The Italian venture of the Aragonese kings had yielded probably more of advantage than of harm down to the time of Ferdinand, and it may be that even he did not overstep the bounds of prudence in his ambitious designs. When his policies were continued, however, in the person of Charles I, better known by his imperial title as the Emperor Charles V, the results were to prove more disastrous to Spain than beneficial. The circumstances were in fact different for the two monarchs, although their aims were much the same. Some writers have supposed that Ferdinand himself recognized the danger of a union of the Austrian, Burgundian, and Spanish dominions under one king, and they assert that he planned to make Charles’ younger brother, Ferdinand, ruler of Spain and the Two Sicilies in case the former should be elected emperor. In his will, however, he respected the principle of primogeniture, and left all to Charles, eldest son of Philip the Handsome and Juana la Loca. Through his mother and Ferdinand, Charles inherited Castile, Aragon, and Navarre, the Castilian dominions in Africa and America (where the era of great conquests was just about to begin), the Roussillon and Cerdagne across the Pyrenees, and Sardinia, Sicily, and Naples in Italy; through his father he had already become possessed of the territories of the House of Burgundy, comprised of Flanders and Artois in northern France, Franche-Comté and Charolais in the east, Luxembourg, and the Low Countries. This was not all, for Charles was heir of the Emperor Maximilian, and in addition to inheriting the latter’s Austrian dominions might hope to succeed to the imperial title as ruler of the Holy Roman Empire. To be sure, the system of electing the emperors by the electoral princes still obtained, but the Germanic states of the empire were almost certain to prefer a powerful Hapsburg, with such dominions as Charles had, to any other candidate, if only to serve as a counterpoise to the ambitions of France. Nevertheless, the electors did not miss the opportunity to make a profit out of the situation, and encouraged the candidacy of Henry VIII of England and especially of Francis I of France as well as that of Charles, receiving bribes and favors from all. In the end, following the death of Maximilian in 1519, they decided in favor of Charles. He was now ruler, at least in name, of one of the most vast empires in the history of the world. [Sidenote: Inherent weakness of his empire.]