Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor

Charles V (24 February 1500 – 21 September 1558) was Holy Roman Emperor and Archduke of Austria from 1519 to 1556, King of Spain (as Charles I) from 1516 to 1556, and Lord of the Netherlands as titular Duke of Burgundy (as Charles II) from 1506 to 1555. He was heir to and then head of the rising House of Habsburg. His dominions in Europe included the Holy Roman Empire, extending from Germany to northern Italy with rule over the Austrian hereditary lands and Burgundian Low Countries, and Spain with its possessions of the southern Italian kingdoms of Naples, Sicily and Sardinia. In the Americas, he oversaw the continuation of Spanish colonization and a short-lived German colonization. The personal union of the European and American territories he ruled was the first collection of realms labelled " the empire on which the sun never sets".

Charles was born in Flanders to Habsburg Archduke Philip the Handsome, son of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor and Mary of Burgundy, and Joanna of Castile, younger child of Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, the Catholic Monarchs of Spain. Heir of his grandparents, Charles inherited his family dominions at a young age. After his father's death in 1506, he inherited the Low Countries. In 1516 he became King of Spain as co-monarch of Castile and Aragon with his mother. Spain's possessions included the Castilian colonies of the West Indies and the Spanish Main, as well as Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia. At the death of his grandfather Maximilian in 1519, he inherited the Austrian hereditary lands and was elected as Holy Roman Emperor. He adopted the Imperial name of ''Charles V'' as his main title, and styled himself as a new Charlemagne.

Charles revitalized the medieval concept of universal monarchy. With no fixed capital, he made 40 journeys through the different entities he ruled and spent a quarter of his reign travelling within his realms. Although his empire came to him peacefully, he spent most of his life waging war, exhausting his revenues and leaving debts in his attempt to defend the integrity of the Holy Roman Empire from the Protestant Reformation, the expansion of the Ottoman Empire, and in wars with France. Charles borrowed money from German and Italian bankers and, to repay them, relied on the wealth of the Low Countries and the flow of silver from New Spain and Peru, brought under his rule following the Spanish conquest of the Aztec and Inca empires, which caused widespread inflation.

Crowned King of Germany in Aachen, Charles sided with Pope Leo X and declared Martin Luther an outlaw at the Diet of Worms in 1521. The same year, Francis I of France, surrounded by the Habsburg possessions, started a war in Italy that led to his capture in the Battle of Pavia (1525). In 1527, Rome was sacked by an army of Charles's mutinous soldiers. Charles then defended Vienna from the Turks and obtained coronations as King of Italy and Holy Roman Emperor from Pope Clement VII. In 1535, he took possession of Milan and captured Tunis. However, the loss of Buda during the struggle for Hungary and the Algiers expedition in the early 1540s frustrated his anti-Ottoman policies. After years of negotiations, Charles came to an agreement with Pope Paul III for the organization of the Council of Trent (1545). The refusal of the Lutheran Schmalkaldic League to recognize the council's validity led to a war, won by Charles. However, Henry II of France offered new support to the Lutheran cause and strengthened the Franco-Ottoman alliance with Suleiman the Magnificent.

Ultimately, Charles conceded the Peace of Augsburg and abandoned his multi-national project with abdications in 1556 that divided his hereditary and imperial domains between the Spanish Habsburgs, headed by his son Philip II of Spain, and Austrian Habsburgs, headed by his brother Ferdinand. In 1557, Charles retired to the Monastery of Yuste in Extremadura and died there a year later.

Ancestry

Charles of Austria was born on 24 February 1500 in the Prinsenhof of Ghent, a Flemish city of the Habsburg Netherlands, to Philip of Austria and Joanna of Trastámara. His father Philip, nicknamed ''Philip the Handsome'', was the firstborn son of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, Archduke of Austria, and Mary of Burgundy, heiress to the Burgundian Netherlands. Charles's mother Joanna was a younger daughter of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, the Catholic Monarchs of Spain from the House of Trastámara. The political marriage of Philip and Joanna was first conceived in a letter sent by Maximilian to Ferdinand, part of the establishment of an Austro-Spanish alliance opposed to the Kingdom of France in the context the Italian Wars.''Emperor, a new life of Charles V'', Geoffrey Parker

