Secrets of History | I, Charles V, Master of the World

A 2013 France TV History Documentary hosted by Stéphane Bern. Audio in French with English subtitles.

Stéphane Bern takes us to the magnificent palace of the Alhambra in Granada, to the monastery of El Escorial where the kings of Spain rest to discover the incredible destiny of Charles V. His power and his territories are so extensive that Charles V affirms that "on his empire the sun never sets".

This sovereign has crowned no less than seventeen crowns. He reigns unchallenged over Spain, the Netherlands, the Holy Germanic Empire, but also the State of Naples and Sicily, without forgetting the new possessions conquered in America. Always traveling from one territory to another, like a globetrotter, Charles V is the king who spent more than a quarter of his life traveling the roads of Europe. Throughout his reign, this man with an iron will never stopped fighting to expand and establish his power, helped by his wife, Isabella of Portugal, with whom he was madly in love.

The King of France, Francis 1, but also "the other emperor", Suleiman the Magnificent are among his main adversaries. But the fight of his life, Charles V will lead him to maintain the Christian unity of his empire in the face of Protestant heresy. Sick, worn out by power and by these incessant wars, he ended up renouncing power, shortening his unique destiny: that of a king who dreamed of being the master of Catholic Europe.