Charles
Charles names 3 different subjects across the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf. Each is set out below.
Charles the name of a number of European sovereigns and princes
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
the name of a number of European sovereigns and princes, were noted in the order of their respective countries, viz.: CHARLES I., the second son of James I. of England, and VI. of Scotland, born in 1600. The death of his elder brother, Henry, Prince of Wales, in 1612, opened for him the succession to the throne. He received an excellent education, and was of a gentle and serious, but weak and obstinate disposition. In 1623, he, accompanied by his friend and favorite, the Duke of Buckingham, undertook a journey incognito to Madrid, in quest of the hand of a Spanish princess. This match being broken off through the artifices of Buckingham, Charles, in 1625, espoused Henrietta Maria, daughter of Henry IV. of France, and the same year he succeeded his father to the throne. Charles was a man thoroughly inoculated with the dictum of the "divine right of kings," and speedily brought himself into collision with the growing intelligence of the age he lived in. Under the advice of bad ministers, as Strafford, Laud, and Buckingham, he adopted tyrannous measures for the support of the royal authority against the progressing power of the people as represented by the lower house of Parliament. The levying of unjust taxes, and the adoption of illegal modes of raising money supplies, soon precipitated the inevitable collision between the the crown and the constitution. After dissolving two Parliathird in ments, Charles summoned a 1628, which voted the king £280,000, but refused to pass this vote into law, until the king gave his solemn assent to the Petition of Rights-the second charter of English liberties, as it has been termed by which he bound himself to abstain from forced loans and other illegal taxes, and from arbitrary imprisonments, and the billeting of soldiers upon the people. Charles, after subscribing to this covenant, violated his promise, and finding that the Commons were determined to vindicate their rights, dis solved Parliament on the 10th of March, and committed five of its members to prison for contumacy. Charles now de CHARLES I. termined to govern alone by calling no more Parliaments; and ship-money was for the first time levied from the inland counties. At length the king and his advisers provoked an open revolt in Scotland by forcing a liturgy (a thing Presbyterians abhorred) upon her people; whereupon they abolished episcopacy, kept up a determined front, and Charles in vain determined to coerce them. Under these circumstances, he, in 1640, assembled a new Parliament, the members of which were moderate men, but still men who were indisposed to countenance his arbitrary proceedings. He accordmgly dissolved that body, and was com- CHARLES II., born in 1630, was called pelled to come to a truce with the Scots, who had entered the N. of England in force. The houses met again in the same year, brought in a bill of attainder against Strafford and had him executed; imprisoned Laud, abolished the Star Chamber and High Court of Commission, and curbed the royal prerogative in other important matters. Things now went on from bad to worse, and both parties had become so thoroughly embittered and disgusted that no other course was left but a final arbitrament by the sword. The king raised the royal standard at Nottingham in August, 1642, and to it flocked the majority of the nobility, gentry, and yeomanry of the land; the Parliament troops, on the other hand, being composed of the citizens of towns and the artisans of London. The battle of Marston Moor was the first signal blow inflicted on the royal cause. The hotly disputed battle fought at Naseby, in Northamptonshire, June 14, 1645, was that which decided the fate of Charles. Six months after this decisive defeat, Charles, tempted by his evil genius, withdrew to Scotland, a country in which his name was held in odium, owing to the persecutions of Laud; where, throwing himself upon the more than doubtful fidelity of Lord Leven, the Scottish general, and his army, he was delivered up by the Scots to the English Parliament upon payment of £400,000. The fallen monarch was first confined by the parliamentary commissioners in Holmby House, Northamptonshire. Here he was seized by the army (which had now dissevered itself from the Parliament), or, in other words, by Cromwell, and removed to Hampton Court, whence, after a futile attempt to escape, he was taken to Carisbrooke Castle, in the Isle of Wight. Here he carried on negotiations with the Parliament, who were willing to restore him under certain conditions, in order thus to overrule and break down the ascendant military power. But Cromwell, anticipating