1. The Habsburg Bid For Mastery in Europe 1519-1659
By the 1500s, the power struggles within Europe were helping this old continent to rise economically and militarily, above the other regions of the world.
The Habsburg dynasty, originally from Austria, tried to accumulate sufficient resources to dominate the European continent for about a century and a half after 1500.

2. A large combination of kingdoms, duchies, provinces were ruled by the Austrian and Spanish members of the Habsburg family.
The Habsburg challenge to rule the Western Europe started
In 1519, enthronement of Charles V as the Holy Roman Emperor and as ruler of hereditary Habsburg lands in Austria.
- And ended in 1659 with the Treaty of the Pyrenees (defeat of Spain by France).

3. By the Treaty of the Pyrenees, there was no single dynastic military bloc capable of becoming the master of Europe.
Attention
The struggles which disturbed the peace of Europe over the earlier centuries before the Habsburg era, had been localized ones.

4. In the 16th century, there were two general causes for the transformation of the European power struggles in intensity and geographical scope.
1. Reformation starting with Martin Luther’s personal revolt against the Pope in 1517.
2. Creation of a dynastic combination of the Habsburg family to form a network of territorial possessions from Gibraltar to Hungary and from Sicily to Amsterdam.

5. Maximilian I of Austria (Holy Roman Emperor, ) had at the beginning of the 16th century the possession of Austria + Burgundy + the Low Countries. His son was Philip of Austria.
Ferdinand of Aragón (King of Spain) and Isabella of Castile (Queen of Spain) had the possession of Castile + Aragón + Sardinia + Naples + Sicily. Their daughter was Joan of Spain.
Philip of Austria and Joan of Spain married in an attempt to combine the possessions of the two realms.

6. Philip and Joanna’s son Charles succeeded his parental grandfather Maximilian I both as Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and as ruler of the hereditary Habsburg lands in Austria

7. Map of the European dominions of Charles V in 1519
Charles Colbeck, The Public Schools Historical Atlas, 1905.

8. The Habsburg Empire in 1547