Buying the Imperial crown

Transcript

The 24^th of February 1500 was St. Matthias’ day, the day when the ice breaks and the weather turns to spring – at least according to Flemish folklore. At a ball in the palace of the dukes of Burgundy in the city of Ghent, the heavily pregnant Joanna, heiress to Castile and Aragon and wife of the archduke Philip of Austria had to interrupt her reels. Earlier that day she had once again put on the holy relic from Lille, the Virgin’s engagement ring, that promised an easy birth.

For once the relics worked. Joanna’s labour was extremely brief, barely enough time to take her from the ballroom to a side-room – in some tales the latrines – where she gave birth to a boy who would one day rule an empire that stretched from the Philippines to Prague and from Lima to Lauwersoog.

Charles of Ghent, as the baby boy was called during his childhood was Joanna’s second child of a total of six. There was his sister Eleanor, a year and a half his senior, and his younger sisters, Isabella, Marie and Catherine as well as his brother, Ferdinand.

Four of the children, Eleanor, Charles, Isabella and Marie grew up in the Netherlands, whilst Ferdinand and Catherine grew up in Spain. The two sets did not meet before they were adults, and some never met, even though they lived for a very long time. And that was not the most dysfunctional part of their upbringings.

We have already met their parents, Philip and Joanna in episode 229. They had left for Spain, when Charles was five – never to return. Though Joanna lived to 75, her confinement in Tordesillas meant that all their children bar one grew up as orphans. Not only that, these children were the heirs to four very different European powers, Austria, the Netherlands, Castile and Aragon. They were political pawns but at the same time incredibly valuable. Concerns about their wellbeing, their education, their every move occupied ambassadors, chancellors, kings and emperors.

Just remember how we got to the point that little Charles was the universal heir to half of Europe. First the Habsburgs had almost died out, leaving just one progeny behind, Maximilian. Then the dukes of Burgundy were down to just one descendant, Marie of Burgundy. And finally the house of Trastamara had gone through multiple cycles of intermarriage and extinction of male lines before Ferdinand and Isabella brought Spain together and then saw their son Juan, his son, then his sister Isabella and her son die.

Bottom line, these dynastic lines were already exceedingly fragile. There are studies about the 17^th and 18^th century suggesting child mortality amongst aristocratic families was higher than in the general population. That might have been a function of inbreeding, but an even bigger factor were the learned doctors whose quack  medicine probably killed more people than it helped. Fortunately for the majority of people, doctors were expensive, meaning that for once the poor had a leg up on the rich.

Talking about doctors, their advice was not only unhealthy, but could even be politically detrimental. In 1514 Charles was engaged to Mary Tudor, the sister of Henry VIII. The English king had been urging for a consummation of the marriage at the earliest convenience, but the emperor Maximilian procrastinated. He had received advice from his physicians that Charles was of such a fragile constitution that immediate sexual congress would in all likelihood be the “distruction of the lord prince, or else should by that means lose spem proles [the ability to sire children]. It seems the fate of Juan of Asturias, the son of Isabella and Ferdinand, who was erroneously believed to have succumbed to the vigour of his bride, loomed large in the minds of contemporaries. So the wedding was held off until Henry VIII lost patience with the complicated Habsburgs and married his sister to king Louis XII, who, to give the doctors their due, did engage in sexual congress with the 18-year old princess and only a few months later slipped into the long night.

As for Charles physical health, there are the usual conflicting reports. On the one hand we have constant panicky reports back to his grandfathers, Maximilian and Ferdinand of Aragon, about sudden illnesses and need for rest. On the other hand, the young prince, like his father and grandfather was a passionate hunter and participant in tournaments. It is one of these contradictions that we cannot really resolve. And whatever Charles’ actual constitution, Maximilian ordered an armour for him when he was 12 years old, so that he could train jousting and fighting. This super famous armour was actually never finished because Charles grew up faster than the armourers could deliver their work.

Passion for hunting and jousting was seen as such a Habsburg trait, that Maximilian wrote to his daughter Margaret that he was delighted “that our grandson Charles takes so much pleasure in hunting , because otherwise one might think he was a bastard”

Physical prowess was however no longer the sole objective of a princely education. This is the Renaissance and a lot more is expected of a leader. Maximilian, who managed the upbringing of Charles from afar put particular emphasis on the mastery of languages. Given Charles position as heir to Austria, Burgundy and Spain, much of his success depended on his ability to communicate with his subjects. And Charles did ultimately learn French, Flemish, Castiliano, Catalan, Italian and German. But it was apparently hard going. By the time he arrived in Spain he could barely say more than a few words in any of the local languages. His German remained appalling, much like his Latin. His mother tongue was of course the French spoken at the Burgundian court. This is where he grew up and that is what he saw as his true home. He would later pretend to be more Spanish than any born Spaniard and chose the monastery at Yuste in Estremadura to retire, but the books he read there were mostly in French.