anticipating them, again seized the king's person, had him conveyed to Hurst Castle, near Lymington, Hampshire; and then, clearing out and crushing Parliament by "Pride's purge, وو prepared for the closing act of the great drama by having the captive sovereign brought to London, and put upon his trial before a High Court of Justice appointed for the occasion, on the charge that it was treason in a king to levy war against his Parliament. This trial began on Jan. 20, 1649, and lasted during four sittings. Sentence of death was pronounced upon him. Charles was executed Jan. 30, 1649, in the 49th year of his age, and the 24th of his reign. to the throne by a people sickened of civil broils and entered London May 29, 1660, his birthday, amid universal rejoicing. He is known as the Merry Monarch. The trial, condemnation, and execution of the "regicides," as they were called, or of so many then living as had been most active in the death of his father, was one of the first of the many mournful features of his reign. Next, the Act of Conformity ejected about 2,000 conscientious clergymen from their cures. The Dutch war followed, which began gloriously, but ended by their fleet, under De Ruyter, appearing in the Thames, sailing up the Medway, taking Sheerness, Sheerne burning several ships, and insulting Harwich. A ministry known as the Cabal, which urged the king to repeat the errors of his father by exalting his prerogative above the privileges. of parliament and the laws of the land, brought the country into thorough contempt in the eyes of Europe. His reign was one of the most corrupt and licentious of modern times, and can only compare in history with that of Louis XV. of France, Charles died in 1685, in the 55th year of his age, and the 25th of his reign. He left no legitimate issue. CHARLES EDWARD (PRINCE). See STUART FAMILY, THE. CHARLES I., surnamed le Chauve, or the Bald, King of France, son of Louis le Débonnaire, born in 823. After his father's death in 840 he fought with his half-brother Lothaire for the empire of the Franks, and finally acquired by the Treaty of Verdun (843) all those territories between the ocean on the one part, and the Meuse, the Scheldt, the Saône, the Rhone, and the Mediterranean, on the other. But he lost southern Aquitaine to his nephew Pepin, and had to divide Lorraine with his brother Louis the German. In 875 he was crowned emperor by Pope John VIII. He died in 877. CHARLES II., surnamed le Gros, or the Fat, King of France, also known as Charles III., Emperor of Germany, born about 832. He was the son of Louis the German, and ascended the French throne in 885 to the prejudice of his cousin, Charles the Simple, but was deposed in 887 and died the following year. CHARLES III., King of France, surnamed the Simple, son of Louis the Stammerer, born in 879. His reign is noted for his long struggle with the piratical Northmen or Normans, to whose chief, Rollo, he eventually ceded the territory of Normandy. He died in 929. CHARLES IV., King of France, surnamed le Bel, or the Handsome, third son of Philippe le Bel, born in 1294, and ascended the throne in 1322. He died in 1328, without male issue, and was the last of the direct line descended from Hugh Capet. CHARLES V., surnamed the Wise, King of France, son of King John, born in 1337. His father being taken prisoner by the English at Poitiers, the management of the kingdom devolved on him at an early age. With great skill and energy, not free, however, from duplicity, he suppressed the revolt of the Parisians and a rising of the peasants, kept the King of Navarre at bay, and deprived the English of a great part of their dominion in France. He erected the Bastille for the purpose of overawing the Parisians. He died in 1380. CHARLES VI., surnamed the Silly, King of France, son of the foregoing, born at Paris in 1368, and in 1388 assumed the government. Four years later he lost his reason, and one of the most disastrous periods of French history followed. The kingdom was torn by the rival factions of Burgundians and Armagnacs (Orleanists). In 1415 Henry V. of England crossed over to Normandy, took Harfleur by storm, won the famous victory of Agincourt, and compelled the crazy king to acknowledge him as his successor. Charles died in 1422. CHARLES VII., King of France, born in Paris in 1403. He succeeded only to the southern provinces of the kingdom, Henry VI. of England being proclaimed King of France at Paris. The English dominion in France was under the government of the Duke of Bedford, and so skillfully did the English general conduct his operations that Charles had almost abandoned the struggle as hopeless, when the appearance of Jeanne d'Arc, the Maid of Orleans, gave a favorable turn to his affairs, and the struggle ended in the expulsion of the English from all their possessions in France, except