[Charles V, of Germany, and king of Spain under title of Charles I, born 1500, died 1558. This fortunate monarch inherited from his father, Archduke Philip of Austria, the Hapsburg dominion in Germany; through his grandmother, the dukedom of Burgundy, which included the Netherlands; and through his maternal grandfather, Ferdinand of Spain, the magnificent dominion of the latter country in both the New and Old Worlds. He was elected Emperor of Germany by the diet in 1519, and was the most rich and powerful prince in Christendom. Among the notable events of his reign were the outbreak of Luther’s reformation, the defeat and capture of Francis I of France, the capture and sack of Rome by his generalissimo, the Constable de Bourbon, the two defeats of the Turkish power in Hungary, and the severe punishment of the Mohammedan pirates of Africa. Though Charles could turn his arms against the pontiff when policy dictated, and was not a religious bigot, he strained every nerve to suppress the Lutheran reformation for political reasons. He was at last, however, obliged to assent to a certain degree of religious toleration, fixed by the Nuremburg agreement in 1532, and that of Augsburg in 1548. He abdicated in favor of his son Philip in 1556, and spent the last two years of his life in the convent of Yuste in Spain.] The edicts and the Inquisition were the gifts of Charles to the Netherlands, in return for their wasted treasure and their constant obedience. For this his name deserves to be handed down to eternal infamy, not only throughout the Netherlands but in every land where a single heart beats for political or religious freedom. To eradicate these institutions after they had been watered and watched by the care of his successor, was the work of an eighty years’ war, in the course of which millions of lives were sacrificed. Yet [Illustration: CHARLES THE FIFTH.] the abdicating emperor had summoned his faithful estates around him, and stood up before them in his imperial robes for the last time, to tell them of the affectionate regard which he had always borne them, and to mingle his tears with theirs.