His worldview was deeply anchored in the Burgundian tradition, the courts of Philip the Good and Charles the Bold. Johan Huizinga described this world in “The Waning of the Middle Ages” as follows: quote:

“Their whole system of ideas was permeated by the fiction that chivalry ruled the world. This conception even tends to invade the transcendental domain. The primordial feat of arms of the archangel Michael is glorified by Jean Molinet as “ the first deed of knighthood and chivalrous prowess that was ever achieved.” From the archangel  terrestrial knighthood and human chivalry ”take their origin, and in so far are but an imitation of the host of the angels around God’s throne.”

But “This illusion of society based on chivalry curiously clashed with the reality of things. The chroniclers themselves, in describing the history of their time, tell us far more of covetousness, of cruelty, of cool calculation, of well-understood self-interest, and of diplomatic subtlety, than of chivalry.”[..] War in the fifteenth century tended to be a chronic process of isolated raids and incursions ; diplomacy was mostly a very solemn and very verbose procedure, in which a multitude of questions about juridical details clashed with some very general traditions and some points of honour. All notions which might have enabled them to discern in history a social development were lacking to them.

Yet they required a form for their political conceptions, and here the idea of chivalry came in. By this traditional fiction they succeeded in explaining to themselves, as well as they could, the motives and the course of history, which thus was reduced to a spectacle of the honour of princes and the virtue of knights, to a noble game with edifying and heroic rules.” End quote.

Charles favourite book that he took with him wherever he went and had translated into Spanish for the education of his son as well as his courtiers, was Olivier de La Marche’s The Resolute Knight. This is another allegorical poem like the Theuerdank. However, here the knight goes on a quest simply on the spur of the moment. He encounters all sorts of helpful figures like a hermit called understanding and a palace of love, a guard called remembrance and the house of Good Fortune, but he has to overcome delusion and encounters decrepitude, fights quarrel and age and so forth. To modern ears it is all a bit contrived and obvious, but then, this was the Burgundian culture.

The focus was on ceremony and doing the right thing, as in the thing a noble lord would do. And that is not necessarily the sensible thing, nor the decision that brings the largest amount of happiness to the largest number of people. What is right or wrong is determined by a stringent set of rules. Rules that guides the knight to a path that is dedicated to the service of god and the defence of the church. Following these rules and objectives is what preserves a man’s honour, which as Charles would often say is more important to him than any of kingdoms.

The great chivalric knight was already anachronistic when Charles read these books, though it would still take another hundred years before Don Quijote comprehensively unhorsed him.

Though Charles may be dreaming of questing for the Holy Grail, like his Grandfather, he was also trained in mundane matters like administration and mathematics as well as the latest military technologies that were the ones that brought the age of chivalry to its end – assuming it ever existed.

Charles grew up in Mechelen, as his father, Philip the Handsome had done. And like his father, the choice of his tutors and personal staff was a political one.

Day to day responsibility for the upbringing of the prince and his sisters lay with Margaret of Austria, their aunt and daughter of Maximilian, who was also the governor of the Burgundian Netherlands (see episode 230). Margaret did however refer to her father on many matters, including on matters of child rearing.

Margaret recruited Adrian of Utrecht to teach the children Latin, theology and philosophy. Adrian had been born in modest circumstances in the city of Utrecht. He received an education with the Brethren of the Common Life, a religious community that emphasised good will and the imitation of the lowly life of Christ. They were famous for the schools they set up. Erasmus of Rotterdam, Nicholas Cusanus, Thomas a Kempis, and Martin Luther all went to these schools.

Adrian came to the attention of Margaretof York when aged 19, he topped the dean’s list at the university of Leuven. She sponsored his studies and supported his career. In 1491 he became a doctor of theology, in 1493 vice chancellor of the university and one of its most revered professors. Erasmus of Rotterdam took his classes and the two men established a lifelong rapport. And when Margaret of Austria became governor of the Netherlands in 1506, she called Aarian to Mechelen as her advisor and in 1507, Maximilian appointed him as the main tutor for the princes.