Calais. Charles died in 1461. CHARLES VIII., King of France, son of Louis XI., born in 1470, succeeded his father in 1483. In 1491 he married Anne, the heiress of Brittany, and thereby annexed that important duchy to the French crown. The chief event in the reign of Charles VIII. is his expedition into Italy, and rapid conquest of the kingdom of Naples, a conquest as rapidly lost when a few months later Gonsalvo de Cordova re-annexed it to Spain. Charles was meditating a renewed descent into Italy when he died in 1498. CHARLES IX., King of France, son of Henry II. and Catharine de' Medici, born in 1550, ascended the throne at the age of 10 years. His haughty and ambitious mother seized the control of the state. Along with the Guises she headed the Catholic League against the Calvinists, and her tortuous and unscrupulous policy helped to embitter the religious strife of the factions. After a series of Huguenot persecutions and civil wars a peace was made in 1570, which, two years later, on Aug. 24, 1572, was treacherously broken by the Massacre of St. Bartholomew. The king, who had been little more than the tool of his scheming mother, died two years afterward, in 1574. CHARLES X., King of France, Comte d'Artois, grandson of Louis XV., the youngest son of the dauphin, and brother of Louis XVI., born in Versailles in 1757. He left France in 1789, after the first popular insurrection and destruction of the Bastille, and afterward assuming the command of a body of emigrants, acted in concert with the Austrian and Prussian armies on the Rhine. Despairing of success he retired to Great Britain and resided for several years in the palace of Holyrood at Edinburgh. He entered France at the Restoration, and in 1824 succeeded his brother, Louis XVIII. as king. In a short time his reactionary policy brought him into conflict with the popular party, and in 1830 a revolution drove him from the throne. He died in 1836. His grandson, the Comte de Chambord, claimed the French throne as his heir.
Charles King of Germany
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
King of Germany. See CHARLEMAGNE. CHARLES II., King of Germany. See CHARLES I. of France. CHARLES III., surnamed Le Gros, Emperor of Germany. See CHARLES II. of France. CHARLES IV., son of John of Luxemburg, King of Bohemia, elected Emperor of Germany at the death of Louis of Bavaria in 1346. He resided at Prague, and the most important event of his reign was the issuing of the "golden bull" in 1355, which defined the respective rights of the electors and the emperor. He died in 1378. CHARLES V., Emperor of Germany and King of Spain (in the latter capacity he is called Charles I.), the eldest son of Philip, archduke of Austria, and of Joanna, the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, born in Ghent, Feb. 24, 1500. Charles was the grandson of the Emperor Maximilan and Mary, daughter of Charles the Bold, last duke of Burgundy, and inherited from his grandparents on both sides Aragon, Naples, Sicily, Sardinia, Castile, and the colonies in the New World, Austria, Burgundy, and the Netherlands. On the death of Ferdinand, his grandfather, Charles assumed the title of King of Spain. In 1519 he was elected emperor, and was crowned at Aix-la-Chapelle with extraordinary splendor. The progress of the Reformation in Germany demanded the care of the new emperor, who held a diet at Worms. Luther, who appeared at this diet with a safe-conduct from Charles, defended his case with energy and boldness. The emperor kept silent; but after Luther's departure a severe edict appeared against him in the name of Charles, who thought it his interest to declare himself the defender of the Roman Church. A war with France, which the rival claims of Francis I. in Italy, the Netherlands, and Navarre made inevitable, broke out in 1521. Neither side had a decided success till the battle of Pavia in 1525, where Francis was totally defeated and taken prisoner. Charles treated his captive with respect, but with great rigor as regarded the conditions of his release. A league of Italian states, headed by Pope Clement VII., was now formed against the overgrown power of Charles, but their ill-directed efforts had no success. Rome itself was stormed and pillaged by the troops of the Constable of Bourbon, and the Pope made prisoner. Nor was the alliance of Henry VIII. of England with Francis against the emperor any more successful, the war ending in a treaty (Cambray, 1529), of which the conditions were favorable to Charles. A war against the Turks by which Solyman was compelled to retreat, and an expedition hich against the Dey of Tunis by which 20,000 Christian slaves were released, added to the influence of Charles, and acquired for him the reputation of a chivalrous defender of the faith. In 1537 he made truce with Francis, and soon after, while on his