Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor (Carlos I of Spain)

Charles V was the supreme monarch of Renaissance Europe, inheriting through a cascade of dynastic marriages an unprecedented global empire over which he was the first to declare 'the sun never sets'. He united the crowns of Castile and Aragon as Carlos I of Spain, inherited the wealthy Burgundian Netherlands, and was elected Holy Roman Emperor in 1519 over Francis I of France.

Charles presided over the Spanish conquest of the Americas, sending Hernán Cortés into Mexico and Francisco Pizarro into Peru, flooding Europe with silver. In 1521, he summoned Martin Luther to the Diet of Worms, defending Catholic orthodoxy while spending three decades warring against Protestant German princes, Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, and French King Francis I. Exhausted by forty years of constant travel, religious war, and crippling gout, Charles took the historic step in 1556 of abdicating all his crowns, partitioning his empire between his son Philip II (Spain, Americas, Netherlands) and his brother Ferdinand I (Austria, Holy Roman Empire), retiring to spend his final days in prayer at the remote Monastery of Yuste in Spain.