From the moment he became King of the Romans in 1486, Charles's paternal grandfather Maximilian had carried a very financially risky policy of maximum expansionism, relying mostly on the resources of the Austrian hereditary lands. Even though it is often implied (among others, by Erasmus of Rotterdam) that Charles V and the Habsburgs gained their vast empire through peaceful policies (exemplified by the saying or "Let others wage war, but thou, O happy Austria, marry; for those kingdoms which Mars gives to others, Venus gives to thee.", reportedly spoken by Mathias Corvinus), Maximilian and his descendants fought wars aplenty (Maximilian alone fought 27 wars during his four decades of ruling). His general strategy was to combine his intricate systems of alliance, wars, military threats and offers of marriage to realize his expansionist ambitions. Ultimately he succeeded in coercing Bohemia, Hungary and Poland into acquiescence in the Habsburgs' expansionist plan.

The fact that the marriages between the Habsburgs and the Trastámaras, originally conceived as a marital alliance against France, would bring the crowns of Castile and Aragon to Maximilian's male line, however, was unexpected.

The marriage contract between Philip and Joanna was signed in 1495, and celebrations were held in 1496. Philip was already Duke of Burgundy (although the Duchy of Burgundy itself had been lost to the French crown), given Mary's death in 1482, and also heir apparent of Austria as honorific archduke. Joanna, in contrast, was only third in the Spanish line of succession, preceded by her older brother John, Prince of Asturias and older sister Isabella of Aragon. Both heirs to the crowns of Castile and Aragon John and Isabella died in 1498, and the Catholic Monarchs desired to keep the Spanish kingdoms in Iberian hands, so they designated their Portuguese grandson Miguel da Paz as heir presumptive of Spain by naming him Prince of Asturias; but he died as a baby in 1500.

Birth and childhood

Charles's mother went into labour at a ball in February 1500. He was named in honour of Charles the Bold of Burgundy, who had tried to turn the Burgundian State into a continuous territory. When Charles was born, a poet at the court reported that the people of Ghent "shouted Austria and Burgundy throughout the whole city for three hours" to celebrate his birth.

Given the dynastic situation, the newborn was originally heir apparent only of the Burgundian Low Countries as the honorific Duke of Luxembourg and second in line to the Austrian duchies, becoming known in his early years simply as "Charles of Ghent". He was baptised at the Church of Saint John by the Bishop of Tournai. The Burgundian nobles Charles I de Croÿ and John III of Glymes were his godfathers, and Margaret of York and Margaret of Austria, respectively his step-grandmother and aunt, his godmothers. Charles's baptism gifts were a sword and a helmet, objects of Burgundian chivalric tradition representing, respectively, the instrument of war and the symbol of peace. The death in July 1500 of the young heir presumptive Miguel de Paz to the Iberian realms of his maternal grandparents meant baby Charles's future inheritance potentially expanded to include Castile, Aragon, and the overseas possessions in the Americas.

In 1501, his parents Philip and Joanna left Charles in care of Philip's step-grandmother Margaret of York in Mechelen and went to Spain. The main goal of their Spanish mission was the recognition of Joanna as Princess of Asturias, given Prince Miguel's death a year earlier. They succeeded despite facing some opposition from the Castilian ''Cortes'', which were reluctant to create the premises for Habsburg succession. In 1504, when her mother Isabella died, Joanna became Queen of Castile. Charles only met his father again in 1503 while his mother returned in 1504 (after giving birth to Ferdinand in Spain). The Spanish Ambassador Gutierre Gómez de Fuensalida reported that Philip often visited and they had lots of fun. The couple's unhappy marriage and Joanna's unstable mental state however created many difficulties, making it unsafe for the children to stay with the parents.

Philip was recognized King of Castile in 1506. He died shortly after, an event that was said to drive the mentally unstable Joanna into complete insanity. She was retired in isolation to the Royal Palace of Tordesillas. Charles's grandfather Ferdinand took control of all the Spanish kingdoms, under the pretext of protecting Charles's rights, which in reality he wanted to elude. Ferdinand's new marriage with Germaine de Foix failed to produce a surviving Trastámara heir to the throne, so Charles remained the heir presumptive to the Iberian realms. With his father dead and his mother confined, Charles became Duke of Burgundy and was recognised as Prince of Asturias (heir presumptive of Castile) and honorific Archduke (heir apparent of Austria).

