In January, 1519, another great personage departed this life, in the death of Maximilian, Emperor of Germany, paternal grandfather of the young King of Spain, upon whom, in June of the same year, was bestowed the imperial crown. He was thus at nineteen years of age, as Charles V of Germany and Charles I of Spain, sovereign over a vastly wider realm than any Castilian king had ever dreamed of conquering. From his father, Philip, he had inherited dominion over the Netherlands and Franche–Comté; through his mother and from Ferdinand the kingdoms of Spain; and now, by the Diet of Frankfort, he was made Emperor of Germany. It may be said that with his coronation at Aix–la–Chapelle, in October, 1520, his troubles really began; for Francis, the French king, also young and powerful, urged a right to the crown; and henceforth, until the death of the latter, in 1547, there was enmity between them. That same year occurred the famous meeting on the Field of the Cloth of Gold, between French Francis and Henry VIII of England; but not long after Henry was fighting as an ally of Charles against the King of France. To recount their quarrels and battles would be too wearisome as well as fruitless a task; but they culminated at the famous battle of Pavia, when the French king’s army was routed, and Francis himself taken prisoner by the Spaniards, in 1524. He was not released until he had forfeited his claims to Charles’s possessions in Burgundy, etc., and returned to France in January, 1526, after signing the Treaty of Madrid, and leaving as hostages two of his sons. But Francis did not respect his promises, and soon there was war again between the two, more battles, more signing of treaties, more shedding of blood and devastation of territories, until the war–worn subjects of both sovereigns were weary of a conflict in which they obtained no gains and shared no profits. Especially were the Spaniards wroth at being repeatedly called upon to donate funds and men, men and funds, for the carrying on of foreign wars. Yet they rarely rebelled, and only grumbled and protested when the Cortes was called, knowing that it meant only more money for the king and his favourites, more sacrifices at the feet of Moloch the insatiate. Through all the years of his reign Charles was carrying on war of another kind, also, with the enemies of the Romish Church. Simultaneously with his coronation as Emperor of Germany rose the apparition of Protestantism in the person of the redoubtable Luther; and the assembling of the Diet of Worms, for the discussion and extermination of Lutheranism, was one of the first acts of the young sovereign, in January, 1521. It was an unequal fight, that between the poor peasant–priest Luther and the mighty emperor; yet, though the former died in 1541, his cause eventually won—as all the world knows—and not all Charles’s efforts could strangle in its cradle the young giant of Reformation.