emperor of Germany and king of Spain, was son of Philip, archduke of Austria, and of Jane, queen of Castle. He was born at Ghent on the 24th February 1500, and succeeded to the crown of Spain in 1517. Two years afterwards he was chosen emperor at Frankfort, upon 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 some reason, to have aspired at universal empire. He is said to have fought sixty battles, in most of which he was victorious. He took the king of France, Francis I., prisoner, at the battle of Pavia, and afterwards sold him his liberty on very hard terms; yet when the people of Ghent subsequently revolted, he asked leave to pass through the dominions of Francis; and though the generous king thus had his enemy in his power, and an opportunity offered him of revenging the ill treatment he had experienced, yet he received and attended Charles with the utmost pomp and magnificence. This emperor sacked Rome, and took the pope prisoner; and the cruelties which his army exercised there are said to have exceeded those committed by 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; and did not inflict the slightest punishment on those who had treated the holy father and the holy see with such inhumanity. He is accused by some Catholic 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 sect occasioned; and he never failed to take 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 fifty 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, and which deserved to have succeeded, proved a total failure.

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

About six months before his death, the gout, to which he had long been subject, 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 entebed his mind as well 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; and 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 distrustful solicitude which always accompanies superstition still continued to disquiet him, and, depreciating all that he had done, prompted him to aim at something extraordinary, some new and singular act of piety which 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; and 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, mingling 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 ceremony, 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 fifty-eight years, six months, and twenty-one days.

Charles I., kings of Britain. See Britain.

Charles II., king of Sweden, born in 1682, was killed at Fredericksball, in Norway, in 1718. His military achievements, which astonished all Europe, and his character as a sovereign, form parts of the history of Sweden, and will be detailed in the account of that country. As to his person, he was tall and of a noble mien, had a fine open forehead, large blue eyes, flaxen hair, fair complexion, a handsome nose, but little beard, and an agreeable smile. His manners were harsh and austere, not to say savage; and with respect to religion, he was indifferent towards all, though exteriorly a Lutheran, and a strong believer in predestination. A few anecdotes will illustrate his character. No dangers, however great, made the least impression upon him. When a horse or two were killed under him at the battle of Narva in 1700, he leapt nimbly upon fresh ones, saying, "These people find me exercise." One day, when he was dictating letters to a secretary, a bomb fell through the roof into the next room of the house where they were sitting. The secretary, terrified lest the house should come down upon them, let his pen drop out of his hand. "What is the matter?" said the king calmly. The secretary could only reply, "Ah, Sire, the bomb." "The bomb!" said the king, "what has the bomb to do with what I am dictating to you? Go on."

He preserved more humanity than is usually found among conquerors. Once, in the middle of an action, finding a young Swedish officer wounded and unable to march, he obliged the officer to take his horse, and continued to command his infantry on foot. One day, near Leipzig, a peasant threw himself at his feet, with a complaint against a grenadier, that he had robbed him of certain catables provided for himself and his family. "Is it true," said Charles sternly, "that you have robbed this man?" The soldier replied, "Sir, I have not done near so much to this man as your majesty has done to his master; for you have taken from Augustus a kingdom, whereas I have only taken from this poor scoundrel a dinner." Charles made the peasant amends; and pardoned the soldier for his firmness: "However, my friend," said he to the grenadier, "you will do well to recollect, that if I took a kingdom from Augustus, I did not take it for myself."