrial era?
- 📝 Why did the Roman military start to favour swords over the spear phalanx?
- 📝 What in Confucianism reduced the importance of the clan structure and made these societies more secular?
- 📝 What did the Phoenician sailor trader eat?
- 📝 Are there precedents of 'I am not a racist' from US Presidents?
- 📝 What coin is this and where is it from? Thai script, Thai arms. Rev: left facing portrait
- 📝 Can Alexander III of Macedon's success be attributed to good logistics management?
- 📝 Were there any battles in Continental Europe that were decided by "peasants with pitchforks?"
- 📝 Did Great Britain benefit economically from the loss of America?
- 📝 Which army uniform is this (2nd Boer British or WWI US)?
- 📝 Dictators who came back through elections?
- 📝 What was the British version of the Enigma machine?
- 📝 How could the USS Maine explosion have been investigated?
Source: stackoverflow.com
Search Posts
Related post
- 📝 Why did Charles V divide his holdings as he did?
- 📝 Why did King Charles II cede New Amsterdam / New York to his brother James, Duke of York, in 1664?
- 📝 Why did Napoleon divide his army during the retreat from Smolensk?
- 📝 Why did Henry III of England give his sons English names, other than naming them after his favourite saints?
- 📝 Why did Charles I not borrow abroad?
- 📝 Why did Peter the Great change his daughters' title to Tsesarevna?
- 📝 How and why did Charles XII get to Poltava?
- 📝 Why did Taft write a one cent check on his first day as Chief Justice?
- 📝 If Bill Clinton was impeached, why did he finish his second term?
- 📝 Why did Robert Walpole get painted with a crown on his right side?
- 📝 Why did Emperor Nero kill his mother and others?
- 📝 Why did Winston Churchill say "perverted science" in his Finest Hour speech?
- 📝 Why did the the US House of Representatives stop reading George Washington's farewell address on his birthday?
- 📝 Why did Frederick the Great do so much worse against the Russians than against his other enemies in the Seven Years' War?
- 📝 Why did Shostakovich not release his 4th, but did release his 5th symphony?
- 📝 Why did Theodore Roosevelt send his daughter Alice with Taft on a diplomatic mission to Asia?
- 📝 Why and how did George V give titles to his generals over lands that he did not possess?
- 📝 Why did George H. W. Bush select Dan Quayle as his running mate in 1988?
- 📝 Why did Napoleon change his mind and continue the attack into Russia?
- 📝 Why did Henry I imprison his older brother and rival Robert for almost 30 years instead of having him killed?
- 📝 Why did Charles the Bold have long fingernails?
- 📝 Why did ancient Egyptian sculpture Thutmose abandon his masterpiece Nefertiti bust?
- 📝 Why did Thomas Larkin write his biographical sketches?
- 📝 Why did Teddy Roosevelt have his second wedding in London?
- 📝 In the Revolutionary War, why did General Howe attack Philadelphia, instead of continuing his march to join General Burgoyne?
- 📝 Why did Stalin pressure Allies to open second front even though his purpose was to grab as much land as possible for his future satellite states?
- 📝 Why did Hitler attack the Soviet Union when he was still busy fighting the United Kingdom?
- 📝 Why did Native Americans die from European diseases while Europeans didn't catch serious diseases from the New World?
- 📝 Did Adolf Hitler ever address the fact that his own appearance was almost an exact opposite of what he considered the ideal Aryan appearance?
- 📝 Why did the Confederacy think they could win the American Civil War?