Inheritances

The Burgundian inheritance included the Habsburg Netherlands, which consisted of a large number of the lordships that formed the Low Countries and covered modern-day Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg. It excluded Burgundy proper, annexed by France in 1477, with the exception of Franche-Comté. At the death of Philip in 1506, Charles was recognized Lord of the Netherlands with the title of ''Charles II of Burgundy''. During his childhood and teen years, Charles lived in Mechelen together with his sisters Mary, Eleanor, and Isabella at the court of his aunt Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Savoy. William de Croÿ (later prime minister) and Adrian of Utrecht (later Pope Adrian VI) served as his tutors. The culture and courtly life of the Low Countries played an important part in the development of Charles's beliefs. As a member of the Burgundian Order of the Golden Fleece in his infancy, and later its grandmaster, Charles was educated to the ideals of the medieval knights and the desire for Christian unity to fight the infidel. The Low Countries were very rich during his reign, both economically and culturally. Charles was very attached to his homeland and spent a large part of his life in Brussels and various Flemish cities.

The Spanish inheritance, resulting from a dynastic union of the crowns of Castile and Aragon, included Spain as well as the Castilian possessions in the Americas (the Spanish West Indies and the Province of Tierra Firme) and the Aragonese kingdoms of Naples, Sicily, and Sardinia. Joanna inherited these territories in 1516 while confined, allegedly because she was mentally ill. Charles, therefore, claimed the crowns for himself '' jure matris'', thus becoming co-monarch with Joanna with the title of ''Charles I of Castile and Aragon'' or ''Charles I of Spain''. Castile and Aragon together formed the largest of Charles's personal possessions, and they also provided a great number of generals and '' tercios'' (the formidable Spanish infantry of the time), while Joanna remained confined in Tordesillas until her death. '' Plus Ultra'', the rendition from French into Latin of Charles's personal motto "Plus Oultre" (''Further Beyond''), later became the national motto of Spain and features on the country's flag as part of the Spanish coat of arms since the 18th century. However, at his accession to the Iberian thrones, Charles was viewed as a foreign prince.History of Spain, Joseph Perez

Two rebellions, the Revolt of the Germanies and the Revolt of the Comuneros, contested Charles's rule in the 1520s. Following these revolts, Charles placed Spanish counselors in a position of power and spent a significant part of his life in Castile, including his final years in a monastery. Indeed, his son and heir, later Philip II of Spain, was born and raised in Castile. Nonetheless, many Spaniards believed that their resources (largely consisting of flows of silver from the Americas) were being used to sustain Imperial-Habsburg policies that were not in the country's interest.

Charles inherited the Austrian hereditary lands in 1519, as ''Charles I of Austria'', and obtained the election as Holy Roman Emperor against the candidacy of the French king. Since the Imperial election, he was known as ''Emperor Charles V'' even outside of Germany. The dynastic motto of the House of Habsburg used by Charles was '' A.E.I.O.U.'' ("Austria Est Imperare Orbi Universo" — "it is Austria's destiny to rule the world"; although its exact meaning remains disputed). Charles staunchly defended Catholicism as Lutheranism spread. Various German princes broke with him on religious grounds, fighting against him. Charles's presence in Germany was often marked by the organization of imperial diets to maintain religious and political unity.''Charles V'', Pierre Chaunu''Germany in the Holy Roman Empire'', Whaley

He was frequently in Northern Italy, often taking part in complicated negotiations with the Popes to address the rise of Protestantism. It is important to note, though, that the German Catholics supported the Emperor. Charles had a close relationship with important German families, like the House of Nassau, many of which were represented at his imperial court. Many German princes, noblemen and generals led his military campaigns against France and the Ottomans or accompanied him in his travels, and the bulk of his army was generally composed of German troops, especially the Imperial Landsknechte.

Reign

Burgundy and the Low Countries

In 1506, Charles inherited his father's Burgundian territories that included Franche-Comté and, most notably, the Low Countries. The latter territories mostly lay within the Holy Roman Empire and its borders, but were formally divided between fiefs of the Holy Roman Empire and French fiefs such as Charles's birthplace of Flanders, the last remnant of the Burgundian State, a powerful player in the Hundred Years' War. Since he was a minor, his aunt Margaret of Austria acted as regent, as appointed by Emperor Maximilian until 1515. She soon found herself at war with France over Charles's requirement to pay homage to the French king for Flanders, as his father had done. The outcome was that France relinquished its ancient claim on Flanders in 1528.

