Ep. 236: Charles V (1520-1555) - The Battle of Pavia

In 1521 four men dominated Europe. They were all in their twenties: King Henry VIII of England, born 1491, King Francois I of France, born 1494, Suleiman the Magnificent, Ottoman Sultan, born that same year, 1494 and the youngest of them, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, King of Spain, Sicily, Naples and Sardinia, lord of the Netherlands, duke of Austria and Count of Tyrol. How the world had changed. In the days of Charles’ predecessor, the emperor Maximilian, European politics was a impenetrable maze of alliances and enmities involving roughly a dozen mid-sized powers trying to get a leg up on ea...