At length exhausted by his manifold labors, Charles V resolved to divide his dominions between his brother Ferdinand and his son Philip and to retire from government. In the hall of the Golden Fleece at Brussels on 25 October, 1555, he formally abdicated the sovereignty of his beloved Netherlands. Turning to the representatives, he said: "Gentlemen, you must not be astonished if, old and feeble as I am in all my members, and also from the love I bear you, I shed some tears." At least in the Netherlands the love was reciprocal. In 1556 he resigned the Spanish and Italian crowns, [Footnote: He made over to his brother all his imperial authority, though he nominally retained the crown of the Holy Roman Empire until 1558] and spent his last years in preparation for a future world. He died in 1558. Personally, Charles V had a prominent lower jaw and a thin, pale face, relieved by a wide forehead and bright, flashing eyes. He was well formed and dignified in appearance. In character he was slow and at times both irresolute and obstinate, but he had a high sense of duty, honest intentions, good soldierly qualities, and a large amount of cold common sense. Though not highly educated, he was well read and genuinely appreciative of music and painting. PHILIP II AND THE PREDOMINANCE OF SPAIN For a century and a half after the retirement of Charles V in 1556, we hear of two branches of the Habsburg family--the Spanish Habsburgs and the Austrian Habsburgs, descended respectively from Philip II and Ferdinand. By the terms of the division, Ferdinand, the brother of Charles, received the compact family possessions in the East--Austria and its dependencies, Bohemia, that portion of Hungary not occupied by the Turks, and the title of Holy Roman Emperor,--while the remainder went to Charles's son, Philip II,--Spain, the Netherlands, Franche Comté (the eastern part of Burgundy), the Two Sicilies, Milan, and the American colonies. Over the history of Ferdinand and his immediate successors, we need not tarry, because, aside from efforts to preserve religious peace and the family's political predominance within the empire and to recover Hungary from the Turks, it is hardly essential. But in western Europe Philip II for a variety of reasons became a figure of world-wide importance: we must examine his career. [Sidenote: Character and policies of Philip II]