The intricacies of dynastic politics in combination with some male bloodlines dying out led to another amalgamation or territories in the hands of a single family or person in the beginning of the sixteenth century. Charles of Habsburg, inherited lands from all his grandparents. His patrimonial Archduchy of Austria came of course from his paternal grandfather the Emperor Maximilian I. His paternal grandmother, Mary of Burgundy added the remnants of the Burgundian lands, greatly diminished by the lost wars of her father, to Charles’ inheritance. Although diminished, the Low Countries, center of one of the political and economic powerhouses of the bygone century, were a splendid prize. It was here that Charles of Habsburg was born.
His maternal grandparents were Ferdinand and Isabella, the Catholic King and Queen of Aragon and Castile. Their marriage brought what is now Spain under the rule of a single monarchy. Although it would take to well into the Nineteenth century for Castile and Aragon to completely fuse into one Kingdom, we now regard them as the Kingdom of Spain. These rulers regard themselves primarily as the successors to the Castilian Kings and take their regnal numbers, as the Castilian Kings had done with the Kings of Leon, and these with the Kings of Asturias.
With the Spanish inheritance came also the Italian states of the Spanish family. These were the Kingdoms of Sicily, Naples and Sardinia, and the Duchy of Milan. Spain also brought the new and vast riches of the Indies, or as we later knew it, Latin America.
Charles thus united under his personal rule very different lands from very different backgrounds. Some of them Kingdoms in their own right, others suzerain to the Holy Roman Emperor.
In 1519 however, Charles was elected Holy Roman Emperor himself. Although in
Spain he is known as Carlos I, he is mostly referred to as the Emperor Charles
V.
In Eastern Europe a Jagiellon secundogeniture sat on the thrones of both Bohemia
and Hungary. On the map both countries are depicted their own distinct color.
Both crowns would soon fall to the Habsburg Dominions as well, although large
parts of Hungary would fall prey to the advancing Turks and their Ottoman
Empire.