From 1515 to 1523, Charles's government in the Netherlands also had to contend with the rebellion of Frisian peasants (led by Pier Gerlofs Donia and Wijard Jelckama). The rebels were initially successful but after a series of defeats, the remaining leaders were captured and executed in 1523.

Charles extended the Burgundian territory with the annexation of Tournai, Artois, Utrecht, Groningen, and Guelders. The Seventeen Provinces had been unified by Charles's Burgundian ancestors, but nominally were fiefs of either France or the Holy Roman Empire. Charles eventually won the Guelders Wars and united all provinces under his rule, the last one being the Duchy of Guelders. In 1549, Charles issued a Pragmatic Sanction, declaring the Low Countries to be a unified entity of which his family would be the heirs.

The Low Countries held an essential place in the Empire. For Charles V, they were his home, the region where he was born and spent his childhood. Because of trade and industry and the wealth of the region's cities, the Low Countries also represented a significant income for the Imperial treasury.

The Burgundian territories were generally loyal to Charles throughout his reign. The important city of Ghent rebelled in 1539 due to heavy tax payments demanded by Charles. The rebellion did not last long, however, as Charles's military response, with reinforcement from Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, 3rd Duke of Alba, was swift and humiliating to the rebels of Ghent.

Spanish kingdoms

In the Castilian ''Cortes'' of Valladolid in 1506 and of Madrid in 1510, Charles was sworn as the Prince of Asturias, heir-apparent to his mother Queen Joanna. On the other hand, in 1502, the Aragonese ''Corts'' gathered in Zaragoza and pledged an oath to Joanna as heiress-presumptive, but Alonso de Aragón, Archbishop of Zaragoza, (an illegitimate son of King Ferdinand) expressed firmly that this oath could not establish jurisprudence, that is to say, modify the right of the succession, except by virtue of a formal agreement between the ''Corts'' and the King. So, upon the death of King Ferdinand II of Aragon, on 23 January 1516, Joanna inherited the Crown of Aragon, which consisted of Aragon, Majorca, Catalonia, Valencia, Naples, Sicily and Sardinia, while Charles became governor general (regent). Nevertheless, the Flemish wished Charles to assume the royal title, and this was supported by Emperor Maximilian I and Pope Leo X. Consequently, after Ferdinand II's funeral on 14 March 1516, Charles I was proclaimed King of Castile and of Aragon jointly with his mother. Finally, the Castilian Regent, Cardinal Jiménez de Cisneros accepted the ''fait accompli'', and the Castilian and Aragonese ''Cortes'' paid homage to him as King of Aragon jointly with his mother. Finally, when the Castilian regent Cardinal Jiménez de Cisneros accepted the ''fait accompli'', he acceded to Charles's desire to be proclaimed king and imposed his instatement throughout the kingdom. Charles arrived in his new kingdoms in autumn of 1517. Jiménez de Cisneros came to meet him but fell ill along the way, not without a suspicion of poison, and he died before reaching the King.

Due to the irregularity of Charles assuming the royal title while his mother, the legitimate queen, was alive, the negotiations with the Castilian ''Cortes'' in Valladolid (1518) proved difficult. In the end Charles was accepted under the following conditions: he would learn to speak Castilian; he would not appoint foreigners; he was prohibited from taking precious metals from Castile beyond the Quinto Real; and he would respect the rights of his mother, Queen Joanna. The Cortes paid homage to him in Valladolid in February 1518. After this, Charles departed to the Crown of Aragon.''Fueros, observancias y actos de corte del Reino de Aragón''; Santiago Penén y Debesa, Pascual Savall y Dronda, Miguel Clemente (1866)

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He managed to overcome the resistance of the Aragonese ''Cortes'' and Catalan ''Corts'', and he was recognized as King of Aragon and Count of Barcelona jointly with his mother, while his mother was kept confined and could only rule in name. The Kingdom of Navarre had been invaded by Ferdinand of Aragon jointly with Castile in 1512, but he pledged a formal oath to respect the kingdom. On Charles's accession to the Spanish thrones, the Parliament of Navarre (''Cortes'') required him to attend the coronation ceremony (to become Charles IV of Navarre). Still, this demand fell on deaf ears, and the parliament kept piling up grievances.