way to the Netherlands, spent six days at the court of the latter in Paris. In 1541 another expedition against the African Moors, by which Charles hoped to crown his reputation, was unsuccessful, and he lost a part of his fleet and army before Algiers without gaining any advantage. A new war with France arose regarding the territory of Milan. The quarrel was patched up by the peace of Crespy in 1545. The religious strife was again disturbing the emperor. Charles, who was no bigot, sought to reconcile the two parties, and with this view alternately courted and threatened the Protestants. At length in 1546 the Protestant princes declared war, but were driven from the field and compelled to submit. But the defection of his ally, Maurice of Saxony, whom Charles had invested with the electoral dignity, again turned the tide in favor of the Protestants. Maurice surprised the imperial camp at Innsbruck in the middle of a stormy night, and Charles with great difficulty escaped alone in a litter. The Treaty of Passau was dictated by the Protestants. It gave them equal aal rights with the Catholics, and was confirmed three years later by the diet of Augsburg (1555). Foiled in his schemes and dejected cted with with repeated failures, Charles resolved to resign the imperial dignity, and transfer his hereditary estates to his son Philip. In 1555 he conferred on him the sovereignty of the Netherlands, and on Jan. 15, 1556, that of Spain, retiring himself to a residence beside the monastery of Yuste in Estremadura, where he amused himself by mechanical labors and the cultivation of a garden. He died Sept. 21, 1558. CHARLES VI., born in 1685, second son of Leopold I., and was destined by his father to the crown of Spain. On the death of Charles II. in that country, his testamentary heir, the Duke d'Anjou, assumed the sovereignty under the title of Philip V.; and Charles VI., aided by England, Holland, and Portugal, was engaged in a protracted and fluctuating struggle with that prince (known in history as the War of the Spanish Succession), when the death of his brother Joseph I. called him to the imperial throne, in 1711, to which he added the crown of Hungary in the following year. The peace of Utrecht, in 1713, secured to his rival in Spain the rule of that country, and left Charles VI. to employ mous general, Prince Eugene, for the defense of Venice against the Turks. Subsequent wars, consequent on the disputed succession in Poland, involved the loss of considerable territory, and, at the peace of Belgrade, in 1739, Charles VI. was compelled to cede Serbia and . 8 Wallachia to Turkey. He died in 1740 CHARLES VII., born in 1697, the eldest son of Maximilian Emanuel, Elector of Bavaria, and was crowned emperor of Germany in 1742. During the three succeeding years, that country was the scene of one hot and continuous contest, known in history as the War of the Austrian Succession, in which Charles VII., who owed his crown to the in. trigues and influence of his allies, France and Prussia, had to defend its possession against the legitimate claim of Maria 28-Vol. II-Gyc in 1745. CHARLES I. (IV. IN HUNGARY) former Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary; born Aug. 17, 1887. He was grandson of the Archduke Karl Ludwig, and son of the Archduke Otto Franz Josef. On the death of his great-uncle, Franz Josef I., he succeeded to the throne, Nov. 21, 1916. He was of an amiable disposition, but lacked the qualities of a great ruler. His heart was never in the war, and there is little doubt that he would have liked to withdraw from it at any time after his accession. His wife was Empress Zita, a princess of Bourbon and Parma, Parma, who whose sympathies were naturally with Italy, and it was largely to her influence that the lukewarmness of Charles was attributed. A great sensation was created in 1917 by the publication of the "Dear Sixtus" letter, which had been sent by Charles in his own handwriting to his brother-in-law, Prince Sixtus of Bourbon, in which the emperor referred to "France's just claims to Alsace-Lorraine." Attempts were made to show that the letter was a forgery, but the evidence was irrefutable, and Charles finally admitted that he was the author. Great tension was created between the courts of Berlin and Vienna by the incident, and Charles was compelled to atone for his indiscretion by writing another letter to the German emperor, in which he reiterated his firm adherence to the military plans of Germany. The relatives of Empress Zita were banished from Vienna and the Austrian armies were placed more fully than before under German leadership. Immediately after the collapse of the Central Powers and the signing of the armistice, Charles abdicated, and removed with his family to the stronghold of Eckhartsau. Their safety being menaced there, the royal family fled to Switzerland.