Adrian was a key figure in the life of little Charles and his sisters. As must be clear from what we have heard about him so far, Charles wasn’t exactly god’s gift to academia. But Adrian found a way to get him engaged with philosophy and theology, even if his Latin never came up to much. Or his Latin never came up to much because Adrian kept translating stuff for him.

This combination of pragmatism and intellectual heft is what kept Adrian of Utrecht in the role well beyond Charles’ school days. He became Charles’ governor of Spain and finally rose to the throne of Saint Peter as Pope Adrian VI.

Adrian VI was very much a church reformer. He was appalled by the corruption and greed in Rome, opposed indulgences and the sale for cash of all sorts of permits and dispensations. His time as pontiff was however very brief. After a year and eight months he fell victim to the fever that still plagued Rome at the time. He was the last non-Italian pope until John Paul II in 1978.

What matters even more than his short pontificate is that he introduced Charles to the works of Erasmus and Thomas Moore and might have left Charles V with some sympathy for the reform demands of Martin Luther, a topic I am sure we will look into in more detail next season.

The other close advisor of young Charles was William de Croy, the lord of Chievres. The de Croy’s were of the highest nobility in Burgundy and had played important roles at the court of Philip the Good and Charles the Bold. William de Croy’s father had been instrumental in the marriage of Maximilian and Marie. William himself had been at the court of Philip the Handsome and when Philip died in 1506, William became a member of the regency council, alongside Margaret. In 1509 he became Charles’ chief tutor.

William de Croy is usually referred to as Chievres after his main castle. Chievres sounds a bit like chevre, French for goat, which why he is also sometimes referred to as the goat – though not in the way teenagers use the term today.

The relationship between the boy and the 50-year old lord Chievres was extremely close. Chievres always slept in the same room as Charles so that the prince had someone to talk to in the morning. Whilst Adrian was in charge of teaching Charles how to be a good person, Chievres’ job was to teach him to be an effective ruler.

Chievres has come in for a lot of criticism due to matters we will get to in a minute. But he can claim responsibility for Charles’ work discipline. From almost the very beginning, Chievres made sure that Charles read all the documents that were to be discussed in his council. And when he was asked why he made his young charge commit to such arduous tasks, Chievres said quote: “My Cousin, I am his tutor and guardian whilst he is young. …if he cannot handle his affairs by the time I die, he is going to need another tutor because he is not been properly trained in the work of government.” And as it happened, when Chievres died in 1520, Charles was ready.

But all the way there, Charles did not appear to be either in charge or capable of taking  charge. Most of his youth, he did not say much at all. Various ambassadors sent notes home saying things like: his majesty gave audience to anyone, although he did not speak. One writer spent 9 months with Charles on his journey to Spain and had nothing to report apart from saying that “God had conferred good customs on the Catholic King our lord”.

The English ambassador was even harsher, writing home that “the king of Castill is but an idiote and hys council is corrypted”.

That last comment is probably unfair. Charles, even as an adolescent wasn’t an idiot, or no more of an idiot than any other teenager. I think what he was, was something even more disconcerting. He was just average. He was of average intelligence, average learning, average health and average courage. Somehow we should not be surprised that a system based on male descent produces someone average. The fact that we now know that behind the pomp and the consequential decisions lurks just an average man is not a sign that the quality of the leaders has dropped but that in the early modern period information has become so much more abundant. And in the case of Charles V it is obvious that what made him such an important person in European history was down to his circumstances and events during his lifetime, not his ability to shape these outcomes.

Which is where we finally get to the politics.

Charles’ tutor and advisers were not only there to teach the young man astronomy and administration, they were there as representatives of the various political factions in the Burgundian Netherlands.

Margaret of Austria and to an extent Adrian of Utrecht sought a close alliance with England, the Empire and Spain in opposition to France, whilst Chievre and the majority of the Estates favoured a policy of reconciliation with France and neutrality in the broader European conflict. It is a very similar situation to that of Philip the Handsome’s rule of the Low Countries. And it is similar because the economic fundamentals are unchanged. Ever since England had cut the supply of its wool to Flanders and started to make its own cloth in competition to Ghent and Ypres, the merchants of Flanders preferred the French and their huge market. Things would slowly shift as Antwerp took over from Bruges and became the entry point for the Portuguese and Spanish trading fleets. But for now Ghent and Bruges, the old economy stalwarts, were the leaders in the estates and they preferred the French.

