ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses that Charles V was elected Holy Roman Emperor and, until his death in 1558, he was to play a central role on the European political stage. In the Emperor's own perception of the Indies, wealth never fused with spiritual mission in the same way as for the conquistadores. Charles's attitude towards the New World was conditioned almost solely by financial considerations. Charles's empire was a continental, European one, and, along with nearly the entire intellectual world of the time, the Emperor never grasped the full significance of the New World for the Old. For this reason, as his correspondence makes clear, the lands across the Atlantic were important to Charles only as a source of bullion. It is certainly the case that in 1532 Charles joined Ferdinand in marching eastward to relieve Vienna. Only the retreat of the Turks and their later conclusion of a peace-treaty prevented the Emperor's full-blooded fight against Islam on European soil.