Charles a name prominent in history
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a name prominent in history. Two of the name have sat on the throne of England. Sweden has had fifteen kings called Charles. Seven German emperors, ten kings of France, four kings of Spain, as well as kings of Portugal, Sardinia, and Naples, dukes and archdukes innumerable have borne the name. Possible confusion may be avoided by remembering that a half a dozen countries have had a Charles I. Then, too, the same Charles may have occupied more than one position. Charles I of Spain was, for instance, the fifth German emperor of that name, and is mentioned in history usually as Charles V. The French distinguished their first six kings of this name by nicknaming them the Bald, the Fat, the Simple, the Fair, the Wise, and the Silly respectively. Several of the more noted men of the name are given a paragraph each in chronological order. CHARLES V OF FRANCE lived from 1337-1380. He appears to have steered his way amid turbulent, not to say treasonable, nobles with skill. He beat off the English and strengthened the central government of France. His surname of the Wise was given in return for his encouragement of learning. He founded the Royal Library, the greatest in France, and built the Bastille. CHARLES VII OF FRANCE, grandson of the former, lived from 1403-1461. His reign is noted for the final expulsion of the English from France, save the one port of Calais. His reputation is stained by his betrayal of Joan of Arc, and other selfish, not to say detestable, deeds. CHARLES THE BOLD was a duke of Burgundy, on the borderline between France and Germany. He lived 1433-1477. A good view of his court and an estimate of his character may be had in Scott's Quentin Durward. He was an ambitious man. His country had no natural boundary--no natural independence. He tried to extend his dukedom into a kingdom. He acquired territory for a time, but he was defeated signally by the Swiss in the battles of Granson and Morat. In 1477 he was slain in battle. In Scott's Anne of Geierstein we have a vivid picture of rending lances and the route of Charles' army. CHARLES V, EMPEROR OF GERMANY. He lived 1500-1558, and is still one of the great figures in the pages of history. From Ferdinand and Isabella, his grandparents on his mother's side, he inherited Spain and the New World discovered by Columbus. From his father he inherited the rich provinces of the Netherlands. From his father's father, Maximilian, he inherited Austria. By election in competition with Henry VIII of England and Francis I of France he was made emperor, the head of the Holy Roman Empire . The idea of a universal empire--the restoration of the empire of Charlemagne--was now revived, but the Reformation broke out. With north Germany pulling one way under the influence of Luther, and England led in another direction by the authority of Henry VIII, the energies of one of the greatest men of the age were frittered away in keeping what he had, in retarding progress, in trying to reconcile irreconcilable Protestant and Catholic elements. A reign which gave promise of a single state and a single church in all Christendom was signalized by the worst splitting up into acutely hostile camps the world has ever witnessed. After a stormy, disappointing life Charles abdicated. He laid down his crowns in 1556, and went into retirement for the few remaining years of his life. CHARLES IX OF FRANCE lived 1550-1574. He was the weak son of a strong woman, Catharine de Medici. His reign is notable for the fearful massacre of St. Bartholomew, instigated by his crafty mother. CHARLES I OF ENGLAND lived 1600-1649. He was the third son of James VI of Scotland who became king of England. During his reign the principal American colonies were founded. For an account of the terrible struggle between Charles and his people and his execution, see article on CROMWELL.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
The narrative facts stand — Naseby in 1645, the execution outside Whitehall on 30 January 1649 — but two things have moved since Collier's wrote this in 1921. The roll of European sovereigns named Charles has grown: Charles I of Austria, still alive when this was printed, died in exile on Madeira in 1922 and was beatified by the Catholic Church in 2004; Carl XVI Gustaf has reigned in Sweden since 1973; and Britain gained its first King Charles since the Merry Monarch when Charles III acceded on 8 September 2022 and was crowned on 6 May 2023. The confident Whig framing — Charles I colliding with "the growing intelligence of the age" and misled by "bad ministers" — is also no longer how historians write; since the 1970s revisionist work has stressed the king's own agency and the religious rather than constitutional roots of the war, and Charles is now as often discussed as the greatest art collector ever to sit on the English throne.
Written for this edition, 2026.