Charles le Gros, emperor of the west in 881, king of Italy and Swabia, memorable for his reverse of fortune; being dethroned at a diet held near Mentz, by the French, the Italians, and the Germans, in 887; after which he was obliged to submit to the bounty of the archbishop of Mentz. He died in 888.

Charles V. (emperor and king of Spain), was son of Philip I. archduke of Austria, and of Jane queen of Castile. He was born at Ghent, February 24, 1500, and succeeded to the crown of Spain in 1517. Two years afterwards he was chosen emperor at Frankfort after the death of Maximilian his grandfather. He was a great warrior and politician; and his ambition was not satisfied with the many kingdoms and provinces he possessed; for he supposed, with reason, to have aspired at universal empire. He is said to have fought 60 battles, in most of which he was victorious. He took the king of France (Francis I.) prisoner, and sold him his liberty on very hard terms; yet afterwards, when the people of Ghent revolted, he asked leave to pass through his dominions; and though the generous king thus had him in his power, and had an opportunity of revenging his ill-treatment, yet he received and attended him with all pomp and magnificence. He sacked Rome, and took the Pope prisoner; and the cruelties which his army exercised there are said to have exceeded those of the northern barbarians. Yet the pious emperor went into mourning on account of this conquest; forbade the ringing of bells; commanded processions to be made, and prayers to be offered up for the deliverance of the Pope his prisoner; yet did not inflict the least punishment on those who treated the holy father and the holy see with such inhumanity. He is accused by some Roman writers of favouring the Lutheran principles, which he might easily have extirpated. But the truth is, he found his account in the divisions which that fact occasioned; and he forever made his advantage of them, sometimes against the Pope, sometimes against France, and at other times against the empire itself. He was a great traveller, and made 50 different journeys into Germany, Spain, Italy, Flanders, France, England, and Africa. Though he had been successful in many unjust enterprises, yet his last attempt on Metz, which he besieged with an army of 100,000 men, was very just and very unsuccessful.

Vexed at the reverse of fortune which seemed to attend his latter days, and oppressed by sickness, which unfitted him any longer from holding the reins of government with steadiness, or to guide them with ad- Charles, he resigned his dominions to his brother Ferdinand and his son Philip; and retreated to the monastery of St. Justus near Placentia in Eflamadura.

When Charles entered this retreat, he formed such a plan of life for himself as would have suited a private gentleman of moderate fortune. His table was neat, but plain; his domestics few; his intercourse with them familiar; all the cumbersome and ceremonious forms of attendance on his person were entirely abolished, as destructive of that social ease and tranquillity which he courted in order to soothe the remainder of his days. As the mildness of the climate, together with his deliverance from the burdens and cares of government, procured him at first a considerable remission from the acute pains of the gout, with which he had been long tormented, he enjoyed perhaps more complete satisfaction in this humble solitude than all his grandeur had ever yielded him. The ambitious thoughts and projects which had so long engrossed and disquieted him, were quite effaced from his mind. Far from taking any part in the political transactions of the princes of Europe, he restrained his curiosity even from an inquiry concerning them; and he seemed to view the busy scene which he had abandoned with all the contempt and indifference arising from his thorough experience of its vanity, as well as from the pleasing reflection of having disentangled himself from its cares.

Other amusements, and other objects, now occupied him. Sometimes he cultivated the plants in his garden with his own hand; sometimes he rode out to the neighbouring wood on a little horse, the only one that he kept, attended by a single servant on foot. When his infirmities confined him to his apartment, which often happened, and deprived him of these more active recreations, he either admitted a few gentlemen who resided near the monastery to visit him, and entertained them familiarly at his table; or he employed himself in studying mechanical principles, and in forming curious works of mechanism, of which he had always been remarkably fond, and to which his genius was peculiarly turned. With this view he had engaged Turriano, one of the most ingenious artists of that age, to accompany him in his retreat. He laboured together with him in framing models of the most useful machines, as well as in making experiments with regard to their respective powers; and it was not seldom that the ideas of the monarch afflired or perfected the inventions of the artist. He relieved his mind at intervals with lighter and more fantastic works of mechanism, in fashioning puppets, which, by the structure of internal springs, mimicked the gestures and actions of men, to the no small astonishment of the ignorant monks, who, beholding movements which they could not comprehend, sometimes disturbed their own senses, and sometimes suspected Charles and Turriano of being in compact with invisible powers. He was particularly curious with regard to the construction of clocks and watches; and having found, after repeated trials, that he could not bring any two of them to go exactly alike, he reflected, it is said, with a mixture of surprise as well as regret on his own folly, in having bestowed so much time and labour in the more vain attempt of bringing mankind to a precise uniformity of sentiment concerning the intricate and mysterious doctrines of religion.

But in what manner forever Charles disposed of the rest of his time, he constantly reserved a considerable portion of it for religious exercises. He regularly attended divine service in the chapel of the monastery every morning and evening; he took great pleasure in reading books of devotion, particularly the works of St. Augustine and St. Bernard; and conversed much with his confessor, and the prior of the monastery, on pious subjects. Thus did Charles pass the first year of his retreat in a manner not unbecoming a man perfectly disengaged from the affairs of this present life, and standing on the confines of a future world, either in innocent amusements which soothed his pains, and relieved a mind worn out with excessive application to business; or in devout occupations, which he deemed necessary in preparing for another state.

But, about six months before his death, the gout, after a longer intermission than usual, returned with a proportional increase of violence. His shattered constitution had not strength enough remaining to withstand such a shock. It enfeebled his mind as much as his body; and from this period we hardly discern any traces of that sound and masculine understanding which distinguished Charles among his contemporaries. An illiberal and timid superstition depressed his spirit. He had no relish for amusements of any kind. He endeavoured to conform, in his manner of living, to all the rigour of monastic austerity. He desired no other society than that of monks, and was almost continually employed in chanting with them the hymns of the missal. As an expiation for his sins, he gave himself the discipline in secret with such severity, that the whip of cords which he employed as the instrument of his punishment, was found, after his decease, tinged with his blood. Nor was he satisfied with these acts of mortification, which, however severe, were not unexampled. The timorous and dilatory solicitude which always accompanies superstition, still continued to disquiet him, and depreciating all that he had done, prompted him to aim at something extraordinary, at some new and singular act of piety, that would display his zeal, and merit the favour of heaven. The act on which he fixed was as wild and uncommon as any that superstition ever suggested to a disordered fancy. He resolved to celebrate his own obsequies before his death. He ordered his tomb to be erected in the chapel of the monastery. His domestics marched thither in funeral procession, with black tapers in their hands. He himself followed in his shroud. He was laid in his coffin with much solemnity. The service for the dead was chanted; and Charles joined in the prayers which were offered up for the rest of his soul, mingled his tears with those which his attendants shed, as if they had been celebrating a real funeral. The ceremony closed with sprinkling holy water on the coffin in the usual form, and, all the assistants retiring, the doors of the chapel were shut. Then Charles rose out of the coffin, and withdrew to his apartment, full of those awful sentiments which such a singular solemnity was calculated to inspire. But either the fatiguing length of the ce- Charles, remony, or the impression which this image of death left on his mind, affected him so much, that next day he was seized with a fever. His feeble frame could not long resist its violence; and he expired on the 21st of September, after a life of 58 years six months and 21 days.