Charles was accepted as sovereign, even though the Spanish felt uneasy with the Imperial style. Spanish kingdoms varied in their traditions. Castile had become an authoritarian, highly centralized kingdom, where the monarch's own will easily overrode legislative and justice institutions. By contrast, in the Crown of Aragon, and especially in the Pyrenean Kingdom of Navarre, law prevailed, and the monarchy was seen as a contract with the people. This became an inconvenience and a matter of dispute for Charles V and later kings since realm-specific traditions limited their absolute power. With Charles, the government became more absolute, even though until his mother died in 1555, Charles did not hold absolute power in the country.

Soon resistance to the Emperor arose because of heavy taxation to support foreign wars in which Castilians had little interest and because Charles tended to select Flemings for high offices in Castile and America, ignoring Castilian candidates. The resistance culminated in the Revolt of the Comuneros, which Charles suppressed. Comuneros released Joanna and wanted to depose Charles and support Joanna to be the sole monarch instead. While Joanna refused to depose her son, her confinement would continue after the revolt to prevent possible events alike. Immediately after crushing the Castilian revolt, Charles was confronted again with the hot issue of Navarre when King Henry II attempted to reconquer the kingdom. Main military operations lasted until 1524, when Hondarribia surrendered to Charles's forces, but frequent cross-border clashes in the western Pyrenees only stopped in 1528 (Treaties of Madrid and Cambrai).

After these events, Navarre remained a matter of domestic and international litigation still for a century (a French dynastic claim to the throne did not end until the July Revolution in 1830). Charles wanted his son and heir Philip II to marry the heiress of Navarre, Jeanne d'Albret. Jeanne was instead forced to marry William, Duke of Julich-Cleves-Berg, but that childless marriage was annulled after four years. She next married Antoine de Bourbon, and both she and their son Henry of Navarre would oppose Philip II in the French Wars of Religion.

After its integration into Charles's empire, Castile guaranteed effective military units and its American possessions provided the bulk of the empire's financial resources. However, the two conflicting strategies of Charles V, enhancing the possessions of his family and protecting Catholicism against Protestant heretics, diverted resources away from building up the Spanish economy. Elite elements in Spain called for more protection for the commercial networks, which were threatened by the Ottoman Empire and Barbary pirates. Charles instead focused on defeating Protestantism in Germany and the Netherlands, which proved to be lost causes. Each hastened the economic decline of the Spanish Empire in the next generation. The enormous budget deficit accumulated during Charles's reign, along with the inflation that affected the kingdom, resulted in declaring bankruptcy during the reign of Philip II.

Italian states

The Crown of Aragon inherited by Charles included the Kingdom of Naples, the Kingdom of Sicily and the Kingdom of Sardinia. As Holy Roman Emperor, Charles was sovereign in several states of northern Italy as King of Italy. The Duchy of Milan, however, was under French control. France took Milan from the House of Sforza after victory against Switzerland at the Battle of Marignano in 1515.

Imperial- Papal troops succeeded in re-installing Francesco II Sforza in Milan in 1521, in the context of an alliance between Charles V and Pope Leo X. A Franco-Swiss army was expelled from Lombardy at the Battle of Bicocca 1522. In 1524, Francis I of France retook the initiative, crossing into Lombardy where Milan, along with several other cities, once again fell to his attack. Pavia alone held out, and on 24 February 1525 (Charles's twenty-fifth birthday), Charles's forces led by Charles de Lannoy captured Francis and crushed his army in the Battle of Pavia.

In 1535, Francesco II Sforza died without heirs, and Charles V annexed the territory as a vacant Imperial state with the help of Massimiliano Stampa, one of the most influential courtiers of the late Duke. Charles successfully held on to all of its Italian territories, though they were invaded again on multiple occasions during the Italian Wars.

In addition, Habsburg trade in the Mediterranean was consistently disrupted by the Ottoman Empire and its vassal Barbary pirates. In 1538 a Holy League consisting of all the Italian states and the Spanish kingdoms was formed to drive the Ottomans back, but it was defeated at the Battle of Preveza. Decisive naval victory eluded Charles; it would not be achieved until after his death, at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571.