As long as Charles was a minor, Margaret of Austria could balance out the power of the estates. As governess and head of the regency council, she had the last word. That being said, she did not and could not always support her father’s political projects without risking a civil war. That irritated Maximilian, but he always came to understand that his daughter was doing all that she could to support him.

Her position however hinged on the fact that Charles was a minor, something that was always bound to change. And the date for this was Charles 15^th birthday, aka the 24^th of February 1515. But already by 1513 discussions were had about an earlier emancipation of Charles, largely pushed by Chievres and his allies in the estates. They even offered Maximilian cash for an early emancipation. Margaret tried to stop her father from allowing her nephew to take the reins, telling him that many “are grumbling about us and planting ideas in my lord’s mind that are not good for either you or for me”. Still  Maximilian issued a patent allowing Charles’ minority to end early.

On January 5, 1515, in the great hall of the ducal palace in Brussels, count Frederick of the Palatinate read out Maximilian’s declaration of emancipation. They brought out the charters on which Margaret’s authority rested and smashed her seals with sharp hammers.

This brutal act brought on Margaret’s greatest fears. Charles now sided entirely with Chievre and the local Burgundian nobility in defiance of his grandfather and aunt. What followed was a replay of the fall-out between Philip the Handsome and Maximilian. Once again the difference in political interests between the Low Countries and the Habsburg empire materialised in a family rift. Charles’ policy became much more amenable to French interests, even though or maybe because Francois I had just seized Milan. Maximilian was once again deeply irritated by the reluctance of his offspring to support his wars in Italy.

This is the time when Maximilian came to the Netherlands to personally appeal to Charles and found him “cold as a statue”.

But it can be argued that Charles’ advisors were right in keeping him out of the conflict with France. Ferdinand of Aragon had died in January 1516 and if Charles wanted to take over the Spanish kingdoms, he needed France to be at least neutral. 

Charles arrived in Spain in September 1517. We have discussed his difficulties with the Spaniards already in episode 229 so there is no need to repeat the details. But the bottom line was that Charles had ceded almost all decision making to his advisors, in particular Chievres and Adrian of Utrecht. And these, being both foreigners and not very interested in Spain made one mistake after another. And when Chievres placed his nephew on to the throne of the archbishop of Toledo, both the nobility and the cities lined up against the new regime. On top of all this came the realisation that the costs of the hugely expensive election campaign in the Holy Roman Empire would have to be borne by Castile and Aragon.

And these cost were enormous. At the imperial diet in Augsburg in 1518 Maximilian had negotiated a total payout of 500,000 florins to be paid upon the election of Charles and a further 70,000 annually from then on, all backed by the credit of Jakob Fugger. But despite this astronomic sums and Maximilian’s use of charm and steel, this round of negotiations did not end with Charles’ elevation. Pope Leo X refused to recognise Maximilian’s imperial title which meant he was still only a King of the Romans. And the simultaneous election of two kings of the Romans was considered impossible. Before Maximilian could muster this final hurdle, he died in January 1519.

This was a massive setback for Charles’ ambitions. By now he had realised not the value of the imperial title for him, but the value it would have in the hands of the king of France, in particular a king of France like Francois I who had just recently taken over the duchy of Milan. Even though his chief advisor Chievres remained opposed to the election plan, Charles now wanted to become king of the Romans, “whatever the cost”.

This is where Charles is gradually taking charge of his own destiny. Not only does he oppose Chievres, he also brings his aunt Margaret out of retirement and puts her in charge of the finances in the Burgundian Netherlands.

But money alone is not everything. Without Maximilian’s authority, the French could push the narrative that Charles was a little boy, a foreigner, who was far away, whose Spanish kingdom was on the brink of an explosion and who was of poor health. Against him now stood Francois, 25 years old, extremely tall and strong, a war hero who had annihilated the Swiss at Marignano and who could call on all the resources of the French crown.

Francois was chipping away at the coalition of electors Maximilian had put together. His first target was Louis V, the Count Palatine on the Rhine. Louis’ father Philip had been the loser in the war of the Landshut succession and hence was no friend of the Habsburgs to start with. But then affairs of the heart had made things worse. Louis’ younger brother Frederick had spent most of his career at the court of Philip the Handsome and then in the Netherlands as member of the regency council. In that capacity he did get to know the eldest of Charles siblings, his sister Eleanor very well. In 1517, when Eleanor was 18 and Frederick was 37, the two of them became extremely close. Charles discovered some of the love letters Frederick had sent her and exploded. Eleanor was far too valuable to be wasted on a mere second son of an imperial prince. She was to and did marry kings, not counts. Charles expelled Frederick from his court and banned him from ever contacting Eleanor again. This was of course a snub against Frederick’s brother the prince elector of the Palatinate and one Francois I was going to exploit.

Meanwhile Pope Leo X had sided officially with Francois which did have some influence on the three archbishops-Electors. Frederick the Wise, the Elector of Saxony was never convinced by the idea of a Habsburg succession and the Elector of Brandenburg was promised a French princess. Moreover, Francois was gathering troops on the border.

In this increasingly tense situation, Margaret of Austria, now de facto in charge of Habsburg affairs in the empire, thought Charles’ election chances had faded to zero. She therefore proposed to him the following alternatives.

His younger brother Ferdinand,  the one who had grown up in Spain, should become the new Habsburg champion. And if he would be rejected on the grounds of youth and lack of understanding of German affairs, Magaret suggested – Frederick of the Palatinate, the unlucky suitor of Eleanor.

This led to one of Charles’ fairly frequent outbursts. There is an official document that rejects the plan as it would “make it easier to break apart our common strength and entirely destroy our dynasty”. And then there is a private letter to Margaret that is lost but apparently used somewhat fruitier language.

So Margaret responded saying that if he really wanted to become emperor at any price, he would have to take out all the stops. He would have to mobilise his forces in the Netherlands and Spain as well as hiring mercenaries in Germany. Further, he should authorise his representatives to agree whatever payout they deem necessary without needing prior approval. And all payments had to be guaranteed by  a German banker, the Fuggers or the Welsers, since no Italian banker enjoyed the necessary credit with the German princes.

When Charles complained that “the horse he seeks to ride is very expensive”. Margaret answered that she was aware that the horse is indeed very expensive , “but it is of such a sort that if you do not want it, another buyer stands ready”.

The cost was not only monetary. Charles had to swallow his pride and write to Frederick of the Palatinate that – well he was sort of sorry – and that now that Eleanor had been married away to Portugal, he would make him whole with a generous pension and important positions in the imperial administration. The Elector of Brandenburg was promised what Frederick was denied, the hand of one of Charles’ sisters in marriage.

What swung it was for one the support of Jakob Fugger. He did not only fund most of Charles’ campaign to the tune of 550,000 florins out of the 825,000 total, but he also refused to honour letters of credit from France which blew Francois’ ability to pay but must have cost Fugger dearly. Similarly, Margaret had banned Netherlandish financiers from supporting the efforts of the French crown.

He other was the fear that an overbearingly powerful French king would take away their hard won privileges. The elector of Mainz implored his brother to come over to Charles’ side for the hour of the empire.

After almost a year of barter and all forms of skullduggery where some Electors swapped sides 6 times, on June 28^th, 1519 the game drew to a close. The seven electors unanimously elected Charles of Habsburg to be king of the Romans.

Charles received the news in Barcelona. Now he needed to get to Aachen as fast as possible. Election was an important first step, but the title was only really bestowed at the coronation. Chievre his old tutor and advisor suggested he should first settle the unrest in Spain and sit down with the Cortes of Valencia and Castile and then travel to Aachen via Italy. That would require crossing through the French held duchy of Milan and hence a renewal of the friendship with king Francois I.

But Charles now had a new senior advisor, Mercurino Arborio the marchese di Gattinara, or Gattinara for short.  He was an Italian but had served under Margaret of Austria and became grand Chancellor of Burgundy in 1518 and ultimately the chancellor of all his domains.

Where Chievre was focused on the benefit of his Burgundian homeland, Gattinara had a pan-European, a Habsburg imperial perspective.  And whilst he understood that the grumblings in Spain could erupt into rebellion any moment, he was much more afraid of a meeting scheduled for the coming year, 1520 just south of Calais between king Henry VIII and Francois I. This meeting, known today as the Field of Cloth of Gold, was intended to be the celebration of an almost unimaginable union, that of France and England. The Franch dauphin was to wed Henry’s daughter, Mary Tudor, the city of Tournay would be returned to France and the two monarchs would establish a lasting alliance against these overbearing Habsburgs.