Holy Roman Empire

After the death of his paternal grandfather, Maximilian, in 1519, Charles inherited the Habsburg monarchy. He was also the natural candidate of the electors to succeed his grandfather as Holy Roman Emperor. He defeated the candidacies of Frederick III of Saxony, Francis I of France, and Henry VIII of England in the 1519 Imperial election. According to some, Charles became emperor due to the fact that by paying huge bribes to the electors, he was the highest bidder. He won the crown on 28 June 1519. On 23 October 1520, he was crowned in Germany and some ten years later, on 24 February 1530, he was crowned Holy Roman Emperor by Pope Clement VII in Bologna, the last emperor to receive a papal coronation. Others point out that while the electors were paid, this was not the reason for the outcome, or at most played only a small part. The important factor that swayed the final decision was that Frederick refused the offer, and made a speech in support of Charles on the ground that they needed a strong leader against the Ottomans, Charles had the resources and was a prince of German extraction.

Although even at the beginning of his reign, his position was more powerful than that of any of his predecessors, the decentralized structure of the Empire proved resilient, not least because of the Reformation. It was exactly during this crucial period, Charles V and Ferdinand were too busy with non-German affairs to prevent Imperial Cities in Upper Germany from becoming estranged from Imperial power.

Due to Charles V's difficulties in coordinating between the Austrian, Hungarian fronts and his Mediterranean fronts in the face of the Ottoman threat, as well as in his German, Burgundian and Italian theatres of war against German Protestant Princes and France, the defense of central Europe, as well as many responsibilities involving the management of the Empire, was subcontracted to Ferdinand. Charles V abdicated as Archduke of Austria in 1522, and nine years after that he had the German princes elect Ferdinand as King of the Romans, who thus became his designated successor as emperor, a move that "had profound implications for state formation in south-eastern Europe". Afterwards, Ferdinand managed to gain control of Bohemia, Croatia, and Hungary, with support from local nobles and his German vassals.

Charles abdicated as emperor in 1556 in favour of his brother Ferdinand; however, due to lengthy debate and bureaucratic procedure, the Imperial Diet did not accept the abdication (and thus make it legally valid) until 24 February 1558. Up to that date, Charles continued to use the title of emperor.

Wars with France

Much of Charles's reign was taken up by conflicts with France, which found itself encircled by Charles's empire while it still maintained ambitions in Italy. In 1520, Charles visited England, where his aunt, Catherine of Aragon, urged her husband, Henry VIII, to ally himself with the Emperor. In 1508 Charles had been nominated by Henry VII to the Order of the Garter. His Garter stall plate survives in Saint George's Chapel.

The first war with Charles's great nemesis Francis I of France began in 1521. Charles allied with England and Pope Leo X against the French and the Venetians, and was highly successful, driving the French out of Milan and defeating and capturing Francis at the Battle of Pavia in 1525. To gain his freedom, Francis ceded Burgundy to Charles in the Treaty of Madrid, as well as renouncing his support of Henry II's claim over Navarre.

When he was released, however, Francis had the Parlement of Paris denounce the treaty because it had been signed under duress. France then joined the League of Cognac that Pope Clement VII had formed with Henry VIII of England, the Venetians, the Florentines, and the Milanese to resist imperial domination of Italy. In the ensuing war, Charles's sack of Rome (1527) and virtual imprisonment of Pope Clement VII in 1527 prevented the Pope from annulling the marriage of Henry VIII of England and Charles's aunt Catherine of Aragon, so Henry eventually broke with Rome, thus leading to the English Reformation.Holmes (1993)
p. 192
/ref>Froude (1891)
pp. 35, 90–91, 96–97
Note: the link goes to p. 480, then click the View All option In other respects, the war was inconclusive. In the Treaty of Cambrai (1529), called the "Ladies' Peace" because it was negotiated between Charles's aunt and Francis' mother, Francis renounced his claims in Italy but retained control of Burgundy.

A third war erupted in 1536. Following the death of Francesco II Sforza, Charles installed his son Philip in the Duchy of Milan, despite Francis' claims on it. This war too was inconclusive. Francis failed to conquer Milan, but he succeeded in conquering most of the lands of Charles's ally, Charles III, Duke of Savoy, including his capital Turin. A truce at Nice

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