Gattinara realised that this could cause some serious trouble not just in the Netherlands, but to all the Habsburg possessions. Therefore he proposed that Charles gathered a fleet in A Coruna and sailed along the Atlantic coast into the Channel and drops in at his beloved uncle Henry in London. And that is what they did. After a record journey of just 7 days, Charles V landed in Dover. Henry VIII and his wife Catherine, who was also Charles’ aunt came down to meet the emperor elect and over three days all three of them got on famously. Though Henry went down to Calais to meet up with Francois I and engaged in some serious bling-off and even a wrestling match with the most Christian king, the Anglo-French alliance Gattinara had feared did not come to pass. Instead Henry VIII and Charles met soon after the great event in another field near Calais for a much more low key, but much more effective discussion that ultimately resulted in an agreement to ride to each other’s defence should Francois go after either of them.

And so, finally, on October 22, 1520 Charles of Habsburg made his grand entry into the city of Aachen. First he paid homage to his namesake, Charlemagne by venerating the saint’s skull encased in the magnificent reliquary another Charles, Charles IV had bequeathed to the church.

The next morning, after more prayers in front of the other great Aachen relics, including Jesus’ swaddling clothes, he returned to the Cathedral, wearing, not his Castilian or Aragonese crown, but the crown of an archduke of Austria, his way of highlighting his Germanic roots.

The coronation ceremony, as devised by his grandfather Maximilian I, comprised all the traditional elements, the oath to protect the church and empire, the seating on the throne of Charlemagne, the handing over of the insignia of his rank, the orb, sceptre, sword and crown as well as the anointing and investing.

But one new element was added. Pope Leo X had finally dropped his opposition to the Habsburgs. In exchange for a promise to protect the Medici family in Florence, Leo had issued a decree whereby Charles was to carry the title of emperor already from this point forward. That was not yet a formal renunciation of the need of an imperial coronation and Charles would indeed be crowned emperor in Bologna in 1530, but the title was no longer dependent on this ceremony. 700 years of journeys to Rome and the associated political challenges to the emperors had come to an end.

And something else had come to an end, the constant shifting of the imperial titles from one family to another. There would only be two imperial election in the remaining 400 years of the Holy Roman empire when the crown was awarded to someone who was not the most senior male member of the house of Habsburg, and that was Charles VII, previously the elector of Bavaria in 1742 who found out too late that this had been a terrible mistake. And then in 1745 Francis I, the husband of Maria Theresia.

Charles V in his autobiography recalls that when several of his ministers questioned the wisdom of taking up the imperial crown, Gattinara said, quote:

“Under the shadow of the imperial title, not only could Charles serve his own hereditary lands and kingdoms, he could also gain greater ones, enlarging the empire until it encompassed the monarchy of the whole world” end quote.

The next thing that our freshly hatched Emperor Charles V did was to call the imperial princes to his first diet, not as the Golden Bull ordered, in Nuremberg, but in Worms. And this diet was “the Diet of Worms”, the one that is going to be the first climax of our next season.

That is why I initially planned to end this current season right here. And up until last week that was very much the plan. But as I was going through the planning cycle for the Reformation season, I realise that after months and months in splendid isolation up here in the attic of my house buried under books I had lost track of the other kind of seasons – the meteorological seasons.

As you can imagine, the Reformation season will be hugely important for this podcast, it will be make or break time. Anyone who has some interest in German history will check this one out before deciding whether the show is worth listening to. Hence I had always expected a materially longer research break for this than I had previously needed, say four to six weeks. That would mean the new season would start June 19th.

But there is a problem here. A week later I would travel to Germany for the History of the Germans Tour. And once that is completed I am going on an extended summer holiday sailing across the bay of Biscay to Spain and back along the Spanish and French coast. Boats and books aren’t best friends, nor is recording equipment. And even more importantly, lots of other people are on holiday too and launching the most important season of the History of the Germans in a time when German towels block the world’s sunloungers is not a good idea.

I then went through my skeleton plan for the Reformation season and there are a few episodes that could be pulled forward into this Habsburg season. I am thinking namely about one episode on how Charles took control of Milan and effectively most of Italy, one about the life and character of his brother Ferdinand who is often overlooked but played a much bigger role in the build-up of the Habsburg empire than he is given credit for, and finally an episode on the  battle of Mohacs and the siege of Vienna.

I know this is not ideal, but it will take us to the end of May. And then the show will go dark until September. I am really sorry about that, but I cannot see any other way. And to be a bit blunt, I have published on average 46 episodes per year for the last four years, Through Easter, Christmas, birthdays and bank holidays and I think I am owed a break. It is my podcast and a lounge when I want to…

So I hope you enjoy the next three shows and will not forget me over the summer.